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.

Gobble It Up While You Can

The Gobbler
Wawa (2020)

This has become a Thanksgiving season tradition that I look forward to every year.  The Gobbler is a hot turkey hoagie with gravy, cranberry sauce and garlic aioli.  You can get it with either stuffing, mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes.

This year, I got one with sweet potatoes and it was delicious - like eating a thanksgiving dinner hoagie.  They probably won't be available for much longer, so if you want to try one, don't wait.

The Artwork of Don Ivan Punchatz

Automatic Transportation
Don Ivan Punchatz (undated)

This self-driving hovercar is making the rounds on Twitter.  The artist was credited, but the name of the piece and its origin was not.  It's called Automatic Transportation and it's an original 12" x 15.5" painting that was signed by artist Don Ivan Punchatz.  It was sold in a 2012 auction to a private collector for under $300, which is a steal.

Although the painting wasn't dated, the artist passed away in 2009 so the piece was completely science fiction when Mr. Punchatz thought it up.  I suppose it's still science fiction unless there's a working prototype for a hover car.  However, I think we're getting pretty close to a time in which self-driving cars are commonplace.  The steering wheel is a nice touch by the artist, showing that the transition to this new future car won't be absolute - at least not at first.

I wasn't too familiar with Don Ivan Punchatz before my research on Automatic Transportation, but it turns out that I've seen his work plenty of times before.  He illustrated the covers of quite a few science fiction and fantasy novels (including some of Isaac Asimov's work), and he is perhaps best known for creating the iconic box art for the 1993 classic first-person shooter, Doom.

I also discovered that some of his artwork was used on Pepsi cartons for their Monster Match promotion in 1991.  Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog did a nice write-up about those pieces in 2010.  They include Dracula, Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolfman and The Mummy.  Pepsi also used artwork of The Creature From The Black Lagoon and The Invisible Man from around the same time, but I'm not sure of those two were done by Mr. Punchatz.

Land Of The Free, Home Of The Virus

Heights EZ Stop Express
Hazleton, PA

This poorly written temper tantrum was scotch taped to the door that leads into a small gas station convenience store in town.  They could have saved themselves a lot of redundant typing by just hanging up a sign that reads "Management reserve the right to be irresponsible douchebags".

Not surprisingly, when I walked up to the counter to pay, neither of the two employees that I saw were wearing masks.  One of them was stuffing a sandwich in his face at the register while working and handling money and change; true professionalism at its finest.

While the spelling errors are comical (the store has several aisles, but no "isles" that I could see), the most amusing part of the sign is the blatant hypocrisy.  Directly below the crybaby letter which taunts the customers for their "fear" of bringing a deadly virus home from the store to their family, there is another sign which presumably existed before Covid-19 - an underlined request for the customers to remove their hoods and sunglasses.

Funny... all that talk about freedom and the "land of the free" seems to go out the window with regard to the customer's clothes.  Unless I'm mistaken, the policy about hoods and sunglasses is born out of the management's fear of shoplifters or thieves who are trying to mask their identity.  Management is quick to say that "if you feel unsafe entering the building, maybe you should not do so".  Using that same logic, if you feel unsafe from customers wearing sunglasses or a hoodie, maybe you should not manage a retail establishment.  As for myself, I wear prescription sunglasses when it's sunny, and I put my hood up whenever I damn well please.  If that scares you, too bad.  My freedom doesn't end where your fear begins.  For more information, please see the asinine two page letter that's taped to the front door.

Make It A Blockbuster Black Friday Night

Blockbuster Video blanket
Hot Topic (2020)
The only Black Friday sale that caught my eye this year was a polyester blanket that looks like a Blockbuster Video tape case.  I guess they couldn't get the rights to use an actual movie title on the spine.  Either that or there's a Rated R horror flick out there called Movie Rental VHS Cassette.

Two Thirds Of The Earth Is Covered By Cornbread Dressing...

Roast Turkey with Cornbread Dressing
Acme (1978)
Sondra Maddox, wife of Phillies all-time great Garry Maddox, shared her roast turkey with cornbread stuffing recipe with Acme grocery stores in the late 70's.  Follow these instructions and you can eat Thanksgiving dinner like the Secretary of Defense.

Candy Corn With All Of The Trimmings

Turkey Dinner Candy Corn
Brach's (2020)

Just when you thought this year couldn't get any stranger, one of the oldest candy companies in the United States decides to tap into their inner Willy Wonka and release a bag of candy corn that's meant to taste like a full Thanksgiving dinner.

These are exclusive to Walgreens, which we don't have in my area, so I ordered two bags from eBay: one for myself and one for my dad.  Overall, they're actually pretty good.  It's not the kind of candy I could see myself buying on a regular basis, but as a seasonal novelty, they work pretty well.  Each flavor tastes like the food it's meant to be, and they're not bad at all.

