Remember that time in the 1990s when Volkswagen gave you a Trek mountain bike if you bought a car? Here’s one of the original brochures for the 1996 Jetta, as seen on A2resource.com.
5 on the Floor, 21 on the Roof: That 90s VW Jetta Trek Collab
Category: Diversions
G-Shocks, Resin Rot, and Avoiding an Obsession
Browsing a garage sale, I examined a plastic bag full of watches. It was mostly junky stuff, including a lightweight piece that said “Rolex” on it, but there was also one Casio G-Shock.
Not that I needed another watch, but I had been casually looking at new Casio G-Shocks, which have a reputation for toughness at affordable prices. This one, however, had been sitting in the sun all morning and when I picked it up, the plasticky looking watch felt like it was melting. I ended up paying a dollar for it, the price helped by the fact that the bezel surrounding the watch face cracked in my hand while talking with the seller.
“We have trails that get there with a real attitude”
From Outside Online, Two Locals Share their Favorite Hikes in New Jersey.
The Bullpen Cart is Back!
Last year, three teams brought back a mostly forgotten and unjustly maligned baseball icon, the bullpen cart. The cart’s purpose was to transport the relief pitcher from the bullpen to the mound, avoiding the exertion of jogging that distance. A true bullpen cart has a bottom shaped like a baseball, and a top that is a giant baseball cap. Bat-shaped columns bridging the two are optional.
Predecessors of the bullpen cart date back to the 1950s, and include a Harley-Davidson scooter (Milwaukee, of course) and a hearse (Casey Stengel was allegedly involved in that one). Then there was that time the Dodgers’ catcher drove the pitcher to the mound, let him out, and then ran into him. This article at Cut 4 details everything that is known about cart history, but was unable to solve the mystery of who first introduced the round, cap-topped cart. Could it be the New York Mets? Their cart may have been introduced in 1967, and its penultimate appearance was in 1986 when an enthusiastic Mets employee jacked it and took it for a joyride around the field when his team clinched the Division title enroute to their World Series victory. The cart resurfaced recently when it sold at an auction for $112,000 dollars.
The carts cruised through the seventies, but fell out of favor and finally disappeared sometime in the 1980s. But in 2018, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Detroit Tigers re-introduced the carts. Unfortunately, most relievers refused the ride. Washington Nationals reliever Sean Doolittle was the first visiting pitcher to use the Arizona cart, and he reportedly was instrumental in the Nationals debuting their own cart later in the season.
This winter, the Nats held tryouts for the job of bullpen cart driver, and over 400 applied. Tryouts were supervised by hard-luck ex-president/racer Teddy Roosevelt, who, in a cruel twist, was beaten in the opening day footrace by rival ex-president Tom Jefferson, who rode the bullpen cart to an unjust victory.
Could the Mets bring back their own bullpen cart? Signs suggest yes, and at least one of their relievers isn’t afraid to ride in style.
Bald Eagles Flirting with Disaster and a Megabus
You think having more bald eagles is a good thing, until two of them take their courtship ritual onto the New Jersey Turnpike.
Video by jboi4 on reddit, from South Jersey (Salem County?).
Edit: The original video was deleted from reddit; here it is on YouTube:
My 1972 Adult Christmas List, from the Sears Wishbook
The 40 (!) Best Family Board Games
Slate’s guide to the best board games for children and adults. There’s a lot of them! Plus, see their ranking of the ten worst games (yes, Monopoly is on that list).
Get your Ferrari in this Colorway
Forget about red Ferraris. This is the color scheme your next car needs to have. The Ferrari SP3JC is a one-off car designed for an unnamed collector, whose
passion for Pop Art is reflected in the strong graphics, and the unique combination of the Azzurro Met and Giallo Modena livery over the main Bianco Italia colour scheme underlines the car’s sensual volumes.
i.e., the blue, yellow, and white paint draws attention to its, umm, sensual volumes.
Halloween Cakes at the Woodmere Art Museum
Dreadful Delights: a limited run exhibition (ending November 1) at the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania.
Harrison Ford’s Childhood Home Is For Sale Near Chicago
The circa 1920s Tudor-style house that Harrison Ford lived in as a child is for sale in Park Ridge, Illinois, (not far from O’Hare International airport, if you want to fly in to take a look at the place) for only $400,000. The yard needs work, but, contra the realtor, there’s no apparent need for a gut rehab – though there’s no photos of the 1.5 baths, so who can say how bad they might look. The rest of the interior, however, does seems to postdate the 1940s-1950s, when Ford lived there (the reports are vague about exactly when the Ford family lived there). Harrison’s bedroom was the one with balcony, according to Architectural Digest. The basement, where Ford’s father accidentally cut off his own finger, is still unfinished. Ford graduated from nearby Maine East High School in 1960 (a few years after actress Karen Black graduated, and just before Hillary Rodham Clinton attended), and left Illinois to head north to Ripon College in Wisconsin, and then west to California.