Spotted this in the H&B aisle at the local ShopRite.  You’d think that getting the name right would be easy, what with all the packages of Gillette Fusion razors right there in the clear tub, but then you’d be wrong.

OK, maybe it doesn’t look impressive at first glance but consider this – right now my worldwide site ranking (based on a 3-month rolling average) is 1,578,651, which means I’m just 1,478,651 spots away from showing up on that graph.  Boo-yah!

Now I just need Alycia Lane to do something wacky.

(OK, so this is weird.  I had this post in the can, waiting until #100,000 before publishing.  Sure enough, #100K was looking for Alycia Lane pictures.  Sigh.)

It’s Tab Benoit with “So High”, off of his 1992 debut album Nice & Warm.  This is recommended for fans of Stevie Ray Vaughan, although this has more of a New Orleans flavor than a Texas one.

That works for me.  Sounds like they’ve done a nice job retaining their trademark sound but bringing it into the modern era.  This could be a contender for album of the year.  Fresh, indeed.

The list of high-profile cinematic sequels that can’t hold the jock strap of the beloved originals is fairly long indeed (Godfather III, any of the last three Star Wars entries, The Next Karate Kid, Batman & Robin, and Caddyshack II come to mind immediately), but what about the ones that passed virtually unnoticed like so many silent farts?  Do they not stink just as badly?  Why yes, yes they do.   Hold your nose and check out this sampling.

Road House 2: Last Call (2006)

Pain don’t hurt, but watching this piece of crap sure do.  Like most direct-to-landfill cash grabs, Last Call is related to its predecessor in name only.  The lead character, a DEA agent named Shane Tanner, is supposedly the son of Dalton – the immortal cooler portrayed by the late Patrick Swayze in the 1989 original.  Tanner ends up in Louisiana to avenge someone or other, and ends up taking over a seedy bar called the Black Pelican.  There’s drug running, natch, and Tanner butts heads with Black Pelican cooler Bill “Wild Bill” Decarie.  In a brilliant bit of casting, Decarie is played by none other than the immortal Jake Busey, who proves he’s no Ben Gazzara.  Sh-boom!

Ace Ventura Jr.: Pet Detective (2009)

What Kidz Bop is to music, this movie is to, well, Ace Ventura movies.   Apparently all it takes to establish oneself as the chubby progeny of the Jim Carrey character is the ability to utter his trademark “Allllrighty then!” catchphrase in a manner that’s kind of vaguely reminiscent of the original.  And hey, did you know there’s another Cusack sibling?  I didn’t either, but her name is Ann.

WarGames: The Dead Code (2008)

It seems pretty obvious that the creative juice behind the Road House and Ace Ventura brands was already exhausted after the first films, but WarGames coulda been a contender.  Technology’s come a long way since the days of Matthew Broderick and his super-powered floppy drives, and a new movie could’ve told a compelling story with fresh insight.  Instead, the screenwriters decided to just play Mad Libs with the original and turned in the uninspired Dead Code.

You remember the original story, right?  A computer-savvy teen wants to play a top-secret game, only it turns out to be a gateway into an automated government war computer.  The computer goes apeshit and decides to start a real war, only to be thwarted by the kid and his plucky sidekick.  Pretty cool huh?

Yeah, that’s also the plot for The Dead Code.  Oh, but the supercomputer is named Audrey instead of WOPR, so it’s totally a new movie!  And they even brought back the Prof. Falken character for a bit, so he can reactivate WOPR with the same friggin’ password Matthew Broderick used almost 30 years ago.  The only winning move is not to watch.

It Runs in the Family (1994)

While it seems impossible to think of any Christmas season being complete without watching A Christmas Story at least once, the film wasn’t universally loved when it was released in 1983.  Only when it became an HBO staple in the mid-’80s did audiences start to warm up to it, and of course now its place in the pantheon of great holiday movies is secure.  So it makes some sense that a sequel of sorts didn’t appear until a decade later.

