Wishing you all a fabulous 2009, may it be productive and full of surprises! Good luck and good night!

Image via plan59.com

This photo by famed photographer Julius Shulman looks absolutely lovely. I wish I had a cocktail lounge like that in my penthouse apartment. The Mid-Century Modernist has a bunch of more photos and information.

Image via Shorpy.com

Check out this scanned article from Popular Science back in 1966 featuring the zany gadgets that was used in the 007 movie Thunderball. Thank you Royalton for the tip!

Some of the gadgets actually are buckled onto Connery’s famous back. One is the Bell jet-pack flying belt Bond uses in the beginning of the film to escape from a French chateau. Connery has to wear a special Dacron suit whose color won’t bleach out when touched by the belt’s highly concentrated peroxide fuel. The belt provides about 20 seconds of flight, but only 10 seconds is used for the upward flight. It would be disastrous to run out of power a couple of hundred feet up in the air.