Howe: Five Ways to Pass the Time without Hawkeye Football this Fall

[okeefe4prez]

Another item for the list is to visit your nearby state and national parks and forests. I took my boy on a long hike last weekend and bince Clemson starts this Saturday I was able to get a parking pass at one of the more coveted parks that has been sold out for months. I got a pass for $99 and I can go to any SC park for a year. We are going to take a long weekend next April and hit two of the parks on the Atlantic Ocean. The state has a ridiculous park system because a bunch of preservation trusts were established decades ago that basically stopped all development of the pristine mountains and the state coastal commission reserved the entirety of the coastline for the public in a case that went to the SCOTUS under the Takings Clause.

 

[Hawkfnntn]

The nostalgia for me was off the charts.

Pretty sure the new Top Gun won’t have that same effect.

My 3 favorite movies growing up were Top Gun, Karate Kid, and Back To The Future. Totally confident I could write all three scripts from memory with a >95% accuracy rate.

I just started watching Kobra Kai and I'm like through 6 episodes of season 1. I haven't seen those Karate Kid movies since like 1995ish.. Maybe longer and it's like I'd just got done watching them as I started this. Holy crap. Whomever came up with the idea to do this and got all the wheels in motion to do it is a stinking genius. I hope the rest of it is as good as what I've seen is so far. They've set a pretty high bar.

Top Gun was my moms favorite not really mine. I liked the Indiana Jones movies. "You call him Dr Jones doll".. That was more my thing

 

[Fryowa]

I just started watching Kobra Kai and I'm like through 6 episodes of season 1. I haven't seen those Karate Kid movies since like 1995ish.. Maybe longer and it's like I'd just got done watching them as I started this. Holy crap. Whomever came up with the idea to do this and got all the wheels in motion to do it is a stinking genius. I hope the rest of it is as good as what I've seen is so far. They've set a pretty high bar.

Top Gun was my moms favorite not really mine. I liked the Indiana Jones movies. "You call him Dr Jones doll".. That was more my thing

Indiana Jones movies were great. I am pretty sure I have those on VHS as well somewhere.

We had HBO when I was a kid and my dad would record tons of movies so we didn't have to buy them, lol. Things sure have changed since then.

Back in the 80s when I was a kid there weren't any add-on channels or any shit like that. You either had cable or you didn't. I remember there were like 20 channels and we had both Showtime and HBO. It was probably $12 a month or something crazy like that. VCR was a top-loader with no remote. As in it didn't come with a remote when it was brand new.

 

[Hawkfnntn]

Indiana Jones movies were great. I am pretty sure I have those on VHS as well somewhere.

We had HBO when I was a kid and my dad would record tons of movies so we didn't have to buy them, lol. Things sure have changed since then.

Back in the 80s when I was a kid there weren't any add-on channels or any shit like that. You either had cable or you didn't. I remember there were like 20 channels and we had both Showtime and HBO. It was probably $12 a month or something crazy like that. VCR was a top-loader with no remote. As in it didn't come with a remote when it was brand new.

Bunny ears is all we had with like 4 or 5 channels and that was it, We did have a VCR though and so what my mom did was she'd rent another one and would rent movies she was able to copy them unto blank VHS tapes. She'd had a cupboard full of em. Shoulda went to jail for 50 yrs as many movies as she pirated. That was my childhood haha

 

[RobHowe]

We had a roof antenna back in the day. I'd go up there and move that thing around while my brother screamed out the window what direction was best.

"You got it. Looks good. Oh, nope. When you let go it messed it up."

 

[okeefe4prez]

We had a roof antenna back in the day. I'd go up there and move that thing around while my brother screamed out the window what direction was best.

"You got it. Looks good. Oh, nope. When you let go it messed it up."

We had a roof antenna as well. I remember when KDSM Fox 17 started. My dad had to buy rabbit ears and there was a switch we had to flip to go over to the rabbit ears to pull channel 17 because for whatever reason the roof antenna didn't pull it (don't quote me but maybe it was UHF in its infancy or something). That was glorious adding a new channel. A gift from the Gods.

