IKEA Monkey

“[The Witch] surrounds you with a general yet mostly indescribable sense of unease, less through its violence or blood than its mood and tension. And then it clobbers you,” writes our own Jason Bailey about Robert Eggers’ debut feature in theaters this weekend.

Presented as “a New England folk tale,” The Witch has been endorsed by The Satanic Temple as a “transformative Satanic experience” and a film that “provides context to a period of American history that is too often fetishized by those seeking to wield this hammer once again.”

In the spirit of fun and all things Satan, we’re looking at other films that feature the devil at their black, rotten core.

The single-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers apparently wants to give you a heart attack. The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers unveiled the horrifying things it put on its menu for the 2016 season, and the piece de resistance is this monstrosity known as the Big Mother Funnel Burger. It was on the team’s menu last year, and apparently it was such a success that it decided to bring it back for 2016.

But that’s not the only wild thing on the team’s menu. Here are a few other options that you’ll be able purchase and consume for the low price of 10,000 calories:

Going clockwise from the funnel cake burger, we next get to another thing that was on the menu last year, the Grilled Cheese Bacon Cheeseburger. This one isn’t too innovative, partly because it was on the menu last year, but mostly because using grilled cheese sandwiches as a bun for a burger is something that you can find in your average college town.

But then we get to the single craziest thing on the menu. It is a new item called a Meatlovers Pizza Burger, which is a burger that has pizza as its buns. According to Fox 11 News, the burger is made up of “four beef patties surrounded by a pepperoni and sausage DiGirono pizza.” I have no idea how no one thought of this before, but this is the definition of a thing that is a good and a bad idea at the same time.

Lastly, there is a spin on the tradition grilled cheese cheeseburger, the Grilled Cheese Venom Cheeseburger. It replaces regular bread with Texas Toast, uses pepper jack cheese, and for a big kick, it has jalapeños and sriracha on it.

All of these are nuts, and if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go buy tickets to their first home game now.

(via Fox 11 News)

   This is always a mood-lifter at Fashion Week. Read More ...

7-Eleven offers a premium version of their standard breakfast sandwiches with new Breakfast Melts, which come on a toasted ciabatta bun rather than a biscuit or English muffin.

Available at participating stores (basically those with a turbo convection oven), Breakfast Melts come in two varieties: Bacon, Egg & Cheese and Sausage, Bacon & Cheese.

Bacon, Egg & Cheese features thick-cut, hickory-smoked bacon, egg, and aged cheddar cheese on artisan ciabatta bread.

Sausage, Bacon & Cheese features thick-cut, hickory-smoked bacon, maple-flavored sausage, and aged cheddar cheese on artisan ciabatta bread.

Prices for 7-Eleven's Breakfast Melts start at $2.99.

The breakfast sandwiches follow a trio of Melt Sandwiches that were first introduced last year.

McDonald's is testing a Chicken McGriddle breakfast sandwich out in Central Ohio for a portable version of chicken and waffles.

The test item consists of a McChicken Patty sandwiched by two maple-infused McGriddle cakes. According to Columbus Business First, it's being tested at two price points: $1.49 and $2; and can be found at selected restaurants through March 27, 2016.

Since the Chicken McGriddle uses existing ingredients, you can easily try this one yourself at your local McDonald's by custom ordering it.

This isn't the first time that McGriddles and a chicken have been paired together at McDonald's. Back in 2013, a Southern California franchisee was testing "Chicken and Waffles," which consisted of Mighty Wings and McGriddle cakes.

Photo via McDonald's.

   I traditionally really like Tadashi Shoji, but I’m not sure this was their most successful collection. For one thing, I found the styling unappealing — no one looks good with greasy hair, not really — but I was also alarmed when I saw the run of show waxing so poetic about “tribal” influences, because that Read More ...

Shoegaze vets Lush have reunited for the just-announced EP Blind Spot, out April 22, and a US tour.

This is the first new music from the English band since the 1996 single “500 (Shake Baby Shake).” Last year, the group released the box set Chorus, which you can take a closer look at over here.

Lush recorded Blind Spot las summer with producers Daniel Hunt of Ladytron and Jim Abbiss. The video for the first track “Out of Control” was directed by Mark Anderson.

Of the EP, Lush’s Miki Berenyi wrote:

“It certainly took some time to set up, but once we were in the studio, everything came together incredibly quickly. It was great fun! It’s been a long time since I’ve written Lush lyrics, and I realised early on with this EP that what I wrote about then is not what I feel comfortable writing about now. My perspective, and what is close to my heart, has changed, and I think that’s conveyed in the songs.”

