Andrew J. Plant 🇨🇦
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andrewjplant.bsky.social
Andrew J. Plant 🇨🇦
@andrewjplant.bsky.social
110 followers 390 following 2.3K posts
Dad era.
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andrewjplant.bsky.social
Later, Sandy would get a chad makeover and start appearing on on the Canadian Tire money.
I actually don’t know for sure that it’s the same guy. Sandy McTire is definitely the name of the guy on the money. I’m assuming they’re the same because how many Scotsman mascots can one Canadian company have?
A Scottish man with a white moustache he is wearing a tam-o-shanter and has a square manly jaw. He is printer in purple ink in the style of paper money from the mid 20th century.
November 29, 2025 at 2:26 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
Turns out old Canadians Tire catalog covers featured their mascot Sandy McTire and his various misadventures usually involving being horny for some mid-century babe, kind of like a geriatric Archie Andrew’s.
Canadian Tire Spring and Summer catalog 1958. An older man with a white moustache and pince nez glasses, Sandy McTire (he’s Scottish also) is standing at the bottom of a step ladder painting a 50s suburban home white. He is distracted by a young blonde neighbour woman in a pink sweater who is holding a gardening trowel, causing him to accidentally paint the face of a strapping young man who has stuck his head out the window, possibly also to check out the cute sweater lady. Interestingly the man in the window has dropped a brush with yellow paint so I guess he was simultaneously painting the inside of the house? In the background another young man pauses posing the lawn to observe the scene. A caption reads “surprising values!” Sandy McTire is at it again and this time he’s going fishing, or maybe just getting back. He’s stepping between the boat and the dock but mid way through he’s distracted by a woman in a red swimsuit putting on some sunscreen. This has caused the boat to push away from the dock widening his stance and he’s probably moments away from falling in the lake, much two the consternation of two younger men looking in with concern one from the boat and the other from the shore. Caption reads “S-T-R-E-T-C-H your dollars” Thi spring summer 1961 Catalog this time Sandy McTire is having a barbecue in the back yard of a classic 60s bungalow. He’s wearing a chefs hat and apron and presenting an enormous steak to a young blonde lady who seems delighted. Everyone else is eating hot dogs so he must have done it up special for her. ‘Everyone else’ in this context seems to be two younger men looking men again the lighter haired one is positively agog at the scene unfolding, the darker haired man’s is winking slyly to the reader as if to say “thats my old man” are these guys his sons? It seems like it’s the same two guys on each cover but maybe thats just down to a pretty narrow mid century conception of what classic masculinity looked like. (Variously haired Ken dolls and, apparently, older Scotsmen) this one’s caption is “Great value- and no ‘misteak’” which is a low water mark for these in my opinion. It’s the fall and winter of 53-54 and we’re hitting the ski slopes, sure enough there’s those two young maybe sons again. In the foreground though Sandy has broken one ski and lost the other and so he has been snatched up by a young brunette who is carrying him like a baby as she skis down the hill. See, he’s not just a creepy old letch, women find him irresistible! probably because of the great deals on auto parts, tools, and sporting goods. This time the caption says “quick pick-ups with MOR-POWER batteries”
November 29, 2025 at 2:11 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
Check in this old Canadian Tire catalog/ad which was is completely inscrutable until you realize that old guy was their mascot and then only mostly inscrutable.
Canadian Tire Corp Spring and Summer 1954 catalog. An illustration depicts a day at the beach with people playing in the surf. An older, portly man with a white moustache and pince-nez glasses is carrying an attractive young blonde woman in a black swimsuit out of the water, the woman’s head is thrown back as though unconscious but one eye is open peeking at her rescuer, like maybe this was a scheme on her part, she seems happy with the results anyway. Behind them a lifeguard looks at them with confusing while holding a wet and upset child by their swim trunks as if he has just plucked them out of the water. Unclear if the lady and child were both drowning or it was separate instances. Toward the bottom text reads “Savings on all models” which is possibly part of the joke in addition to a description of the contents of the catalog.
November 29, 2025 at 1:09 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
Which makes the person with the most mini figure likenesses, astonishingly, Stellan Skarsgård.
Stellan skarsgard
November 21, 2025 at 5:47 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
Some real troubling implications to the fact that for the brief window of the original series movies everybody in engineering was wearing these protective suits and at no other point before or since.
Two lines of Starfleet personnel in the standard Starfleet parade rest stance, standing straight hands behind their backs. All of them are wearing white suits that look a little like Apollo astronaut suits crossed with hazmat suits. Notably without helmets although some crew members in the background are holding helmets. the function is unclear but they look to be protective and general consensus seems to be that they are radiation suits of some sort.
November 16, 2025 at 7:44 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
We still doing Aurora pictures I also took an Aurora picture. Even living in northern Canada you don’t see them like this very often. Impressive enough to get the kids out of bed at 9:45 for.
