My hair is so long and out of control, I’m starting to look like Nacho Libre. I was planning to knock out a quick update, undergo a radical outpatient follicle-shortening procedure, and grab a seven-dollar lettuce sangwich from Subway.
But it’s already late and that plan would require me to squeeze an awful lot into my “morning,” and also take two showers before work. I can’t go to the haircut place with last night’s residue all over me, and I can’t turn up for work with a thousand little hairs stuck to my forehead and neck. See my dilemma?
If it weren’t for the little hairs… I think I could pull it off. Dammit! The little hairs will be my downfall.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how I became a kinda sorta beer snob, following a life-changing trip to Oregon during the early 1990s. What is that aftertaste, that fantastic bitter aftertaste…. I’m sorry, I’m getting emotional…. and inexplicably aroused…
It was my first exposure to the hops of the Pacific Northwest, and after that monumental week, Rolling Rock etc. just wouldn’t cut it anymore.
In the update I mentioned that Full Sail Ale was one of the first of the kick-ass microbrews I tried. And how I hadn’t tasted it in fifteen years or more, since it hasn’t been available in any of the places we’ve lived.
Well, that same day I received a message through Facebook, from Surf Reporter Kristin (pictured here leaning against a giant cup of pee). She told me she would be driving through Scranton during the Memorial Day week, and could bring me some Full Sail. Hell yeah!
Kristin lives in Minnesota, and Full Sail is apparently available there. We lived in Southern California for four years, and couldn’t get it, but it’s sold in Minnesota? Hey, whatever. Who am I to question their distribution strategy?
I’m a little uneasy meeting readers of the site, if you want to know the truth. I always feel like the real me is going to be a disappointment. I’m kinda low-key, and my sense of humor is not always, you know, apparent. So, I’m usually a bit ill-at-ease.
But if there’s great beer involved… exceptions can be made.
We decided to meet in the parking lot of a beer store, off Interstate 81, at 9:30 on Tuesday morning. And a few minutes after I got there Kristin arrived with a case containing six Full Sail Pale Ales, six Full Sail IPAs, and an assortment of Minnesota microbrews. Oh yeah.
She was very friendly and nice, and we talked for a few minutes. She was driving back to St. Paul, an eighteen hour drive — and was doing it in one shot! No way could I handle such a thing; I’d start hallucinating and screaming about fire and Ronald Reagan.
I offered to pay her for the beer, but she wouldn’t take any money. It’s part of the Buy Jeff a Beer program, she said. So, I exchanged an Evil Twin shirt for a case of fantastic beer. And I appreciate it, Kristin. You went above and beyond. Thank you very much!
As for the Full Sail… it’s really good. The IPA is hoppier than the Pale Ale, but both are excellent. I’m savoring it, and there are still a few bottles left in the basement fridge.
I was a little worried that I’d be letdown by the stuff, after building it up to legendary status inside my head. But it’s almost as good as I remembered. I wouldn’t put it in the same elite class as Stone IPA or Dogfish Head 60 Minute, but it’s damn good. No letdown whatsoever.
In case you’re keeping score at home, the other beers were from Summit Brewing and Schell’s, a variety of styles from each. Also, two homebrews made by one of Kristin’s friends… I’ll let you know how they go down, in a later update.
Thanks again, Kristin! It’s much appreciated.
In yesterday’s comments, someone asked me to describe the new t-shirt a little better. The phrase “iron-on” was used, so I thought I’d better step in.
These will be high quality printed shirts, there will be no iron-on. The T-Shirt Lady delivers a quality product, the shirts are always thick and really nice, and this one will be no different.
The design will be across the chest, on a white shirt. It will be smaller than the previous Evil Twin design, more along the lines of the retro shirt Earl is wearing here.
I hope that answers your questions. I know some of you want it on a different color, or in a different style, etc. But I have enough trouble managing six different sizes… I can only do one at a time. But I believe it’s gonna be cool. In fact, I know it will be.
Here’s yer pre-order link. And thanks!
On Sunday I overheard a woman ask another woman, “Do you have any Dristan, or anything?”
And I thought, “Dristan?! What in the pearl-handled hell? I haven’t heard that brand name in twenty years or more. Do they still make it? I mean, seriously, wotta 1970s throwback.”
I don’t know if Dristan is a defunct brand, and don’t really care, but I thought maybe we could list brand names that are no longer in existence, as the Question of the Day. You know, like Quasar television (with works in a drawer!). That kind of thing…
So, if you have anything on defunct brands, please use the comments link below.
