A Festive Holiday Rant

Christmas Movie Showdown
Rotten Tomatoes (2020)

I don't know if these brackets are evidence that the world has collectively lost its mind, but they're most certainly a supporting argument.  Might as well begin by slaughtering one of the sacred cows that seems to pop up as a debate topic every year (right alongside "is a hotdog a sandwich").

Die Hard is not a Christmas movie.  It's an action movie that happens to take place at Christmas.  If I drink a glass of Sharkleberry Fin on December 25th, that doesn't mean that it gets classified alongside Eggnog as a Christmas drink...even if someone puts a little Santa sticker on the package.  Some things are part of Christmas.  Some things just exist with Christmas in the background.  Just look at the poster... do you see anything Christmassy going on there?  Also, it's was released to theaters on July 15th, 1988.  I know we're all guilty of rushing the season, but even The Christmas Tree Shops aren't playing Jingle Bells over the loudspeaker in mid July.

While we're at it, I'm going to go ahead and call bull on a few others.  Gremlins is a horror flick that just so happens to take place during the Christmas season.  The actual holiday plays almost no role in the film whatsoever.  And although it's a classic film that gets played on cable during the holidays, It's A Wonderful Life is borderline.  It has a much stronger case to be called a Christmas movie than either Die Hard or Gremlins because it was actually released during the holidays and the whole story unfolds as it is being told by one angel to another on Christmas Eve, but when 99% of the events of a film have nothing at all to do with the holiday season, it's at least worthy of debate.  Forrest Gump celebrates New Years with Lieutenant Dan, but that doesn't make it a New Years flick.  For it to be a holiday movie, the movie has to at least be partially about the holiday, which is why It's A Wonderful Life gets a free pass, while Die Hard and Gremlins can sit on the Action and Horror shelf.  It still shouldn't be ranked ahead of A Christmas Story, but it's at least they're comparable.

While a respectable argument could be made over which is the better film between It's A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story, the same cannot be said for this match up.  The fact that anyone would even consider picking Home Alone 2 over Scrooged is proof that we, as a species, do not deserve the sheer genius that is Bill Murray.  I don't even think Macaulay Culkin would try to make that argument.  Scrooged is an absolute masterpiece in every sense of the word.  The Home Alone sequel was a blatant cash grab to piggyback off of the success of the first film before Culkin got too old to reprise the role.

As bad as that decision is, it pales in comparison to the absolute miscarriage of justice of ranking Home Alone 2 over A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Look, I'll be the first one to say that Charlie Brown, the original Grinch cartoon, and the Rankin/Bass Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer special don't belong on this list.  They're not movies; they're animated tv specials.  However, if you're going to put A Charlie Brown Christmas in a bracket relating to the holidays, you declare it the winner immediately and work backwards from there.  It is the gold standard.  The whole damn thing could rightfully be called the Charlie Brown Christmas Memorial Tournament.

I will fully admit that I'm not the biggest fan of Will Ferrell, but this is the one time that I really enjoyed his performance.  His starry-eyed, deer in headlights schtick is a perfect fit for Buddy The Elf.  Bob Newhart and James Caan take turns as the straight man for Ferrell to play off of, and it works perfectly.

Elf is a good movie, and it holds its own alongside other family holiday classics, such as The Santa Clause and Jingle All The Way.  I'll even go so far as to call it the best holiday movie of the 21st century so far.  However, it doesn't hold a candle to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

The opening credits of the Chevy Chase classic have more genuine laughs than most Christmas movies have in their entire runtime.  By the time Cousin Eddie is introduced, there have already been about a dozen scenes and quotable lines that have become synonymous with the holiday season for over thirty years, and the best parts are just getting started.  I can understand Scrooged not being everyone's cup of tea, but I've never met anyone who doesn't absolutely love National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  It is the #1 Christmas movie of all-time.

