Few things are as uncomfortable to watch, on so many levels, as these videos from the U.K’s “Protect and Survive” public information series from the early 1980s. (And maybe it’s just me, but I get an eerie sense of Cold War-era nostalgia, too.)

Each video begins with a mushroom cloud cartoon and concludes with what somebody on Wikipedia aptly called “a memorably unsettling electronic musical phrase.”

Most of the crap you’re instructed to do seems like a doomed, absurd existential charade, and altogether unlikely to save any lives. (Much like our own “Duck and Cover,” as I understand it.)

Witness this comically futile fall-out “refuge” from part 6 (“Refuges“).

And this guy, hiding from fall-out under a bridge.

And this pitiful attempt to dignify a shit bucket. (Which actually seems like a very British thing to do.)

All the videos are available here, but I’ve embedded a small selection:

#1. Nuclear Explosions Explained

#3.  ”What To Do When The Warnings Sounds” (Jesus, even the “All Clear” signal is deeply unnerving.)

#4. “Stay At Home”

#10. “Action After Warnings”

#15. “Life Under Fall-Out Conditions”

#20. “Casualties” (Creepy. I can understand why they saved this one for last.)

R.C. Pro-Am

This morning I received an email from Friendster announcing some exciting new changes. (I hadn’t been on the site, like everybody else, since about 2004.)

I decided to check it out. I clicked on the link. These are the next three screens I saw. Seriously. (These are cropped screen shots.)

It didn’t do anything bad to my PC, so I mostly just feel sorry for these guys.

UPDATE: Read the comments. Somebody from Friendster visited and proved friendly and responsive. (I’m still not changing the title, though– it’s pretty messed up that anybody had to deal with this sort of thing.)

Some scenes from the excellent documentary “Mr. Conservative: Goldwater On Goldwater” (2006), directed by Barry Goldwater’s granddaughter CC Goldwater. Among other things, you will learn from the movie that Goldwater– the most perfectly conservative national political figure in memory– commands considerable respect (and more than a little fondness) from the decidedly unconservative Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Al Franken, Walter Cronkite and James Carville (each of whom appear in interviews for the movie.)

I. Goldwater opposes the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (with balanced commentary).

II. Goldwater at the 1964 Republican National Convention. I love George Will’s story about the reaction of a journalist to Goldwater’s famous line about “extremism in the defense of liberty.”

III. Goldwater vs. the Religious Right

IV. In Goldwater’s late career, his libertarian approach to social issues alienates many on the right.

This is one of my favorite songs, and this is the first place I heard it–  the final scene of Startup.com (2001).

(This post was a test of Windows Live Writer. Honestly, I cannot tell what the point of it is so far, apart from writing off-line. But I think WordPress has a solution for that also…)

The man who voiced Gargamel on the Smurfs was the first person to build and patent a mechanical, artificial heart, implantable in the chest cavity.

“Reality Bites” illustrates how the 90s was basically the 80s gradually discovering irony. This clip provides some great meta-nostalgia, too.

My So-Called Life, dance sequence: “What is Love” by Haddaway. I barely ever watched this show, but for some reason this scene stuck in my mind throughout the years as way, way 90s.

The Jurassic Park arcade game is way 90s.

Luke Perry “Behind the Scenes” (1993). In the 1990s in America this passed for cool.

Jim Carrey as the Juice Man on “In Living Color.”

Temple of the Dog is in the 90s’ last throes of earnestness in their video for “Hunger Strike.”

Jim Carrey was so 90s, he warrants two videos. “Mockingbird” scene from Dumb and Dumber:

Nothing renders the 90s quite so clearly as 16-bit graphics:

If you have any more, please post a link in the comments.