The vinyl resurgence shows no sign of slowing, so here's a great budget turntable for your newly thrifted LPs.
Jeremy Clarkson's jowl-slapping spin around the Top Gear test track introduced millions of car enthusiasts to the wonders of the original Ariel Atom. The company markets their cars with the slogan "No Doors. No Screen. No Roof." Don't even bother to ask silly questions about options - there aren't any. No stereo, no climate control system, and definitely no map light. All you get is pure, unadulterated performance.
It looks like the handful of crazed souls at Britain's smallest automaker have been busy concocting their latest "old fashioned race car" - the Atom 500. They've managed to stuff a 500 HP dual hayabusa V8 between the rear wheels, offering double the power of the previous model.
Ariel Motors have included just enough stuff to make it street legal, although you'll probably resemble Darth Vader with your full-face helmet providing much needed protection from the elements, road debris and the occasional slow moving rocket ship. The original Atom was priced around €35,000, expect to pay substantially more for this little bullet. Still, it will no doubt remain one of the least expensive supercars on the road.
Honestly, I'd be terrified to strap myself into this thing since it's little brother was capable of zero to 60 mph in a tad under three seconds. I can only imagine the damage this new beast will inflict on Jeremy's ugly mug.
Ariel Atom 500 To Get V8 Power [thanks, Professor Rempel]
Video: Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson plays with the original Atom
related:
Caterham 7 - The Continuing Saga of a Classic Lotus
Handmade Classic: Morgan Motor Company Roadster
A story about Retro Thing and about my thrifting career just came out in the pages of The Suburban Life - a magazine that serves some 60 Chicago suburbs. In the interview we talked a lot about growing up in suburban Berwyn, and what it means to me to chat with all of you about the fun stuff that has made our lives a little more interesting, and a little more retro. 
Just to show what a lifelong fan I am of bizarre science fiction, one of my earliest TV memories is of "Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot". In the early 70's when I was four years old, the live-action Japanese import ran on a Chicago UHF station way up the dial. I saw Giant Robot years later as a movie compiled from TV episodes on local horror show 
The robot's extraordinary design concealed rockets and guns in
nearly every orifice - missiles even shot from his
fingertips! Every episode pits the robot against giant monster-of-the-week (I remember one being a giant eyeball...) to save the people of a toy-sized Tokyo.
Get this... these evil agents have explosive implants that are set off in case of capture. Whoa. 
The complete 26 episode series has been issued on LaserDisc and DVD in Japan, but never here in the US (though a revival animated series from the 90's is readily available). Luckily for Chicagoans, the next few weeks will see a new classic TV station - and Johnny Sokko is on the schedule! I may be more excited about Giant Robot coming on TV today than when I was in my formative geek years.
In 1983 Atari created the 2800; a sleek wedge-shaped version of the 2600 for the Japanese market. The unit has soft touch face controls, lots of red LED's, and unusually shaped controllers that serve as both joystick and paddle. The unit didn't sell very well in Japan, this being at the dawn of Nintendo's Famicom juggernaut.
for the serious video gamer, it also shows an Atari desperate to stay alive in the mid 80's. For Atari to remain relevant when faced with the specter of new kid Nintendo, they probably should have concentrated on creating better games instead of just putting a new coat of paint on their old warhorse.
Like many world-wide classic brands, ChapStick had humble beginnings at a family-run business. Dr. Charles Browne Fleet plied his trade at the sweet end of the intestinal tract (you may recognize his name from the famous enemas he developed) by creating the first lipstick-shaped balm in the late 1800's. 
Starting in 1912, the manufacturing rights were sold to a number of companies until ending up with current holder 
I first discovered the place as a kid
in the 1970s when my sister and her
husband went shopping for custom-made
sandals—like all twenty-somethings of
the era—and I was bored. I was 9- or
10-years-old at the time. So they walked
me around the neighborhood and in the
window I saw a pile of R2-D2-like
figures. Turns out they were imported
from Japan. Since indulging a kid in
yet another toy was not high on their
list of priorities—heck, my sister’s
husband & her brother actually put
“getting high” high on their list—all I
saw that day was stuff on the window.
The inside of the store now is pretty
much exactly the same as it was in the
1970s. Except in the 1970s it was also
filled with Japanese toys the
owner—Grover Van Dexter—sold with his
partner to neighborhood kids and kids
like me who discovered his great store
and sought it out.
I’ve got another Latin percussion “souvenir” – an unusual octagonal
conga drum. I don’t know if it’s
technically correct to call it a conga since there are many
classifications for a long handheld drum like this. It's got a handle, it looks like Ricky Ricardo's drum... so I'm saying it's in the "conga" family. The weird shape has earned it the name "octa-conga"
The camera was a market failure - what 80's kid was going to be content with shooting a few minutes of low resolution gray video? Since then the legendary camera has gone on to be an expensive rarity, mostly used by filmmakers and artists.
he camera bore the name Sanpix, but looked to be identical in every respect to the original model. Rumors abounded about this new run of cameras being from the company that originally manufactured the cameras for Fisher Price. Or were these just left over stock from the 80's? Even the existence of the camera was met with some suspicion.
The manufacture of a new PXL camera in the late 90's is just so unlikely it boggles the mind. Who were they expecting to rush out and get this? I'm just glad to have a backup for my trusty ol' PXL cam. I just didn't expect it to be brand new!
