Top 10 #6: Top 10 Pop Culture References That Will Make Me Feel Nostalgic For My Childhood, I Hope

Okay, people. This one is personal. So personal, in fact, that anybody who reads this list will surely be able to figure out not only just how old I am, but also precisely which elements of pop culture I was most receptive to as a child. And yes, yes, it's a damnably geekish list. (Although, on the other hand – when you're talking about pop culture, what's not geeky?)

So, the latest of my Top 10 Top 10 Lists That Don't Really Deserve To Be Top 10 Lists:

It's
The Top 10 Pop Culture References That Will Make Me Feel Nostalgic For My Childhood, I Hope!

10. The Seven Cities of Gold! (It was actually called The Mysterious Cities of Gold, but that's not how I remember it.) They get this big golden boat, and later on they get this big golden bird-plane thing?

9. The theme from Inspector Gadget. And from the show itself, especially that story where they're in this big house and it gets completely flooded with water. But mostly just the theme.

8. Ulysses 3000. (It was actually called Ulysses 31, but that's not how I remember it.) The crew is frozen, hanging in space, unconscious and just floating up near the ceiling of this big metal room . . .

7. Hot jam donuts, sausage rolls, twisties, icy poles. And sunnyboys, even though I'm not sure I ever actually had one myself.

6. The Mac Plus. Especially when used to play the original Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? game. Especially the "typewriter" sound effects.

5. The original line of Transformers toys (the ones with metal in them!), and The Transformers: The Movie. By which I mean the real Transformers movie, the one with Orson Welles as the voice of Unicron.

4. Doctor Who. Especially any Tom Baker story where someone slowly transforms into a hideous monster. (There are a bunch.)

3. The Super Nintendo. F-Zero, Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart. And NBA Jam, and Super Ghouls 'N' Ghosts, and StarFox. And Castlevania. And all that glorious 8-bit sound! And everything else. And the original NES console and various Segas, too, I guess . . . but most of all, the Super Nintendo, summer of 1990-91.

(video not entirely related, but you should probably watch it anyway.)

2. LEGO. Glorious, brilliant, spectacularly wonderful Lego.

1. The Rage outro, on a Saturday morning at first light.

So, did these references actually make me feel nostalgic for my childhood?

Hard to say.

What about you?

And what are you nostalgic about?

Mondays Can Be Disturbing

Um… do I have to?

Gosh I'm pretty sure I'd rather not, actually

(via)

Concept Art for your Nostalgia

Turnips are great. They're especially nice baked in Cornish-style pasties.

I never thought about it, back in the day, but are those things masks... or faces?

Either way, they have no eyes. Only darkness.

*doki doki, doki doki*

(Also, Winona Nelson is great. & I saw it here first.)

EYES THEY ARE NOT YOUR EYES

It was the seaside. At first...

I thought of the number 10. Then I forgot about her.

Nine. The AM. She greeted me. Something sour in the smile. Something familiar, but I couldn't place it.

I failed the interview.
Eight, and getting later. I was trying to relax, but the lighting in the bar was too bright. Everything was shiny. Everything glinted. Way too bright.

I might have been staring. I decided to buy myself another drink.

Seven. The AM, they tell me. The pink is supposed to calm me down. Her smile is supposed to calm me down. It's not working.

I like her dress. Is that allowed? Tell me if that's allowed.

Six, now. I'm walking towards the group of them when I see her head turn. It's weird, though, it's almost like it rotates. The pattern on her jacket was sewn by a robot. Maybe her hat, too.

Have you been looking at the sky? It's a lovely day, it really is.

Five. It's almost five, now. They've been making me wait, you see, they've kept me waiting until it's too late. They're not even pretending to give me another chance. I'm going to need to make another appointment. I want an appointment.

Her lips look like wax. Suddenly, I remember where I know her from –

Four. She's been dyeing her hair every four days. Is she trying to throw me off the scent? Or is it the other way around?

Everything is turning red. It's a signal. It's definitely a signal. I can see her teeth. 

Three. Everything happens in threes. They think I don't notice, but I do. I'm counting everything and I don't forget.

Still red, I notice. Everything I drink. Everything in my mouth. Could she be frightened, now? I'm looking in her eyes, but all I see is 

Two. The two of us now, that's all there is.

She knows. Oh shit, she knows everything

One? Not one? Not one print, not one shred of fibre, not one scrap of evidence. Not a clue. Of course not.

I have nothing left to give her. Nothing left

Zero. I knew it. The ziggurat, she said. This was the end. Was it Mexico, still? We might have made Guatemala during the night. No way to tell.

At the edge of the jungle I took a blade to the gut. She tipped her hat and smiled like the sun coming out.

It's the new range from American Optical. 1959 is looking good.

Friday Is Out Of Context

Actually, even in context this makes no sense. "But forget about him, and put on these anti-gravity shoes" really deserves to be a catchphrase, I think.

(The writer's identity is lost to the mists of time, but this is from "Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane" #51, August 1964. I got it out of this, which was an impulse buy that turned out to be a heck of a read, let me tell you...

Also: isn't it just great that there was once a comic called "Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane"? That is an awesome title for any sort of publication. Those were Lois's glory days, all right. Why she left the big S to be with that doofus Kent, I'll never know.)