Last, but not least, let's talk about the first round match between The Nightmare Before Christmas and How The Grinch Stole Christmas.  This one is almost as bad as Home Alone 2 getting the nod over Charlie Brown and Bill Murray.  No one out there can seriously take a look at these two films and pick The Grinch as the superior work, can they?  One is a live action adaptation of a children's book which was already brought to the screen in a perfect holiday cartoon.  It was also made in opposition to the author's consent, as Dr. Seuss refused to sell the film rights to his books when he was alive.  The other is perhaps the greatest work of stop-motion animation, and one of the most original and creative stories ever told in an animated film.

I haven't even mentioned the glaring omissions from this tournament, like The Ref, Christmas With The Kranks, Prancer and Santa Claus: The Movie.  I wouldn't say that they're contenders for the top spot, but they definitely deserve a mention and a watch during the holiday season. and they're guaranteed to do a better job of putting you in a festive mood that seeing John McClane drop Hans Gruber off of a building (as gratifying as that may be).

May The Force Be With Yule

In honor of the season finale of The Mandalorian, here is a little Santa Yoda pin that I found on clearance at The Disney Store in Lancaster a couple of years ago.

This Is The Way The World Ends...

Grab your Chocolate Payday and head over to CBS All Access.  The world is ending today, not with a bang, but with a new adaptation of the greatest post-apocalyptic story ever written.

PS: I took this photo in July.  If I took it today in the same spot, you would be lucky to see the top of the book.  The rest would be buried in snow.

Hills Is Where The Toys Are

Christmas In Toyland coloring book
Hills Department Store
Someone recently shared this photo of a coloring book to the @HillsDeptStores page on Twitter.  I'm not sure what year the book is from, but the ad on the front for the coloring contest brought back some fond memories of the days when the chain would frequently offer perks to children who visited the store, like free pictures that you could color in and bring back for a chance to win a prize.

With this in mind, I headed to Newspapers.com and found each of the Christmas coloring contest pages that Hills offered from 1983 to 1989.  The bottom two are from my local store in West Hazleton.  Feel free to grab your Crayola, print off a few copies and enjoy!

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

The Ghost Of Christmas Past

A Christmas Tradition
Ben Marcune (1994)
This artwork by Ben Marcune was created for a Christmas card to commemorate Hess's Department Store in downtown Allentown, PA.  It was the chain's flagship store which opened in 1897 and was known for the Christmas display that decorated the front of the store each December.  Hess's went out of business in 1994 and the store was sold to The Bon-Ton, who closed it for good in January, 1996.

The cards were sold by the Allentown Downtown Improvement District Authority shortly after Hess's ended their operation.  They sold out of their first print run of 20,000 in just three days.

The Stars Of David

Dave Dombrowski
Philadelphia Phillies President of Baseball Operations

This past Friday, the Phillies announced that they have hired Dave Dombrowski to serve as the President of Baseball Operations.  I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this hiring.  While it is true that his time as General Manager and/or President of the Expos, Marlins, Tigers and Red Sox have resulted in 9 playoff appearances, 4 pennants and 2 World Series Championships, he has also earned a reputation of signing players for ridiculous sums of money in bloated, long term contracts that financially handcuff the teams who are stuck paying for them.

My experiences of Mr. Dombrowski as a fan of the sport began when I was 11 and 12 years old.  I lived with my dad, stepmom and stepsister in South Florida in the early 90's.  Dad and I went to a lot of ballgames together in those years, which included our local Florida State League minor league club, the West Palm Beach Expos.  The team had two superstar prospects that fans were especially excited to see: outfielder Rondell White and pitcher Tavo Alvarez.  Although I didn't know it at the time, both players were drafted by Montreal Expos general manager Dave Dombrowski.

In what must have been a dream come true for a young baseball executive, Mr. Dombrowski was hired to be the first general manager of the expansion Florida Marlins club in September 1991.  This gave him the opportunity to build a team from scratch, including the manager, the coaching staff, the scouting department and, of course, the 1992 Expansion Draft.  I still remember watching the Expansion Draft with my dad on ESPN and watching as the Marlins and Rockies went from being just a couple of logos in the newspaper to full Major League Baseball clubs with a roster of players, some of whom we had actually heard of.

