Joe Bob's Creepy Christmas Shudder (2023) The world's greatest hosts are back to celebrate the holiday season with the Mutant Fam, which kicked off at 9:00 tonight with the 1988 horror classic, The Brain. This is the same movie that we got to see five years ago on the MST3K Live tour. It's an over-the-top cheesefest that never gets old!
This Tuesday was our second time visiting Koziar's Christmas Village. Our first trip was during a weekend of December 2021, and the difference between the two experiences have taught us that this place is best experienced on a weekday. The admission price is cheaper, there was no line to wait in to pull into their parking lot, and it was easier to move around once we got inside. Don't get me wrong; the place was still very busy, but we weren't standing shoulder-to-shoulder with people the entire time we were there like we were two years ago.
These photos don't at all do this place justice. If you don't mind large crowds or flashing lights, it's a very fun place to spend a few hours to get into the Christmas season.
We stopped at Jimmy's for lunch on Saturday after catching a movie at the Regal. It's the only place in Hazleton that I can think of that looks and feels pretty much the same as it did when I was growing up in the 80's.
Everything on the menu that I've had at Jimmy's over the years has been delicious, but I tend to order the same thing these days: Jimmy Dogs, a plate of chili cheese fries, a Farmer's Tea, and rice pudding for dessert.
I mentioned that we had stopped at Jimmy's while we were having dinner at the Dutch Apple on Sunday, and my stepmom said that it was funny that I mentioned them because she was doing research on some properties that her company was looking at and she noticed that the restaurant, as well as the apartments above it, were up for sale. I'm hoping that whoever ends up buying the business takes a hands-off approach and allows the business to run in the same way that it has since it opened in 1937, but that's often not how this sort of thing goes.
We bought three different holiday-themed limited edition ice cream flavors over the past month and each of them were incredible. These sandwiches are the simplest of the three, but they're every bit as good as the other ones. You can't go wrong with pumpkin flavored ice cream or ice cream sandwiches, so the combination of the two are about as perfect as a snack food can be. I would buy these things like clockwork every November and December as long as they keep making them.
Friendsgiving Perry's Ice Cream (2023) This is one of the most interesting limited edition products I've come across in a long time. Friendsgiving has an almond flavored ice cream base with swirls of blackberry sauce and chunks of sugar cookie dough mixed in. The taste didn't really remind me of the holidays, but it was delicious. I think this is the kind of thing that would be a big hit all year long if it was repackaged under a different name.
Cranberry Crumble Van Leeuwen (2023) My favorite of the three was this one, and I'm kind of surprised to say that. Over the past few years, I've had Van Leeuwen'sHot Honey, which was tasty, but I didn't love it enough to want to buy it again. I tried their Pizza and Grey Poupon flavors just for the sake of trying something bizarre, but while they weren't as bad as the name suggests that they're going to be, they weren't something that I'd get a second time. Their Kraft Macaroni & Cheese ice cream was ok for the first spoonful or two, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to eat an entire carton of it. The worst one by far was their Hidden Valley Ranch flavor, which is by far the most disgusting ice cream I've ever eaten.
There have been other weird Van Leeuwen flavors that caught my eye at the grocery store, including Arizona Green Tea, Earl Grey Tea, and Dill Pickle, but the Ranch one left such a bad taste in my mouth (literally and figuratively) that I didn't want to try any of them.
I picked up this carton of Cranberry Crumble because I love cranberries and it was on clearance, and I'm very glad that I did because it was one of the best ice cream flavors that I've ever had. It's a cream cheese flavored ice cream with swirls of cranberry sauce and oat crumble pieces mixed throughout. It tastes just like you're biting into a delicious cranberry cobbler, and it's the first one of their flavors that I've had that I would not only buy again, but that I'd stock up on just in case they stop making it.
I played Eternal Champions a lot when I was in middle school, and I wanted to like it, but the controls were very stiff which made it frustrating to play. However, what this game lacked in gameplay, it made up for with an excellent story with interesting characters that kept me coming back.
The story of Eternal Champions is that human beings are on the verge of extinction. A god-like character has identified nine people from across history whose contributions could have had a ripple effect that would have saved the human race, but they were killed before they were able to do so. These characters include a caveman (50,000 BC), a gladiator from Atlantis (110 BC), an alchemist (1692), a circus performer (1899), a mobster (1920), a chemist (1967), an assassin (1993), a bounty hunter (2030) and a kickboxer (2345). The god-like character only has the power to allow one of them to return to their timeline and cheat death, and he has created a tournament in another realm where these characters will fight to determine which of them will be given that opportunity.
