How much money do I save? All of it. I bought a Flowbee in 1992, and haven’t paid for a haircut since. Full disclosure: I’m old, and don’t care how I look.

Nothing will ever match the excitement of Weird Al opening Al Capone’s glove compartment in UHF.

Back in the ‘50s and ‘60s a TV set was often a major piece of furniture. It was frequently combined with a radio and record player, and took up a large area of your living room.

My wife and I are the grandparents. At those rates I figure our kids owe us about four million dollars.

Costco trail mix. Delicious, nutritious and fattening.

Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is imho a grossly underrated film. It’s sweet, funny, moving, and one of the few Steve Carell movies I actually like.

The custom of giving your betrothed a diamond engagement ring began as an advertising campaign by De Beers in the late 1940s. Targeted at young women, it was presented in print ads, and even school assemblies:

While we’re on the subject, you need Overdrive. It’s a free app that lets you borrow ebooks and audiobooks from your local library for free. The ebooks show up on your Kindle; it’s basically magic.

This puts me in mind of Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan (1907-1995). In 1938 after flying his beat-up old plane from California to New York, he was denied clearance to fly the Atlantic to Ireland, a big deal in those days. He filed a flight plan back to California, then proceeded to fly east to Ireland. He claimed this…

The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Every trip is an education and a delight. You can stand right next to the Spirit of St. Louis and the Apollo 11 Command Module, and touch a real moon rock. There’s even an annex a few miles from my home in Northern Virginia. When I need inspiration I go and commune with Discovery.

BSG was good at this.

Before you enter the raffle you should watch Under the Tuscan Sun, a 2003 Diane Lane film. It’s a cautionary tale about buying old Italian real estate.

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” — Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 22 October 1945.

I’m old, and don’t care what my hair looks like. I’ve reduced my haircut costs to zero.

I’m old, and don’t care what my hair looks like. I’ve reduced my haircut costs to zero.

There are special cases.

Goldshire Tavern. I’ve already spent way, way too much time there.

Nice; she seems like a nice person. She’s also worth $50 Million, made by looking pretty and pointing at letters on a wall while other people play Hangman. What a country.

Fun Pi facts:

I can’t be certain, but I’m about 90% sure that the EMERGENCY PULL knob in the lead photo is from a 1960s IBM 360 mainframe computer. My first real job was as a system operator for a 360; I always wanted to pull the knob, but never got the chance.

DC Duck Boats, amphibious vehicles (military surplus, I think) that drive you around DC and then up and down the Potomac. They aren’t air conditioned (it gets real hot in DC in the summer), they stink of diesel, the Potomac is not a particularly inviting river, and the boats have a disconcerting habit of flipping over…