Obscure real life artefacts you'll never see again

[non capisco]

The 'Kevin Chin' Korean noodles vending machine that was something to do with an ex-workmate's dad. The dad was some kind of faintly aristocratic version of Del Boy with failed money making schemes apparently falling out of his arse on an annual basis. In this instance he made the ex-workmate, a posh white lad from the more well-heeled end of Kent, do a beyond dodgy "Asian" voice to add some audio spice to the 'Kevin Chin' vending machine website. I sorely wish that website still existed just to scratch the itch of a vague sense that I've imagined seeing it, but lamentably an entry on some completely separate sub-Dragons Den looking site trying to push the latent business opportunities of having a racist talking vending machine in your establishment is the only surviving internet evidence of this farrago. The homepage opened with a crushingly inevitable gong chime, some 'martial arts' noises I feel sure you can accurately imagine and the sound of this posh lad's voice going "AHHHHHHHHHHHH! KEVIN CHIN PRESENT HONOURABLE KOREAN NOODLE!" in a manner that made Peter Ustinov in One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing seem like an example of racially sensitive method acting. If you let the page run without selecting an option 'Kevin Chin' (who I must remind you was voiced by a white upper middle class English twentysomething from Tunbridge Wells) would suddenly get the arsehole with you and exclaim "WHA IS WRONG? YOU NO LIKE MY NOODLE?". This ex-workmate was fundamentally alright I suppose but he showed the office this artefact from his recent past without a detectable shred of shame, as if it was an old YouTube clip of him as a contestant on Run The Risk or something, not really registering that we were all staring agog at the computer like David Brent's silent foils from the Swindon branch. I've just remembered that the proposed company name was Kevin Chin's Authentic Hot Noodles. Hmmmm.

I'd also really like to see the van of a local carpet cleaning firm that had a drawing on it that looked like the guy who runs it shagging a roll of carpet. Never took a picture and that business sadly seems to have gone the same way as Kevin Chin's Authentic Hot Noodles.

You got any more of this type of shite, CaB?

[touchingcloth]

A succulent chinny meal?

[JesusAndYourBush]

Can you remember the url? Might be something on wayback machine.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Talking of noodles you'll never see again... a Chinese supermarket I used to get noodles from had some called "Sichuan Style" in a green packet with a picture of an old guy hunched over a noodle bowl with the air full of clouds of steam.  The block of noodles looked hand-made rather than the perfectly proportioned ones in all the other packets, and they were a lovely flavour. I used to get them in the 80s/90s but then they stopped stocking them. I suspect I'll never see them again and the generic name means you can't even find an image of the packet.

[Theoretical Dentist]

Can you remember the url? Might be something on wayback machine.

You can also search for text in the Wayback Machine, which reveals that it was at kevin-chin.co.uk, and is archived – here's the earliest archived version, from October 2004, and there are other archiving dates. It's a (presumably) Flash site which is now obsolete, but it turns out the Wayback Machine has an in-browser Flash emulator, which I didn't know about and is useful for loads of sites from that era.

It has sounds that work in the emulator; I haven't found any racist voice samples but maybe they're there somewhere or in a later version of the site. Even without the voices the site's pretty incredible. The mouse pointer, for instance, is a hand that does a karate chop (with sound effect) when you click. I'm sure there's much more to uncover here.

[Dex Sawash]

This one's more about the failed scheme angle.


Knew a guy in 1990s with no visible means of support who nearly every year would start a new business that fell on its ass immediately. Theory being he had an annual trust fund that seeded it. Not enough to live large and not work but bung 2 years together and...

 One year, used bicycle shop.

Leased office coffee machines that auto ground beans with all the automated reliability the 1990s had to offer.

Those swimming pools that are just big hot tubs with a strong current aka water treadmill, never sold one.

A trailer full of rowing shells that he planned to take to the lake to rent to people but he had no fixed water access and was barred from doing it. The boats were too tippy for beginners but of no interest to experienced rowers.

Finally did a coffee food truck before food trucks were a thing here.

