The Dawn Of The Whiz Kids

Life Magazine
March 27, 1950
This article was published during Spring Training in 1950.  This season's Philadelphia Phillies ballclub, which would go down in history as the Whiz Kids, went 91-63 to overtake the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants to win their second pennant in franchise history.  [1][2]

Taco Fueled Retro Gaming

Atari Kids Meal
Taco Bell (2010)

For a limited time, you will receive a vintage Atari game on CD Rom with any purchase of a Taco Bell Kids Meal.  Each game is compatible with Windows or Mac, and will also be available to purchase separately for about $1.50 per game.

The four games that are available are Asteroids, Super Breakout, Lunar Lander and Centipede.  There are three different levels of difficult, and each CD Rom includes a port of the original game as well as a second version of the game based on the Atari Classics Evolved re-release on PSP.

Is It Worse To Live As A Monster, Or Die As A Good Man

The Crazies / Shutter Island
RC Theaters Movies 14 - Wilkes-Barre, PA
We took in a double feature on Saturday that included a remake of a classic George Romero horror flick from 1973 and the film adaptation of a Dennis Lehane psychological mystery novel.

The Crazies was originally written and directed in 1973 by zombie film icon George A. Romero.  It shares a lot of the same qualities as a zombie flick, but the threat doesn't come from the dead coming back to life to attack the living.  It instead comes from people who have been infected with a virus who have been driven mad and attack those who are healthy.  On the surface, this may seem like an unimportant detail, but it adds an element that isn't present in every zombie film.  A zombie is already dead, so shooting it in the head is just "deactivating" a body that's already dead, but if you shoot a person who's sick, you're killing them.  Now, imagine that the person you're shooting is a friend, or a family member, or your spouse, or your child.  The idea that you're killing someone who can't help themselves instead of helping to cure them is a whole different story compared to putting down a zombie.

This is a plot device that was done to perfection in 28 Days Later, and while the remake of The Crazies doesn't quite reach that level, it's a damn good film that lives up to, if not surpasses, the source material.

I haven't read the novel that Shutter Island is based on, but I might have to check it out because the movie was absolutely incredible.  Leonardo DiCaprio is gold in just about everything he does, and this film is no exception.

The story is set in the 1950's with two US Marshals traveling to an asylum as a part of their investigation on the disappearance of a woman who killed her children.  Anything more that I could say would run the risk of spoiling parts of the story, but the mystery unfolds with several very satisfying twists and turns, and the end result is the best movie I've seen in quite a while.  I strongly recommend it.

The BK Broiler

BK Broiler
Burger King (1990-2002)
The BK Broiler is one of my favorite fast food sandwiches that I've ever eaten.  It was reformulated a few times during its run, and was eventually replaced by the Chicken Whopper in 2002.  Although the Chicken Whopper is, in my opinion, a much catchier name, they changed something about the chicken patty, so the sandwich wasn't as tasty as the one that I fell in love with as a teenager.

The BK Broiler was added to the Burger King menu in February 1990.  It was a broiled chicken patty that was originally served on an oat bran roll with lettuce, tomato and a dill-ranch mayonnaise dressing.  Unlike most of the fast food chicken sandwiches I've had over the years, the chicken wasn't dry or rubbery.  It was tender, juicy and absolutely delicious.  It tasted like the kind of sandwich that you could get at Chick-fil-A, but at a fraction of the cost, and from a fast food chain that was much easier to find in my part of Pennsylvania.

I didn't try one of these when they first came out in 1990, but I ate a lot of them when I worked at Burger King as a teenager in 1995 and 1996.  I don't remember them having a special bun or sauce by that point.  I'm pretty sure we just used the Whopper buns and mayo, but I could be wrong.  When I made my own sandwiches for my break, I usually topped it with bacon, pickles, lettuce, tomato and just a little bit of mayo.  That wasn't the standard sandwich recipe, but anybody could order it like that if they wanted to.  Their motto was "have it your way" after all, and I'm sure the franchise owners were all happy to add whatever the upcharge was for bacon.