Check out the list of tour dates, starting in April, below

Blind Spot Tracklist:
01. Out of Control
02. Lost Boy
03. Burnham Beaches
04. Rosebud

Lush 2016 Tour Dates:
04/14 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy
04/16 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music Festival
04/17 – San Francisco, CA @ Warfield
04/19 – Portland, OR @ Crystal Room
04/20 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox
04/21 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
04/23 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music Festival
04/30 – Manchester, UK @ Manchester Academy
05/06 – London, UK @ Roundhouse
05/07 – London, UK @ Roundhouse
06/03 – Nimes, FR @ Paloma
06/04 – Nimes, FR @ Paloma
08/13 – Oslo, NO @ Oya Festival
09/14 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5
09/15 – Boston, MA @ Royale
09/18 – Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre
09/21 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
09/22 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer

This is what the world's largest bat colony looks like.

When bidding to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, Rio de Jaineiro promised the International Olympics Committee that it would eliminate 80 percent of the sewage found in the city’s notoriously filthy water, and would fully regenerate the lagoon in which rowing and kayaking events will be held. Now a few months from the start of the games, Rio has given up on keeping those promises.

Read more...

Jack in the Box's Double Jack features a new bakery bun sandwiching two beef patties, two slices of American cheese, hand-leafed lettuce, freshly-sliced tomato, mayo, ketchup, mustard, pickles, and onions.

It sells for $5.29 at my local Jack in the Box but I got this courtesy of Jack in the Box.

Essentially, the Double Jack is the Jumbo Jack with double patties, the addition of mustard, and more cheese. It serves to highlight recent ingredient changes including Jack's new bun and freshly-prepped tomatoes and lettuce. It also reminds more than a little of the All-American Jack they offered back in 2011.

The double beef patties make for a very meaty burger and there was a few smoky, crispy moments from charring. They did away with the grill seasoning so they offered up just plain, moist beef flavor. With the lack of seasoning to the beef, they seemed to have gone a bit heavier with the sauces with extra tanginess between the ketchup and mustard (the pickles were fairly mild though). The change from mayo onion sauce to plain mayo didn't really impact the burger for me.

The lettuce and tomato were fresh but I could have used a bit more lettuce and onion to balance out the beef (but I guess that's what the Jumbo Jack is for). I don't recall having many problems with the freshness of the lettuce or tomato at Jack in the Box in the past but perhaps the fresher prep is meant to provide more consistency.

No more grill seasoning...

The two slices of cheese were nicely melted. They offered the standard generic creaminess.

The new bun isn't as nice as the brioche-like signature bun on the Buttery Jack. Compared to your standard burger bun, it has more of a chewy sheen to it as well as a slightly moister crumb. It's also a little more dense.

Overall, Jack in the Box's Double Jack is solid and, between the double beef patties, quite filling. The ingredient changes aren't earth-shaking but they do make a slight improvement. I actually liked the grill seasoning though and they seem to be countering the change by adding more sauce.

On a side note, the pricing is a little bit odd as you can get the almost identical Jumbo Jack with cheese for $2.69 (which also comes with two slices of cheese) at my local Jack in the Box. You would think that the extra patty would generally cost about $1 more but the Double Jack goes for $5.29, which makes the extra patty a somewhat expensive add-on.

Nutritional Info - Jack in the Box Double Jack (319g)
Calories - 830 (from Fat - 520)
Fat - 58g (Saturated Fat - 22g)
Sodium - 1130mg
Carbs - 34g (Sugar - 7g)
Protein - 46g

Reality star Angela "Big Ang" Raiola, the flamboyant reality star who rose to fame on the VH1 series "Mob Wives," died early Thursday after a battle with lung and brain cancer. She was 55.

And investigators say this isn't the first time Malachi A. Love-Robinson, 18, has pretended to be a physician.

After enough trips, it becomes evident that if you want to park on the ground floor of the office garage you have to get there before 7am. After entering the garage at 7:01am, I did a quick scan and determined there were a few spaces left. The spaces that were left were ones that you couldn’t drive directly into; typically behind the concrete support beams. People drive directly into spaces even if there are in the other row pointing against the traffic flow to claim a spot quickly. Even if that meant causing a headache for everyone trying to leave at the end of the day. The parking spots behind the concrete support beams required driving all the way around the spots thus last to be claimed.

In my attempt to get to a concrete support beam spot, a car already parked backed quickly out of their space bringing me to a hurriedly stop. While leaving a parking space in itself is not odd, leaving at the start of the work day especially from a coveted parking space (next to the exit door towards the office building) abruptly seemed off. The Honda Accord backed out in front of me quickly and stuttered, as if it was unsure in their choice, then quickly sped beyond the 11 mile per hour speed limit posted in the garage. While the space was tempting, I rather have a concrete support beam parking spot (further from the office but closer to the garage exit), so I slowly made my way to my desired spot.

