Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Alllllllrighty Then

1994 was an excellent year for movies. Lion King, Forrest Gump, Speed, Airheads, Reality Bites.. all of those ruled. However, something very magical happened: the triad of Jim Carrey awesomeness that started with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, continued with The Mask and concluded with Dumb and Dumber. 

The character of Ace Ventura is how I always think of Jim Carrey (close second would be Fire Marshall Bill). In recent years I have to admit I find it harder to recognize him in movies because I'm just expecting him to bust out with an "Allllllrighty then!", and when he doesn't, I just feel sad.



Some of The Mask's phrases were "Sssssmokin'!" and "Somebody stop me!" This film really started to give us a feel for the Jim Carrey flair of over-emphasizing back then, which inspired a local car dealer in my viewing area to produce a terrible commercial. As you can imagine, they advertised their sales as ssssssmokin' and ssssssizzlin'. At 11 years old, even I realized that was lame. And this just makes me giggle:



Dumb and Dumber is an all-time fave of mine. I am way thrilled that there's going to be a sequel (Dumb and Dumber To). Fingers crossed for a good script!

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Alloy Catalog - Fall 1997

Since my Delia's catalog scans were a hit on BuzzFeed, I figured I should get moving on my need-to-scan pile. Today's feature is the very first Alloy catalog I received. Just like Delia's, this brand morphed over time to meet the interests of the next generation. So, kids don't wanna be skaters any more?? What's up with that? I don't think Alloy sells any guy's clothing at all now either, and yet back then they wanted everyone to dress like dudes. And it totally reeled me in. I had the huge wide leg jeans, baggy striped sweaters, skate shoes, wallet chain, pixie-cut hair, and of course a Dickies mini messenger bag. Here's my embarrassing secret: I didn't even own a skateboard nor know how to ride. And while I was part of my school's ski club, I was too chicken to try out snowboarding. Feels good to admit it after all these years! Haha.

Catalog is located here on Flickr.






Monday, August 12, 2013

90s Problems: No Change for a Phone Call

As awesome as it is to basically have instant access to any tv show or movie I feel like watching, I still think back and sigh about the "good old days of tv". You know, when you actually watched commercials, or looked in the TV Guide to see what Saturday night movies would be on. I could still do those things, but puh-lease! I'm a Netflix and Hulu junkie now. Plus I don't have cable tv and dealing with poor digital channel reception is totally annoying. Instead I waste time watching old commercials on the YouTubes.

1-800-Collect has conveniently wrangled up a collection of their own gems. Oooh David Spade, tell me more about saving money on collect calls! I also enjoy that the 1-800-Collect site is like an homage to the internet of yore.

Don't forget that 1-800-Call ATT gave us their version, starring Carrot Top:



Can't remember the last time I made a collect call, but I do remember abusing the system like many others have done. Mostly this was to save the 25 or 35 cents which I was probably feeding into the vending machine instead. And then there were the times we used it for prank calling, when we'd see if anyone accepted the charges to speak with God or perhaps the Wyld Stallyns. Sometimes they did, and we'd hang up in terror and confusion.