This Friday Is Out Of Context Thoapsl Says: A distraction is not without gravity.

In other developments: I'm away over the weekend, so I'm not sure when the next Rage Roundup post will be up. But the new Bat For Lashes single will be on Rage tonight! Woo! Her new album should be out in a week or two, as well. As should be the potentially awesome (altho: potentially crap) Crystal Antlers album. But freaking Nite Jewel is nowhere to be purchased, damn it all. The world is a pit of bile and injustice.

Friday Is Out Of Context

You remember when we first met, giant robot? You were so attentive! You'd call every day, you'd send me flowers and gifts. I felt like you really cared for me. But you never give me anything, anymore.

*swoon*

For this image you can thank Bob Budiansky, Frank Springer, and all those responsible for The Transformers cross-media marketing strategies during the mid-1980s. Ah.

This Friday Is Out Of Context Thoapsl Says: A headmaster is not a role model.

Headmaster, Targetmaster

There's a whole bunch of these Obamastyle riffs out there, but I swear – there's something really sublime about this one.

"Change into a truck." Think about it.

(Also: if you get the joke in the title of this post, then I can't wait to show you my next Friday out-of-context post. *whistle*;)

Friday Is Out Of Context

(Not photoshopped. Honest.)

From one of many tales of Comet the Super-Horse and his tragic love for Supergirl. Googling it just now, I found there's an article here which conveniently summarises the contextual freakiness.

Of course, it was the 1960s; it was a freaky time. (Aren't they all?)

This Friday Is Out Of Context Thoapsl Says: A super-pet is not what lovers do.

I am too busy to discuss music videos. In lieu:

So I was all like "yeah sure, I know it'll be tough" and hey: nobody ever said it would be easy to make a living, playing the harp. But this was the worst gig ever. First I sold all my clothes for a curtain, and it doesn't even cover my boob. Then I tripped over and lost my shoes. And my harp is so slippery I keep on dropping it and busting strings, and it's not even a full-size harp. Also the lighting technician sucks.

No wonder that stuck-up Joanna Newsom bitch never writes me back

i take it back i take it back! i love you j-n, you are awesome!

or should i say, you ys awesome, lol

--(Thoapsl disavows actually writing any of this)

Collapse!

No, not really a collapse. Not precisely. But hey, you remember how I mentioned in my last post that things were probably about to get "somewhat hectic" for me, "for the next week or so"? Yeah, so I was totally right about all that.

And what's more... right now, there's less than a fortnight until I go overseas for a month. So it looks like it'll be staying quietish around here for at least six weeks. But, hey hey! Look out October! When I'm back, things will be more frequent & regular than ever, I promise. And in the meantime there should be at least one or two more posts before I leave. And maybe I'll even be able to post direct from my overseas holiday, who knows? You will, eventually.

PS: That's one cool picture up there, huh? Although maybe more of a swoon than a collapse, now I'm looking twice. It's apparently by Austin Briggs and I found it here, at  Today's Inspiration – it's a blog all about 1940s-60s illustrations. I came across it just the other day, and it's got some really superb stuff. The perfect background for Mad Men?

Latest Headlines

I often find myself weirdly fascinated by fashion. Clothes, I mean. Not by the way that fashion relates to my own clothes, so much (whether actual or potential); I suppose it's similar to the way I sometimes find high finance interesting, despite the fact that I don't actually possess huge amounts of money.

For instance...

It was a dark and stormy night on the television. While I waited for Lost to come on, a news bulletin was being broadcast. It looked like this:

Now, this is a perfectly reasonable look for a 2008 newsreader. But it's also a perfectly reasonable look for Farrah Fawcett.

Isn't that kind of interesting?

Seriously... the magenta, the frills, even the hairdo — it's not quite what you'd expect, right?

It could be 70s or even 80s, but either way it's unmistakably dated. A pastiche, even. Wear this out to a trendy bar and people will nod approvingly at your daring, ironical appropriation. And yet a fairly conservative, commercial, free-to-air television channel was willing to let their newsreader wear it on air. Did the producers think that this was a slightly daring fashion move, or a perfectly standard one? Or could they be so old-fashioned — ie, genuinely stuck-in-the-80s — that they didn't even notice how retro it looked?

I'd love to take this as a sign that the producers are actually letting newsreaders wear whatever they want, in the hope that journalism will naturally overshadow presentation. Wouldn't it be refreshing to see something really unusual — newsreaders in t-shirts, maybe? (Please don't mention stuff like this, that's not what I'm talking about). Is there any good reason for male newsreaders to always appear in formal suit & tie, for example?

Uh, now I'm actually thinking about it... yeah, maybe. People are so used to the standard conventions of newsreaderwear (shiny formal) that they don't even think about it, which allows people to (hopefully) think about the actual news instead. If newsreaders wear an outfit out of the ordinary, it can be a distraction: not an opportunity for journalism to overshadow presentation, but the opposite.

Aw, nuts! I thought she looked cool. You know what? To hell with potential distractions, I'd still rather see newsreaders wearing whatever they want.

--the Fashionical Thoapsl