Originally titled It Runs in the Family (now known as My Summer Story), the film had some of the right ingredients.  Like A Christmas Story, it was based on the work of Jean Shepherd (who narrates once again), and it followed the exploits of Ralphie Parker and his family.  But it just wasn’t the same.  For one, Kieran Culkin’s Ralphie doesn’t have the same earnest charm of Peter Billingsley’s, and the whole thing just feels like a pale imitation of the original (right down to the recycled soundtrack).  Trading Darren McGavin for Charles Grodin doesn’t help.

The movie was a flop by any standard (grossing less than $100,000), and is now all but forgotten.  I only happened upon it by chance when it briefly hit the cable movie network circuit soon after its release.

They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (1970)

I’m guessing that not a lot of people from my generation are familiar with Sidney Poitier’s groundbreaking role in the acclaimed 1967 crime drama In the Heat of the Night (which was also a TV series co-starring Archie Bunker).  Fewer still probably know that Poitier’s Virgil Tibbs character appeared in not one, but two sequels.  The first was 1970’s They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!, which got its name from the famous quote from the first movie.  While Heat is considered a landmark film for its exploration of institutional racism in the Deep South, Tibbs! is more or less a by-the-numbers crime story.  A prostitute is murdered in the opening scene (it takes less than 5 minutes for boobs to make their appearance), a high-profile preacher (Martin Landau) is accused of the deed, and Virgil Tibbs is on the case.  Meh.  An equally forgettable third entry, The Organization, was released in 1971.

On the plus side, the film sports a super-funky soundtrack by Quincy Jones, giving the film a much different feel than Heat.  Partly because of that it gets lumped in with the wave of Blaxploitation films that were ubiquitous in the first half of the ’70s.  In reality, though, it shares more in common with other gritty crime dramas of the era like Dirty Harry (which just happened to also take place in San Francisco).

Mannequin Two: On the Move (1991)

I know what you’re thinking – How could they possibly hope to improve on the subtle wit and abundant charm of Mannequin?  They couldn’t.  Not even Herman from Herman’s Head could lift this retread of the 1987 original.   And poor, poor Meshach Taylor, forced to reprise his role as Hollywood Montrose.  I can’t quite make out what that word bubble says in the movie poster, but I’m pretty sure it’s “Kill me now.”

On the other hand, Mannequin Two does feature the greatest go-cart chase scene since The Toy.

I’m a little miffed that they’re aping some of the scenes from the original movie (the claw in the bathtub among them), but that’s not a huge deal.  If Michael Bay and director Samuel Bayer actually go for a straight horror movie rather than a campy remake, this could be good.  I’ll even give Jackie Earle Haley a chance as Freddy Krueger, although Robert Englund pretty much owns the character.

• First off, I know I’m not the only one who thought NBC’s coverage sucked hard.  I don’t even care about the tape delays so much (since I’m not around to watch during the day anyway), but there was so much else to hate.  Look, I get that television networks are businesses, and the primary goal of a business is to make money.  But really, could NBC have been any more clumsy about the unending barrage of commercials?  After awhile it felt like I was watching one long infomercial for Visa, Verizon, AT&T, Diet Coke, Lexus, and McDonald’s among others.  (It’s the Visa show, brought to you with limited Olympic interruption!)

• I totally missed the opening ceremonies, but from the online commentary I saw I don’t think I missed much.  Slam poetry, for real?

• Every time I saw the Olympic logo I kept thinking of the cover for Rush’s Test for Echo album.

• Speaking of Rush – how the hell do you have a closing ceremony that celebrates the essence of Canada and not include Rush?  Avril Lavigne?  Nickleback?  WTF???

• Say Apolo Ohno again.  I dare you, I double dare you mother*^@%&@%!

• I’m not ashamed to say I watched more curling than any other event.  I do feel kind of bad for all the crap John Shuster took for leading the U.S. team’s march of futility, but it was damn frustrating to witness.

• To watch the commercials and little human interest stories that dominated NBC’s coverage, you wouldn’t think any of the athletes had fathers.

