Little Alien Robot Erasers

Little alien robot erasers - just like the ones your teacher used to take away from you in grade school. Or the ones you got from the dentist before they got all high and mighty and started handing out toothbrushes instead. Or the fill in your own joke here. They don't run on batteries, they don't transform, they don't even work as erasers very well, but they're only $8.88 for a bag of twenty-four (what a weird price). Buy 'em for your kids and they'll be the coolest little hipsters on the playground - or drop like 40 or 50 bucks on a few bags, enjoy a couple of bottles of PBR and have yourself an epic little alien robot eraser battle!

CLICK HERE TO BUY OR PERUSE LITTLE ALIEN ROBOT ERASERS

Turn Your Phone Into an Arcade

Gaming just got a whole lot itty-bittier with the iCade Jr. from Ion Audio. Just plug in your iPhone or iPod touch and fire up one of the many compatible games from the App Store for a devilishly diminutive retro experience. Featuring a solid arcade-style joystick and eight action buttons (four on the front and four on the back) the iCade Jr. also sports a pass-thru port for use with a USB cable, turning your mini-arcade into the coolest iPhone dock ever. Best of all, it's made to work perfectly with the "Atari's Greatest Hits" app which features 100 classic home and arcade titles from the number one video game maker of the 1980s. But be warned, this little fella costs $69.99, so for 30 bucks more you could pick up its iPad-compatible sibling, the original iCade, instead.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ICADE JR. PRODUCT PAGE

Remember when Noble Roman's didn't suck?

Hint: it was in the 80's.

Before the Indiana-based pizza chain attempted to go national, they were a reputable pizza-monger, known to locals for quality food and a groovy, dimly-lit atmosphere. All locations' windows were covered-over with wood slats to ensure darkness, facilitating movie projection on the walls. Even in the blistering hot midday sun, one could find cool air-conditioned darkness at a Noble Romans. It was too dark in there to see what you were eating. but it tasted good.

Non-hoosiers were introduced to a different face of NoBo's as they expanded into neighboring states–buying up failed Godfather's Pizza locations–and actively competing for the Guinness Book award for least edible, most-nauseating pizza in the known universe. Having eventually achieved that ignoble recognition, they moved on to a "take and bake" business model, and were never frequented again by anyone who likes pizza. Technically they remain in business to this day, but not in a form recognizable to early patrons.

Having mastering profitability without the need for quality product, the innovative pizza chain attempted to do it without employees.

Before they were terrible

A close friend who left Indiana in 1983 randomly asked me about Noble Romans recently. I had to break the news; they no longer existed. We reminisced for a bit about the restaurant's early features:

• The previously-mentioned dim lighting, ensured by blocked windows
• A glass window into the kitchen with steps and a small stoop for kids to watch flying hand-tossed dough
• Doughy, yeasty breadsticks
• Video game machines, sometimes jukeboxes
• Candles on the table during evening hours
• B&W silent films projected on the wall

An original location survived perhaps?

Apparently, I drive past a Noble Romans on my daily commute, its existence barely on the periphery of my consciousness. But after that phone call, something made me glance over as I drove past. I noticed: the windows were covered. The Italian state emblem was on the windows just like the one frequented in my childhood. Could this be a Noble Roman's throwback location? I began my research.

Photo courtesy of Google maps street view.

Reviews of this particular location on Goole Plus Local confirm:

• A "Dungeon-like interior motif." ✓
• "Best pizza and breadsticks you can buy." ✓
• Same owners for the past 29 years. - a good sign

Reviews at Yelp of the same location mention:

• "The breadsticks are soft, not greasy and covered with butter (a good thing.)" ✓
• "Deep dish pizza with tomato sauce dolloped all over the place" ✓
• The same reviewer says: "Nostalgia factor off the charts" ✓
• "A window into the kitchen were you can watch them make the pizza (there is even a step-up platform so kids can watch.)" ✓!!! We're there!

Gonna find out

Armed with coupons, I'm sending in a crack team of investigative eaters to get the story. Readers of Retrogeeker will get the scoop first. Stay tuned...

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Update: A+. In the evening, (of this post,) I convinced the family to give it a try. It felt like nothing had changed since 1986. Each table had its own roll of paper towels. The restaurant layout was the same with the step stool for kids at the glass window into the kitchen, rotating oven, no other windows in the restaurant. No candles (might be a faulty memory) but stained glass Noble Romans lamps over every table. Some old Capcom machines from the early 90's.

Jocelyn & Amelia peering into the kitchen. First time they'd seen hand tossed dough and I was lucky enough to snap a pic at just the right moment.

Mad Ducketts: Converse Mario All Stars

Last year Nintendo, a one-time playing card manufacturer, teamed up with Converse, makers of quality footwear since 1908, to produce a series of Mario Bros-themed Chuck Taylors which include elements of 8-bit art from the 1985 blockbuster video game. The kickin' kicks also feature retro Nintendo fonts on the insoles, special Mario-style stars and even hidden game levels beneath the double-layered ankle panels. Reportedly the shoes sold out the first day that they were released in Japan and have already begun to command ridiculously high prices on the collectors market. If you really want a pair badly enough, head on over to eBay and you can pick up a brand-new sealed pair for only $799. Free shipping, of course.

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE LISTING ON EBAY

Ditto On That

Laser printers, photo copiers, who needs 'em? Employed by professional offices all over the world, the Ditto, or spirit duplicator, was where it was at in terms of information reproduction for many, many years, having been introduced by Ditto Inc. in 1910 and used widely well into the 1990s. The print itself was actually pretty terrible and, in fact, tended to fade with prolonged exposure to light, turning the endless rows of pale fluorescent overheads in my grade school into its natural predator. Many of our readers out there probably remember getting handed quizzes and exams that were almost completely unreadable, at which point the teacher would say, "OK, now question number 2 is supposed to read '8 + 3' and question 4 is '10 X 2' and question 7 is..." until you were basically re-writing the entire thing yourself. Of course Dittos had one notable side-benefit that was thought by many kids to be the positive aspect of test-taking: supposedly sniffing the chemical residue left on freshly-minted Ditto sheets would get you rip-roaring high. Check out the video clip from the Cameron Crowe-penned 1981 comedy, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and watch to the very end for an example of the Ditto-sniffing phenomenon in action.