The 13-year-old me kept playing this game because I wanted to see how the story would end for each of the characters, but it's such a frustrating experience that I'd only play for short bursts at a time before getting tired of it. I was eventually able to unlock all of the endings with the help of a Game Genie, which is a less than satisfying experience. Truth be told, I found that reading the character profiles in the instruction manual was more fun than the game itself. I've always hoped to see someone take this property and remake it into a more enjoyable video game, but the closest we ever got was a 1995 Sega CD adaptation that added more characters and plot points, but it didn't do much to improve the clunky gameplay.
Despite its flaws, I still look back fondly at this game, but it could have been so much better.
The food was especially good this year. I had carrots, corn, mashed potatoes, brown sugar honey ham, and garlic butter baked cod, but my favorite thing that was on the buffet was their Sticky Glazed Christmas Chicken.
We've had more opportunities to get out to our local Regal since the drive-in closed for the winter. Here are some of the movies that we've gotten to see in the month of December that I haven't written about already.
Dream Scenario A24 (2023) In this movie, Nicolas Cage plays a middle-aged college professor named Paul Matthews who seems bitter towards just about everything in life, including his wife and two daughters. I can't really blame him for his attitude towards his wife and kids though. The four of them are among the most unlikable families in any movie that I've ever seen. They even make Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening in American Beauty seem pleasant in comparison.
The story begins to take shape when Paul Matthews begins to appear in people's dreams, and not just the dreams of the people who know him. It becomes a phenomenon when it happens across the planet to millions of different people of all ages and walks of life. At first, he's just standing around not doing anything in their dreams, but as time goes by, people begin to have nightmares in which Paul is doing terrible things to them. He's doing nothing to cause any of this to happen, but the reaction of the general public to these dreams in combination with his prickly attitude and his desire to capitalize on this notoriety to drive sales of a book that he hasn't even started writing.
I enjoyed this movie for the most part, but I'm not going to gush over it as much as I've seen some other folks do. It's an interesting concept and Cage gives a great performance, but the screenplay is ten pounds of social commentary bullshit in a five pound bag. It's not subtle either; it beats the audience over the head with allegories to cancel culture. Watching this movie feels like you're sitting next to the filmmaker while they keep elbowing you in the ribs and whispering "see that... it's just like when so-and-so got cancelled over such-and-such". I'm not sure if they're trying to dumb things down for the viewer or if they lack ability to create subtle, thought-provoking content, but I found myself rolling my eyes repeatedly throughout this movie. The bracelet technology in the final act was also completely unnecessary. It seemed like a sloppy attempt to shoehorn in even more social commentary, this time about monetization and consumer culture. It would have been a much better movie if the filmmakers could step down off of their soapbox and focus on telling an entertaining story.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Lionsgate Films (2023) I've enjoyed the audiobooks and the movies based on the first three books in this Suzanne Collins series, and while I haven't read or listened to the book for this prequel yet, I have been looking forward to seeing this movie. I can't say how closely it keeps to the source material, but it was better than a lot of prequels that I've seen over the years. It's not quite as action packed as the other films in the series, but it held my interest and it ends in a way that sets up a second prequel that continues the story of Coriolanus Snow's rise to power. I don't think that project has been announced yet, but I'll be shocked if it doesn't happen.
The Cello Rozam Media (2023) I had never even heard of this movie before, but it had a single screening two nights ago at our local Regal, so we decided to go in completely cold. As it happened, The Cello is a horror movie from Saudi Arabia and is mostly in Arabic with English subtitles. There is a bit of spoken English in the film, most of which involves Jeremy Irons, who is for all intent and purposes playing the role of the devil, and Tobin Bell, who plays the role of the devil's servant whose role is to put cursed and/or haunted instruments into the hands of musicians. It's a damn good horror flick, and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to see it on the big screen.
Die Hard 20th Century Fox (1988) Last, but not least, they have brought the 1988 classic Die Hard back to theaters for the holiday season. We got to see it on 35mm at the Mahoning for this season's Christmas In July. It's one of my favorites and I was too young to see it in theaters when it was first released 35 years ago, but I'm very glad to be able to see it at a drive-in and in an indoor cinema in 2023.
Using artificial intelligence to create images from text prompts was all the rage a few years ago, so naturally, I'm just now starting to play with it. This is what it generated when I typed in my full legal name as it appears on my birth certificate.
This is what came out when I typed in a brief description of myself. It's definitely closer than the first image, but I think the AI is being a little too kind, particularly with my weight.
Here are some of the other things that Skynet came up with.
Here is a family of aliens drinking coffee.
And here is Godzilla in a bubble bath eating a cheeseburger. I'm not sure why it added two weird fish blimps flying in the skies above the city, but they were a nice touch.
I tried a few times to get it to put the Phillie Phanatic, but it never came close. The most amusing result was when I typed in "Phillie Phanatic riding a dinosaur in outer space".
I typed in "Man Eating Christmas Tree" expecting to get a monster tree that eats people, but it seems that AI has a habit of taking things literally.
