Taco Bell.. Bring Back the Sante Fe Gordita.

Nothing has more urgency than this.

    I made a post on Reddit about it, and I created the petition in question. Taco Bell - Bring back the fucking Sante Fe and Baja menu again. Give us a reason to visit outside of the Luxe box options. Not even a new flavor of Baja Blast will bring me and my money back faster. 

• Reddit post
• Sign the Petition  

1991 TSR Trading Card Set (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons)

Premier! Counterfeit proof!

     In 1991 TSR sold packs of collectable cards that you could trade and have fun with, contained all the accurate stats and a bio on the back, and printed on good quality card stock with a hologram. All your favorite characters from all the popular books of the time, with items and "common" low level monsters and consumables of varying types. Rares were the main characters from the book like Drizzt and Raistlin, commons were ogres, goblins, and potions. Cards from this set have a silver border, cards from the packs have a gold border. 

This card would be considered uncommon

     750 cards in total, with the majority of them AD&D, Forgotten Realms, and Dragonlance. I noticed the art on the Ravenloft cards are in black and white, but still really fun to look at. Lots of the main characters come from the covers of popular books they were mentioned in.

So fresh, so clean, also.. musty.

     I found these on Facebook marketplace for $5 around 45 minutes north of me, from a storage unit sale. The guy that sold them to me was confused on why I would drive 45 minutes for them, but jokes on him, I would have drove further for less.

Front and back of some of the cards

     What a cool little oddity of the day. I'm really jazzed about seeing some of the lesser characters from the Clerics Quintet and Dragonlance series that I never had a visual to match to the person described in the books. It would have been badass being 12-13 again, playing AD&D with my friends, and having this cards as quick reference and a visual representation. 

Grayhawk & Spelljammer!

     I'm going to put these in a box and not look at them for a few years; I hope you enjoyed this little time capsule as much as I did. Comment below if you want to see more D&D/TSR content. 

Highlander - Rare Japanese Movie Program

James Bond - A View to a Kill - Rare Japanese Program

Kenwood KRC 999 - The Most Insane Car Cassette Audio Money Can Buy

 

Studio level Hi-Fi, in your car.

     People take car audio very seriously. The old Crutchfield magazines of the 80's and 90's are a stark reminder that you could spend an infinite amount of money on your car audio system, and be absolutely blown away by the quality of sound. Look at the list of bullet points in the magazine blurb above. What can't it do? Well if you're a smart ass, and you're thinking it can't play CD's, guess again- they made a CD add on for this head unit as well as a single din amp and graphic equalizer combo. Not like you needed it, as this has it all. The KRC 99 even had one unique feature, it had a retractable EQ, where you could edit the graph on the fly.Watch the video below and watch it in action:

Behold, the Kenwood KRC999 Mark II!

     Even the sweet sweet tunes of Nite and Day by Al B. Sure sound better on this glorious over the top piece of equipment. Currently running for around $1200-$1500 on ebay for a working example, The Kenwood line of KDT and KRC head units are a really cool glance into the past, and how insane technology was at the time. Full motorized and servo driven. Dolby B&C. Sensors to increase and lower audio depending on road noise. I could go on forever. 

Full DAT version? Sure, why not. 

     Not pictured in the above video and the small advertisements is the amount of computerization required to control it all, which was housed in a "Brain Box" you install somewhere else in the car. Amps, crossovers, wiring, some of it proprietary to Kenwood tuners, all completes the absolutely insanity that is the KRC-999. 

The pics above are the accessories you need to get one of these running.

     I wish I had one, and I wish I was more knowledgeable about the subject, but this is just one great example of retro technology at it's crazy-best. Does anyone need this? No. Did we all want it? Of course.

AD&D Second Edition - 26 Books, 5985 Pages.. Free!

 

God I love Archive.org - Download the archive now!

     It's like all the cool shit is free now. Just search around for anything.. anything at all, and it's on there. Entire archives of books and games, all for me to read and fall asleep with the phone in my hand, and my wife there to pry it from my limp drunken fingers. I once read all the Forgotten Realms rule and adventure books, thousands of pages, over a series of plane flights and layovers during conference season. Priceless!