I was a 12 year old living in South Florida during the '92 Expansion Draft and the first half of the Marlins inaugural 1993 season.  I was then, and am still, a fan of the Phillies, but as a young kid, I was a bit more of an equal opportunity fan of the game itself.  I rooted for players like Nolan Ryan, Frank Thomas, Ken Griffey Jr, and even division rivals like Bobby Bonilla and Ozzie Smith.  I don't know if I'd go so far as to say I was a Marlins fan back then, but I definitely paid very close attention to them, and I rooted for them to win unless they were playing the Phillies.  In the months leading up to the 1993 season, I obsessively read any information I could find about the Marlins.  The most notable news was when Dombrowski signed two former All-Stars in catcher Benito Santiago and knuckleballer Charlie Hough.  He also took Miami Hurricanes catcher Charles Johnson in first round of the '92 amateur draft and lured slugger Orestes Destrade back to the United States from Japan.

  

They also took a number of players in the Expansion Draft who became household names for South Florida baseball fans in the early 90's, including Blue Jays prospect Nigel Wilson, Angels veteran pitcher Bryan Harvey, speedy outfielder Chuck Carr, the man who would go on to be known as Mr. Marlin, Jeff Conine, and future Hall of Fame closer Trevor Hoffman.  I went to two games in '93 where I saw Hoffman pitch for the Marlins (May 19th vs the Phillies and June 11th vs the Pirates).  Of course, none of us knew that we were watching the rookie season of a legend, but Dave Dombrowski must have saw something in the young pitcher.  In a move that would become characteristic of the GM, he traded Hoffman and two other prospects to the Padres for slugger Gary Sheffield in late June during the '93 season.  Sheffield would be a key to the Marlins to become the fastest team to go from an expansion ballclub to a World Series Champion in 1997.  It would be difficult for anyone to argue that the trade wasn't worth it, but Hoffman would go on to have a Hall of Fame career as one of the most dominant closers in the history of the game.

 

I rooted for the Marlins in '97 after Darren Daulton was traded to the team.  Dutch wasted no time in becoming a clubhouse leader, both on and off the field.  He dominated in the post season, batting .364 against a very tough Braves and Indians team in the NLCS and World Series.  In what would be the final games of his career, Daulton played in all seven games of the World Series, going 7 for 18 with a home run and two RBI.  While I was very happy to see the Phillies legend end his career with a World Series ring, it marked the end of my time following the club.  I was back in Pennsylvania, so I wasn't going to games in Miami anymore, and with Daulton retiring after the '97 season, the last remaining reasons I had to keep a close eye on the team was gone.  Unfortunately for Marlins fans, the team's owners felt the same way.

Almost immediately after the 1997 World Series, Dave Dombrowski was ordered to trade away all of the team's expensive talent seconds after the last piece of confetti fell from their championship parade.  It really was a shame for the city, because they took a golden opportunity to turn Miami into a true baseball city and flushed it down the toilet.  However, none of the blame for this could be placed on Dombrowski.  

  

The Marlins would go on to win another World Series in 2003 around a core of young talent that Dave Dombrowski acquired in the fire sale after the 1997 Championship Season.  However, by this point, the Marlins first general manager had moved on.  After the 2001 season, Dombrowski accepted a position as the President and CEO of the Detroit Tigers; a position he held for fourteen years.

In his time with the Tigers, Dombrowski oversaw the drafting of Justin Verlander, Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller and Rick Porcello.  He quickly flipped Maybin and Miller to the Marlins for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis.  The Marlins ace fizzled out in the American League, but Cabrera developed into one of the greatest players of his generation, winning back-to-back AL MVP awards in 2012 and 2013.  His 2012 season was other worldly as he became the first AL Triple Crown winner since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, and the first non-outfielder to win a Triple Crown since Lou Gehrig in 1934.  Dombrowski also fleeced the rest of the league in lop sided trades that brought Placido Polanco and Edwin Jackson to Detroit.  A year after acquiring him from the Rays, he flipped Jackson (with Curtis Granderson) for Max Scherzer and Austin Jackson.