And I’m gonna get ready for work now, sporting my Nacho Libre ‘do and the whole nine yards. If it hadn’t been for the tiny hairs, I could’ve pulled it off. Dammit!
I’ll see you guys tomorrow.
Now playing in the bunker
Pre-order your summer WVSR shirt here!
First hoo ray!
Seven minutes? Yooz are all asleep at the wheel.
Hell, all I could come up with was Delorean.
Remember the funny looking jars of saccharin?
Back when I was a kid, the barber had a small vacuum with a long thin hose, and he would suck up all the little hairs from your face, ears, and neck. Nowadays they just use a soft brush that doesn’t remove anything, it just rearranges the little hairs.
You can add Sylvania and Zenith, I think, to the list of TV brand names that are no more…
The Sony Walkman no longer walks.
Shake-a-Puddin
Jello 1-2-3
The $100,000 bar became the “100 Grand” a few years ago.
Schaefer beer still around? Haven’t seen it in years…
AMC Gremlin, Pacer, & Matador are all extinct.
The Studebaker has ceased to be.
Prell
I did a little checking and Full Sail is available at the Party Source, a liquor/beer/wine mega store in northern KY. It also appers they distribut to Ohio but I can’t search Jungle Jim’s (a liquor/beer/wine and everything under the sun mega store in Cincy) website for individual brands so I don’t know if they stock it. So there we may not have Yuengling but I know where to find Full Sail.
I believe “Brooks Steamotors” is also defunct.
Defunct Brands:
PanAm Airlines
American Motors/Eagle Cars
Saturn Cars
Red Barn Restaurants
Atari Electronics
Coleco Electronics
Merkur Cars
Oldsmobile Cars
Carling O’Keefe Brewing
Defunct in SW Ontario (but apparently alive elsewhere for some reason):
Fina Gas
BP (soon to be gone elsewhere I expect)
Olive Garden
Ponderosa “Steakhouse”
Krispe Kreme Doughnuts
Ford Fiesta… oh wait they are bringing that back! 😛
Pontiac
I also remember my childhood barber as having the hair vacuume device. I have found a barbershop lately that uses compressed air to blast the hair fragments away. Unfortunately, the two old women who work there are, well, one’s a drunk and the other a “lady of mild retardation”. So it’s back to Supercuts for me…
Wow…..Joe T. gettin’ all cocky up in here. Someone needs to go all Van der Sloot on his ass.
All I can say is, the bitch shouldna snooped in his laptop. Is there no sense of privacy anymore?
On the off chance an overly nice person is driving by me near Philadelphia, I have a real hankering for a Porsche GT3, I’ve not been able to get one around these parts and have some spare t-shirts for trade. I could even meet you on the Turnpike if that would make it easier. TIA!
(free beer – does it get any better?)
I wish they sold Full Sail around here (NW ohio) but looks like its cleveland and columbus area. I am trying *ahem* to acquire a taste for beer. I don’t know any beer snobs personally to know what is good and what isn’t. My brother in law only drinks bud light so he’s no help. He has even converted my liquor drinking only husband to drink the stuff. We are going camping soon and I really wanted to bring some good beer along.
Datsun became Nissan
Eastern Airlines
Pals vand Chocks vitamins
I think Sears Toughskins are also defunct but I could be wrong.
@Malcolm SHAKE A PUDDIN! Holy crap! What a memory.
Do you remember the chocolate malted drink “PDQ” That’s around the same era and also defunct.
My folks always had a pocket sized tin of Anacin. I think the drug is still around, but I haven’t seen one of those tins in years. Also, what the Hell- did everyone walk around in the 70s just waiting for the onset of a headache, analgesic at the ready?
Anyone remember Space Food Sticks? http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/loyaltubist/SpaceFoodSticks.jpg
BankAmeriCard and MasterCharge credit cards
Tenneco gas stations
Montgomery Ward Department Stores
tracy in ohio-Check your local Kroger’s. They usually have a decent selection of craft beers. Where to start or how to shake out real “craft beers” from mega breweries marketed as “craft” is another trick.
With your proximity to MI, I would start with Bells. Although I’ve never tried it I hear their Oberon is a nice summer beer. If you want to try something a little more “hoppy” try their pale ale, for more hop, try their Two Heart Pale Ale which is my favorite Bells product.