I really think they could make this successful if it was marketed correctly.  Even if they weren't committed to making it an everyday menu item, it could be a big hit if they made it a seasonal item and treated it with the same reverence in their advertisement that McDonald's has for their McRib and Shamrock Shake.

 

I lied about my age to work at Burger King when I was 15, so that slogan must have had an impact.
Actually, it's become somewhat of a lifestyle choice for me.

Sadly, the BK Broiler doesn't seem to be coming back any time soon, but it lives on through nerdy blogs like this.  There are also a few copycat recipes on the web.  I haven't tried any of them yet, but it's not a super complicated sandwich, so I'm thinking it wouldn't take too much trial and error to replicate it at home.  I'll have to give it a shot one of these days.

It's Snow Fair

Winters Avenue
West Hazleton, PA

Winter On Winters Avenue

Winters Avenue
West Hazleton, PA

Peeking Into The Past Of Pantry Quik

Pantry Quik
Hazleton, PA (1980)
These photos were published in the February 1980 issue of the Candy Marketer trade magazine.

There's a lot of candy and gum in the first picture.  I could make out Hershey Bars, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Kit Kat, Krackel, Snickers, Milky Way, Switzer Licorice, Bit-O-Honey, Life Savers, Bubble Yum, and Gold Rush bubble gum.  The second and third pictures have Pringles, Cracker Jack, Planters Nuts, Crunch 'N Munch, Screaming Yellow Zonkers, and Jiffy Pop Popcorn, among many other things that I couldn't make out.  The last picture shows Wise Potato Chips, a Tastykake display, and a box of 1979 Topps Football Cards.  Again, there's lots of other things in the picture, but I can't tell what they are.

I spent a longer part of the day than I'd like to admit trying to pin down the approximate date that these photos were taken.  I'm not absolutely positive, but I think the magazine rack behind the manager's head in the third picture are Women's Day, Family Circle, and National Enquirer.  The Women's Day cover doesn't really show much of anything, and I wasn't able to find any National Enquirer issues that had the words "Miracle" or "Beat" on the cover, but I'm reasonably sure that the Family Circle matches the September 18, 1979 issue that has Pam Dawber from Mork & Mindy on the cover, so I'm thinking that it's a safe bet that these photos were taken sometime in late September 1979.

My Study Spot

E.S. Farley Library - third floor
Wilkes University
This is the comfiest sofa in the world, and it just so happens to be at the quietest spot on campus.

The Forgotten DX

D-Generation X mouse pad
World Wrestling Federation (2000)
The WWF had lots of DX merchandise over the years, but this one is a bit odd because it's made up of perhaps the least known incarnation of the faction.

On the far left hand side is Tori, who was only a member of the group for about five months in early 2000.  She was sidelined with an injury after her appearance at King Of The Ring and left DX upon her return.  On the right, you'll see that "Road Dogg" Jesse James stands alone, without his New Age Outlaws tag team partner.  The team split up when "Bad Ass" Billy Gunn was kicked out of DX the day after the No Way Out pay-per-view.  The presence of Tori and absence of Billy Gunn dates this item to sometime between February 28th and June 25th, 2000.

Holograms For Breakfast

Hologram Cereal Boxes
Ralston Purina (1990)
I wasn't an especially big fan of the way that any of these cereals tasted, but you can't deny that they had some of the coolest boxes in the cereal aisle.

So I Cynically Say The World Is That Way

Reading Writing and Arithmetic
The Sundays (1990)
The first studio album from The Sundays was released twenty years ago today.  I never owned it or listened to any more than the first single that it produced, but that track is one of my favorite songs that I've ever heard.