In his tenure with the Tigers, Dombrowski took a team that had reached the playoffs four times in a 60 year span (from 1946 to 2005) and built it into a perennial contender that finished on top of the AL Central for four consecutive seasons (2011-2014).  His Tigers reached the Playoffs five times, including two World Series appearances (in 2006 and 2011).  He may have thrown around some ridiculous money (including the Prince Fielder contract), but his time in Detroit could be called nothing short of a miraculous success by any objective measure.

  

Dombrowski was named the President of Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox in August of 2015 - two weeks after he was let go by the Tigers.  He got to work quickly by trading for Chris Sale before the 2017 season and signing JD Martinez before the 2018 season, both of which were keys to the Boston Red Sox 2018 World Series Championship.

However, it hasn't all been historic turnarounds and World Series parades for the Mr. Dombrowski.  This is, after all, the man who traded Randy Johnson the year after his rookie season from the Expos to the Mariners in exchange for one year of Mark Langston.  He also traded a young Jair Jurrjens from the Tigers to the Braves for a one year rental of Edgar Renteria.  However, the real eyebrow raising moments have come when he spent a ridiculous amount, in dollars and in years, to a trio of Red Sox pitchers: David Price (7 years, $217 million), Nate Eovaldi (4 years, $68 million) and Chris Sale (5 years, $145 million).  The Prince Fielder contract also is a cause for concern.  Before the start of the 2012 season, he was signed to a nine year, $214 million dollar contract.  Dombrowski got out from under that disastrous contract by trading Fielder to the Rangers for Ian Kinsler, but it stands as one of the worst contracts in the history of the game.  The Rangers released Fielder after the 2017 season, and he's being paid top dollar to sit at home for three seasons (2018 through 2020).

  

So, now he's in Philadelphia.  I don't know what the future will hold for a Phillies team that seemed hell bent on cutting salary as we enter 2021, but one thing is for certain.  They hired a President of Baseball Operations who is not know for sitting on his hands.  The executive that will steer she ship for the next four seasons is known for bold, impactful moves.  Whether he can take the Phillies to the World Series as he did his previous three teams remains to be seen, but there's reason to be optimistic in the City of Brotherly Love as we move forward.

Santa's Mug

Santa's Mug
Hills (1980's)

One of the best parts about Hills Department Store was the snack bar, which was located right inside the entrance of the store at Valmont Plaza in Hazleton when I was growing up.  The snack bar's location gave shoppers the overwhelming scent of hot, buttery popcorn as soon as they walked into the building.  That's where they sold this Christmas mug of Santa standing above a massive bag of popcorn while he's holding the very same mug that he's pictured on.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a picture of this mug in any of the Hills ads that I've come across, so I can't say what year it was available, but it was definitely sold at some point during the 80's or 90's.  Below are some ads for things that were available at the Hills Snack Bar from 1991 - 1994.  I can almost smell the popcorn just looking at them.

Pizza On Earth, Goodwill Towards Pan

Christmas Pizza
Pizza Hut UK (2020)

For a limited time this holiday season, Pizza Hut in the UK is offering a Christmas Pizza.  It's made with rotisserie chicken, crispy bacon, sage and onion stuffing, and it has a red wine gravy base.  Unfortunately, it's not available in the United States, but we did get this festive box that holds three medium pizzas.

Crazy, Kooky Fun With The World's Greatest Host

Joe Bob Saves Christmas
Shudder (2020)
For the third consecutive year, the great Joe Bob Briggs will be hosting a horror movie special.  In 2018, it was a marathon of Phantasm movies.  Last year, it was a triple feature of Black Christmas, Jack Frost and Silent Night Deadly Night 2.  We'll find out what this year's films will be tonight at 9:00.

Mrs. Claus Has Covid

It's not everyday that you get an email from your local minor league franchise informing you that the wife of Santa Claus has fallen victim to a global pandemic, but apparently it's just par for the course here in 2020.

