Death By Dreams and Hallucinations

The Walking Dead
Season 10 (2019-2021)

Due to a delay in production as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the final six episodes of a season that began on October 6th, 2019 will begin to air 16 months later.  The first of these, titled Home Sweet Home, will be shown on AMC tonight with the season finale scheduled for April 4th.

There was a time when I couldn't get enough of this series, but I've lost interest over the years.  I still watch it, but I feel no sense of urgency or excitement on Sunday nights during a season.  There are two reasons for this, but one sticks out a bit more to me than the other.

The first reason was when they wrote Rick Grimes off of the show.  For a little while, they tried to make Maggie the focal point, but then they wrote her off too.  After that, the whole story felt directionless and I just stopped caring what happened to the rest of them.  It reminded me of Sliders after they killed off Professor Arturo.  It chugged along for a little while after that and was still half decent (although nowhere near as incredible as it was in the first two seasons), but then they wrote off Wade, and then Quinn.  By that point, I don't know why they didn't just throw in the towel.  Rembrandt Brown was an awesome character, but the show wasn't about him.  It was about the relationship between he, Quinn, Wade and the Professor as they traveled through parallel dimensions.  The same holds true for The Walking Dead.  When they removed the main characters and their relationships, it stopped being special.  Now it's just another show about zombies - no better than the hundreds of books, movies and tv shows about the undead that come out in the past decade.

As detrimental as the senseless elimination of characters has been, it's nowhere near as annoying to me as the second reason, and that is the writer's constant need to write in dream sequences and hallucinations.  They've fallen back on that device so many times, I've lost count.  It always goes the same way - some character has reached their breaking point, and now they're having full on conversations with people who have died, or envisioning how the people who are alive could die, or reliving the horrible things they've seen or done in the past.  I'm not sure if it's a misguided attempt to help put the audience in the character's shoes, or to add depth, or maybe to slow down the pace of the plot, but it feels like it drags on forever.  This is the sole reason that I've stopped watching the show live - so I could fast forward through all of dream sequences and hallucination scenes.  They're even more annoying than the constant commercials that beg you to download their app, and that's saying something.

source: Variety

When The Walking Dead started to go downhill, I binged the spinoff series, Fear The Walking Dead.  The first few seasons were pretty good, but then it started to head down the same path as its predecessor.  By Season 5, they were down to three members of the Season 1 cast, and it seems as if some version of the phrase "we just want to help people" makes up about 20% of the dialogue of the show.  Presently, the main antagonist is a rootin' tootin' cowgirl who comes across as a slightly unhinged Jessie from Toy Story, and who's about as intimidating as a shift supervisor from your local Burger King.

Judging from the steep ratings decline in both shows, I am not alone in my fading interest of this once incredible franchise.  I'm hopeful that they either bring it back to what it once was or wrap up whatever loose ends are still left and call it quits.  At this point, both series have come to resemble the walkers that are their namesake; show that died years ago, but still continue to stumble around, waiting for someone to put them out of their misery.

Greetings, Space Cadet

Gorf
Midway (1981)

This month marks the 40th birthday of one of my favorite arcade games of all time: Gorf.  It's a classic that doesn't get the recognition it deserves compared to many of its contemporaries, probably because there has never been a suitable home version of it to this day.  It was ported to many different consoles, including Atari 2600 and 5200, ColecoVision and Commodore 64, but each of these failed to capture what made the game so much fun to play in the arcade.  Part of the reason for this is that the third mission of the game was removed from all home ports due to its similarity to Galaxian, which is understandable, but that's not the only part of the game to get lost in translation when it was put on cartridge.

Many of the arcade games from this era really only had one level that would get progressively more difficult as you continued playing.  There might be additional enemies, and the game play might speed up, but the game play itself usually didn't change too much.  Gorf had five distinct stages, and while each one was a spaceship shooter, they were entirely separate games.  It also one of the first video games that spoke to the player using synthesized speech, which was a rarity in arcade games in the late 70's and early 80's.

They have an old Gorf machine at the Timeline Arcade in Hanover, PA.  Every time I visit, about half of the time I spend playing games is on this one machine.  It's hard to believe that it's been around for 40 years and, in my opinion, is still just as fun as it was back in the 80's.