Here's Where The Story Ends
The Sundays (1990)

People I know, places I go

Make me feel tongue-tied

I can see how people look down

They're on the inside

Here's where the story ends

People I see, weary of me

Showing my good side

I can see how people look down

I'm on the outside

Here's where the story ends

It's that little souvenir of a terrible year

Which makes my eyes feel sore

Oh, I never should have said the books that you read

Were all I loved you for 

 

It's that little souvenir of a terrible year

Which makes me wonder why

And it's the memories of the shed that make me turn red

Surprise, surprise, surprise

Crazy, I know, places I go

Make me feel so tired

I can see how people look down

I'm on the outside

Here's where the story ends

It's that little souvenir of a terrible year

Which makes my eyes feel sore

And who ever would have thought the books that you brought

Were all I loved you for? 

 

Oh, the devil in me said, "Go down to the shed"

I know where I belong

But the only thing I ever really wanted to say

Was wrong, was wrong, was wrong

It's that little souvenir of a colorful year

Which makes me smile inside

So I cynically, cynically say the world is that way

Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise

Here's where the story ends

Strange Things Are Afoot At Japanese Circle K

Pac-Man Buns
Circle K (2010)
For a limited time, Circle K convenience stores in Japan will be selling Pac-Man desert buns fulled with crushed almond cookies and cream custard (source: Technabob).

I Don't Like People, To Be Honest

Morrissey
Friday Night With Jonathan Ross - BBC One (May 14, 2004)
In just seven words, Morrissey has summed up my feelings on social interaction.  The sooner I accept this and stop pretending, the happier I think I'll be.  Click here to see the full interview.

Best Buy-2k

Y2K Warning Sticker
Best Buy (1999)
Ten years ago, much of the world had fallen into a mild mass hysteria over the fear of the Y2K Bug.  The panic was born out of the idea that many computers only used the last two digits of the year in their coding.  This meant that when the clock rolling over from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000, the computer would misunderstand the two digit "00" year as 1900 and crash the system.

This story made the media rounds throughout 1999 with "experts" predicting all manner of things, from airplanes dropping out of the sky to a power grid shutdown that would cause citywide blackouts at the stroke of midnight in the dawn of the new millennium.  Stores like Best Buy advised their customers to turn off, and in some cases even unplug their electronic devices on New Year's Eve before midnight.

I thought it was all a lot of nonsense at the time.  The vast majority of computers had switched to a four digit year long ago, and I couldn't imagine it would take a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs to write a code to patch whatever machines or programs that were still in use that operated with a two digit year.  Still, my grandparents fell for the panic and insisted that I remember to turn off the computer, just in case.

I worked third shift at Turkey Hill on Rt. 93 and Airport Road in Hazleton at the time, so my shift that night started at 11 pm on December 31st and ended at 7 am in the new millennium.  After my shift, I came home and turned on the computer.  Sure enough, everything worked normally.  From my understanding, the biggest impact the Y2K Bug had in the United States was a brief shutdown of about 150 slot machines at a race track in Delaware.

Walking Through Black Diamond

Black Diamond Antiques & Collectibles
Schuylkill Mall - Frackville, PA
Angie and I took a trip to Black Diamond to buy some vintage toys and collectibles as an early Christmas present to ourselves.  This is an almost 20 minute walk-through of the store.

Black Diamond is an incredible place to walk around and spend a few hours.  If you get tired, the other side of the mall has a movie theater to spend a few hours relaxing.

Win With Santa Mario

Nintendo Holiday Game Commercial
Pepsi (1989)

A Festive Hockey Tradition

Wilkes Barre Scranton Penguins vs Toronto Marlies
Wachovia Arena - Wilkes Barre, PA

Over the past several years, it has become a tradition to go to the last Baby Pens game of the year before Christmas.  It didn't go the Penguins way this year, with the Marlies winning 4-3 on the strength of the first career hat trick by Troy Bodie.