Still, even for a year as crazy as this, receiving an email from a baseball team with the subject line: Mrs. Claus has COVID struck me as a little bit odd.  Next they'll be telling me that my grandma got run over by a reindeer.

Ear Masks

The Identity Crisis Collection
Mik Knacks (2020)

This is a pretty clever gift idea for the holidays.  If you know a wrestling fan with pierced ears, you can choose from earrings of Hayabusa, Sting, Jushin Thunder Liger, Kane or Rey Mysterio Jr.

I Want To Believe In The Galactic Federation

I loved watching The X-Files when I was a teenager.  Possibly because of this, my grandmother went a little crazy getting me any alien-related thing she could find.  My bedroom back then had a grey alien head bank, a big green plastic alien head that was a lollipop container from a drug store, and there was an alien poster on the wall.  I never had the one from Fox Mulder's office, but I always kind of wanted it because I agreed with the sentiment.  I have always believed that there was life on other planets, but I never bought into the idea of UFOs or aliens visiting the Earth.  However, like Mulder, I want to believe.

If Professor Haim Eshed is to be believed, Mulder and Scully may have been onto something.  Just when you thought that 2020 couldn't get any crazier, we're ending the year with a revaluation that aliens are among us.  In a recent interview with Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth, Professor Eshed claimed that a Galactic Federation from outer space has come to Earth and have been working with the governments of Israel and the United States for many years.  According to the professor, the aliens want to remain hidden from the general public to prevent mass hysteria.  He also alleges that Donald Trump was going to reveal this to the public, but he was talked out of doing so.

As outlandish as this story is on the surface, the source that it's coming from gives a bit of a reason for pause.  Mr. Eshed doesn't fit the mold of a random crackpot professor looking for attention.  He worked for the Israeli space program from 1981 to 2010, he was the head of Israeli’s security space program, and he's a three-time winner of the Israel Security Award.  The 87 year old said that he's revealing what he knows because, at his age, he has nothing to lose.

So, is any of this information legit?  Probably not, but what a fitting end to 2020 this would be if it were true.

Source: The New York Post / The Jerusalem Post

A True Hall Of Fame Talent

Dick Allen
Philadelphia Phillies (1B / 3B)

The best eligible player to not be in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, and one of the most fearsome bats in the history of the game, has passed away earlier today.  The legendary Phillies slugger came within one vote of being elected to the Hall of Fame by the Golden Era Committee in his most recent year of eligibility.  He's was scheduled to be on the ballot again in 2020, but voting has been postponed until 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The way this man was treated by the fans and press during his playing career was shameful, and the fact that he wasn't elected to the Hall Of Fame while he was still with us to enjoy it is downright criminal.

Mr. Allen's 1964 season is one of the most remarkable performances by a rookie in the history of the game.  The dynamic superstar crashed into the league batting .318 with 29 home runs, and he led the league in extra base hits, runs, triples and total bases.  He won Rookie Of The Year and finished 7th in the MVP voting.  He would go on to win the AL MVP Award in 1972 for the White Sox, and was a 7 time All-Star.  In the 11 year span from 1964 to 1974, Allen hit 299 with 319 home runs and was second only to Hank Aaron with a .940 OPS.  His career OPS+ is the second highest of any retired player who hasn't already been inducted into the Hall of Fame (only Mark McGwire's is higher, and his career totals were artificially enhanced by steroid use and, in my opinion, invalid).

In 1994, the Phillies legend was inducted to the Wall of Fame, and his #15 was retired by the franchise earlier this season.  Sadly, he did not get to participate in a ceremony in front of the fans, due again to the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

I only ever got to see Mr. Allen play on videotape because he retired three years before I was born, but I got to see him once in person during Alumni Night in 2017.  I grew up hearing stories about him because he was my dad's favorite player when he was a kid.