There is a ton of online material available for research. Just go in with the attitude that there are no “bad” beers, just some that might not suit your taste.
@Madz1962 – PDQ is ringing a faint bell – it wasn’t popular at our house but Shake a Puddin was at one point right up there with bread, milk, and eggs on mom’s shopping list.
Sinclair and Esso gas stations (at least where I’ve lived for the past three decades) are gone. Esso became Exxon, I think.
I was going to add Gold Nugget bubble gum to the list but it is still on the shelf:
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/Media/10-great-candy-stores-usa-national-candy-month/story?id=10821629
Might be a lot of “defunct” candy available at these places.
All cigarettes will soon be on the list, but I have not seen a packet of Viceroys on sale for a while.
BP? Oh waite that’s not defuncted YET!!
Jeff, you’re dry sence of humor comes across in person. I think anybody tat reads this site has a good understanding of how you think. maybe a few more of the “audio casts” or whatever it’s called. I’m not as tech savey as some of you folks!
..
Tang has gone the way of the Dodo.
I wonder if Hi Karate aftershave is still available ?
I used to eat Mello Cups when I was a kid and I think they are extinct as well….( like Reese’s but with marshmallow filling )
Curtis Mathes used to make a kick A$s TV, but they are also prehistoric and no longer found.
Are there any Burger Chef fastfood places left ? Remember Burger Chef and Jeff ?
How about Royal Crown cola ? Hi- C cola ? Shasta cola ?
Lots of foodstuffs have vanished……….
You can still buy Prell…just finished a bottle and my hair smells terrific. Got mine at Dollar General but CVS pharmacy also sells it.
My dad smoked Tareyton cigs. Not sure of the spelling. Haven’t seen those in years.
Malcolm: Shake-a-Puddin!!!!!! OMG! I couldn’t remember what it was called but I JUST asked my boyfriend the other day if he is “old” enough to remember the pudding that you shook up in a cup…of course the answer was no since it was probably before he was even born.
I use to go grocery shopping with my mother and that was the first thing I’d pull off the shelf. Chocolate was the BEST! Even if they still made them today, I’m sure they wouldn’t taste the same.
I don’t think Hi-Fi was a brand but haven’t heard that one in a while. My parents had a Hi-Fi console when I was a kid.
Fletcher’s Castoria: my mother used to give us that horrible stuff when I was a kid.
I still have an empty chocks vitamin bottle… my brother once stuck the vitamins up his nose and had to go to the ER.
I, too, recently purchased Prell shampoo at a local Kroger.
Phisohex is another one that is gone, stupid cancer causing chemicals in skin cleanser.
ARCO gas stations ( I used to pump gas at one in my senior year of high school … good times )
Isuzu automobiles
Marathon candy bars ( A braided, waxy chocolate bar that was a foot long. The idea that a candy bar that long would take a long time to finish )
Hmm…that’s a toughie…I don’t much pay attention to stuff like that…
Jeff, have you ever had Three Floyds beers or any New Glarus brews? New Glarus is a Wisconsin brewery that sells stuff like Spotted Cow and Fat Squirrel, and Three Floyds is out of Muster, Indiana and have alot of those hoppy beers that are good for giving a man the best showboating gas ever. I never drink any of these, but my boyfriend does because he’s a beer snob too.
Maybe I can send you out a six pack of one of em one of these days. New Glarus wouldn’t be for a long time because he only gets that on our trips to the Dells. Three Floyds is all over down here.
Wait, I thought of one…Red Dog beer…do they still sell that?!
I wept when Woolworth’s closed.
Anyone remember Marathon (candy) bars?
King Vitamin cereal.
Used to be a commercial from the late 70’s – early 80’s for a product called Blue Star Ointment. haven’t seen that commercial in years, not sure if the product is still available. The guy used to rattle off this list of maladies that could be cured by uising this product: Jock itch, ringworm , psoriasis, tetter, crying babies, barking dogs, noisy neighbors, etc. “BLUE STAR OINTMENT! THE ONE THAT’S GUARANTEED. ASK FOR IT!!!!”
Plymouth
Oldsmobile
TWA
Quisp and Quake cereals
When we first moved to Columbus years ago, our favorite restaurants were Rax, G.D. Ritzy’s and Sister’s Chicken and Biscuits…all are now gone (sniff).
Oh…and those orange-flavored children’s aspirins…I can’t recall the name, but I used to beg for them as a kid, because they tasted so good! Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me…
Commodore office equipment, and computers.