Wrecking The Status Quo

Bill Veeck
1914 - 1986

The most awesome human being to ever own a MLB team was elected to the Baseball Hall Of Fame by the Veterans Committee 30 years ago today.  He has a legacy that is unmatched by any owner or executive in the history of the sport.

The Daily Dispatch (Moline, IL) - February 27, 1991

The thing that I've always admired the most about Mr. Veeck is his attempts to desegregate the sport.  After the 1942 season, he attempted to purchase the Philadelphia Phillies with the intention of breaking the color barrier by signing several of the star players of the Negro Leagues to play for the Phillies in 1943.  Unfortunately, baseball's commissioner at the time was a notorious racist who blocked Veeck's purchase of the team to prevent his plan from going forward.  The commissioner died in 1944, after which the game could begin to take its first steps to move beyond the bigotry and ignorance that he fought to maintain.

Mr. Veeck went on to purchase the Cleveland Indians in 1946, and soon thereafter, he signed Larry Dolby - the first player to break the color barrier in the American League, and the first player to go from the Negro Leagues directly to the Major Leagues without spending time in the minors.

Red And Black Antennas Waving

The Colony
Chikara Pro Wrestling (2006)

One of the most fun and creative wrestling gimmicks I have ever seen was introduced for the first time fifteen years ago today.  It was the second night of the 2006 Chikara Tag World Grand Prix in Reading, PA, and the opening match on the card featured a tag team comprised of Fire Ant and Soldier Ant, collectively known as The Colony.

They lost in their debut to another brilliantly mad tag team called Lancelot, which was made up of two time traveling British knight luchadors, both of whom were named Lance Steel because they were the same person.  Their gimmick was that one of the knights went back in time to meet up with his younger self and form a pro wrestling tag team.  That was what made Chikara such a good time.  They put on good matches, but they knew how to have fun and not to take themselves too seriously.

The Colony went on to add additional members, including Worker Ant, Green Ant, Silver Ant and Carpenter Ant, and their matches were always one of the most fun things on any Chikara show that I had ever been. They thought quickly to take advantage of any moment to add something funny to their matches, such as the video clip above.  Fire Ant and Soldier Ant were making their way to the ring for a match against Delirious and Hallowicked when their entrance theme, Ants Marching by Dave Matthews Band, suddenly stopped playing.  This isn't a super uncommon occurrence for an independent pro wrestling show, but as soon as it happened, both wrestlers froze in place as if someone had paused the DVD, and they resumed their entrance when whoever was in charge of the music that night re-started the track.  Brilliant!

I'm not sure what happened to every wrestler who ever worked as a part of The Colony, but the original members have gone on to have successful careers on television, without the ant masks.  You'll find Fire Ant on AEW Dynamite working as Orange Cassidy, while Soldier Ant wrestles for WWE Monday Night Raw as Drew Gulak.

Back In Blak

Coke With Coffee
Coca-Cola (2021)

It has been about fifteen years since Coca-Cola blended cola and coffee in a product that was sold in the United States and I couldn't be happier about it.  This time around, they're doing things a bit differently.  Coke With Coffee comes in three flavors: Dark Blend, Vanilla and Caramel.  The Dark Blend and Vanilla flavors are also available both with and without sugar, whereas the Caramel one is only available with added sugar.

In 2006, Coca-Cola released a product called Coca-Cola Blak that I absolutely loved.  Unfortunately, I think I was the only one who liked it, because it was discontinued before the end of 2007.  It was sold in 8 oz glass bottles that could be purchased individually or in a pack of four.  Each bottle was only 45 calories, which worked perfectly for me because I was on a diet at the time, and it had a smooth and unique flavor.  It was carbonated and definitely tasted like a Coke, but it had a strong coffee flavor that was very pleasant.

I bought a pack of the new Coke With Coffee in the Dark Blend flavor, and I'm happy to say that it tastes very much like my memory of Coke Blak.  The 8 oz. glass bottles have been replaced by 12 oz. aluminum cans that are similar in appearance to an energy drink.  Each can is 70 calories compared to 45 calories for a Coke Blak, but you're also getting 4 oz. more to drink.  I'm sure the recipe isn't exactly the same as Coke Blak, but between the flavor and the calories per serving, I'd have to guess that it's pretty close.

