Pioneer LaserDisc Turtle wishes you a Happy 2012!!!!!

LaserDisc Turtle, a Pioneer exclusive. Awwww, he's so obscure !!!!!

Pioneer LaserDisc Turtle wishes Drop Aztek readers a Happy 2012!!!!!

He would also like to remind you, in a cute, non-intrusive way, that "that's not how LaserDiscs work". (Note that LaserDisc Turtle was exclusive to Pioneer LaserVision players, as was the brand name "LaserDisc". If you owned a non-Pioneer player, you were watching "LaserVideo discs" and would only get a bland text warning.) You put it in upside down, so it's about as helpless as a turtle (or Bender) on its back. If you're seeing this it's 1980 and the CD has yet to be invented, so it's all good, you're not expected to know that a laser can't read the other side.
In life as well, sometimes the program material is on the other side of the disc. May the warning that you need to get up and change things around be kindly and benign like LaserDisc Turtle (who, considering that LaserDiscs were about as big as 33s, would actually be quite freakish, but that's besides the point), not harsh and condemning like the loud, bucking noise a CD-ROM makes when you put two CDs in at the same time. Which actually happened to a friend. I was there. It was hilarious.

But anyways, Happy 2012!!!!

Awesome like an Aztek ...

Welcome to Drop Aztek.
My name is Mike and I like stuff: I like buying stuff, I like window shopping for stuff when I'm broke, I like looking for stuff on the internet, I love hunting down hard to find stuff that I really, really want...
But I really love analyzing stuff: I love the history of stuff, I love the history of the companies that make stuff, I love the "anthropological" aspects of stuff... Actually, it'll soon become clear that I love overanalyzing stuff.
And if you've arrived here, chances are you're fine with that. As anyone who has a not-too-busy 9 to 5 knows, well written content about stuff is - surprisingly - hard to come by. I've been there. Waiting days at a time for work to land in my inbox, I've scoured the internet in search of good articles about stuff. You know the kind I'm talking about. Well written articles that make me more knowledgeable about the stuff I love... or that link the stuff I love to other pieces of stuff which, though I've never heard of them, I probably will love. Articles filled with fun data I can use to bore my friends, none of whom share my deep interest in stuff.

Now just what kind of stuff are we talking about? Well, stuff that I grew up with will probably figure heavily on this blog, because I have a lot to say about it. So electronics, shoes, clothing from the 1980s and particularly from the 1990s (although I'm technically an 80s baby, my specialty is the 1990s). Also, obscure stuff will get the nod over non-obscure stuff, because obscure stuff, that is products that didn't make the cut, isn't timeless. Unlike successful products, which undergo countless reiterations to keep their image up-to-date, the also-rans of the consumer world remain stuck in the period of time in which they were conceived and in which they disappeared. Like Azteks. I love Azteks. Ten years later, I'm still upset that my sister rejected the advice of her older, wiser brother, passing up the Aztek to buy one of those new (at the time) VW Beetles... Well guess who threw her lumbar region out on a European compact car seat that is essentially a towel wrapped around a clothes hanger... not the guy driving the Aztek, that's for sure.

Ok, I seem to have wandered off topic. To continue, Drop Aztek will also offer critiques of the current situation, which doesn't seem to be very favorable to stuff. Nowadays, whenever (non-Apple) stuff is mentioned in the news, it's in reference to the how the world of stuff is supposedly an endangered habitat. It's all in the cloud, man (I don't know why I added the "man" at the end of that, the kind of people who tell you it's all in the cloud usually don't end their sentences with vocative nouns). Not so fast, I say. The annoyingly democratic internet will always have a counterpart in the strictly hierarchical world of stuff. Check back regularly to find out why.

So without further ado, welcome to our world of stuff!