• I’m not going to bellyache about the U.S. men’s hockey team falling short in the gold medal game – considering they weren’t even expected to medal at all – but it would’ve been sweet to win the whole thing.

• Great job by Steve Holcomb’s gold-medal bobsleigh team, but if I never have to see his ass jiggle in that skin-tight suit again it’ll be too soon.

• Dear Julia Mancuso – STFU and stop whining.  Joannie Rochette cried less than you, and that poor girl just lost her mother.

• It’s cool and all that Shaun White dominated the Halfpipe, but I can’t get into it.  It’s the equivalent of the slam dunk competition at the NBA All-Star game.

• Best line of the entire Games goes to Bob Costas just prior to the closing ceremonies, praising Canada for their “innovations in science and whatnot”.

• I seem to remember coverage of the Beijing games being spread out over a lot more networks (with a much greater variety of events), but maybe I’m imagining things.

• Ballet, classical choirs, and giant glowing hamster balls.  Holy crap, Sochi means business.

Walk into any store or display case full of hot sauce and you’ll see some of the wackiest names for their wares.  They usually describe, in vivid detail, what will happen to you should you consume what’s inside the bottle – a certain truth in advertising that’s far too uncommon these days.  Case in point: here’s the sauce menu from a Mexican restaurant called Amigos, located in Australia of all places.

If I didn’t know any better I’d say this was a flyer from an S&M club of some kind.  Not that I would know what one of those looks like.

You know a place means business with its hot sauce when the disclaimers take up a quarter of the entire menu.  My favorite part is the first one under Terms and Conditions:

Due to the extremely hot nature of these products, I agree that they shall only be used as a food additive.

I’m not even going to explore what other uses these sauces could have besides food additive, but my mind keeps wandering back to the whole S&M thing.  So now that the legalese is out of the way, let’s take a peek at the goods.

Now this is an impressive selection.  Any menu that starts off with a product called Anal Angst is alright by me.  Here’s my personal top 10:

1. Anal Angst
2. Rectal Rocket Fuel
3. Blairs Jersey Death Sauce (not sure if that’s a dig at my home state, but whatever)
4. Baboon Ass Gone Wild
5. Ass Reaper (I’m sensing a theme here)
6. Butt Plug Relief
7. Hot Bitch at the Beach
8. Smack My Ass and Call Me Cindy
9. Aussie Ringstinger
10. 100% pain

Thanks to Kathy for passing along this gem.

*February 23, 1927

*February 25, 1964: A 22-year-old Olympic champion upstart by the name of Cassius Clay defeats heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston by TKO.  Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali a week later, but I don’t care.  His momma name him Clay, I’m gonna call him Clay.

*February 24, 1988: With their 8-0 verdict in Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, the United States Supreme Court rules that public figures cannot sue for being made the subject of satire.  The decision clears the final obstacle in the path of Larry Flynt becoming the most annoying turd in the nation (until Glenn Beck).

*February 22, 1980: The U.S. men’s hockey team does something at the Olympics, but I can’t recall what exactly.

*February 24, 1958: The Silhouettes hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart this week with the doo-wop staple “Get a Job”. Something tells me that a contemporary remake is not forthcoming anytime soon.

*February 24, 1981: Socialite Jean Harris is convicted of murdering Dr. Herman Tarnower, the so-called Scarsdale Diet Doctor.  The case is dramatized years later in the Tony Award-winning musical Scarsdale Surprise, starring the lovely Ms. Raquel Welch.

*February 25, 1779: Lt. Col. George Rogers Clark leads 130 giggling American and French volunteers into Fort Sackville after the British surrender it.

*February 24, 1917: President Woodrow Wilson’s efforts to keep the United States out of World War I are dealt a huge blow when he learns of the Zimmermann Telegram, a proposed military alliance between Germany and Mexico.  The usually staid and diplomatic Wilson is overheard by aides muttering, “Those slimy fucking Huns!”

*February 28, 1983: The final episode of M*A*S*H is watched by more people than any TV show to that point, setting the stage for the highly anticipated, can’t-miss spinoff series, AfterMASH.