Last week as part of a promotional launch, Bondi Digital Publishing put up on the web a partial archive of Playboy magazine. It is intended that come summer of 2009, all issues of Playboy will be available for viewing on the Internet (for a price). For now, the partial archive is free to view and contains 53 issues from 1954 all the way to 2006. Each archived issue contains every single page from its real world equivalent. If you're interested click, here to view the archive. It should go without saying that if you're reading this from anywhere that might even remotely frown upon Internet nudity, you probably don't want to click on that link.
I flipped through all the pages from an issue from 1977 using Bondi's rather sleek interface. First, let's get to the obvious stuff. How nudity is packaged and presented to people in 1977 is very different from today's nudity. I was reminded of how much more hair people had in the 70s. Clearly, I'm referring to hair all over the human body, not just on the head. Though I looked very dilligently, it was impossible to find a model with breast implants. All the women looked natural, as if they had been barely (no pun intended) influenced by modern society. The pictorials also seemed very tame compared to what is out there now.
Now while the naked ladies were all naked and good, the most interesting aspects of my quick read through were the ads. Since each issue is in essense a snapshot of North American society at that time, I found the ads to be quite enlightening. I saved a few ads to share with you.
First, consider this cigarette ad below (click on it for a larger view):
Here we have a hunky 70s dude with his shirt half unbuttoned, sitting on the grass, with a pack of smokes, and a single lit butt out. He's asking us, "How come I enjoy smoking and you don't?". It's almost laughable now but I suppose in the 1977 that would be a legitimate question. Perhaps his smokes, Salems, were way better than any smokes that I had tried. Maybe that would get me to switch brands or even try smoking. Of course, now in the present, the correct answer would be "because you're a dumbass that wants to get lung cancer and I know better than to die early".
More so than social practices, the one thing that appeared to change the most was technology. In this sense, I found dozens of ads that I could have used as examples. I chose the one below (click on it for a larger view):
The ad above is for a system from Sharp Electronics named the "Sharp Eye" used in audio cassette players. For the young or forgetful, I'll remind people that music was once played on small analog tapes on reels. Finding the beginning or end of a song in the middle of a tape was really hit or miss and a fanciful piece of guesswork. Now I'm old enough to have experienced this problem first-hand, so I know how stupid it was. These days of course, with CDs and MP3 files, we can get to any part of a song in an instant and with the accuracy of a laser.
Now the "Sharp Eye" system supposedly listened for the dead space in between songs and inferred those were the pauses in between tracks. If you wanted to go to the beginning or end of a song, it would just advance the tape for you automatically. Now keep in mind that even though it was automated, back in 1977, you would still have to wait for the player to mechanically wind its way to the correct spot. Depending on the length of the song, a 30 second wait just to get to the next song would not be out of the ordinary. Think about that the next time you click the wheel on your iPod.
I'm going to look through an issue of Playboy from the 1950s next as I imagine things were even more different back then.
A few weeks back I made a post about a washroom at work that had the warm toilet bowl. I wrote that I found it pleasant. Apparently, some of my co-workers did not.
Shortly after lunch today, there was an e-mail that got sent out to the entire team. Our production coordinator wanted to tell us that after some complaints, the facilities crew came to our floor and "fixed" the warm toilet bowl. How unfortunate. So no more warm asses. I replied to our PC and said that I didn't really mind that warmth on my butt. She didn't reply.
So I've been told in the past that I sometimes snore when I sleep. According to some people, there are times when my snoring can be, shall we say, loudiferous. Yes, that is an actual word.
Now here's the interesting thing. I fall asleep on the bus ride home from work all the time. I am constantly amazed at how I am completely out of it when I doze off. I'll wake up and there will be different people around me. Sometimes the dude or lady next to me will be gone or someone else will have replaced them. The bus driver could have handed out tacos to everyone and I would not have been the wiser (or taco-ier). I'm always wondering if someone has gone through my coat pockets while I'm asleep.
Anyways, the real question is whether or not I snore when I'm sleeping on the bus. If I did and it was loud enough for people to hear, I'd be embarrassed. When I wake up no one looks at me funny or snickers at me but that's no proof that I didn't snore. I'm hoping that I don't snore and part of that hope lies in the fact that I'm sleeping while sitting as opposed to sleeping while lying down. Unfortunately, I have in my experience, heard a dude snoring while he was sleeping in a sitting position on the bus so maybe my theory sucks.
Man, what if I fart while sleeping on the bus too?
So over the weekend I watched my first Canucks game in high-definition quality at my apartment. I still haven't bought an HDTV but what I did do was connect a small 20" widescreen LCD monitor to the set top box that Telus installed for me. The monitor was lying around unused, so I figured it could hold me over until I did pull the trigger on my new TV.
The CBC HD feed is excellent. From the dozen or so HD channels I have, the hockey game looked the best. It's a shame though that the 'Nucks stunk up the joint down in Phoenix, which made my first HD game a bit less entertaining than it could have been.
What I didn't realize is that some commercials are broadcast in HD as well. Two video game commercials I saw were in glorious HD which I am sure the marketing people love. Oh, I also watched my first episode of Cops in HD. I really enjoyed that as I've been following that show for two decades now.
I am looking forward to seeing some informercials in HD. ShamWow in HD anyone?
Last night after putting some furniture together for my apartment I got hungry so I decided to get some Wendy's. Wendy's is one of my favourite fast-food joints. When I got to the closest one, the dining room had already closed but the drive-through was still open. I'd been at this particular location dozens of times before. As I was getting my meal, it reminded me of this one time I was using the drive-through.
It was probably a few years back, my memory is getting hazy these days but it was around 2004. I'd made my order and had pulled up to the window. My order was a classic single combo, which back then was a little over $5. I remember paying in cash with a $10 bill. They couldn't give me my change right away but my food was ready. The woman at the window handed me my drink and then she gave me a bag with the rest of my meal. I said thanks then placed the bag on the passenger seat and then for some reason, I took off. I didn't peel out of there but I certainly didn't just roll away either.
I probably traveled forty feet before I realized I just left more than $4 of my money with Wendy's International, Incorporated. For a millisecond I thought about turning around to go get my change but I would look like an even bigger idiot. I'd have to get back in line with any other cars, get to the ordering device, yell out to everyone within earshot that I didn't want any food because I was just here to get my change, roll up to the window again, and sheepishly face the lady that I just took off on. I decided it was too much bother for $4 and that I was very hungry and I had a delicious bag of food next to me.
I kept on driving and took my food home. It was tasty. I realize I'll probably never get my $4 back but that's ok.