...so I tried to be a little more specific and typed in Killer Christmas Tree Demon and... well... it's a demon all right. I'm not sure what disturbs me more, the jingle bell earrings or the Douglas Fir thong.
Speaking of demonic things, here is Mr. Rogers if he was a Satanic priest.
It's time to step away from evil and into things that are bizarre just for the sake of being bizarre. This is Van Gogh'sStarry Night if it was sponsored by Pepsi.
My first experiences with AI ended with a trio of Seinfeld images starting with Jerry as a mafia don. Apparently he lost a finger on his right hand at some point in his criminal career.
Last, but certainly not least, this is supposed to be George Costanza riding on the back of a whale. It looks like he's put on a few pounds. Now that I look at it again, he looks a little like a white Al Roker. He has been joined in the ocean by a man that appears to be a Costanza/Newman hybrid and a third bald man in a hoodie. I think this one is my favorite of them all.
It's no secret that inflation has hit hard since the pandemic, but while prices have gone up on just about everything, the increase has not been equal. As a result, a Cajun-seasoned chicken and shrimp dinner with garlic mashed potatoes costs roughly the same (give or take a dollar) as a McDonald's Value Meal. Now I love a good fast food burger, but given the choice between the two, I'm going to have to go with Applebee's.
We also split an order of Chicken Wonton Tacos as an appetizer when we stopped at Applebee's a few days ago. They're made from crispy wonton shells filled with sweet chili marinated grilled chicken topped with coleslaw and cilantro. They weren't bad, but I think this is something I'd try to make in the kitchen before I'd order them again.
I've been a fan of Godzilla movies since I was seven years old. I haven't seen every one ever made, but I've watched a hell of a lot of them over the past 36 years, and I have no hesitation in saying that Godzilla Minus One is my favorite out of all the ones I've seen.
Godzilla Minus One begins in the final days of World War II and it tells the story of a young kamikaze pilot named Kōichi Shikishima who refuses his suicide mission and is one of only two survivors of a Godzilla attack on Odo Island. The story continues in the years following the war. Shikishima returns home after the war to find that his family has been killed. He and two other survivors come together to become a family of their own as they struggle to survive and rebuild with the looming threat of the giant monster.
It's a much more dramatic and human-centered story than any of the Godzilla movies that I've seen before, and it's absolutely fantastic. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone whether they're fan of kaiju movies or not.
As you can see in the instructions at the top right corner, the game on the card was essentially meaningless. It pretty much told you to keep scratching off doors until you found a blue key, and then scratch off the door in the bottom left hand corner to free the princess. Unless you scratched the "void if removed" square, there was no way to lose up to this point. The part of the game card that really mattered was the door in the bottom right corner. If the Cookie Dragon was hiding underneath, the game card is a loser, but if it had the name of a NES game, you would win a copy of that game.
This contest was advertised in a commercial that aired during Saturday morning and afternoon cartoon blocks throughout November and December 1989. It showed the five games that you could potentially win by playing the game.
The standout title in the lot is Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, which I had when I was a kid and wrote about in greater detail earlier this week for its 35th birthday in the United States.
The other game from this contest that I had when I was a kid was Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II. It was a pretty fun platformer that had elements of adventure and early RPG games. I bought it from a store in Hazleton called Toy Works that would occasionally put NES games on sale for $9.99. New games usually cost about 40 or 50 bucks in the late 80's and early 90's, and this was pretty far out of reach for me when I was 11 years old. However, I was able to save up ten bucks once in a while and pick up a game at Toy Works. They weren't the kind of top shelf titles that get talked about with reverence by retro gamers these days, but I had a lot of fun with them.
I only have a vague memory of Win Lose Or Draw or Blades Of Steel, but I definitely remember playing WWF Wrestlemania when I was a kid. It was a game that I always had fun playing over a friend's house but I never owned it when I was growing up. Still, if you can only get one wrestling game on NES, my recommendation is Pro Wrestling. It doesn't have the licensed wrestlers or music from the WWF but I think it's a better video game.
Even if you weren't one of the lucky winners of the Rescue The Cookie Queen promotion, you could still receive a prize if your family ate enough cookies. If you mailed in one of the game cards with four UPC barcodes cut off of a package of Oreo or Chips Ahoy cookies, they'd send you a free issue of Nintendo Power magazine. When you see the insane amount of money that these magazines sell for on eBay these days, the issue of Nintendo Power may have been the more valuable prize. My subscription started with the third issue and continued for a few years. Those copies that I had are long gone (probably thrown away by my mother), but if I still had them today, I'd be able to sell them for enough to buy a halfway decent used car. It's crazy how things like that play out over the passage of time... makes me wonder what we have laying around the house these days that could go on to sell for hundreds of dollars in the future.
Click here to visit archive.org for a high resolution scan of the front and back of the game card, and thank you to IHateDiskettes for scanning and sharing it.
