Fiery Big Fish Burger King (2024) Eh... this doesn't taste bad or anything, but it's not all that great. The triple pepper spicy glaze that they use isn't very hot and spicy. I don't mind that, but it's also not very flavorful either. The size of the fish patty was also pretty disappointing, especially for a sandwich that costs over five dollars. Hard pass.
Bob Marley: One Love Paramount Pictures (2024) This is a powerful film and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but I'm not going to lie... I'm going to need to watch it again with closed captions after it gets released on a streaming service.
I've only seen one other movie featuring the lead actresses before today: Qualley played Manson family member Ruth Ann Moorehouse (aka: Pussycat) in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, and Viswanathan was one of the three daughters in the 2018 coming-of-age comedy Blockers. Both were fantastic in those films, and although their romantic chemistry in Drive-Away Dolls felt a bit off, they both delivered a great performance overall.
Blueberry Lemon Pound Cake Turkey Hill (2024)
This new limited edition flavor from Turkey Hill would probably be better suited for a warm day in the spring or early summer, but it's tasty any time of year.
The lemon flavor is strong, but not too tart or overpowering, and it blends well with the blueberry swirl and the pieces of pound cake. My only complaint is that there wasn't nearly enough of either of the inclusions. Even if they included twice as much of the blueberry swirl and cake pieces that I found in this carton, it still would have been kind of sparse.
It's been all over the news for the past couple of weeks that Coca-Cola was about to introduce a new permanent product to their lineup.
The new flavor is called Coca-Cola Spiced. It's available in stores today in both a Regular and Zero Sugar version. When I heard the name, I was hoping that this would taste something like Pepsi Holiday Spice, which was really quite good, but the company website threw cold water on those hopes pretty quicky. Their description of this new product is:
"It’s Coca‑Cola, only spiced. Coca‑Cola Spiced transforms the familiar into the extraordinary. Blending the iconic taste of Coca‑Cola with a burst of refreshing notes from raspberry and spiced flavors, Coca‑Cola Spiced offers an uplifting taste experience."
So, what did this taste like to me?
The closest food or drink comparison that I can come up with is C Howard's Violet Mints. Consider yourself lucky if you haven't heard of this candy before now because they're terrible. Think of the most disappointing candy that you've ever gotten while trick-or-treating when you were a kid. Whatever came to your mind, I can almost guarantee you that after trying a Violet Mint, you'd sooner eat a whole plastic pumpkin filled with your most despised Halloween candy before you'd agree to finish the other 14 mints in a pack of these.
To be fair, Coca-Cola Spiced is not as bad as C Howard's Violet Mints. Nothing on the face of the earth is that bad. However, it reminds me of the candy because it has a similar flavor profile. Eating the candy, and drinking the soda, feels as if you are consuming old lady perfume. The full sugar version isn't quite as bad as the Zero Sugar variety, but in either case, I don't think they taste a thing like raspberry or spice. They tastes like stale flowery-sweet perfume.
Coca-Cola have come up with a few outstanding limited edition flavors in recent years like Starlight and Move. Not sure why they couldn't have added one of those to their permanent flavor lineup instead, but I can tell you that I wouldn't buy Coca-Cola Spiced again if it was literally the only beverage available at the grocery store.
UPDATE (2/26/2024): Not long after I posted this review, I received a voice mail from my dad concerning my thoughts on C Howard's Violet Mints. He's a big fan of the product and has a pack in the candy dish on his kitchen table at this table at this very moment. I talked with him earlier today and he suggested that I share his counterpoint on the blog, and I could think of no better way to do this than to let you hear it straight from the man himself.
Well... at least I have some gift ideas for Father's Day.
Space Dunk Oreos Mondelez (2024) The newest limited edition flavor of Oreo Cookies have hit store shelves this month, and they're pretty damn good!
This product is centered around a promotion in which Oreo has partnered with Space Perspective to send a lucky winner to the edge of the planet's atmosphere where you could enjoy Space Dunk Oreos from outer space. There's a bit of hyperbole here because the flight has a maximum altitude of 100,000 feet, but it still sounds like a pretty fun experience to me!
There are five cookie designs, and I was happy to see that one of them is a rocketship. There are also two stars, an astronaut, and a telescope. The center of each cookie has a small hole that allows the cream filling to poke through.
The cream filling is pink and blue and it has a marshmallow flavor, but the real attraction here is the fact that there are very tiny fragments of candy that are similar to Pop Rocks mixed into the cream which makes your mouth tingle while you're eating the cookie.