He packed that all in to focus on trying to make his kid into a baseball money machine. Probably absobed a decade or more trust fund for travel teams and camps.

Trees have grown up blocking the coffee wagon, the rowing trailer and some other shit  from ever hitting the street again.

[non capisco]

You can also search for text in the Wayback Machine, which reveals that it was at kevin-chin.co.uk, and is archived – here's the earliest archived version, from October 2004, and there are other archiving dates. It's a (presumably) Flash site which is now obsolete, but it turns out the Wayback Machine has an in-browser Flash emulator, which I didn't know about and is useful for loads of sites from that era.

It has sounds that work in the emulator; I haven't found any racist voice samples but maybe they're there somewhere or in a later version of the site. Even without the voices the site's pretty incredible. The mouse pointer, for instance, is a hand that does a karate chop (with sound effect) when you click. I'm sure there's much more to uncover here.

Hahaha, it is absolutely that site, fucking hell. It's just missing the dodgy voiceover which I 100% swear existed.

Kevin wants to offer you belief - with belief you can achieve a realisation- with realisation you can achieve a future - this is the maxim of Kevin

Jog on, Kevin.

[Theoretical Dentist]

Hahaha, it is absolutely that site, fucking hell. It's just missing the dodgy voiceover which I 100% swear existed.

It looks like the site's meant to have its own music – in the top left you can choose a track, and there are mute and volume controls – but it doesn't work (for me at least) even though some sound effects do play. So maybe the voiceover was part of the music or done with the same Flash technique that doesn't work in the emulator.

In fact, looking at network requests in the browser developer tools, it looks like it's trying to load the music from an external URL that the Wayback Machine hasn't archived (because it isn't a proper link that the archiving spider could follow). There are also some failed requests for files called section_voices.swf and idle_voices.swf, which no doubt contained the voice samples you remembered. There's a whole site_voices directory that may be lost to the mists of time.

[non capisco]

Well, the tantalising glimpse was honestly more than I'd hoped for and worth starting the thread in itself.

[Sebastian Cobb]

This one's more about the failed scheme angle.


Knew a guy in 1990s with no visible means of support who nearly every year would start a new business that fell on its ass immediately. Theory being he had an annual trust fund that seeded it. Not enough to live large and not work but bung 2 years together and...

 One year, used bicycle shop.

Leased office coffee machines that auto ground beans with all the automated reliability the 1990s had to offer.

Those swimming pools that are just big hot tubs with a strong current aka water treadmill, never sold one.

A trailer full of rowing shells that he planned to take to the lake to rent to people but he had no fixed water access and was barred from doing it. The boats were too tippy for beginners but of no interest to experienced rowers.

Finally did a coffee food truck before food trucks were a thing here.

He packed that all in to focus on trying to make his kid into a baseball money machine. Probably absobed a decade or more trust fund for travel teams and camps.

Trees have grown up blocking the coffee wagon, the rowing trailer and some other shit  from ever hitting the street again.

Is the wheeze here it doesn't matter whether the business fails so long as they pay themselves while running it into the ground?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

A succulent chinny meal?

its chinny leckon good

[Video Game Fan 2000]

in the late 1980s Robinsons squash had a promotion that was themed around The Third Man inviting us to "find Harry Lime" by looking for a green citrus fruit with shades on the label

no evidence of this promotion online

[George White]

Kids Own World, a kids magazine from 1988 seemingly self-published by some middle-class middle-aged schoolmistress types, hosted by a Jimmy Savile parody called Fnog. Hada copy that I gave to a charity shop during Yewtree. Now regret.

[madhair60]

i don't understand the premise of the thread. could you please explain it in a simpler manner.

[touchingcloth]

This page has pictures of the vending machines themselves - http://www.franchisebusiness.co.uk/kevinchin/



There's something Proustian about seeing a web page where the images are both tiny and compressed to buggery, I'd almost forgotten that the entire information superhighway used to be like that.