The Penguins briefly held the lead during the second period, but the Marlies quickly tied up the game and then took the lead shortly afterward when former Philadelphia Flyers defenseman  Nate Guenin fell to an injury.

Even though the Penguins lost, the game was a lot of fun.  Tux spent the game wandering around the crowd with his female counterpart.  I'm not sure if she was supposed to be his mom or his wife, but either way, they spiced up the game.

 

One of the traditions the Baby Pens have every year in the game before Christmas is the Teddy Bear Toss.  Fans bring new stuffed toys to the arena, and when Santa comes out on the ice in his sleigh between periods, everyone tosses their bears onto the ice where they are collected to be given to children.  It's a pretty cool sight to see hundreds of teddy bears flying through the air toward the ice.

We bought one souvenir at the game - an autographed Christmas hockey puck.  They were wrapped in red tissue paper, and you didn't know what player you would get until you bought one and opened it up.  My puck was signed by goalie Adam Berkhoel.  The 28 year old is an NHL veteran who played for the Atlanta Thrashers in the 2005-06 season.

The Pink Stars Are Falling

Under The Dome
Stephen King (2009)
This is right up there with The Stand in my list of favorite Stephen King novels.

A Day In The Life

My final for Digital Photography was a "day in the life" project in which I was to capture a typical day in a series of images that show some of the techniques taught by Professor Sedor.  I used my grandfather as the subject.  These are my favorite photos from the set.

Vincent Van Moose

Fifty years ago today, Rocky & His Friends aired for the first time.  It was broadcast on ABC after American Bandstand, and it was the highest rated daytime show.  It helped to establish Jay Ward as one of the most creative and hysterically funny creators in the history of animation, and it led to Bullwinkle's rise from a sock puppet to a household name everywhere that cartoons are shown.

This picture came from a t-shirt that was used to promote the VHS release of The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle.  Each tape in the series was a parody of a famous work of art.  To those of us who love animation, the works of Jay Ward are valuable works of art in their own right.

Greinkamole Wins The Cy Young

Zack Greinke is my favorite non-Phillies player in baseball.  He's one of the most dominant pitchers in the game today who just won his first Cy Young Award.  In addition to his performance on the mound, he has a very interesting personality that make his interviews among the most enjoyable I've ever heard.  Take, for example, his reaction to learning that Chipotle was raising the price on their guacamole by 30 cents:

"I like the guacamole.  Now, I don't really love the guacamole, so I get it when I feel like it.  They changed their guacamole from $1.50 to $1.80. I mean, $1.50 is already pretty darn high.  So they changed it to $1.80 and I'll never again get guacamole.  It's not about the guacamole itself.  I just don't want to let them win."

I'm not sure how this topic came up in a baseball interview, but he's right, paying almost two bucks for a small side of guacamole is ridiculous.

Theyyy're Adequate

Frosty Corn Flakes
Forrelli Foods
I want to meet the person who drew the Dollar Store knockoff of Tony the Tiger.  The lightning bolts on the jacket are a nice touch.

Still Annoyed That I Didn't Get That Steak

Writing about that stop sign that I got autographed at the ECW show got me thinking about the accident that led to that sign coming into my possession.  It happened less than a month before my 19th birthday on June 8th, 1999.  

I was on the way to my girlfriend's house to pick her up.  Bonanza Steakhouse was having an all-you-can-eat steak deal, so the plan was to stop there there for dinner and then to go see a movie.  That never happened, because as I was driving down South Broad Street across Route 924, a pickup truck that was speeding north on Route 924 towards Hazleton blew through a red light and smashed into the passenger side of my car.

Standard Speaker - June 9, 1999

That bit in the caption about me initially refusing treatment is true.  Here's what happened:  When the truck hit me, my car kind of ricocheted into a chain link fence that surrounded a PennDOT equipment storage yard.  From my perspective, I hit the fence which brought my car to a stop, and I got out of the car a few seconds later.  However it wasn't until later that night that I realized that there was a crowd of people around me by the time I got out of the car, so I had been unconscious for a period of time.  I'm not sure how long, but I'm guessing that it must have been at least five minutes because there were quite a few folks standing there on the side of the road.