 

[okeefe4prez]

Indiana Jones movies were great. I am pretty sure I have those on VHS as well somewhere.

We had HBO when I was a kid and my dad would record tons of movies so we didn't have to buy them, lol. Things sure have changed since then.

Back in the 80s when I was a kid there weren't any add-on channels or any shit like that. You either had cable or you didn't. I remember there were like 20 channels and we had both Showtime and HBO. It was probably $12 a month or something crazy like that. VCR was a top-loader with no remote. As in it didn't come with a remote when it was brand new.

I think I saw Howard The Duck on HBO at least 500 times. My God, they played it every freaking day one summer. My uncle had HBO and a VCR with Top Gun. It was epic spending the summers with my cousins at his place.

We didn't get a VCR until spring of '91. My dad refused. We had this console RCA from 1977 and my old man said "I ain't buyin' no got damned VCR until I buy a new TV that has the right hookups for it and I ain't buying no got damned new TV until this one dies." That thing was throwing off nothing but green and red for 6 months before my dad finally broke down and got the new TV. My friends didn't believe we didn't have a VCR until they came over and saw that fucking console TV.

 

[Fryowa]

Bunny ears is all we had with like 4 or 5 channels and that was it, We did have a VCR though and so what my mom did was she'd rent another one and would rent movies she was able to copy them unto blank VHS tapes. She'd had a cupboard full of em. Shoulda went to jail for 50 yrs as many movies as she pirated. That was my childhood haha

We had a roof antenna back in the day. I'd go up there and move that thing around while my brother screamed out the window what direction was best.

"You got it. Looks good. Oh, nope. When you let go it messed it up."

You guys remember Columbia House? They'd send junk mail to your house with this big sheet of stamps, there were ones for VHS tapes and music cassettes. All you had to do was fill out the form, tape a penny to the card, and pick out like 12 cassettes or VHS tapes and they'd send them to you and start billing you monthly after that. You even had to lick all the stamps to put em on the card. Good thing there wasn't any COV.....nevermind...

I had one of those Eddie Haskell friends that everyone has, who told the rest of us that if we filled it out and sent it in our parents wouldn't have to pay because we were underage. Because they couldn't enforce a contract with a minor. I probably did that 6 or 8 times. They'd send bills and my mom would just throw them away, and they'd quit trying after a couple threats. It was the perfect scam, no credit cards on file to charge back in the day, no computer systems to flag my address, and there was no way they'd waste the money going after a 12 year old over some Michael Jackson and Pearl Jam tapes.

I also remember ordering Metallica and AC/DC shirts out of the back of Metal Edge magazine. That was on the up and up...my mom sent a check.

Oh, and there was one of those Columbia house type things for sunglasses too. I think you ordered three pairs free and had to promise to buy three in the next year at regular price. Let's just say I didn't order three at regular price. I'm sure my free ones looked awesome with my spiked top mullet.

Did any of your moms ever order your school clothes out of the JC Penney catalog? I got the warm fuzzies when that big ass book would show up because I knew in 6-8 weeks I'd have a new winter jacket and a few duds. I remember picking jeans and some shirts out, and then my mom having like a 90 minute phone call with some operator telling her all the item numbers.

Jesus.....

 

[Fryowa]

My uncle had HBO and a VCR with Top Gun. It was epic spending the summers with my cousins at his place.

To this day the hairs on my neck stand up when I hear Danger Zone on the radio. It instantly takes me back to sitting on my living room floor, orange shag carpet, about 8 inches from the TV, watching the aircraft carrier intro to Top Gun.

 

[Fryowa]

That thing was throwing off nothing but green and red for 6 months before my dad finally broke down and got the new TV.