As I parked I noticed the Honda Accord had looped around and parked in the same spot as before, quickly and unsure of their choice. A woman jumped out before the car had even settled into park, opened the rear driver’s side door. She looked in quickly, slammed the door shut, then opened the door quickly, then slammed the door shut, jumped into the driver’s seat, and backed her Honda Accord out of the parking spot quickly and stuttered. I sat in my car and watched as this routine happened a third time. After attempting this routine a fourth time, someone else had parked their car in this coveted parking spot. When the Honda Accord made its way to its original parking space, it slammed hard to a stop, and the driver became animated and started pounding on her steering wheel. The driver was clearly upset her routine had been disrupted. The Honda Accord sped off even faster to somewhere else in the parking garage. I look at the clock in my car and it reads 7:06am.

A little after 7:30am, my supervisor asked if I can meet for a brief meeting to go over numbers on a report. Do it now for five or six minutes instead of something more formal later in the day. When I arrive in my supervisor’s office, sitting awkwardly in a chair is the driver of the Honda Accord. She works for another department but needs information we can provide her. Clearly fidgeting throughout our meeting, my supervisor asks if she’s OK. She says, “Imma… I’m fine. Just out of sorts. I have a morning routine, you know. If I don’t follow it I just get, you know, on edge.”

Britney Spears is a woman of few desires—a stage to sing on, a safe place to raise her children, and a hot dink with a giant weenie...

Read more...

The Nevada assemblywoman has starred in a movie and many controversies. But her new role as negotiator in the Oregon standoff may be her strangest role yet.

Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs, and what’s wrong with that? For decades, Delilah Rene Luke has been dispensing salt-of-the-earth advice and comforting soft rock tunes as part of her nightly call-in show, Delilah After Dark, which the genial host now records from the basement of a picturesque farmhouse in Port Orchard, Washington. Over on BuzzFeed, in honor of Valentine’s Day, writer Nick Murray has written an affectionate and informative article about Luke and her show called “You’re Listening To Delilah,” illustrated with photographs by Brandon Hill. The host’s honeyed voice and soothing manner have helped make Delilah After Dark a mainstay of syndicated radio since the mid-1990s, but Luke has worked in radio most of her life, beginning in her teens. Today, her program has an audience of millions, putting her in contention with such heavy hitters as Rush Limbaugh ...

The 5-minute clip is a montage of some of the most soothing online videos.

This morning, some readers alerted us that they were having problems with their cable TV. Were they alone? Were they being punished by the entertainment gods on a federal holiday? No, as far as we know, that isn’t actually a thing. What we do know is that there are outages reported in cities across the country, and Comcast’s Twitter team is posting so rapidly that their wrists may be on fire.

The ever-helpful Downdetector.com shows us on their “heat map” that outage reports are concentrated on population centers, which makes sense, and that people are reporting problems with their Comcast connections in cities across the country.

A general message from the @ComcastCares Twitter account apologizing for outages was briefly up, then disappeared, and now the company is replying to individual customers instead.

Will customers be due a refund? After two outages in three days on the X1 platform back in 2014, Comcast did offer customers a small refund for their trouble.

Meanwhile, you won’t find any mention of the outage on the main @comcast Twitter feed, but you will find what was certainly a pre-scheduled message about providing Internet access to disadvantaged children. Customers are feeling rather disadvantaged themselves, and weren’t pleased with the message.

Ironically, the cable company’s “help and support” pages are also down as of this post.

Update: Reader Joseph reports that phone support is down, which makes sense if everyone is calling in at once. “1-800-Xfinity says all circuits are busy,” he writes. “CAN’T EVEN SPEAK TO TECH SUPPORT….”

Second Update: We wrote to Comcast to ask what’s up, and they sent us this statement in response:

We have repaired the temporary network interruption that impacted some of our services this morning. Our engineers continue to work on this issue and almost all services have already been restored. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused our customers.

Jenrry Mejia really likes taking steroids. He was suspended by MLB for 80 games when he tested positive for stanozolol last April, and was hit with a 162-game suspension three months later when he tested positive for stanozolol and boldenone. Today brings news that Mejia failed a third test, this time for boldenone.

Read more...

Tucker is only three months old, and he sure knows how to look cute for the camera. He lives with me in Upstate New York. Tucker enjoys playing in the snow, napping throughout the day, meeting new dogs, and getting lots of attention.

When you’re already the white supremacist candidate of choice—how do you top yourself? Easily, apparently—just get the truthers behind you. Which is why Trump just went full on “Bush lied, people died.”

Read more...

In the absence of light, the plant uses its own energy stores.

For weeks now, I have been haunted by FM morning radio.

Read more...

The women in Chicago's culinary scene don't get enough attention. [ more › ]

Today was an ordinary day until what-dog.net came along. Now, today is a Great Day.

Read more...