As soon as I got out of the car, a dude ran toward me and told me to lay down while he held my neck.  I didn't know what the big deal was, but again, from my perspective, this all happened in a matter of seconds.  From their perspective, it was a few minutes with no movement coming from the driver of the white Mercury Topaz.  I also didn't realize that my head was gushing blood.  So when someone first told me that the ambulance had arrived, I said "naah, I'm alright".  The dude who was holding my neck in place pointed out that I lost a good amount of blood, so I reconsidered and was brought to the hospital.

 

Standard Speaker - June 10, 1999

It may not have hurt in the moment, but I was pretty damn sore by the time we got to the hospital, and for a good month or two afterward.  They stitched me up, gave me some good pain meds and a neck brace, and they took some x-rays.  I was pretty lucky to have not broken any bones, but I was even luckier that I was on my way to pick up my girlfriend instead of on my way to Bonanza after picking her up.  The gash where I lost all of the blood was on the right hand side of my skull, which was the side of the impact from the pickup truck.  It hit my passenger side door.

Now, scroll up and take a look at my car after the accident and imagine if someone was sitting in the passenger seat, or if my car was turned around headed the other direction.  I was told at the hospital that if I had a passenger, they would have been killed on impact, and if I was headed in the other direction and the truck had hit the driver's side door, I would have been dead.

I may have missed out on all-you-can-eat steak, but let me tell you, my birthday cake tasted a whole lot better that year.

A November To Remember

ECW: November To Remember - The Aftermath
Kingston Armory - Wilkes-Barre, PA
Ten years ago, a friend won tickets from a local radio station to an ECW house show at the Kingston Armory in Wilkes-Barre.  The show took place five days after the November To Remember pay-per-view, and about a year and a half before the the company went under and was ultimately sold to Vince McMahon and the WWE.

We showed up to the venue about an hour before the show and noticed that the wrestlers were entering the building through the same doors that we were lined up at to get into the show.  Some of them stopped to talk with fans and sign autographs.  I'm not really much of a wrestling autograph collector, but since they were there and seemed happy to meet the fans, I figured what the hell and asked Axl Rotten to sign the back of my ticket stub.  He was a very nice dude, and he hung out for a few minutes signing autographs for other people and chatting with the folks in line before he went inside.  It was about that time that I remembered the stop sign in my trunk.

A little over five months before the show, a pickup truck ran a red light and smashed into my car.  The impact sent me into a chain link fence where I came to a stop.  The fence was wrecked, as was a stop sign that was bolted to the side of the fence.  My head and neck were pretty banged up, and I spent a good portion of the summer of 1999 watching tv while laying back in my recliner in a neck brace.  I was out and about (for the most part) by the Fall, and I was surprised to see that the stop sign that was knocked down in the accident was still laying face down on the side of the road.

After seeing it at least a dozen times and thinking about taking it, I finally pulled over one day and put it in my trunk.  I was 19 years old at the time, so I probably thought it would look punk rock to have a stop sign that I crashed into hanging in my garage.  Anyway, it was still sitting in my trunk on the night of the show. and there have been a few occasions in the history of ECW where a wrestler used a stop sign as a weapon to smack their opponent in the head, so I figured it'd be great for autographs in case any other wrestlers passed by us... and they did.

The stop sign is long gone; one of the casualties that was left behind in Barnesville when Megan and I broke up in 2002, so I'm sure that she put it out for the trash pickup years ago.  I took a few photos of it the night after the show, but the digital camera I had back in 1999 was pretty terrible so they're not the greatest quality.

