It’s a theme that’s come up once or twice in past articles, but I adore it too much. I must beat it into the ground.

Presenting Dino Drac’s latest recurring feature: DEADSITES. Through the power of the Wayback Machine, we’re going to look at lots of old, dead websites. Why? Because I’m screwy, and I find the strangest things interesting.

Usually, the sites I’ll be covering won’t simply be “older” versions of still-existing entities. I’m more interested in the purely promotional sites, for movies, products and random events. Sites that were never meant to stay up permanently (and technically, didn’t), but sites that were still absolutely stuffed with all sorts of great, goofy crap. So much pop culture nostalgia awaits, with a generous dash of “old internet” thrown in the mix!

For the inaugural edition of Deadsites, I’ve chosen a doozy. From July of 1999 (!!!), let’s reexamine the official site of everyone’s favorite croc-on-the-loose movie… Lake Placid!

You do remember Lake Placid, right?

Bridget Fonda, Bill Pullman? Betty White? A GIANT CROCODILE?

There’s the trailer. Get reacquainted!

I love this film unconditionally. It made me stop irrationally hating Oliver Platt! Lake Placid proved that lighthearted horror could really work, and the film overachieved by every conceivable measure. It was witty, it looked good, and every few minutes, a giant crocodile ate someone. Read More…

With mere hours until July 4th, it’s only fitting that I finally write something about one of my favorite movies, Independence Day.

Maybe “favorite” is a strong word, but I saw that film in theaters no less than ten times. I memorized every line, right down to Bill Pullman’s torching of poor Brent Spiner.

(Also, watching the movie so many times made me catch the weirdness of them continually showing that random “curly-haired guy” during the aliens’ inaugural attack. I hope at least one of you knows what I’m talking about. Millions of people were being burned or vaporized, but they featured that one curly-haired guy like twenty times. WHO WAS HE?)

Independence Day came with many toys, and though I don’t know that this was the best of them, it was probably the most famous.

Released in 1996, the Alien Supreme Commander stood over a foot tall, made weird screeching noises, and somehow managed to live in toy stores for almost a solid decade after the film left theaters. (No matter how severe the clearance prices, there always seemed to be a few left. They were like giant gnats in window boxes.)

It’s a… it’s an interesting toy. That’s one way to put it.

The Supreme Commander wasn’t much fun to play with, since it was as cumbersome at it was large. Still, for purely decorative purposes, there was nothing better in the galaxy. This is a bizarre beast that does bizarre things, and I am a-okay with my new roommate. Read More…

The first sentence is always hardest, unless you kill it with bullshit like this.

Today on Vintage Vending, meet the Pom Poms! Six adorably fuzzy beasts from God knows where, ready to offer us love and companionship! Their feet are stickers!

We’ll see more of them in a bit. First, we gotta get through the other stuff. The company behind this set evidently felt that Pom Poms were too exquisite to be guaranteed prizes, and thus, you were just as likely to win plastic whistles or tiny skateboard keychains.

Taiwan, why do you toy with me? Read More…