Observe The Banana

Today while browsing the very fun and informative retro pop culture site Duck Soup Retro I discovered the world of TV Lamps. Apparently when TV’s started getting popular in homes in the 50’s there was concern that watching TV in a dark room would cause eye damage, so the TV lamp was born. These decorative lamps were made to sit on top of the TV to provide some ambient light in the room (long before the Phillips Ambilight TV) and came in a wide variety of styles. These were probably purchased for their decorative value as much as for health concerns. The cool one at Duck Soup includes a painted mountain scene behind what appears to be a small fish tank. Upon some further searching I found www.tvlamps.net which includes more historical information and many photographs of a wide variety of TV lamps.

I am somewhat new to the world of podcast fiction, but was looking for something to occupy my attention on long bike rides and came across the excellent Escape Pod Science Fiction podcast magazine at http://escapepod.org/ . Today I enjoyed listening to the rather humorous story “Conversations With and About My Electric Toothbrush” and I look forward to discovering more good treasures on their site. I also really like that each entry includes a rating like movies and video games so I know which ones I can share with B, who really enjoyed todays G rated story of the talking electric toothbrush.

With all the troubling news of dangerous products being exported from China, from poisonous toothpaste to lead paint covered toys, at least it is comforting to know they won’t be making any more straws. I know this because I happen to have, “The last straw made in China”.