Cavalcade of Awesome

Archive for 2007

A Tragic few days…

Posted in personal with tags personal on March 2, 2007 by Paxton

It’s been a tough couple of days for my family.

If you’ve been watching the news then you know that Enterprise High School in Enterprise, AL was hit by a tornado on Thursday afternoon. So far, 17 people have been found dead.

Here’s a slide show of pictures of the aftermath.

My wife and her best friend, Kathy, graduated from Enterprise High School in 1995. Kathy’s parents and sister still live there. Kathy’s sister’s house was damaged by the tornado. It’s just surreal and sad the damage that can happen to people so close to home. Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone.

Another tragic bit of news came this afternoon. My Uncle Mike, diagnosed with Advanced Prostate Cancer last year, finally succumbed around 11:30am. You can see his picture on the lower right of this blog. He started the First Friday Foundation to raise awareness for Prostate Cancer. Here’s a better picture of the link:

The image above is a picture of him in high school. The image is linked to the website for First Friday Foundation. Take a look, and remember, 1 in 6 men will be stricken with Prostate Cancer, get your PSA Blood Levels checked when you turn 45.

My family is pretty close. My cousins Micheal & Megan and my brother and me were always really good friends. We loved going to Ohio to visit my Aunt and Uncle and just hanging out with them at their house playing board games and watching TV. Every year we used to go to Myrtle Beach for a week in the summer. It was some of the best times of my life. Life being the way it is, we haven’t been able to see them as much as I would like the last few years and I hope that changes. I love all of them and will thankfully see them soon. I know Uncle Mike is in a better place now.

I’ll miss you greatly, Mike. We all will. Tell Grandmother, “Hello”.

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It Tastes Like What?!

Posted in food, humor, reviews, soda with tags reviews, soda, sodapalooza on February 28, 2007 by Paxton

It’s happened to you. You are in the supermarket, you pass a product, usually in the drink or snack food aisle, with a weird name or crazy color scheme, you take a look at it, maybe even pick it up, and say to yourself, “This tastes like what?” I do it all the time. Take the Jones Soda Company. Each year their novelty soda line becomes more and more disgusting. Soda that tastes like antacid, turkey and gravy and peas & carrots is not even remotely appetizing, but they make a killing off it. True, though, that people only buy it for the novelty value. As if to say, “Yes, yes I have tasted the soda flavored like buttered mashed potatoes.”

Well, in order to make the same statement, I bought some weird and disgustingly flavored food/drink items recently and I’m going to try them right here, right now. If I die, remember me well.

Item #1 – Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda – This stuff has been around for years. It’s almost legendary. I used to see it as a kid at the local deli (shoutout: Diplomat Deli) when my dad took us there for dinner. I say now what I said then, “Celery flavored soda?! Who’d buy that?!” The jury is still out on who would actually buy it. The next question is, “Does it taste like celery?” The answer: Yes it does, if said celery was left out on the counter in a warm glass of Sprite until it rotted away leaving only a dark, foul-smelling death-liquid. I’ve only had 3 or 4 drinks of this and I already have a headache. I hope I don’t get leukemia. Ugh. This also comes in a diet version, but, thankfully, for the sake of the children, Dr. Brown discontinued it. If you have trouble finding this, consider yourself lucky.

Canfields
Item #2 – Canfield’s Diet Chocolate Fudge – Yes, you read that correctly, Chocolate Fudge soda. DIET. Haha. I’m really asking for it this time. Here we gooooo………..oh sweet jesus that is awful. I can’t imagine a chocolate fudge soda tasting good in the first place, but make it diet, and you’ve just created what scientists refer to as a “biological weapon of destruction”. My insides are now under attack by this BWD. Holy crap, I think the soda is trying to burn its way out of my stomach like an Alien. Foul, foul liquid. I actually saw a Diet CHERRY Chocolate soda at the store the other day. After this, I’ll be afraid to even walk down that aisle ever again. This soda now owns me.

Item #3 – Jones Caramel Apple soda – Jones really made this whole trend popular so I had to try one. This was one of their Halloween sodas from 2 years ago. The cans are cool, and this flavor at least has potential………potential to taste like sun tan lotion mixed with burnt maple syrup. Oh. My. God. That is awful. And do I detect an aftertaste of scalded rubber? My taste buds are going to revolt and suicide bomb my brain for continuing this torture. I can’t even articulate the supreme awfulness of this soda. Stay away.

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Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid, Superman!!!

Posted in humor, Kool Aid, Photoshop, pop culture, Superman with tags Kool Aid, Photoshop, Superman on February 22, 2007 by Paxton

Continuing my on-going series of Photoshop creations, I have another fake Kool-Aid packet for you. For the budding evil genius in all of us, I present Kryptonite Kool-Aid.