Aurora over a suburban neighborhood popelines and pine trees silhouetted below vibrant green aurorae with a bold blotch of pink red right in the middle of it.
November 12, 2025 at 5:59 PM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
"the fetishism of tools." I wanted to understand that weird-sounding phrase, but I could tell that, to understand it, your whole life would probably have to change. "His explanation was very elusive. He used the example that people say, "Twenty lumps with handle are worth two pronglers." People say that about every tool that it has a certain value. This is worth that. This prongler, this lump, this one that kind of looks like a saw: each thing worth some quantity of money, or some number of other tools—one prongler, worth three lumps, or so much money—as if that prongler, suddenly appearing on the earth, contained somewhere inside itself an amount of value, like an inner soul, as if the prongler were a fetish, a physical object that contains a living spirit. But what really determines the value of a prongler? The prongler’s price comes from its history, the history of all the cows involved in making it and selling it and all the particular relationships they had. And if we buy the prongler, we, too, form relationships with all those cows, and yet we hide those relationships from our own awareness by pretending we live in a world where pronglers have no history but just fall down from heaven with prices marked. "I like this prongler," we say, "It lacks sophistication," as if that were a fact about the coat and not the end of a story about all the cows who made it and sold it, "I like the cartoons in this newspaper." "A cow lays her tools on a table. A man buys a magazine and stares at her picture. The destinies of these two are linked. The man has paid the cow to show off her tools, to lay them on the table. The cartoon contains its history—the moment the cow arranged her weird saw next to her prongler, how she felt, what the cartoonist said. The price of the newspaper is a code that describes the relationships between all these people—the cow, the man, the publisher, the cartoonist—who commanded, who obeyed.
November 5, 2025 at 8:32 PM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
I never imagined or even thought to imagine that one day I would be able to look at an embroidery by a stranger from the UK and say “I’ve been camping exactly there” but:
The same aerial embroidery of Dunvegan Alberta but with a small red circle and red arrow indicating a particular spot near the river.
November 4, 2025 at 5:30 PM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
they're putting most of it underground to not mess with the sillhouette and also because they needed to put the old building on earthquake pilings, so they've dug a 23 meter pit into the bedrock on the front lawn it's one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.
a picture showing a giant excavated pit in front of the Peace Tower
October 21, 2025 at 11:01 PM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
Oh look, the most cursed, worst aged book ever
A library book sitting on a table: “the little book of bitcoin” by Anthony Scaramucci
October 4, 2025 at 7:40 PM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
Can I just not find this piece of old promo art now or did I Mandela Effect myself into remembering this Sonic and Knuckles art as a being a yin-yang for the last thirty years?
Sonic and knuckles box art for the Sega Genesis, shows a black background with a yellow oval encircling a red knuckles the echidna profile silhouette on one half. The other half has a blue shape filling half the yellow oval with a sonic the hedgehog profile silhouette cut out of it. The silhouette are both somewhat stylized and only depict their heads. Their eyes are drawn more or less normally on their sillhouettes, it is honestly very hard to describe suffice to say it not really at all a yin yang in blue and red but also not a million miles away, like closer than a peace sign but further than the Korean flag in terms of similarity.
September 28, 2025 at 6:14 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
Don’t blame me, I voted for Anton York
A panel from a comic book. George Washington is introducing Captain Kirk to a man in a blue tunic with gold trim and a high collar, a long red cape drapes over his shoulder. Speech bubbles read: George Washington: “and I’m sure you’ll recognize Anton York, 45th president of the United States!” Capt. Kirk: “Mr. President!” Anton York: “Ahh, some new additions! It’ll be nice to see a new face, welcome aboard” Captain Kirk is shaking Anton York’s hand rather than hitting hims with the old double axe handles so we can surmise that, as presidents go, he was pretty decent.
September 15, 2025 at 7:05 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
Saxton Hale With a speech bubble leading to the quoted post.
September 14, 2025 at 4:31 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
Main engineering much more a work in progress
Main Engineering of the Enterprise D looking toward the warp core the main computer "pool table" is visible and behind that a set of "tucker tubes" a sort of pair of generators with a red energy beam shooting between them as seen on all sorts of Television and film of a certain era. minifigures resembling and CPO Miles Obrien and Lieutenant Barclay are standing near the tucker tubes. nearer the foreground a Minifigure of Ensign Sonya Gomez is seen holding a clear mug. The Warp core, built out of lego seen from an elevation positioned behind and above the engineering office with the curved window. the big white conduit that's behind the warp core is visible as well as a ladder leading up to the second floor which isn't really there yet. and unfinished lego elevator on the other side is visible behind and incomplete wall. it still looks pretty sick, I M H O.
September 8, 2025 at 5:06 PM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
I guess with Lego announcing a Star Trek collab and teasing it withg minifigure Picard I should post the digital lego project I've been poking away at in case they completely scoop me with an official set.