One of the things I was most looking forward to in 2020 was the August 9th game.  It was scheduled to be this season's Alumni Night, where Phillies legends return to and meet with the fans.  Dad wasn't with me at the game in 2017, but we ordered tickets before either of us ever heard of Covid-19 to go to this game.  I was looking forward to sitting next to my pop while we both watched the heroes of our respective childhoods take the field at Citizens Bank Park, including the legendary Dick Allen.

 

I don't really believe in an afterlife; at least not the kind that are written about in religious books.  However, if the Christians have it right and there's a heaven out there somewhere that allows us to connect with family and friends who have passed, I hope that Dick is having a catch with Tony Taylor tonight.

Rest in peace, Mr. Allen.  Thank you for giving my dad an awesome ballplayer to cheer for when he was a kid, and for remaining strong and proud in the face of ignorance, and for being a huge part of something that my dad and I have shared throughout our lives.

Grand Theft Story: San Junipero

Ready Player Two
Ernest Cline (2020)

It's been a few days since I finished reading Ready Player Two.  In that time, I've avoided other reviews and opinions of the book, and I've spent more than a little time trying to process what I think of it.  Overall, my thoughts on the work of Ernest Cline are a bit conflicting.  He seems like a cool dude, and I think he's a creative person who comes up with interesting ideas.  However, as much as I have enjoyed the world that he's built in his novels, I find myself wishing that they came from a more talented writer.  I would never go so far as to say that Cline is a hack, but there are large parts of Ready Player One and Armada that are glorified lists of pop culture references from the 80's and 90's.  That sort of thing is like a drug to a person like me: enjoyable in the moment, but unsatisfying once the initial high has worn off.  If that was the only issue I had with his novels, I wouldn't even have mentioned it.  Sadly, it is not.

I first began to question Cline's creative process after reading Armada.  It's a fun story, but to say that it "borrows" from other works of fiction would be a massive understatement.  It is, essentially, a direct copy of Ender's Game (minus the creepy incest undertones) with plot elements from The Last Starfighter liberally sprinkled throughout.  The similarities aren't subtle either.  I'm honestly shocked that Orson Scott Card hasn't taken legal action.  Despite recognizing this as I was reading it, I found myself looking for excuses to defend the author.  After all, it is possible that two authors could create two different works that have similar elements.  For example, The Hunger Games has quite a bit in common with Battle Royale.  However, while I can absolutely believe that Susan Collins wrote her novel without ever having heard of its Japanese counterpart from a decade earlier, I cannot extend the same benefit of the doubt to Ernest Cline.  The author of Ready Player One and Armada makes specific references to Ender's Game and The Last Starfighter numerous times, even going so far as to name drop the titles in his own stories.  He knew where the ideas for his stories came from, and he arguably used them to write a story that is virtually identical.

Fast forward to 2020 and Ready Player Two.  This is a book that I've looked forward to since I read the last page of Ready Player One.  I'm very sad to say that has less in common with the first book in the series, and more in common with the plagiarism tightrope act of Armada.  It heavily borrows from the 1995 film Strange Days and the Black Mirror episode: San Junipero, but with a fraction of the heart or creativity that Charlie Brooker brought to his world.  Unlike Armada, if you ignore the fact that the plot is a blatant rip off, you're not left with an especially engaging or enjoyable story.  Ready Player Two is a complete mess.

The futuristic world of 2045 that Cline created nine years ago was dark, depressing, and even more fascinating than the VR world of The Oasis that the inhabitants of this world escape to.  That world is virtually non-existent in Ready Player Two.  The vast majority of its pages take place in The Oasis (via the new, fully immersive Oni technology), with barely a passing reference to the crumbling of the world around them.  It doesn't feel like a dystopian world, not because the world of the story has gotten better, but because the author has ignored it altogether.

Wade's quest for the seven shards starts off on the right foot.  The Sega Ninja challenge and the adventure on Planet Shermer were especially fun, but it goes sharply downhill after that.  The quest on the Prince planet goes on, and on, and on, and on, and dear god almighty, just go write a novel about Prince and get on with the story already!  As long and drawn out as it was, it at least started out as a mildly interesting concept.  The same could not be said for the J.R.R. Tolkien challenge that followed, which felt like it went on forever and was boring from start to finish.  It's only been about a week since I read it and I've already forgotten what the challenge in that Tolkien world actually was.  By the time Wade and Samantha found the Shard, I didn't even care.  I was just glad it was over.