The new Coke With Coffee is a little pricey compared to buying a 2 liter of Coca-Cola, but Aldi's has it at a pretty reasonable price.  I hope it does better this time around, but if not, I'll be sure to stock up if they put it on clearance because if I have to wait another 15 years, I'm going to want a supply to carry me through for at least a few months.

Jeat Yet? I Brang Bra-Zhoot From The Ack-A-Me.

There's a lot of crossover between the South Philly and Hazleton Coal Cracker accents.  source: Brian Miles

Best Served With Fava Beans and a Nice Chianti

Red Dragon Cheddar
Somerdale
This is the perfect pairing of two of my favorite things to eat.  Somerdale Red Dragon is a creamy cheddar cheese blended with wholegrain mustard seed and ale, and it's really very good.

There's A Shadow Hanging Over Me

Yesterday
Universal Pictures (2019)

A few days ago, I watched a WhatCulture video called "10 Movie Characters You Didn't Realize Actually Survived", and it reminded me of this movie.  I heard about it when it first came out, but it must not have come to my local theater because I never saw it, and with all the craziness going on in the world, it had completely slipped my mind.  I finally sat down to watch it on Saturday, and it's an absolutely brilliant film.  It's about a musician who gets hit by a bus and wakes up to a world in which The Beatles never existed.  There are other differences too, but I don't want to give away any more of the story than that.  If you have any interest at all in The Beatles, or the concept of parallel worlds, or if you just want to watch a fantastic romantic comedy, I highly recommend that you check out this movie.

Back in 2002, I had an idea for a story like this, but mine wasn't about The Beatles or parallel worlds.  I was moving back home to West Hazleton after living in La Vista, Nebraska (a suburb of Omaha) for a few months.  It was nearly a 17 hour drive on I-80, alone in a hot car with no air conditioning, and not a whole lot in the way of distracting scenery, so my mind wandered a bit.  I had an idea for a story bouncing around my head for a few hundred miles, and I realized by the very end of this trip that if I didn't write it down soon, I was going to forget what it was.  If I waited until I got to my grandparent's house, the idea would be as good as gone, because I would have to unpack the car and they would want to sit down at the kitchen table and talk with me over coffee since I hadn't seen them for a few months at this point.  That is why on the last ten miles of the trip, I pulled the car over to the side of I-81 and wrote out the framework to a story that I swore I'd write, but never did.

I've long since lost those original notes, but here's the gist:

View from the stage during Mountain's 9:00 pm set at Woodstock
Saturday, August 16, 1969

An unsigned band have been playing local bars, clubs and festivals for a number of years.  They've attracted a small, passionate group of fans because they're excellent at playing rock covers from the 70's and 80's.  However, any time they try to write their own music, things go horribly wrong.  The band argues every time they try to write original work, and the few things they have successfully come up with have not been well-liked by the audience, in large part because so many compromises have been made to satisfy everyone in the band that the song comes across like a disjointed mess.  Finally, after years of trying and failing to make it big, they decide to call it quits.  They have one more big outdoor festival on their schedule that they have agreed to play as their farewell gig before going their separate ways.

The band decides that they want to go out on a positive note, so they give the audience what they want by playing covers, starting with Bon Jovi's 1988 hit, Bad Medicine.  The crowd goes wild, and the cheers get louder with each of the nine songs that they play.  Not long after they walk off of stage, they learn that when they took the stage, they have stepped back in time to Saturday, August 16th, 1969, and they had just played a setlist of classic hits on the stage at Woodstock to an audience who had never heard them before.

Over the years, I kept a few notebooks with different ideas for how the story could progress.  Each of them involved the band signing a recording contract and releasing albums that would essentially be a greatest hits collection of the 70's, 80's and 90's, but passing it off as their own original work.  For a brief time, the members of the band had come back together and rekindled the friendship that led them to form a band in the first place, but their differences in opinion over how to handle this unexpected jump back in time eventually caused them to go their separate ways.  One idea that involved a laptop computer that the drummer kept in a backpack that he brought out on stage, and how he would use it to navigate the past.  Another idea involved the bass player trying to find her grandparents who passed away when she was 13 years old.  The main story arc would have focused on the lead singer using what he knew about the future to invest in the right companies at the right time to become rich and powerful (and dangerously unhinged).

