Motor scooters.
I see and hear one here every day.
I’ve seen these in Germany along with Cigerette Machines .
The problem with Weeping Willows is that they need lots of water to thrive. Their root system spreads very far and wide and can decimate a household’s plumbing and water supply. This is why most are seen by lakes and rivers.
Baker maybe this is something she is looking for: Delonghi
Actually, people would (contrary to directions) first try to unclog the drain with Drano or something. Then, when that didn’t work, they’d whip out the compressed air canister and spray caustic muck all over the place. Not a good idea.
You can still find those in hobby stores – they just aren’t popular. Probably never really were all that popular.
I just bought an erector set today at K-mart. Definitely still sold.
Something that went out before I was old enough to have children was peregoric. My dad said they used to sell this as a teething or colic relief for babies.
IIRC, it was cocaine or morphine or heroin based, so that didn’t last long.
(From a British perspective, and not a very young one either)
Flint ‘wands’ for lighting gas stoves
Concept albums, with gatefold sleeves and sci-fi artwork
Pro sports players whose shirts are not sponsor-blighted
CND rallies, protests and propaganda
Ushers in cinemas walking backwards holding a torch
Milk in glass bottles with coloured foil denoting variations
Offices without PCs everywhere
Typewriters
All-in-one radio / cassette player / alarm clock units, green LEDs on front
Stylophones
Theramins
Rock keyboard players with teetering walled stacks of assorted keyboards
Libraries that rubber stamp the books
Telly ads of the ‘Can you tell Stork from butter?’ variety
Compilation LPs of current hits by studio musicians trying their ‘soundalike’ best
Traditional striped barber shop poles
Traditional pawn broker’s signs
Cars with a manual ‘choke’ on the dashboard
Green Shield stamps and similar, petrol stations boasting ‘Quad stamps!’
The test card, and afternoon ‘test’ transmissions on BBC2
Pogo sticks
Frozen ice lollies with riddles on the wooden sticks
Kids’ playgrounds without fences, warning signs or legal notices
Crisps with little blue bags of salt
TV sci-fi, primitive super-imposition effects with jaggy fringing round the actors
Medicine sold with a clear plastic teaspoon strapped to the bottle
Lucozade sold in stiff yellow cellophane for no known reason
Vesta ready meals
Hai Karate aftershave and is absurd TV ad campaigns
The Oxo family
Sitcoms based entirely on a non-white family having moved in next door
Bicycles with cast iron frames
Lace-up leather footballs
Sitcoms based entirely on a divorced partner having moved in next door
Trimphones
Police officers with whistles for summoning assistance
Panda cars
Black and white holiday snaps
People holding up colour photo negs, intrigued by the reversed colours
Small red plastic barrels advertising Watney’s Red Barrel
Bovril signs
Travel agents with nothing in the window except a big model aeroplane
Signal boxes on the railways
Smoking chimney stacks
Electric fires, ‘flame effect’ via flickering lights under a moulded plastic ‘coal fire’
TV sets with rotary dials for ‘tuning in’
Ker-ching! cash registers with pop-up flags for all the different amounts
Shops with working balance scales and a neat pile of brass weights
Bus conductors with manually operated machines for printing real paper tickets
Specialist book shops silent within except for the ticking of the clock
Haberdashery departments
‘All because the lady loves Milk Tray’ adverts
Boxers, interviewed before the big fight, wishing the other fellow good luck
Timothy White chemist shops
Night watchmen’s huts
Big rectangular metal bread bins with ‘Bread’ printed on the front
Singular blue ‘fog’ lamps on the fronts of cars
Adverts by the Milk Marketing Board and similar pre-privatisation bodies
Safety films telling you to wear something white if it’s foggy
Toy dogs on wheels
TV drama serials broadcast live
Pre-pasted vinyl wallpaper
Toy: hairless cartoon face + iron filings under plastic screen, magnetic pen
Clockwork metal robots
…I could go on (and on and on) but I won’t.
Lightning rods and TV antennas on houses.
Soap flakes.
White canvas Tretorn sneakers.
Zagnut bars and Zero bars.
Wire hangers.
Bedspreads (not comforters, quilts, or duvets)
Underoos.
Cream deodorant.
Vaccination scars.
Prell shampoo in a tube.
See-saws, roundabouts, and those animals on springs at playgrounds.
Little mechanical rides for kids at the grocery store.
Booberry cereal.
Eggnog-flavored instant breakfast.
I just wore the other day a fringed leather jacket and square toed snakeskin boots, Bosda. No special occasion, I just go out of my way to find things I like. Similarily, I just taught myself how to use a slide rule today. Some things never go out of style.
For my suggestions, you certainly don’t hear about people going cross country anymore on road trips, catching rides with whoever wants to stop. Were hitch hikers ever really popular, though? Along with that, CB radios are making a come back I hear, but still don’t see them at all.
You also don’t see very intelligent and original sitcoms on TV anymore, with AD being a rare exception. Cassette tapes certainly aren’t sold in stores, along with the other outdated tech. Toy guns for kids have definitely gone by the wayside, compared to a time when you were either with the indians or you were with the cowboys. Sometimes, you would even be slightly red, which brings us to something else, bomb shelters, even though they made a big comback during the Y2 scare. Just about anything menacing, especially for kids, like Easy Bake Ovens and Cabbage Patch Dolls. Really cheap movies are a rarity, too, as well as balconies in theatres. Even though I haven’t been here for more then a couple decades, I could go on forever, but I’ll stop.
[ul]
[li]full-size black and white televisions[/li][li]5 cent candy bars[/li][li]10 cent comic books[/li][li]baseball doubleheaders (except for make-up games)[/li][li]“All transistor” radios[/li][li]25 pound laptops[/li][li]5.25" floppy disks[/li][li]floppy disk drives (close to extinction)[/li][li]people using WordPerfect[/li][li]monochrome computer monitors[/li][li]free celebrity autographs[/li][li]beta video cassette recorders[/li][li]milk bottles (or for that matter, milkmen)[/li][li]manual typewriters[/li][li]log tables (à la slide rules)[/li][/ul]
You know what toy I loved as a kid? Nerf planes. Never see those anymore. Is there even Nerf anything anymore?
Or music on MTV, for that matter. Kinda makes you wonder; I always thought MTV stood for “music television”. :dubious:
Zombies. Remember the zombies? The slow kind? They weren’t all that dangerous, but didn’t they make life interesting? 
I believe they’re now making trucks and APCs for the Army. 
I’ve worn no pants but Levi’s 501s for a long time – they’ve been around since the mid 19th century.
Do my laundry with me and you’ll see them.
I’m a 45 year-old man, so if you’re referring specifically to women’s fashions, no disagreement.
I just got my computer fixed from what turned out to be a very minor problem, and the invoice printint sounded odd. It was indeed a dot matrix printer that the two-man shop has never seen a real need to change since it still works.
I noticed he was entering my info on a screen with green character fields. I don’t think that program used a gui at all. If it ain’t broke, plod along, apparently.
Ah, that makes sense, and explains why the shop was using it. He wanted to make print-through copies: one for each of us, and the paper needs to be physically struck.
Lots and lots of businesses still use dot matrix printers, for a wide variety of uses. For some applications, for example, it’s kinda nice that you get a continuous perforated sheet.
I, on the other hand, use it to make cards for my card catalogue at work. Chalk that bad boy up under things you don’t see anymore.
Really? Were theremins ever that common in Britain? I’d associated them mostly with Hollywood, or Russian-influenced avant-garde composers.
Frogs in the summertime.
Butterflies.
Honeysuckle - haven’t smelled it in years.