Sunday, May 27, 2012

Pakwah Wong - Karaoke Champion



So this entry is about a guy I went to school with. My classmates informed me that there was something not quite right with the boy, and you could tell it by his appearance. He was the only kid in high school who wore sweat pants. He would bob his head to the imaginary music playing inside of it. When he spoke, he spoke as if he were highly intellectual. If you hid his pencil case on him, he would yell, cry, and slam his head repeatedly on the desk.

Pakwah's peers generally left him alone, but there would be the occasional troublemaker who would magically make his pencil case go missing to put some entertainment in our otherwise boring classroom lives. However, it wasn't always Pakwah's peers who would cause him to have a psychotic breakdown. The chemistry teacher made him stay after class to finish up his project, and Pakwah proceeded to slam, yell, cry and scream while Mr. Chemistry tried (and failed miserably) to contain his laughter.

So where is Pakwah these days?

http://passages.winnipegfreepress.com/passage-details/id-101994/name-Pakwah-Wong/

Yup, he's dead. It seems quite fitting that someone who seemed slightly bizarre would die of something quite bizarre - diabetes at age 27. Personally, I could have seen him getting hit by a truck before dying from diabetes.

Pakwah's classmates these days are now matured and in their 30s. They'd likely understand him more now than they did back then.

Pakwah had his brief moments of fame in high school. My classmates had told me that Pakwah had performed an extremely unforgettable rendition of Ghostbusters at the school's Karaoke contest the previous year. For the first year I attended the karaoke contest, I brought a tape recorder knowing very well that I was likely in for a treat. And what a treat it was!

It seems strange and even sad that I'm releasing this recording post-humously. Perhaps those who remembered this event and even those who fondly remember Pakwah will take joy in hearing this recording. He could be thought of as Winnipeg's William Hung (although Pakwah sings much better).

Listen to Pakwah sing "Great Balls of Fire"

I swear that this was the only time I heard the entire school auditorium roar in cheer. Pakwah certainly had the ability to entertain. Incidently, if any former students of Tec Voc High School (namely those in the RTB program) have video of Pakwah performing at Karaoke, please get in touch with me and I'll happily put it on Youtube.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Five Years of Classical Gas Emissions

I honestly didn't think I'd last five years, but here it is. Currently, this is the second-longest project I've put effort into (my longest was my Canned Peaches novelty project)

I'm going to get a bit personal here about how this blog came about. Back in 2007 when I started the blog, posts were a bit sporadic. I had recently become a father and I needed stuff to do with my baby boy. His mom didn't seem to want to spend time with us, so I figured the best thing I could do to occupy my time while he was at such a young age was to frequent thrift stores and garage sales. I cannot count how many poopy diapers I changed in the back seat of my SUV while driving around shopping for junk.

While I was touring the thrift stores, I started putting effort into finding oddball stuff that people had donated. I still have a massive collection of things that have been sitting around that I have yet to hear, watch, make fun of, and post for you to laugh at. I've met some interesting people through my blog, interacted with many professionals who wanted to use some of the content here, and even sold a couple of items!

To end this serious note, I'd like to say thank you to my readers for following along throughout the years and supporting what I think is a pretty stupid hobby, but it brings a lot of laughs and entertains me immensely.

Now that we're done being serious, let's post some birthday shit that I've collected...


Happy Birthday - Voco

Voco Records wishes the blog a happy birthday and tells all of us to be merry, happy, and gay. Thanks a lot Voco, I really didn't need someone basically insisting that I get a birthday bump from a gay man. I get enough hate male telling me to go fuck myself, so that should be sufficient.

Listen to Happy Birthday


Happy Birthday Greetings from the Stars

Here we have three celebrities (two of which have come back from the grave) wishing the blog a happy birthday in the best way they know how. These are REAL celebrity messages, not cheap imitations like the Celebrity Answerall tapes.

This cassette is interesting. The box it comes in doubles as a package to mail the cassette in. Side 2 is blank so you can record your own message! Unfortunately, whoever owned this cassette previously didn't record their own message, so fuck them for not wishing the blog a happy birthday.

Listen to the Stars talk!

And finally, my gift to you. Way back in 1987 or 1988, my family had a dog. I can't remember which dog it was, but it was definitely a dog. To get tips on how to deal with said dog, we decided to start watching a public access show called "You & Your Dog. As a kid, I recorded everything I could and this was no exception.

The show did not go smoothly because of people phoning in and jacking around with the phone. Because of this, the show became permanently part of my video collection and helped develop my interest in collection unusual stuff.

So here it is!



I never realized (until I posted it on Youtube) that the song used for the opening and closing credits was an Allman Brothers song. I fucking hate the Allman Brothers.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Album: Archie Presents Petite in Doggie in The Window


Yes! Another Uncle Bob record! Before I get to this album review, I figured I'd mention that three of the dummies that Uncle Bob did the voices for have apparently been put on display at the Manitoba Museum. Today was freebie day for members of a certain union (which I happen to belong to), so I figured I'd go and get a nice picture of them for this entry.

The Manitoba Museum is full of dead animals and Indian arrowheads. Very little has changed in the last 25 years since I've been to the museum, but they've certainly improved the security. When I got closer to an old piano to have a better look at it, an alarm started screaming like a pig having a cheese grater shoved up it's ass.

Just when I thought I was getting close to seeing my beloved creepy wooden dummies, I was greeted by more fucking dead animals. Yet again when I felt so close to seeing the puppets that I swore I heard Archie Wood giving a safety tip, I was bombarded by yet more goddam Indian arrowheads.

There's very little for me to see and enjoy at the Manitoba Museum, and I'm very thankful that I found free parking and didn't have to pay any money for the disappointment. Unfortunately, I wasted an hour of my life plowing through the boring displays of things I don't care about. Fuck the Museum.

Now then, lets get back to the album. I found it at an estate sale last weekend and it's in pretty damn good shape for how old it is and for it being a children's album. For those who are in the dark, Uncle Bob, Archie Wood, and Petite the Dog were on local television for a good 20 years entertaining children (including myself). I've previously reviewed the Funtown album and the Christmas album.

I'm pretty sure that this is the first album that Uncle Bob released. It took a total of four people to produce this album: one to play the organ, one to record the audio, one to take the cover picture, and one to voice the characters. That exactly how an album should be released! There's virtually nothing on the sleeve nor the label on what record company actually released this with the exception of it being distributed by Clay-Mor Sales.

Anyway, Uncle Bob generously graces us with more sped-up records to simulate Petite's supposed high pitched squeaky voice. You get to hear "Doggie In The Window" and "I Think I'll Eat A Tadpole" played on the wrong speed. All the other songs on the album are played on the granny organ and sung by Uncle Bob in his multi-talented voice along with his goofy sense of humor.

The track I chose off this album is the extremely terrible but funny rendition of "Home On The Range". The gloomy sound of the organ makes it sound like the deer and the antelope are all dead.

Listen to Home On The Range!