The novel introduces a side quest from another group of gunters called the Low Five, which is led by a young transgender woman named Skylar Adkins (aka: Lohengrin).  Their hunt for a sword called The Dorkslayer seems to have been inserted into the story to give the author an excuse to write a spin-off novel of their adventure.  I might have been excited to read it if the rest of Ready Player Two wasn't such a dumpster fire.

Quite frankly, Skylar is the only interesting character, new or old, in the entire book.  All of the returning characters are presented as flat, one-dimensional parodies of themselves, and the other new characters are so forgettable that I genuinely can't remember any of their names.  The worst is Nolan Sorrento, whose presence in this story is completely pointless.  Andy Weir wrote a fanfiction which gave a backstory to the Ready Player One villain.  Cline gave it his endorsement, but sadly, it is barely even hinted at in Ready Player Two.

  

After the success of the first film at the box office, I'm sure that Ready Player Two will be turned into a movie.  I usually don't care for remakes, especially when they substantially change the story.  However, I'm begging for a remake of this franchise before the ink is even dry on the sequel.  There are a lot of really good ideas trapped inside the pages of two books with too many flaws to ignore.  It brings me no joy to rip into this the way that I have.  I wanted to love Ready Player Two, and I made enough excuses to get past the problems with Armada and enjoy it for what it was, but this story hasn't just jumped the shark; it has jumped the aquatic population of Sea World.

I feel terrible saying this, but I just can't justify making excuses for Cline anymore.  If you loved the first book and haven't gotten around to Ready Player Two yet, do yourself a favor - pretend it doesn't exist, and read Off To Be The Wizard by Scott Meyer instead.  You can thank me later.

Stray CRTs

It's been a fairly common thing to see old CRT televisions sitting on the side of the road for the past decade or so.  Televisions today have more features and are less expensive than they've ever been, even if you don't consider inflation, so most folks don't seem to have a need for sets like these.  I have a hunch that these are the sort of things that will sell for a fortune in antique stores 20 years from now.

The Voice Of Wrestling In The Kitchen

I'm looking forward to making wings with JR's Barbecue Sauce and dipping soft pretzels in Sweet & Spicy Mustard.  Also, the book is going to keep me busy for a little while.

Thank you, Jim Ross!

Advent Calendar Artwork

This coloring page was on the back of a chocolate advent calendar that I purchased last year.  I don't remember what company made the advent calendar or where I bought it, but I wanted to preserve it on here.  I had to scan it in pieces, and I didn't do a fantastic job of putting it together as a single image, but it should still be fun to color if you want to print a copy.

The other side of the box had photos of the chocolate pieces that were inside the advent calendar.  The cute little turtle and the very grouchy looking Santa Claus are my favorites.

The Fall Of A Jedi

David Prowse

1935-2020
The man who played Darth Vader in all but the voice passed away on Saturday.  The 85 year old actor, who is also known for his role as a bodyguard in both A Clockwork Orange and the BBC TV adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, was in a London hospital for the previous two weeks after falling ill from Covid-19.

Rest well, Lord Vader, and thank you for being a huge part of a magical world that has brought hope and joy to millions.

Dimeo's Jukebox

Dimeo's Jukebox
TG Virtual Ltd (2020)
I learned about this game recently on a Techmoan video.  Matt showed a very cool They Might By Giants record that has an animated gif effect printed on the vinyl that can be seen when it's played at the right speed.  There were a few other interesting music-related oddities featured in the video, but the main thing that caught my attention was the fact that a brand new Nintendo Game Boy game is being released today.  It's a music based puzzle game that was designed and programmed by Rob Dimeo.  It's pretty awesome to see that new games continue to be developed for vintage consoles.

Check out the trailer for the game on YouTube.