Here are the flavors included in Brach's Turkey Dinner Candy Corn:

It's difficult to describe the experience of eating green bean flavored candy corn, but I'll do my best.  There is an unmistakable green vegetable flavor, that much is for sure, but it's mixed with a sweet candy flavor.  It's not a flavor combination I would choose, but it's better than you might expect.  It's not entirely accurate to say that it tastes like sweet butter on green beans, but that's as close of a description as I can get.  I suppose that calling it "shockingly not unpleasant" sounds as if I'm damning it with faint praise, but it's true.

This very much tastes like turkey gravy mixed with sugar.  I think this tastes more like turkey than the green bean flavor tasted like green beans, but the green bean one was a better tasting candy.  It's possible that a sweet flavor is slightly less jarring with vegetables than it is with meat.  I don't know.  Like the green bean ones, this isn't as bad as you're probably expecting it to be.

This was the first flavor in the bag that actually seemed like it should have been made into a piece of candy.  It was also in very short supply in my bag.  Out of a full 12 oz of candy, there were only three cranberry sauce flavored pieces of candy corn.  Out of all of them, it tastes the most like traditional candy, but it tasted the least like the thing it's meant to be.  I won't say that it didn't taste at all like cranberry sauce, but all of the other flavors were more realistic.

When I ate this, I was struck at first by a powerful ginger flavor, and then sort of a carrot aftertaste.  I would say that it had the strongest flavor out of the six.  It wasn't disgusting, but it was my least favorite compared to the rest.  I think if you're a fan of ginger candy, you might like this, but it's not my first choice.

Because pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie have such a similar flavor, I was expecting this to taste like pumpkin spice.  I was shocked to find that it's didn't taste a thing like pumpkin.  In fact, it;s an almost perfect candy representation of sweet potato pie.  This was my favorite flavor in the bag, and the only one that I think I would consider buying if they were going to offer it in a separate package.

You really get a strong flavor of stuffing spices with this one, like sage and pepper.  It doesn't blend especially well with the sweetness of candy corn, but it absolutely tastes like stuffing from a turkey on Thanksgiving.

So, that's it.  If you're interested in a bizarre experiment in seasonal confections, give these a try.

The Thanksgiving Tradition

The 7th Annual Survivor Series

World Wrestling Federation (November 24, 1993)
This event was broadcast on pay-per-view 27 years ago today.  I was 13 years old at the time, which is probably why it's still one of my favorite Survivor Series events.  The matches don't hold up too well in retrospect (particularly the atrocious Four Doinks match), but the posters almost make up for it.  They feature the teams that were scheduled to face off in the main event of the night: The All-Americans (Lex Luger, Tatanka and The Steiner Bros) vs the Foreign Fanatics (Yokozuna, Ludvig Borga and The Quebecers).

The little details make these posters ridiculous enough to use as a Thanksgiving decoration.  Jacques Rougeau is brandishing a butter knife.  Tatanka, Scott Steiner, Ludvig Borga, and Pierre Ouellet (the man who would go on to become ROH World Champion PCO) are holding forks and staring menacingly.  Yokozuna is preparing to eat a roast turkey with chopsticks, while Lex Luger is holding a knife and carving fork above his head as he's about to dive in to a bird that has been dressed up in a black mawashi.

These posters must have been drawn early in the planning stages for the pay-per-view because the teams that wrestled in the main event would be mixed up a bit.  Quebecer Pierre and Tatanka were written out of the match and replaced by Crush and The Undertaker.

You Can Eat Sonic's Rings

Life Savers
Nabisco (1993-94)

Sega cross-promoted with Nabisco several times during the initial Sonic The Hedgehog craze of the 90's.  The most memorable of these took place in 1994 when two exclusive flavors of Sonic branded Life Savers candy were released: Blue Rad and Hot Rings.

 

Blue Rad and Hot Rings wrappers from the collection of Jason Liebig

These flavors, in addition to specially marked packaged of Tangy Fruits Life Savers, were part of a promotion in which consumers could win a new Sega Genesis game console and a copy of Sonic The Hedgehog 3, which was released in February, 1994.

Nabisco released a lot of merchandise in conjunction with Sega, including hats and school textbook covers.  You can find them on eBay from time to time, but they tend to have ridiculously high asking prices.  One seller is asking over $100 for what they say is an unopened pack of Hot Rings.  The photos are sketchy at best, but quite frankly, it could come with a signed letter from the president of Sega and I still wouldn't pay a hundred bucks for it.  At least the ads are pretty easy to find.  If you leaf through a few comic books or video game magazines from the mid 90's, you're bound to find one before too long.

Where We're Going, We Don't Need Roads

Back To The Future 2 Billboard
Hollywood, CA (1989)
This billboard was on corner of La Cienega and Sunset in Hollywood, California.  It counted down to the premier of Back To The Future 2, which first appeared in theaters 31 years ago today (source: Drew Struzan).