I hated to miss out on tonight's Mahoning virtual screening, but there as no way that I could pass up on the opportunity to see one of the greatest movies of all time on the big screen.
Seeing Bill & Ted themed merchandise and product tie-ins isn't too unusual, but I wasn't expecting to see something that has been based on their early 90's Saturday morning cartoon series. This collectors box from G Fuel includes a tub of Bahama Mama drink mix, a reusable cup featuring the animated versions of Bill S. Preston and Ted Theodore Logan riding on the phone booth, and a pair of Rufus-style sunglasses.
It was announced on Friday that the Phillies have signed a dude that they have been rumored to be interested in acquiring for a long time. Super-utility veteran Whit Merrifield signed a one year, $7 million dollar contract with a team option for 2025.
This is exactly the kind of move that championship teams make. Merrifield gives the Phillies depth at practically every position on the field. He's a three time all-star (including last season) and has led the American League in stolen bases three times, the most recent of which was just three years ago. He's 35 and past his peak seasons, but he's still one of the best utility players in the game.
We didn't get any pictures of our front row crew. Everybody was kind of bopping all over the theater meeting up and chatting with each other before and after the screening, so an opportunity really didn't present itself, but thanks to Kate, we did get a couple of selfies in.
This year will be the 75th year that the Mahoning Drive-In Theater has been in business, so the theme for the season will be "75 years of 35 mm". There were a few announcements of films and double features that haven't been made public yet, as well as a pre-season 35mm road show, a new sponsor, and a partnership with a major film studio whose name I won't mention. We don't yet know what movies will be screened on the lot as a result of this partnership, but the possibilities are pretty damn cool!
The title of the movie we were going to watch was not announced ahead of time, but we were given a clue that it was a PG film that they've wanted to screen at the drive-in for a long time, but after years of searching, they couldn't find a 35mm print. It was the 1972 disaster flick: The Poseidon Adventure. Virgil and Mark have often joked that they wanted to host a three day weekend of Ernest Borgnine movies at the Mahoning with triple features every night, and an event title of The Borg Nine. I suggested that they spread it out over a season and give us something like the old Subway cards that you would get punched every time you got a hoagie. Fill up your card with Borg Nine and your Borg Ten will be free!
The Poseidon Adventure is an amazing movie. I always assumed that I had seen it before, but I realized at about five minutes in that nothing looked familiar to me at all, so either my memory has really taken a turn for the worse, or I was mistaking this for another disaster-on-the-sea movie that I've watched at some point in my life. I'm pretty sure that it's the latter... at least I hope that's the case. So, as luck would have it, my first time seeing this all-time classic was on the big screen with our friends from the drive-in, which was an awesome experience!
After watching The Poseidon Adventure on the big screen, we had a much less fun experience with The Mazda 3 Adventure on our drive home. We knew that we were going to get some snow, but they were calling for it to start early Saturday morning and last through the afternoon. It must have moved a little faster than expected because we hit a snow squall about halfway down I-80 which made it pretty damn hard to see and to keep the car from slipping. It got even worse once we took the 309 exit and ended up stuck behind a car that didn't seem to know how to drive in the snow. Not gonna lie, it was a bit scary at times, but we made it home safe and sound.
Into The Gap Thompson Twins (1984)
The fourth and most successful Thompson Twins album was released forty years ago today. I never owned it, but it has two songs that have a place on just about every 80's playlist that I've ever listened to. The first, and less well known of the two, is Doctor Doctor. The second is a song that went to #3 on the charts and is familiar to just about everyone of every age.
We found this groovy little restaurant next door to the Pocono Cinema & Cultural Center in East Stroudsburg which hosted an off-season gathering of the Mahoning Drive-In family.
My wife and I ordered Crunch Wraps for dinner, both of which came with a side of cornbread and tortilla chips. I got the Porkland Street Crunch Wrap, which was filled with shredded pork, rice, fiesta corn, bourbon sauce, and cheddar cheese, while she had the American Dream Crunch Wrap, which was stuffed with ground beef, lettuce, cheddar, and queso. The filling in hers was topped with a sauce that tasted like barbecue which she wasn't expecting and didn't really want, so we ended up trading after a few bites, which was perfectly fine with me because I thought both of them were delicious.
Training Video Old Country Buffet I've watched quite a few cheesy training videos in my day, but this one takes the cake... or, in this case, the slab of roast beef.