My brother and I were probably 5 and 7 years old when we discovered by accident what magnets would do to a tube TV. I bet we played with that shit for like an hour when mom and dad weren't in the living room, and I distinctly remember bawling my eyes out and knowing full well I was getting the electric chair when the fucked up picture didn't go back to normal. I legit went over the logistics of running away and how I could make it work, and that's not an exaggeration.

That's the story of how we upgraded from our 800 lb console TV.

 

[Hawkfnntn]

You guys remember Columbia House? They'd send junk mail to your house with this big sheet of stamps, there were ones for VHS tapes and music cassettes. All you had to do was fill out the form, tape a penny to the card, and pick out like 12 cassettes or VHS tapes and they'd send them to you and start billing you monthly after that. You even had to lick all the stamps to put em on the card. Good thing there wasn't any COV.....nevermind...

I had one of those Eddie Haskell friends that everyone has, who told the rest of us that if we filled it out and sent it in our parents wouldn't have to pay because we were underage. Because they couldn't enforce a contract with a minor. I probably did that 6 or 8 times. They'd send bills and my mom would just throw them away, and they'd quit trying after a couple threats. It was the perfect scam, no credit cards on file to charge back in the day, no computer systems to flag my address, and there was no way they'd waste the money going after a 12 year old over some Michael Jackson and Pearl Jam tapes.

I also remember ordering Metallica and AC/DC shirts out of the back of Metal Edge magazine. That was on the up and up...my mom sent a check.

Oh, and there was one of those Columbia house type things for sunglasses too. I think you ordered three pairs free and had to promise to buy three in the next year at regular price. Let's just say I didn't order three at regular price. I'm sure my free ones looked awesome with my spiked top mullet.

Did any of your moms ever order your school clothes out of the JC Penney catalog? I got the warm fuzzies when that big ass book would show up because I knew in 6-8 weeks I'd have a new winter jacket and a few duds. I remember picking jeans and some shirts out, and then my mom having like a 90 minute phone call with some operator telling her all the item numbers.

Jesus.....

Yes yes yes. They didn't get me in on doing any of that but I remember seeing that crap on the kitchen table haha good stuff.

Yup JC Penny was big shit back then that catalog was huge. Those mail men back in the day earned their pay carrying them around. We went to Storm Lake where they had a store and I remember getting school clothes and shoes there back in the day. Across the st was The Buckle. Too pricy for us. Browns shoe store had the Nikes I wanted but never got. Not till I was older and I could sell sweet corn we grew. Dad wouldn't let me spend more then $40 bucks on shoes till I was a teenager and it was my money I was spending.

 

[Fryowa]

We went to Storm Lake where they had a store and I remember getting school clothes and shoes there back in the day. Across the st was The Buckle. Too pricy for us. Browns shoe store had the Nikes I wanted but never got.

We went to the Sioux City Penneys

Got shoes at either Payless or K-Mart. Payless always had some buy one, get seven pairs free deal because the shoes were junk. That's where we got our "dress" shoes and snow boots every year. I also remember being in K-Mart begging my mom to tears to get me these Jordache high tops I wanted one year before school. How and why she didn't kill me or just leave me in the parking lot somewhere is beyond me. 40 year old Fryowa wouldn't blame her a bit.

Never had Nikes till I was old enough to buy them myself. Holy F was I jealous every year when the rich kids would show up the first day of school in that year's Jordans. Even some Reebok pumps would have done it for me lol.

 

[Hawkfnntn]

We went to the Sioux City Penneys

Got shoes at either Payless or K-Mart. Payless always had some buy one, get seven pairs free deal because the shoes were junk. That's where we got our "dress" shoes and snow boots every year. I also remember being in K-Mart begging my mom to tears to get me these Jordache high tops I wanted one year before school. How and why she didn't kill me or just leave me in the parking lot somewhere is beyond me. 40 year old Fryowa wouldn't blame her a bit.

Never had Nikes till I was old enough to buy them myself. Holy F was I jealous every year when the rich kids would show up the first day of school in that year's Jordans. Even some Reebok pumps would have done it for me lol.

