Esoteric Studies – Page 4

Harbie The Seal

Bringing up the Shady Dell again, I was wondering about the origin of Harbie – the faded fiberglass seal that greets you at the boat. I figured he was some old mascot for some forgotten business, but I couldn’t help but think as to how a seal which generally goes with the ocean found it’s way out to the Arizona desert mountains near the Mexico border.

Enter Google…

Right off the bat, a photo of a vintage Harbie turns up at RoadsidePeek.com. Apparently, Harbie is the mascot of Harbor Gasoline – a Los Angeles/Orange County chain of gas stations that lasted through to the early 1970s. Can’t remember Harbor Gas at all, but it probably never made it down to south O.C. at all.

Alumni of Hawthorne High School remember Harbie a lot. A Harbie was spotted at a Colorado River resort (could this one be the Shady Dell Harbie?) and another remembers the gas station…

Do you remember the Harbor gas station at 115th and Inglewood ave. Had the little plastic seal and even had decals. Name of seal was “Harbie”.

Another alumni remembers a Harbie at an Anaheim trailer park…

There are two posted at the entrance of a trailer park on Harbor Blvd in Anaheim (Harbor and Chapman?, just south of the Target store.)

Meanwhile, these folks find a Harbie out near the Channel Islands beach:

we lived in a waterfront apartment in channel islands while we waited for our house to be built. there was a playground opposite the apartment where aly fell in love with a horrible old fiberglass seal called ‘harbie’

S.S. United States

Two reasons to go to Philadelphia: 1. cheesesteak sandwiches. 2. The derelict S.S. United States which sits rotting at a pier on Columbus Blvd. across from a giant Ikea store.

Still the fastest passenger liner ever built, she’s not doing much at the moment but NCL is looking into refurbishing it for service in Hawaii.

Pictures from on board.

First Class Cephalopod

Giant squid stamps, lake monster stamps, and crypto-philately in general. Not to be confused with other crypto-philately.

Transportation Futuristics

Following from the similar “Yesterday’s Tomorrows” and “Out Of Time“, “Transportation Futuristics” is a treasure dump of retrofuture eye candy with a hundred years’ worth of monorails, SSTs, flying cars, floating cities, etc.

…und alles wird afri

Red Bull drinkers might believe that they’re king of the extreme when it comes to hyper-caffination, and according to the alt.drugs.caffeine FAQ Red Bull does indeed have a lot of it, but it’s a puny #2 behind German soft-drink Afri-Cola who’s apparently been the world leader in saturating caffination for years.

Afri-Cola’s advertising gallery is a remarkable collection of cute animation, inexplicable euro-artiness, and vaguely racy ’70s soft-core. I don’t drink any kind of soft-drink, but the whole Afri-Kola design sense is oddly compelling. Maybe it’s because their logo reminds me of Savage Republic’s logo – both of which are based on the Wehrmacht’s Afrika Korps logo.

The Conet Project

The Washington Post profiles Akin Fernanadez, the guy behind the mysterious Conet Project box set of shortwave numbers stations that’s all the rage with the kids these days – especially now that it’s back in print after the Wilco settlement. As I recall, I’m #180-something on Aquarius Records‘ big list of Conet purchasers but it’s “extra cool” because I picked it up at Terrastock II in San Francisco.

mp3s of all four discs are available directly from Irdial, along with mp3s of everything Irdial has released (shout outs for Stephen McGreevy’s Electric Enigma VLF recordings also). Additionally, Conet-heads should check out Black Cat System’s The Numbers Racket CD-ROM.

Roy’s Cafe and Amboy

Tonight’s episode of Huell Howser’s California’s Gold television show was a rerun of his visit to windblown Mojave Desert town Amboy. Amboy has always just been barely hanging in there ever since I-40 bypassed that stretch of US-66, but Route 66 tourism and the occasional movie appearance guaranteed at least a little business over the years.

I first learned of Amboy in early 1984 after a couple of us drove all night around the southern Mojave and wandered into Roy’s Cafe around 6 in the morning and had breakfast served to us by a old gent who seemed to be as old as the desert itself. The food was, well, adequate, and the guy liked to spray Raid everywhere, but for the middle of absolute nowhere it was hella good and Roy’s decor hadn’t changed much (if at all) in fifty years. Buster Burris was the gentleman in question and had lived in Amboy since moving there in the 1930s. The Howser show interviewed Buster, and I got to wondering if he was still alive and what Amboy’s status is.

Buster finally sold the town in 1995 and moved to Twentynine Palms where he eventually passed away in 2001. The new Amboy owners put the town up for sale in February of this year (asking price $1.8 million), but no news on a buyer yet.

A little something I snagged from that first 1984 visit:

R. Buckminster Fuller stamp

This new R. Buckminster Fuller stamp is so cool looking that I’ll stop paying bills online and go back to checks just so I can use it. It reminds me of a early 60s “new wave” science fiction book cover. The Register has a nice summation of Fuller’s influence.

Fuller’s actual inventions come secondary to his reputation as a popular, homespun philosopher of science. At times vilified as a fruitcake and a show-off, he later taught to appreciative audiences and represented the United States delegation in meetings with top Soviet scientists. (This was before the days of Air Miles). Although it’s true that Fuller’s reputation has never quite shaken off the hucksterism, and at times his writing reads like a very bad weblog, this was an extraordinary achievement. Fuller was a more profound critic of contemporary capitalism than any of the communists he can have met.

That’s because Fuller came to represent – much to the horror of his peers – the creativity and imagination that we like to think propels scientists at their best. And these are qualities we look for in vain from popular scientists and “futurologists” today.

Now Hear This!

When “the internet’s premier outdoor warning siren website” comes calling, you better pay attention! Otherwise “the world’s largest and loudest siren… ever!” will sound. Don’t know where the nearest siren to you is? Find out, and enter it in a contest or get one of your own.

[via consumptive.org]

More X-rated Giant Squid news

There’s enough of these stories for a separate “squid sex” category. This one from Germany:

The giant squid is not especially choosy when it comes to sex and will mate blind without checking if the object of its affections is male or female, a German researcher said.
…
“Until now, it was thought males injected themselves with sperm by accident during mating. But that is definitely not the case here: the sperm was clearly injected by another giant squid.”

There is another possibility that cannot be totally excluded, Miske added, which is that the infusion of sperm happened during group sex.

Right now, giant squid may be having group sex in the ocean – and you’re swimming in it!

[via Fred]