Lol at the Walkers Sensations logo on the machine. The WayBack site has loads of mentions of KEVIN CHIN'S CHOICE OF CRACKER, which I guess must just mean you can choose a Sensations flavour. Also Sensations are over 20 years old now, if anyone fancies feeling like a horrifically old fuck.

The real Kevin is on LinkchIn - https://www.linkchin.com/in/kevin-chin-43a4b715/

And the design agency what made the site



My day is ruined.

[Sebastian Cobb]

There used to be a pot noodle vending machine in this activity centre owned by the Scouts when we were teens.

Used to go up there and use it when we had the munchies.


It looked like a Wurlitzer gone wrong and IIRC could talk.

[idunnosomename]

"Been down the river"

[flotemysost]

That Kevin Chin site is mental. Loving the copy's fluctuating dedication to racist cod-Asian speak; I'd like to imagine their legal contracts were a similar hot mess of formal judicial language interspersed with the odd clause written in dodgy cartoonish cliches. And why does our hero have a gunshot wound/massive Remembrance poppy in the middle of his chest? Mesmerising.

Also a web design agency called DIGITAL ZEST with a logo that's a photo of a lime has got to be the most early 00s media thing ever

[Average Comedy Enjoyer]

With no wish to divert attention from honlabre Kevin Chin:

There was a promotional website for the film Minority Report which let you find clues to the time and place of a crime from a picture with swishy themed UI

[touchingcloth]

The corporate speak mixed with the AH SO GRASSHOPPER stuff is great. Kevin seeks out optimal expansion opportunities in HADOUKEN high growth markets.

[touchingcloth]

The Donnie Darko website was very compelling when I was 14, 15, but it was absolute nonsense really.



I'd love to see a working version of it again, for old time's sake.

As Amorpheus_E_Bunny on Reddit said, mere weeks ago



Cheers!

[Shaxberd]

About a decade ago I lived in Canberra, Australia, and along Northbourne Avenue (a main route running north-south through the northern half of the city) there was the Capital Executive Hotel and its infamous sign advertising the 'Cuddle 'n' Bubble Package':



Another sign clarified that you were expected to provide the cuddles yourself, but it wasn't visible from the roadside:



The hotel has since refitted itself as more family-orientated than romantic, but the blue sign is apparently in the Canberra Museum for posterity.

[Yussef Dent]

Around the early-mid 90s, when Timberland boots and clothes were popular, someone decided to cash in on this with a range of very naff sweatshirts sold in pubs branded as "Publand: Drinkerswear" and Ganjaland: Smokerswear." I don't know if they were only available in Derbyshire boozers or anywhere else but that's only where I saw them on sale or people wearing them. I've seen the Ganjaland ones mentioned once somewhere years ago but a search for the Publand ones brings up absolutely zilch.

[Norton Canes]

David Platt's Tic Tac shirt

[Fonz]

https://vinylsolutions.co.uk/

This is one I can't get my head around... and is current

[Dex Sawash]

hiya vinyl solutions sole proprietor mate

Spoiler alert

I don't really think this

[close]

[Sebastian Cobb]

https://vinylsolutions.co.uk/

This is one I can't get my head around... and is current

Only surprised it isn't music related tbh.

Oh wait that's https://www.vinylsolution.com

[Famous Mortimer]

After a quick search, the 2nd and 3rd results for short-lived 90s comedy magazine "The Yorkshire Pest" are me, on here (2011 and 2020). The top result, this blog, at least confirms it existed, but it seems like the number of people who remember it is small, and the number of people who might actually have any copies is even smaller.

When I couldn't find the shirt that you could win from completing the babel fish puzzle in "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy" game, I first tried to make my own and then mercifully a few kind souls in HS Art took pity on me and knocked up the design. I had it printed on a shirt and look just lovely - but I'm not sure I could do the same for "The Yorkshire Pest". Unless one of you feels like writing and drawing a few panels of "Vince The Surrealist Cartoon".

[Average Comedy Enjoyer]

'Cuddle 'n' Bubble Package'

I'd pay extra and get the Frot 'n' Froth package

[touchingcloth]

http://dresdenfireplaces.com/