Yeah we got shoes at Payless sometimes too. I wore Adidas alot. Jordaches were 'cool' but never had any. Didn't they have jeans too? But got our winter/work boots from Bomgars in Cherokee along with Wranger jeans and flannels...

 

[Fryowa]

Yeah we got shoes at Payless sometimes too. I wore Adidas alot. Jordaches were 'cool' but never had any. Didn't they have jeans too? But got our winter/work boots from Bomgars in Cherokee along with Wranger jeans and flannels...

Jordache had jeans, but I didn't have any. They might have been chick jeans only but I don't know. My jeans were always Lee. I did get some stonewashed baggy Levis from JCP one time though. That was also beck when people tucked their shirts in so you could see the Levi label, and for a while they only sewed the top and bottom of that label so you could wear a belt and still show off that you had Levis (belt would slide under it like a belt loop). One kid in my grade always did that and I wanted to punch him.

 

[Hawkfnntn]

Jordache had jeans, but I didn't have any. They might have been chick jeans only but I don't know. My jeans were always Lee. I did get some stonewashed baggy Levis from JCP one time though. That was also beck when people tucked their shirts in so you could see the Levi label, and for a while they only sewed the top and bottom of that label so you could wear a belt and still show off that you had Levis (belt would slide under it like a belt loop). One kid in my grade always did that and I wanted to punch him.

Yeah for whatever reason the kind of jeans you had was a huge status symbol back then. I didn't care about that because I never did that whole tucking shirt in thing (thank god) I wore long flannels a lot that were too big for me that covered up the those labels.

 

[okeefe4prez]

Holy F was I jealous every year when the rich kids would show up the first day of school in that year's Jordans.

I got my first pair of Jordans on Thanksgiving weekend 2016 at Foot Locker at the mall and bought the same model in Bulls colors online a few weeks later for like $60. I picked up one other pair on sale. I just rotate between those shoes and I get random kids coming up and complimenting them, asking if they are Js. Kids still want Js and if you have some that are older that they haven't seen they want them even more. My son is only 4 and he wants a pair but while they have stuffed the channel and cratered the retail value of several lines of Jordans (others are worth thousands upon release), they NEVER put the kids ones on sale. They want like $60 for little kids sized Js. It's unreal. My boy can wait until he can buy his own just like I did.

A dude I used to work with had every pair of Js from the release through like 2015 when they started the channel stuffing with dozens of styles every year. All of them were still boxed. He had a rider on his insurance policy for a quarter of a million bucks for the shoes and didn't think he could replace the collection for that. He knew some folks who owned an "urban" clothing and shoe store and so he seriously had every freaking pair, including the display ones where stores would each get one set for promotional use. This dude said someone would have to offer him a million even to even make him consider selling the collection. His problem is they are all size 9 because that is his size and it happens to be the display size, so he thinks the only way the collection can sell is if someone like Lil Wayne wants to buy it, but he can't even tell people he has it because he's worried about getting robbed.

 

[Fryowa]

I got my first pair of Jordans on Thanksgiving weekend 2016 at Foot Locker at the mall and bought the same model in Bulls colors online a few weeks later for like $60. I picked up one other pair on sale. I just rotate between those shoes and I get random kids coming up and complimenting them, asking if they are Js. Kids still want Js and if you have some that are older that they haven't seen they want them even more. My son is only 4 and he wants a pair but while they have stuffed the channel and cratered the retail value of several lines of Jordans (others are worth thousands upon release), they NEVER put the kids ones on sale. They want like $60 for little kids sized Js. It's unreal. My boy can wait until he can buy his own just like I did.