This is a movie that I never would have cared about enough to see it on the big screen if not for our Regal Unlimited subscription. When we waked into the theater yesterday, I expected this movie to be absolute crap. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's a fun action comedy with good performances all around, but the trailer really didn't do this picture any favors.
There's a pretty good chance that you've seen the trailer for Argylle before. It has been included in the ads for various streaming services, and it was played before nearly every movie that I've watched at the Regal this year. I thought that it seemed mildly amusing the first time that we saw it, but it made my eyes roll nearly every time after that. The dialogue between Bryce Dallas Howard and Catherine O'Hara in this trailer sounds like it was lifted from a failed 90's sitcom, the action scenes look about as cheesy and cookie-cutter as you can get, and for as much as I love Samuel L. Jackson, his line of "It's time for you to meet the real Agent Argylle" may have been the corniest thing I've ever seen in the theatrical trailer of a big budget film. Then there's the CGI cat, which had me picturing a room full of aging studio executives insisting that this movie have a cat because they saw their grandkids watching cat videos on their phones. Also, no offense intended to the director, but adding "from the twisted mind of Matthew Vaughn" to the trailer is not the selling point that they think it is. I barely knew who he was even after looking him up on Wikipedia, and I go to a hell of a lot of movies.
Argylle premiered across the United States on February 2nd. It has bombed at the box office so far, and I think they have their marketing team and whoever cut together this trailer to blame for that. Pushing even a good trailer as hard as they pushed this tends to make me sick of a movie before I even see it, but when you overplay a trailer makes a film look as lame as this, you're almost asking the public to ignore your movie. If not for the fact that it didn't cost us anything extra to see it, the convenient start time for my work schedule, and the fact that we wanted to go see a movie before the big snowfall hit on Monday night, I wouldn't have bothered.
My only complaint about the movie itself is that they really overdid it with the scenes where Elly was watching Aidan fight someone, only to have Aidan turn into her Argylle character, then cut back to Elly to shake her head in disbelief. I feel like they did that schtick at least a dozen times during the train scene. I get it... she thinks she's seeing Argylle... can we please stop now.
Other than that, the movie was a hell of a lot of fun, and not at all the dumpster fire that the trailer make it seem like it was going to be. I'm told that they planned for this to be a series, and I hope that those plans continue despite the movie not being the success that they hoped it would be... but for the love of god, please hire a different marketing team.
My dad sends me home with the most random things when I visit him. This weekend, it was a decanter filled with salt water taffy, a can of garbanzo beans, and a magnifying glass shaped like a dolphin.
My experience with Van Leeuwen Ice Cream has been hit and miss. They make a lot of unusual limited edition flavors that I'm interested in trying, but a lot of them that I've had the opportunity to try have ranged from pretty good (Hot Honey), to just ok (Pizza, Grey Poupon), to kinda lousy (Kraft Macaroni & Cheese), to an abomination of the grocers freezer aisle (Hidden Valley Ranch). There's only one flavor of theirs that I really loved, and that was Cranberry Crumble.
I've had enough bad experiences with this brand that it would take something pretty remarkable for me to be willing to pay full price for one of their pints (except Cranberry Crumble, which is worth every penny). I must not be the only person in town who feels this way because there's often an endcap freezer at my local Wal-Mart that's filled with pints that have been put on clearance. That was the case with these four flavors, each of which were marked down to $1.50.
There are few foods in this world that I enjoy more than pickles, so I was tempted to buy this when I first saw it a few months ago. The thing that stopped me was the memory of the Hidden Valley Ranch flavor. I'm not a fussy eater but it was, in the words of Jules Winnfield, some fucked-up repugnant shit. Thankfully, the Dill Pickle flavor was much better. If anything, it could probably have used a bit more of the pickle flavoring. This falls in the category of "just ok" because I wouldn't buy it again, but I'm glad that I got to try it.
Idaho Potato Malted Milkshake & Fries was the sleeper hit of the group for me. I've actually had a very similar flavor a few years ago from a company called Coolhaus Ice Cream. That one was quite good, and the Van Leeuwen version was even better. Instead of little mini french fries, this one is made with potato flakes mixed in like the crisped rice in a Nestle Crunch bar. This is one that I would buy again.
Kiwi Burst is the flavor that I was looking forward to trying the most out of these four because I love the fruit, but it was pretty underwhelming. It tasted good, but the flavor was kind of weak and although kiwi puree was in the ingredients, I didn't think that it tasted like a kiwi. Not bad, but this one is a one-and-done for me.