More SWO missing brands, Pop Shoppe, Realistic. Blacks Camera
I don’t have any defunct products for you, but I do have something overheard. I’m up in good ol’ Ithaca at the moment and was just at ground central for reefer madness, i.e. the community park at the center of town. There were your requisite guitar strummers, handholding lesbians, tweeked out deadheads in the throes wicked acid flashbacks, and one dude practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The guitar strummer closest to me got a standing ovation from two hippie girls named (I swear) Zen and Hummus. Then the following transpired:
Strummer: Dudes, you wanna like, be my back-up singers? I got this gig over in Collegetown next week and I need some singers.
Z&H: Squeal! Sure! That would be cool!
Strummer: Yeah, uh….you guys got miniskirts?
Zen and Hummus immediately launched into a heated rant about male oppression, but I was laughing too hard to hear it all clearly.
Hall & Oats
I was always afraid that the hair vacuum would suck my eye balls out of my head.
Everytime I went I had the entire event thought out. An eye ball would pop and and dangle around while I fell on the floor screaming and yelling. People around me being grossed out and scared. The closes hospital was about an hour away so I knw i would loose that eye.
My fear of the barber wasn’t a bad haif cut, it was going blind.
Postum. It’s was some sort of alternative to doffee beverage made by the Post cereal company. It was bade with barley and a blend of other grains rather than coffee beans.
Western Union telegrams. While not exactly a defunct brand, as the company still does money transfers, the telegram went the way of the dodo bird several years ago. I don’t know why, but that somehow made me sad. I never sent nor received a telegram, but such a seemingly romantic and cool thing from the past finally biting it bummed me out.
Rexall Drug Stores. There used to be a zillion of them back in the 60s and 70s when I was growing up. No more in the U.S.m but they still have them in Canada (Canada…home of over the counter Tylenol with codeine).
S&H Green Stamps
Circut City
Dunk-a-Roo’s
Goody’s clothing store
Did K-Mart finally bit the dust?
I heard Hummer is on the way out the door
Blockbuster
@HerdChemist- Mallow Cups are still avaible here in the good ol’ south.
Surge soda- I think Vault may be a variation
Many of the items or names mentioned must be regional cause I just drove my Isuzu down to the Sinclair gas station & bought myself a Royal Crown Cola.
There are still a few goody’s clothing stores around my parts. Kmarts too. We’ve got one in town and frequent it when we don’t feel like driving out of town to a Wal mart for something.
@WB in Ohio I did check out Krogers beer section. Didn’t know what would be good so closed my eyes and picked one. Got Leinenkugel. Not too bad but will keep trying out the different ones till I find one I like. Thanks!
Schaefer beer
Chevette
Yugo
GEO
Bradlees
Caldor
Crazy Eddies
Gretchen…I want to come!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE deadheads and hippie circles and reefer madness!!!!!! I don’t even smoke reefer, I just like people that do!!!! Acid flashbacks?!?!??! I’M THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Root66……Bayer Baby Asprin. I ate a whole bottlewhen I waslittleandhadto had my stomach pumped. that was the first time,lol!!
Not a brand but how about Murphy’s Mart? ClassicSoe Store? SniffSniff!!
Jeff,
If you’re going to lust after unobtainable west coast microbrews, I suggest anything by Deschutes.
Defunct brands…
– Gates (broadcast transmitters)
– Ayds (diet pills in candy form)
– Garrard (stereo turntables)
..and the king of them all, Jarts lawn darts.
There are lots of brands that I thought were defunct but turn out not to be, such as Quake breakfast cereal, Zenith TV sets and Koh-I-Noor pens.
Of course there’s Rheingold, Ballantine and Bohack’s. And I swear I remember TV commercials for a toothpaste called “Mighty White”. Marx Toy Company anyone?
Brittney: Yeah, I did remember you’re the resident hippie on here. Well, do you sing and own a miniskirt? Because I don’t think Zen and Hummus took the gig.
Way to go Kristen! Awesome random act of kindness!
AIDS diet aid – Those chocolate chewy square things.
Vanished when Auto Immune Deficiency Syndrome appeared. Who knew their product name choice would become a Very Bad Idea?
.. HEY, CORNELL ..
Your prose is as clear as mountain rain
Though it makes me feel inept
It’s pretty enough to wake the dead
If Death Ever Slept
jtb