One of my many problems is that while I'm halfway decent at coming up with a story idea, I'm horrible at following up on it.  I get distracted very easily, and I procrastinate, and then I eventually tell myself that I'm not a good enough writer to have it published anyway, so I should just let it go.  Then, in 2010, I saw Hot Tub Time Machine and thought to myself that my idea was dead in the water right there.  Even if I was disciplined enough to finish the story, everyone would just think that I'm ripping off the end of the movie where Lou Dorchen goes back in time to become the lead singer of Mötley Crüe and become wealthy by founding Google.

 

I came up with a few other ideas in the years that followed, most of which involve time travel, but they never got past the stage of being a list of ideas in a notebook.  Seeing Yesterday reminded me of this notebooks and the idea that started them off.  I'd like to say that it inspired me to finally put pen to paper and at least come up with a rough draft, but if I haven't written it by now, I doubt I'm ever going to.

The Legend Begins

The Hyrule Fantasy: Zeruda no Densetsu
Famicom Disk System (1986)
Thirty-five years ago today, the game that we know in the States as The Legend of Zelda was released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System.  There is absolutely no way to overstate the influence that this classic has had on the video game industry throughout the world.

Will They Or Won't They?

source: Matt Patterson

Kilobaud Microcomputing
June 1980

My parents aren't home.  Wanna come back to my place and compute?

The Echelon Mall

Echelon Mall
Voorhees, NJ (1970)

The lamp posts, plants and fountains surrounded by clean tile and brick gave the Echelon Mall a peaceful vibe that you don't see very often anymore.  It's a shame that so many of these have been demolished when the retail outlets closed.  Imagine how awesome it could have been if they remodeled the stores into luxury apartments and condos.  The center of the mall with the fountains and benches could have been used as an open indoor town square where residents of the mall apartments and folks from the area could meet friends and neighbors, host events, take a walk or just have a pleasant place to read a book and relax.  It could also have supported a few businesses that would suit a neighborhood setting, like a day care center, pizza parlor, coffee shop, post office, drugstore, or even a public library.

Instead, most of these malls have either been torn down or remodeled out of their charm, and this once common slice of life exists today only on old, forgotten postcards.

A Tasty And Nourishing Breakfast

3 Minute Breakfast: Vegetable Upma
MTR Foods

Earlier this month, I found a couple of these at the grocery store on clearance for a dollar each.  I've never heard of MTR, and I can't say that I've ever heard the word "upma" before then, but I figured I'd give it a shot, and I'm glad that I did.

It's pretty easy to make - just boil up some water fill the cup up to the line, stir it up, cover the top and wait three minutes.  The resulting product is a semolina and vegetable porridge with a texture that reminded me of warm cornbread.  It was quite tasty and surprisingly filling.  I hope that I can find this again.

Piano Music From The Moon

Animatronic Mac Tonight

The World's Most Magnificent McDonald's - Warren, OH
This two-story McDonald's in Northeast Ohio once had an animatronic Mac Tonight who played piano on the second floor of the restaurant.  According to CLE Weekly, the restaurant was refurbished in 2018 and a lot of the unique aspects of the property were taken out.  At some point prior to that, Mac Tonight was replaced.  I'm not sure if that choice was made because of the repugnant ways that Mac Tonight has been used by some truly terrible people in this country, or if it was retired when they stopped using the character in McDonald's advertising in the late 80's.  Either way, the replacement was slightly disturbing.

Future generations will never know what it's like to eat lunch while being stared at by a creepy looking Hamburglar with a massively deformed left hand.  What is the world coming to?

The Birth Of An Icon

Pac-Man: Birth Of An Icon
Arjan Terpstra and Tim Lapetino (2021)

In honor of the 40th anniversary of Pac-Man in North America, Cook & Becker are publishing a written history of arguably the most iconic video game of all time.  Pac-Man: Birth Of An Icon is available for pre-order and is expected to ship on July 30th.  The Collectors Edition comes with a slipcover and a 7" vinyl reprint of the 1981 Buckner & Garcia single: Pac-Man Fever.  The slipcover and record are nice, but I'd opt for the Standard Edition and buy the book without the slipcover and record for less than half the price.

Just Another Robot Dinosaur Love Story

Tammy And The T-Rex
Imperial Entertainment (1994)

Paul Walker's brain is surgically removed by Bernie Lomax and implanted into a robotic tyrannosaurus rex that was built by Isaac Chroner from Children Of The Corn.  He leaves a path of destruction before reuniting with girlfriend Denise Richards through a game of charades while the local police sort through the blood, guts and wreckage.