I saved Key Lime Pie for last because I was pretty sure that I was going to enjoy it, and I was right. This one had a strong flavor and was loaded with graham crust pieces. Cranberry Crumble is still my favorite Van Leeuwen flavor that I've tried, but this one is right up there too.
My friend Ben is a gamer, but he hasn't played too many things that came out prior to Nintendo GameCube, so I spent the day introducing him to retro gaming in the place that best represents what it was like to play video games during the 80's and 90's, Timeline Arcade.
Before I talk about the arcade, I've got to mention the fact that it was 65 degrees... on February 10th... in Pennsylvania. I'm not sure what the record high is for this time of year in this part of the country, but this has to be pretty close.
It's been six years since I last visited the Timeline Arcade. Since that time, they've closed the original Hanover location and moved a lot of those games over to the arcade in York. They knocked down the back wall of the York location to accommodate for all of the new games, so the place has nearly doubled in size since the last time I was here.
The place was pretty busy so I didn't take too many pictures inside the arcade, but I did want to make sure to get photos of a few machines. The one on the left was a short Space Invaders cabinet that I've never had the opportunity to play until today. The one in the middle is an old school snack machine that dispenses fun-size candy bars. The machine on the right is Return Of The Jedi, which was one of my favorite arcade games when I was a kid.
Unfortunately, Return Of The Jedi wasn't working correctly. The gun worked, and the flight yoke allowed you to move your land speeder and ship to the top and bottom of the screen, but you couldn't move forward and backward. That pretty much makes the Endor level impossible because you can't speed ahead of the Storm Troopers and go through to activate the Ewok's traps.
This wasn't the only game that had issues. The second player gun in Revolution X and a few other games that we came across didn't work, the Tapper cabinet was extremely glitchy (possibly because someone modded it to turn the bar patrons into Simpsons characters), and the Gorf machine didn't work at all. In a way, this is a pretty authentic retro arcade experience because I remember that there were machines that were out-of-order or with controllers that were less than fully functional at pretty much every arcade that I've played at throughout the 80's and 90's, but it was still a bummer.
One of the games that worked perfectly was the 1998 Sega underwater shooting game: The Ocean Hunter. I've never seen of or heard this game before, but it's a lot of fun and we played the entire game to the end credits. The game doesn't really acknowledge this, but you're pretty much playing as the villain in this game. There are hundreds of shark, squid, jellyfish, piranha, and other underwater creatures (both real and mythological), and the players characters are two humans who go down there to blow them to smithereens while collecting treasure boxes. Yay humans!
The last game we played was Golden Tee Golf, and while it's a hell of a lot of fun to play, let's just say that neither Ben or I are going to be joining the PGA Tour any time soon.
The first Joe Bob Briggs special of 2024 will air at 9:00 pm tonight. Here are the clues for tonight's double feature:
The first movie was so violent that the MPAA ordered 53 cuts before it could be released.
The second movie combined Andy Warhol's Factory with the sleaziest neighborhood in downtown El Lay.
It seems like a lot of folks are guessing My Bloody Valentine for the first feature and Vamp for the second.
UPDATE: Well, they had the second movie right, but the first movie was the 1996 Matthew Bright crime comedy: Freeway. I haven't watched Freeway since I was a teenager, and I forgot that I had even seen it until about five minutes in, but I'm glad they reminded me of it tonight. Damn, what a great flick!
If I were to make a list of my top ten favorite places in the world, Castle Dracula in Wildwood, NJ would be very close to the top of that list.
A website dedicated to dark rides and attractions called Dark In The Park recently published this excellent short documentary film that is dedicated to the haunted attraction. I've contributed some photos of the castle to this website quite a few years ago and I was happy to see that they included some of them throughout the video, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw in the last few seconds.
At 26:53 in the video, there's a photograph of a little boy sitting in the boat of the Dungeon Moat Ride with a young man in a blue Rolling Rock t-shirt. This photo was taken by my grandfather in the summer of 1987. The man on the right is my dad, and the little boy is me.
Candied Bacon Whopper Burger King (2024)
The most recent limited edition variation of the Whopper is available at Burger King restaurants in the United States as of January 29th. It's topped with brown sugar candied bacon, bacon jam, crispy onions, and a creamy garlic aioli.
I'm not sure if the Candied Bacon Whopper has something to do with the Million Dollar Whopper contest or if they're using this wrapper for all of their burgers right now. However, I am sure that this is a tasty burger! The meat, veggies, brown sugar, jam, and garlic sauce blend together nicely to make a burger with a sweet and smokey flavor.
