It’s H-day, baby!! All Hallow’s Day. Halloween. Sam Hain Day. Black and Orange. Spooky Time. Creepy Crawlies. Dress up like a nutball and drink yourself into a blind stupor and wind up disoriented and bleeding on the back porch of some stranger’s house…with no pants (you have no pants, not the stranger, who may or may not have pants). I love Halloween!
Want to see my costume for today? Here it is:
Okay, I noticed a serious jump in my blog stats the other day and I took a look to see what the hell just happened. Looking at my page views I see this:
A huge amount of traffic was being sent by an outside link to my article about failed McDonald’s sandwiches: The Golden Archives. This article usually gets some hits but it was blowin’ up, yo, sur-iously. So I clicked in to find the sites that link to it and I noticed this.
The most hits were coming from time.com. I was like, “Time.com? WTF? Not THE Time.com?” Yes, THE Time.com. I clicked the link and was greeted with an article on Time.com listing the top 50 Authentic American Experiences. Surprisingly, my blog is NOT one of the 50 Authentic American experiences. I don’t know why. How much more AMERICAN, or more of an EXPERIENCE, can this blog be? And by American, I obviously mean AWESOME. Here’s the page in question.
Within this article they are discussing the Big Mac Museum, which I would agree is an authentic American experience. In the very first sentence Time friggin’ Magazine (I say again…WHAT. UP.) sees fit to link to my blog.
Check out the Hula Burger link. That goes to my Golden Archives article here. How about that, sixth grade English teacher who said I wrote like a blind second grader? HOW YOU LIKE ME NOW?! Actually, my sixth grade English teacher didn’t say that, but she did throw a shoe across the room at a classmate. That is true. But she didn’t say I wrote like a blind second grader…I think she said epileptic first grader. But that’s beside the point because I can now bill myself as if I won an Academy Award. Like Academy Award Winner Sir Anthony Hopkins. I can now call myself Time Magazine referenced Sir Paxton Holley. Well, I added the Sir, but I have no problems going to jolly Olde England for the knighting ceremony. I’ll even pay for my own flight. You hear me Queen Mother? Hello?
Well, the inaugural post to the newly branded Cavalcade of Awesome will be one of my favorite types of posts, a rundown of some cool stuff I found at the Supermaket these past few weeks. You should all know by now that I love perusing retail shops and grocery stores for cool product. I’m a sucker for a cool movie promotion, so I especially enjoy food/snack items that are branded with the promotion of an upcoming movie. This usually only happens with action or comic book movies, but that makes it all the better. Surprisingly, you won’t see a movie like 27 Dresses get its own box of cereal (and that’s a shame). But you will see Indiana Jones get one.
You can check out some of my earlier finds here and here. I also enjoy looking for new flavors of candy, cereal, ice cream and soda. All of these really get me excited, so I’ll show you some of the kick ass stuff I’ve been finding the last few weeks.
You can tell the summer movie season is coming. More specifically you know that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens today, mainly because they have been hyping the crap out of it the last few weeks. And in typical George Lucas fashion, the movie’s images are posted all over products you can find in the store (e.g. Indy Jones cereal above). Indy’s visage has also been slapped all over packages of M&Ms. They even created a new flavor for Indy, Mint Crisp. Here are some of the Indiana Jones M&Ms packages you can currently find on store shelves (click the images to see them larger on my Flickr photostream).
This is the article I was trying to finish last week and couldn’t do it. There was just too much to talk about. Well, I think I got it all in. It got a little long, so I’m cutting the article in two. Part I is today.
Hope you enjoy!
The weekend before last, the wife and I made our third visit to Savannah, GA. It was for her birthday. It is one of our favorite places to go because there is so much history in this little city and there’s so much to do. Lots of great restaurants, cool site-seeing tours and many places of interest can keep one busy for hours. History buffs can appreciate all of the early American history and buildings and Hollywood buffs can appreciate all of the Hollywood movies and tv shows that have been filmed here. When we lived in Birmingham, AL, we were a whopping 6 hours away, but now that we live in Jacksonville, FL we are only 2.5 hours away. And we love it.
One of the things my wife and I love about the city is the atmosphere. It’s quintessential Old South. Spanish moss in the trees, old Victorian style mansions, small streets, old architecture and many historical places of interest all lend a wonderful all-around aesthetic that causes one to get lost in history. It really is great to just walk around the neighborhoods and look at the old style homes and buildings. Steph and I could do just that, walk around for hours looking at old buildings. It really is amazing.