If this sounds like something you might enjoy, we can be friends.

Doctor Love of Mushroom Kingdom

Dr. Mario Valentines
The Paper Magic Group / Nintendo (1990)

Remember back in the day in when we'd all make boxes out of construction paper and tape them to the front of our desk, and then we'd all walk around the room dropping valentines into everyone's box?  Well, if you went to elementary school with me, there's a pretty good chance that you got at least one with a Nintendo character on it.

These Dr. Mario ones were sold in 1990.  It's a strange choice of a game to base valentines around because the only character in the game is Mario himself.  I guess you could say that there are four if you count the red, yellow and blue viruses, but they create a whole other problem.  "How was school, son?  It was great - Lori from homeroom gave me a virus for Valentine's Day!"

They kind of shoehorned Princess Peach onto a few of these despite the fact that she's not in the game, and they also went out of their way to label the pills as vitamins.  I suppose the folks in charge thought might be in poor taste for kids to give each other pills, even if they are printed on paper and surrounded by hearts.

Duran 40

Duran Duran 40 billboard
Times Square - New York, NY

In celebration of their 40th year, Duran Duran have partnered with Pandora to release Duran 40: An Oral History of Duran Duran.  The playlist takes you through 40 of their biggest hits with the story behind the music as told by the band.

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre

Joe Bob Put A Spell On You
Shudder (2021)
The great Joe Bob Briggs brings joy to another holiday tonight at 9 pm.

The Night That Kid Dynamite Fell

Mike Tyson vs Buster Douglas
Tokyo Dome - Tokyo, Japan - February 11, 1990

I was nine years old on the night of this fight that took place 31 years ago today.  I don't know much more about the sport of boxing now than I did on that night.  However, I did know two things: Mike Tyson was one of the most dominant professional fighters in the world, and he was defeated for the Undisputed Heavyweight Championship by a man who wasn't expected to last 90 seconds in the ring.

For many years, it has been tucked away in the back of my head to include this fight in a story about time travel.  The story wouldn't focus heavily on the fight, but the traveler would use his or her knowledge about the outcome to make a bundle of money by betting on the 40:1 underdog.  I've come to suspect that I have neither the talent nor attention span to ever finish anything that's good enough to be published, but one of these days, maybe I'll defy the odds like Buster Douglas and come out a winner.

Create Monsters From Living Ice

Mad Scientist: Living Ice Compound
Mattel (1986)

This was one of my favorite toy lines when I was growing up, and I was shocked to discover that it didn't even have its own page on Wikipedia.

There were a bunch of different kinds of toys, but they all had the same general theme of creating monsters.  Some of them were molds with a gelatinous compound, like this Living Ice set that I had when I was a kid.  Others included the skeleton of a monster that you would build the creature's body around, then drop it into a tank of liquid and watch the flesh dissolve off of its bones like acid.  Another one that I had when I was little was basically a stand that inflated a small balloon.  It came with a thick paint that you could use to turn the balloon into a monster's head, then either inflate the balloon to make the head larger or deflate it to watch your design contract into something that looked like a shrunken head.  It was pretty gruesome stuff, but for a kid that was obsessed with haunted houses and horror stories, they were perfect. 

This is from the back of the package.  The Monster Flesh and Living Ice kits were basically the same product.  You would knead the goop in the tub, put it in the mold, and create a semi-solid monster that sort of felt like a sturdy Jell-O Jiggler.  It would stand on its own and it wouldn't fall apart on its own, but you could easily break it apart with your hands.

I think this toy line would have been better if it came with a plastic compound like Creepy Crawlers did so that kids could create a more permanent action figure with the molds.  If that were possible, I expect the creatures would have come out looking something like a toy from the Monsters In My Pocket line that was introduced by Matchbox a few years later.  Instead, the figures that were made from Mad Scientist kits were sort of like Play Doh - fun to play with in the moment, but destroyed before the end of the day.  That might explain why the toy line itself has been largely forgotten.

The Krukker Turns 60

John Kruk

Philadelphia Phillies - 1989 - 1994

My favorite baseball player of all-time turns 60 years old today.  John Kruk had a 10 year career in the big leagues, and spent more than half of that time as the first baseman of the Philadelphia Phillies.  He retired in 1995 with even .300 career batting average, 100 home runs and 592 RBI (photo: The Sporting News).

