Charming Bracelet

In the doghouse because you forgot mother's day?It's not too late! Start bidding on this charm bracelet I stumbled across on ebay. All of the charms are tiny packs of cigarettes: Gold, Regent, Philip Morris, Raleigh, Helmar, Chesterfield, Sweet Caporal, and Hebert Tareyton. And what Mom wouldn't love that?!

Click the title to check out the auction!

Mug shot

I bought an old mugshot from ebay, and it arrived the other day. From Moorhead, Minn., but the perp is from Milwaukee. Charged with vagrancy, and a stickup suspect. I'm guessing they rounded up the usual suspects. TheGirl was confused when she saw it, since it isn't '09 yet. I pointed out that this was from 1909. She was awestruck. Otherwise, not much impressed. Something else to add to my collection of things I think are just damnably neat!


Name: Henry Smith
Alisa: Chas
***: Vag. + stickup susp.
Residence: Milwaukee
Age: 24
Height: 5 7 1/2
Nativity: Germ-Am
Weight: 162
Occupation:
Cement Worker
Hair: Lgt Brw.
Eyes: Blu
Complex: Fair
Face: Med
Officer: Brossman
Date of arrest: Aug-25-09
Remarks: $10 or 20 days. S.S.

My god, do I want this...

There's a Scientific Batting Practice game up for auction on ebay right now! It's conveniently located in Woodstock, IL (no shipping costs). But it's over $500, and the reserve still hasn't been met. There's just no way I could end up with this game. Heck, if I begged advances on my birthday and Christmas for this year and next, I'd still probably be below reserve!

But I can dream, can't I? This is just an excellent game. It's got a great "contraption factor", and it's so weirdly layed out, and it's just plain fun to play! If I won the lottery, this is one of the first things I'd buy. If you want to try buying it for me (or for yourself - just promise I can play it sometimes), click the title for the link to the auction, and go nuts. Happy biddin!

Pigeon Amusements

Take a look at the photo at right. You may be thinking - "carrier pigeon". Not even close. Those pigeons don't have messages strapped to their backs, they have musical instruments. Yes, the dark objects appended to these poor birds' tails are Pigeon-Flutes (aka Pigeon-whistles, Pigeon Bells, or Tauben-Floeten).

These strange little instruments are essentially single-note flutes actuated by the wind passing over them as pigeons fly around. I'm nearly speechless... but not quite. I keep imagining what it would sound like to have an entire flock of musical pigeons flying around you. Here's an mp3 clip of a pigeon flute in action. According to the site linked up top, the high-end pigeon whistles are constructed to play a chord consisting of as many as 30 notes!

Madness would surely be the only possible result. Of course, if you're the type of person who spends your days strapping flutes onto the backs of pigeons, it just might be that no one would notice any difference when comparing your pre- and post-performance sanity levels.

Interested in constructing your own pigeon-based cthulian nightmare? Check out this ebay auction.

Fish Fry Wedding

UPDATE!: The fishfrysale people have just listed a vintage gnipgnop! The one I picked up has been a big hit with TheGirl. There's just something about a game driven by rubberbands... Get your bids in, people! I've got mine in on a copy of Second Hand Lions on DVD. It's a nice family movie: fun plot, great cast, highly recommended as a rental. Or even go ahead and buy it, just don't bid against me (I'm warning you... grrrrr).

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Just stumbled across this bit of local color on ebay today. I have a standing ebay search for "Billy the Brownie" items. To judge by the tales I heard in my Milwaukee area childhood, Billy was Santa's local snitch, the one who fed the old man the data used to calculate the Naughty-Nice ratio. These espionage activities were apparently underwritten by Schuster's, a Milwaukee area department store (correct me if you've got better info than I do, folks). I've been watching for something that actually mentions the name "billy the brownie" for a couple of years now. As of today, still no luck. The listing for a Vintage Billy the Brownie Elf Christmas Ornament that my search turned up was yet another anonymous Christmas Elf. But the listing had an interesting twist:

Fish Fry Sale
My girlfriend and I are planning on getting married in a simple ceremony at a Friday Night Fish Fry. Simple ceremonies are inexpensive, but not free. So, to help pay for the cost of a wedding, we're selling everything we don't need from our lives before we were together. Thank you for looking and for helping us start our lives together.
Fish Fry Sale Total: $43.56

A Fish Fry Wedding... You know without looking that the listing is coming out of Milwaukee, aina? I've checked the couple's items for sale, and there's nothing I'm interested in yet. I'll keep looking, though. Maybe I can find something I want. I think it'd be kinda neat to be a part of something that so purposefully blends the old and the new.