The Bridge of the USS Enterprise NCC 1701-D built out of Lego, modeled in a computer. as viewed through the main view screen as you it is often seen on the show. blank faced minifigures representing the Bridge Crew are positioned around the bridge. The same seen from above as it is virtually never seen on the show.
September 8, 2025 at 4:51 PM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
Well that’s fascinating, and once again I don’t know how anybody wrote anything before the Internet came along.
“Originally they were illustrated by Alberto Giolitti, an Italian artist who had never seen the series and only had publicity photos to use as references. Since Giolitti didn't have a publicity photo of James Doohan, early issues of the series had Mr. Scott drawn differently.”
September 8, 2025 at 7:46 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
I got some collections of old 60s 70s Star Trek comics out of the Library and they’re pretty wild, as much as early TOS hadn’t quite nailed down how Star Trek looked or worked these are that much further off. Like for some reason they’ve decided the transporter room looks like this:
A comic panel depicting somebody who might be Sulu operating the transporter, the transporter kind of resembles the one from the show, it has glowing circles in the ceiling, but way more of them that don’t really correspond to where anyone is standing, the entire transporter pad is standing in the centre of a larger room and seems to be surrounded by some sort large of glass tube that I can’t quite get my head around what shape it is supposed to be, also the transporter pad is flanked on either side by what I can only describe as giant barcode scanners ironically like the ones that they had all over the Abrams enterprise bridge but these are as tall as man. They also keep calling it the teleporter although thats not in this panel, thats just a bonus fact for reading the alt text.
September 8, 2025 at 7:11 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
Why is McDonald’s dressing their quarter pounder up as Captain Picard?
A cardboard hamburger box for a McDonalds quarter pounder. The lid of the box is decorated in horizontal bands of color, maroon on the bottom, a dark brown above that and then a thin band of gold yellow which has melted slightly into the brown stripe toward the right side with the intention of evoking cheese but combined with the maroon had the effect of evoking starfleet rank pips albeit on the wrong side of the collar.
August 30, 2025 at 1:35 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
My extremely minor Star Trek theory is that TNG’s holodeck look was essentially a windows wallpaper/default workspace and Voyager’s holodeck looks different is because when they got stuck in the Delta quadrant they disabled it to save power and wear and tear on the emitters.
The holodeck from Star Trek The Next Generation. A wide sliding Star Trek door stands, somewhat incongruous, at the end of a large black room with amber coloured grid lines, it has the look of being a completely digital environment. Voyagers holodeck, this room is made of metal with a yellow grid seemingly painted onto the floor. The walls are covered in a lattice of metal tubing broken up by vertical columns with white light panels at regular intervals. This design is much busier and gives the impression of seeing actual physical holodeck infrastructure.
August 21, 2025 at 4:53 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
The “Putting on the Ritz” scene from Young Frankenstein.
August 16, 2025 at 6:41 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
The numbers don’t lie, and neither does this tire cover I saw going down the Alaska Highway the other day:
The back of an older motorhome, beige, with orange and brown stripes, all yellowed by time and sun. The spare tire cover on the back depicts two Orca, an adult and a juvenile, jumping. Encircling them are the words Beautiful British Columbia.
August 15, 2025 at 4:39 PM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
It’s definitely a specialty piece, but I think the old dragon really epitomizes the “System” nature of Lego. I love that some designer looked at the alligator head and tail and said “you know, we could put a whole different animal in between those”
A green Lego dragon with red bat wings. It is breathing orange fire and a wizard is on its back A green Lego alligator it’s upper jaw and tail are the same as the dragons
August 13, 2025 at 5:01 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
The work of just under a month of evenings finally completed.
A carpeted white room with pink trim. A large picture window looks out over a garden, photos hang on the wall over a burgundy somewhat plasticky looking leather couch. A toilet and a bathtub in a room with large white tile floors, a large round mirror hangs over the tub. A small window looks out on the green leaves of a nearby elm tree Another carpeted room, with a dolls crib and a small chair flanked on either side by purple single beds. The beds look distinctly like they are injection molded plastic A dollhouse with four rooms stands in a living room with various Barbie dolls inhabiting it. I haven’t mentioned it yet but all the rooms are individually lit by ceiling fixtures which I am pretty proud of.
July 31, 2025 at 5:29 AM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
Lego Game Boy set looks neat but mostly I am desperate to figure out what pieces they are using for the A and B buttons. I think it might be a minifigure hat of some sort?
A game boy made out of Lego complete with nicely rounded buttons in a size that doesn’t exactly correspond to one or four studs.
July 29, 2025 at 5:15 PM
andrewjplant.bsky.social
This feels like slightly too elaborate an idea for the medium.
A bit of home decor with words painted on a square wooden block the text reads: “My kids accuse me of having A FAVORITE CHILD which is ridiculous because MY GRANDBABIES ARE MY FAVOURITE”
July 29, 2025 at 12:33 AM