Continuing on my journey through tiki world, today I am listening to the syrupy tones of Vegas Vic in his Tiki Lounge podcast.

I use iTunes to listen to music while at work, so I simply subscribed to the podcast using this iTunes link and got all episodes.

I'm currently on episode 3, back from June 2005

Believe it or not, I've only just joined at the Tiki Central forums. I've been there before of course, but only quickly and never to linger long enough to read much. 

Too much time spent on the HAMB I guess.

Last night I jumped on and introduced myself. One question came up quite quickly - is music on web sites more acceptable nowadays? Obviously myspace is the big fish and every profile page plays music. So the kids are used to it. It was always a laughable offense to put blinking text and music on web sites - but now I'm not so sure about the music.

Many tiki and hot rod sites play cool music now. I visited www.thehukilau.com and loved the music!

What do you think? Tell me below.. cos otherwise the next time you visit you might find music here..

We just returned from the World of Wheels show in Atlanta - I enjoyed it but I was dragging the kids around by the time we left! My 13 yr old daughter said she was going to die from boredom unless we left soon.

There were a *lot* of stock muscle cars that weren't floating my boat, but enough hot rods to keep me happy. I loved seeing the showboats too - for a change. It's amazing how much time and money goes into some of these cars showpieces.

And of course I had to pony up for a socal tin sign and get it autographed by Jimmy Shine (from the Hard Shine TV show). He was a nice guy, chatty and talked to all my kids too.

During a recent hot rod gathering I mentioned one of my favorite movies "The Loveless" to a couple of people only to get blank looks!

Ok, so it's not a famous movie by any means - it certainly qualifies as a cult movie by most measures in fact - but I was lucky enough to see it many years ago and it stuck with me much like I remember the first time I saw American Graffiti.

The loveless is a biker flick - no hot rods in this one. But it is set in the late fifties, in rural Georgia, as a small biker gang stops on the way to Daytona to "hear them howl". It is period perfect.

The atmosphere of the movie is thick, and with rockabilly musician Robert Gordon co-starring in the movie and writing the soundtrack most hot rodders will love it. This is not some sugary movie like Hot Rod; be prepared for a dark movie that nonetheless still makes you wish you were one of the gang..

I see that you can still buy it at Amazon.

We bought this tiki from a road-side company on the way to the beach a few years ago.

They were carving them out of palm trees with chainsaws, then tidying them up with more precise tools before going over them with a blowtorch!

It was pretty cool to watch and they had a great selection - up to 8 feet high.

But all this is beside the point. Yesterday I noticed that some crazy woodpecker has been "having a go" at the tiki! Those holes in the forehead weren't there when we bought it!

I've talked about Paul Barrow here before. I met Paul and his fiance (now wife) Beth over Christmas 2006 and it was great to see them again. I knew they were getting married over the summer sometime and planning a big trip to Italy for their honeymoon - in Paul's new hot rod.

Always fun!

And yesterday I found a writeup that they've published about their trip which is awesome. Now I can't wait to read part 2...

As seen on the HAMB. This is clever - www.anytrack.com

Got the latest Journal in the mail today; always a nice surprise although it did seem later this time than normal. I'd already seen the latest one in the local bookstore - shouldn't subscribers get it before the local stores?

Finally got my new cap from them and I'm impressed; fits and looks great!

Dirk got to color my latest tat today. Only took 90 minutes and did an excellent job.

Looking at it now, I suspect that I'll get the cloud modified a bit later - any excuse to get some more work done

P.S. Yes, that's the Royal Tiki logo guy in there - that's where he comes from.

Had to postpone getting my new tat colored for another week. It's not healing quickly enough and is still shiny. I'll go next week instead..