For The Mind, Body, and Planet

Fruitopia
The Coca-Cola Company (1994)
In the mid 90's, Coca-Cola tried to muscle in on Snapple's fruit juice market with Fruitopia, which was branded under their Minute Maid line.  It was marketed with psychedelic imagery and, for lack of a better word, hippie-inspired flavors such as Strawberry Passion Awareness,  Blueberry Watermelon Wisdom, Tangerine Wavelength, and Raspberry Psychic Lemonade.  You can see more examples of the artwork that was used in their advertising and packaging here.

The Fruitopia line is still available in Canada, but it had all but disappeared in the United States before the end of the 90's.  It was officially discontinued in America in 2003, which is a shame.  I only had it a few times, but I remember that it was quite good.

Sometimes, The Beast Does Include Selling Out

Uber Eats Wayne's World commercial
Super Bowl LV (2021)

Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar are back, and they're helping to draw attention to restaurants around the country who have partnered with Uber Eats.  The standard commercial will air during Super Bowl LV, but there is also long version of the ad on YouTube.  It's a really long version.  It's over two and a half hours long, and it scrolls through over 89,000 restaurants throughout the United States whose food can be ordered through the mobile app.

Naturally, I had to fast forward to see which Hazleton restaurants are represented.  Just past the two hour and one minute mark, there are three restaurants that I'm familiar with: Booty's Place (in the Church Hill Mall), Bottlenecks (in West Hazleton - excellent wings), and Vesuvio's Pizza (on Wyoming Street).  I've never eaten at El Panchito or the Fireside Lounge before.  I'll have to give them a try sometime soon.

Grandpa At The Capitol

Class Of 1954
West Hazleton High School

Today would have been my grandfather's 84th birthday.  This photo of the West Hazleton High School Class of '54 was taken in front of the US Capitol on their senior class trip to Washington DC.  Grandpa is the third man from the left standing in the back row.

Here's a cropped version.  He's the man in the white shirt.

I miss you, Grandpa.  Happy birthday, big guy.

My New Second Favorite JoJo

Ok, let's get the obvious out of the way.  I was 22 years old when JoJo Siwa was born, and I'm the furthest thing from her target audience.  I know nothing about her work at all except that she's very popular with tweens and she wears a big bow in her hair.  Prior to her appearance on The Tonight Show this week, I've never even heard her speak.  Having said all of that, I am a huge fan of her bravery and energy, and I support this bow-topped tornado of awesome 100%.

She has come out of the closet and I'm crazy proud of her.  Now, if she comes out of the Phillies bullpen to lock down the 8th inning after demolishing a Red Bull, she'll overtake Jojo Romero as my all-time favorite JoJo.

Who Has The Top Score On Crazy Caterpillar

The Secret Of The Video Game Scores

Meadowbrook Press (1984)

This artwork was recently shared by @Retroist on Twitter.  It was drawn by Robert Sauber and used for the cover of a children's mystery book from the Hawkeye Collins and Amy Adams series called The Secret Of The Video Game Scores.

I wasn't familiar with this series of books when I was a kid, but I sure would have picked this up back in the 80's if I ever saw it.  It's been republished a few times since it first came out in 1984, so it's easy to find on Amazon and eBay.  The description says that it's appropriate for a fourth grade reading level, so if you have kids who are gamers and like to read, they might enjoy it.

C Is For Crystal

Cookie Monster Agate
Lucas Fassari / Mike Bowers

This volcanic rock that looks like the Cookie Monster was found the Rio Grande do Sul region near Soledade, Brazil in November.  The team that found it has received five offers to buy it for over $10k.

That's Right Woodchuck Chuckers, It's...

Groundhog Day
Columbia Pictures (1993)
It's cold out there.  What is this, Miami Beach?

Anyway, Randy Sarafan from Instructables.com has published detailed instructions on how to modify a Panasonic RC-6025 Clock Radio to play the audio clip that Bill Murray (as Phil Connors) heard every morning in the 90's hit comedy Groundhog Day.  It's actually been on the website for around six years, but I found it in 2021, so here you go.

Click here for a step-by-step walkthrough with photos.  If you live in the Northeast and have the equipment laying around the house, it'll give you something to do during this... big blizzard thing.