A dude I used to work with had every pair of Js from the release through like 2015 when they started the channel stuffing with dozens of styles every year. All of them were still boxed. He had a rider on his insurance policy for a quarter of a million bucks for the shoes and didn't think he could replace the collection for that. He knew some folks who owned an "urban" clothing and shoe store and so he seriously had every freaking pair, including the display ones where stores would each get one set for promotional use. This dude said someone would have to offer him a million even to even make him consider selling the collection. His problem is they are all size 9 because that is his size and it happens to be the display size, so he thinks the only way the collection can sell is if someone like Lil Wayne wants to buy it, but he can't even tell people he has it because he's worried about getting robbed.

That's actually cool that they're all the same size though if you think about it. Not only a full set but an identically sized full set. Anyone who would buy the collection wouldn't wear them, they'd put em on a wall behind glass and they'd all look consistent.

 

[RobHowe]

You guys remember Columbia House? They'd send junk mail to your house with this big sheet of stamps, there were ones for VHS tapes and music cassettes. All you had to do was fill out the form, tape a penny to the card, and pick out like 12 cassettes or VHS tapes and they'd send them to you and start billing you monthly after that. You even had to lick all the stamps to put em on the card. Good thing there wasn't any COV.....nevermind...

I had one of those Eddie Haskell friends that everyone has, who told the rest of us that if we filled it out and sent it in our parents wouldn't have to pay because we were underage. Because they couldn't enforce a contract with a minor. I probably did that 6 or 8 times. They'd send bills and my mom would just throw them away, and they'd quit trying after a couple threats. It was the perfect scam, no credit cards on file to charge back in the day, no computer systems to flag my address, and there was no way they'd waste the money going after a 12 year old over some Michael Jackson and Pearl Jam tapes.

I also remember ordering Metallica and AC/DC shirts out of the back of Metal Edge magazine. That was on the up and up...my mom sent a check.

Oh, and there was one of those Columbia house type things for sunglasses too. I think you ordered three pairs free and had to promise to buy three in the next year at regular price. Let's just say I didn't order three at regular price. I'm sure my free ones looked awesome with my spiked top mullet.

Did any of your moms ever order your school clothes out of the JC Penney catalog? I got the warm fuzzies when that big ass book would show up because I knew in 6-8 weeks I'd have a new winter jacket and a few duds. I remember picking jeans and some shirts out, and then my mom having like a 90 minute phone call with some operator telling her all the item numbers.

Jesus.....

Damn Columbia House luring us in with those promotions then nailing us like $15 for a cassette tape of WHAM because there was like a two-day window to return it.

Bastards.

 

[okeefe4prez]

Damn Columbia House luring us in with those promotions then nailing us like $15 for a cassette tape of WHAM because there was like a two-day window to return it.

Bastards.

I got swindled on some Mack Bolan books when I was in 5th grade. They offered a steak knife set and a bunch of books but the catch was you had to sign up for new releases for the next year. I thought my parents were going to kill me, but my dad made me call to cancel and he was on the other phone. So I get on the line, voice shaking, tell them to cancel and that I'm sending the book back. They gave some crap about it being a binding contract and said they would turn it over to collections or sue or whatever and my old man pipes in and says "Listen, do you want me to sue you for sending a set of steak knives to a kid who is in fifth grade?" That pretty much ended it and I got a letter from them saying I am banned from ever participating in their promotions ever again. It was cool getting mail back then.

 

[kicker22]

I got swindled on some Mack Bolan books when I was in 5th grade. They offered a steak knife set and a bunch of books but the catch was you had to sign up for new releases for the next year. I thought my parents were going to kill me, but my dad made me call to cancel and he was on the other phone. So I get on the line, voice shaking, tell them to cancel and that I'm sending the book back. They gave some crap about it being a binding contract and said they would turn it over to collections or sue or whatever and my old man pipes in and says "Listen, do you want me to sue you for sending a set of steak knives to a kid who is in fifth grade?" That pretty much ended it and I got a letter from them saying I am banned from ever participating in their promotions ever again. It was cool getting mail back then.

Amazing that companies like Columbia House made it as long as they did. How did they ever see that business model being profitable over time.