When we first get to Savannah, we love to walk Riverstreet. It runs right along the river (obviously) and has many shops and restaurants in which we love to go and browse. Our favorite place to stop on Riverstreet? That would be Wet Willie’s. It’s a daiquiri bar that serves up like 10 tasty alcoholic daiquiris that Steph and I love. They have one daiquiri called Call-A-Cab that is really good and the strongest one they serve, as well as a banana one called Monkey Shine. When Steph is in “vacation mode”, however, she reaches for the White Russian daiquiri. With ice cream, coffee flavoring and grain alcohol it tastes like an Irish coffee latte (gross, in my opinion, but who am I to judge?). Me? I summon to my outstretched hand, Shock Treatment. It’s very similar to one of my favorite mixed drinks of all time, the Blue Hawaiian. It’s 150 proof grain alcohol, Blue Curacao and lemonade (FYI…a Blue Hawaiian adds coconut and is “on the rocks”). It’s tart enough to contort your grill into a cartoon-like pucker and strong enough alcohol-wise to put you on the floor if you aren’t careful. My kind of drink. Funny, this is usually Steph and my first stop when we get to Savannah. Even before eating (which is surprising). After Willie’s, we wind up stumbling out into the light of day like newborn babes as we make our way to our other destinations.
The Shamrock Shake is like the Loch Ness Monster. You either believe it exists or you don’t, some people catch a glimpse of one but some never do…and they are both green. This year, I was a lucky one. I was able to capture a Shamrock Shake and hold on for dear life as if drinking this holy liquid would grant me immortality. And judging from the taste, it may just have.
The Shamrock Shake is an interesting animal. According to McDonald’s, it was introduced in 1970, which is much older than I thought. However, the McDonald’s site also says they are only available in Ireland, so, Ronald may have put a bit too much “Irish” into his shake, if you get what I’m sayin’ (In case you don’t know what I’m saying, I’m saying that Ronald McDonald put too much whiskey in his Shamrock Shake, therefore he is drunk and can’t remember the truth…). It seems many McDonald’s in certain markets across the country still sell Shamrock Shakes for a few months surrounding St. Patty’s Day. It’s the ultimate celebration of all things green and Irish.
Back in the day, the Shamrock Shake got lots of publicity push. There were several commercials and they even created a special McDonaldLand character to represent it. He was Grimace’s uncle, he was green and from Ireland. Behold the beautiful visage of Uncle O’Grimacey!!!
I am not kidding, that was a real character. Don’t believe me, click here for Uncle O’Grimacey’s McDonald’s commercial on YouTube. You can hear him in all his fake Irish accent-y glory. While researching a bit more, I found out that not only was there a Shamrock Shake, McDonald’s also created a Shamrock Sundae! Green, minty syrup was poured on top of a normal sundae in order to transform it into something appropriately Gaelic. I didn’t remember the Shamrock Sundae, but there’s proof. Click here for the Shamrock Shake/Sundae commercial on YouTube, or check the picture below from that commercial. Very, very cool. I wish they still sold the sundae version. Looks YUMMY!
Last year, I searched high and low for one of these babies and was left empty-handed. There are like 4 McDonald’s around where I work and not one of them sold the mythic shake. Late last year, though, a brand new McDonald’s opened right by where I live. I was hopeful. And just the other day, I was going through the drive-thru and lo and behold…I saw the ad for the Shamrock Shake!!! When I ordered it, I’m sure it sounded indecipherable. Something like,
“HihelloIseeyouhavetheShamrockShake.CanIhaveaShamrockShake?Huh, Please?SHAMROCKSHAKESHAMROCKSHAKESHAMROCKSHAKESHAMROCKSHAKE!!!”
The guy must have thought I was a loony. That was all forgotten though, when he handed me my ice cold Shamrock Shake as if he were the Lady in the Lake and I was Arthur waiting to retrieve Excalibur for the first time. Check out the awesome green-ness of this shake! It’s a sight to behold.
And the taste is just as good as the pictures. It’s essentially their vanilla shake mixed with mint flavoring and green coloring…and it’s AWESOME! Everything I dreamed it would be. Try dipping Girl Scout Thin Mints into it for an extra treat.
Well, that’s enough schoolgirl gushing about a minty green milkshake. Hope you are successful in finding your Shamrock before, or on, St. Patty’s Day! I’m sure my friend Collier will try to order his with that fake Irish accent that he thinks sounds like Colin Ferrell but really sounds like Will Ferrell impersonating a leprechaun.
Hope everyone has a great St. Patty’s Day. And go find your Shamrock Shake!!
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