The biggest star at the time who autographed the stop sign was the current ECW World Heavyweight Champion Mike Awesome.  He was one of my favorite wrestlers in those days, so I was very happy to have met him.  He was a good dude and much bigger in person than he looked on tv.  I remember that he chucked when he saw the stop sign and seemed to get a kick out of signing it.  Five months after this show, he jumped ship to WCW while he was still the reigning ECW Champion.  He got a lot of unfair heat for that from ECW fans, but I didn't blame him one bit.  Paul Heyman liked to try to weasel out of paying his talent, so I had zero sympathy for him or his company when the performers who busted their ass for his company decided that they deserved to get paid for their work.  Awesome worked for WCW until it was purchased Vince McMahon in 2001, and he continued to appear for WWF/E off and on for a few years after that.  He retired from the ring in February 2006 and sadly passed away just a year later at only 42 years old.

Two other wrestlers autographed the sign, including future ECW World Heavyweight Champion Justin Credible, who would go on to win the belt shortly after Mike Awesome departed for WCW.  Like Awesome, Credible spent a number of years working for WWE since the closure of ECW.  He also spent time working for Ring Of Honor in the same group as the other wrestler whose autograph was on this sign, Tony DeVito.  DeVito was part of a faction called Da Baldies in ECW at the time of this show, but he would go on to greater notoriety in ROH where he won the tag team championship in 2005 as a member of The Carnage Crew.  There were also two other members of the roster who I met and who autographed the sign - manager Bill Alfonso and referee John Finegan.

The show was a lot of fun, with a main event that was a rematch of the six man tag team main event from the November To Remember pay-per-view that took place five days earlier.  That match included Raven, who had just returned to the promotion about ten weeks earlier after his run in WCW had ended.  Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman teamed up with him in the main event and celebrated with the fans at ringside after the show.

The rest card was a nice mix of young talent and established ECW wrestlers.  Chris Candido wrestled in the midcard on this show.  He would go on to join his Triple Threat partners in WCW a few months later.  After its closure, he continued to wrestle on the indy scene until he passed away due to a blood clot in 2005 at just 33 years old.

Nova would go on to become Simon Dean in the WWE.  Lance Storm, Tajiri, Super Crazy, Jazz, and Spike Dudley would also go on to spend a number of years wrestling in WWE.  Rhino spent time in WWE as well, and is currently wrestling in TNA where, earlier this year, he feuded with Danny Bonaduce of all people.

There was no way I could have known at the time, but the end was drawing near for Extreme Championship Wrestling.  I remember that there was an announcement during this show that our ticket stubs would be honored for the upcoming tv taping in Binghamton if we would like to attend that show too.  In hindsight, I really wish that I would have gone.  It wasn't far out of the way - just about a 90 minute drive on 81 North from the Kingston Armory - but I must have had work that day or something because I didn't go, and this show on November 12th, 1999 would be the only time that I ever got to attend an ECW show in person.

The company would continue for another year and four months before going under on April 4th, 2001.  It was purchased by Vince McMahon, and they brought the ECW brand back for a few pay per view events and for a third weekly show to join Raw and Smackdown, but the only thing that the current product has in common with the original ECW is those three letters in the name.

Results:

• David Kash and Nova defeated The Dupps (Bo Dupp and Jack Dupp)

• Super Crazy defeated The Prodigy and Jesus Cristobal

• "Dastardy" Danny Doring and Roadkill defeated C.W. Anderson and Billy Wiles

• Simon Diamond defeated Jazz

• Six Man Tag Team Match
  Axl Rotten, Balls Mahoney and New Jack defeated Da Baldies (Tony DeVito, Vito Lograsso and Angel Medina)

• Chris Candido defeated Rod Price

• Jerry Lynn defeated Yoshihiro Tajiri

• Spike Dudley defeated Big Sal E. Graziano

• Mike Awesome defeated Spike Dudley

• Six Man Tag Team Match
  Raven, Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman defeated The Impact Players (Lance Storm and Justin Credible) and Rhino