I created this around the time Superman Returns was released in theaters. If this seems familiar, it was mentioned in an earlier article on this blog.

Check out my other Kool-Aid creations here.

Technorati Tags – Pop Culture Humor Kool Aid Superman Kryptonite

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Enough Academy Awards Trivia to Choke a Donkey

Posted in Academy Awards, movies, Oscars with tags Academy Awards, movies, Oscars, Oscars Wild, pop culture on February 21, 2007 by Paxton

The time is nigh, my friends, the Academy Awards are here. Well, almost here. They’ll officially be here on Sunday at 8pm EST. I. Can’t. Wait. The wife and I, being rabid, movie whores, are throwing a huge (read “small”) shindig to celebrate the occasion. No expense will be spared. Our guests will drink out of the finest gold color paper cups and eat off the most delicate black and gold paper plates that Wal-Mart can provide. We’ll dine on the most succulent tiny quiches and taquitos a microwave oven can cook. Extravagant doesn’t even begin to describe it. Our guests will feel like Gary Coleman at the Soul Train Awards. ROYALTY.

At the party, we pass out ballots and you have to choose who you think is going to win each category. Points are weighted towards the major Awards like Best Picture and Best Actor. It makes things fun when you start wagering on categories. Before we started the ballots, we’d be falling asleep by the time Best Documentary Short was presented. Now, the group is arguing whether No Time For Nuts or The Little Matchgirl is gonna win Best Short Film (Animated). And NONE of us have seen either one. AWESOME.

Anywho, while surfing through some move websites preparing for this weekend’s festivities, I came across a treasure trove of Oscar trivia that I thought was pretty cool. Read on, sir, for some unbelievable, face rockin’ tidbits about the Academy Awards and those who win them.

# The first Academy Awards ceremony was in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and was hosted by Douglas Fairbanks and William deMille. Tickets cost $5 and the attendance was 270 people.
# In the beginning, the winners list was sold to the newspapers prior to the ceremony for publication. In 1940, guests could buy the 8pm LA Times edition and read who won each award. This lead to the sealed envelopes system in 1941.
# NBC first televised the ceremony in 1953 (25th Academy Awards)
# Longest Award Ceremony was the 2001 Academy Awards hosted by Whoopi Goldberg. It lasted 4 hours and 16 minutes but, thanks to Whoopi, felt like 36 hours.
Oscars 2004 # Walt Disney holds the record for having the most Academy Awards: 22 won, and 4 honorary.
# Jessica Tandy at age 80 is the oldest person to ever win (for Driving Miss Daisy) an Academy Award.
# Tatum O’Neal at age 10 is the youngest person to ever win (for Paper Moon) an Academy Award.
# Katharine Hepburn is the only person to win more than 3 major Awards (four times for Leading Actress) (1933 Morning Glory, 1967 Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, 1968 The Lion in Winter and in 1981 On Golden Pond .)
# James Dean is the only actor to receive a nomination after death. Dean was killed in a traffic accident in 1955, but was nominated in 1956 for East of Eden and 1957 for Giant.
# Only three movies have swept the top 5 awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay): It Happened One Night, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and The Silence of the Lambs.
# Only three movies have been nominated for the top 5 awards and missed by one win: American Beauty (didn’t win Best Actress), Annie Hall (didn’t win Best Actor), Gone With the Wind (didn’t win Best Actor)
# Only three Best Picture winners have achieved a ‘clean sweep’ at the Oscars, winning every award for which they were nominated: Gigi (nine nominations and awards), The Last Emperor (nine), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (eleven).
# John Cazale, the man who played Fredo Corleone, holds the distinction of being the only actor whose every film was nominated for best picture (The Godfather, The Conversation, Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, The Deer Hunter). After his death, Cazale appeared in archive footage in Godfather Part III, which was also nominated for Best Picture. Fredo no longer brings shame to the family.
Oscar Statue
# The film with the most nominations without a best picture nomination: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They with 9 nominations.
# Actress Bess Flowers has appeared in the most Best Picture winners: 5. Number I actually saw: 1.

Hope you enjoyed the trivia. Have a good week and weekend everyone and we’ll talk on the other side.

Peace.

Technorati Tags – Academy Awards Oscars movies humor

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Welcome to the Day-That-Hallmark-Built!

Posted in holiday, humor, personal with tags personal, Valentine's Day on February 14, 2007 by Paxton

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I hope everyone has a great Valentine’s Day. Just remember that this holiday was artificially created by greeting card companies to bump up sales during the slow early year months. In fact, tell your Valentine that when she asks to go to dinner. Mention how this holiday is the manifestation of the corporations’ greed and you don’t want to buy into the hype or feed that kind of soulless corporate money-lust. It’s just not right.

Don’t worry, I got your back, you can sleep at my place. 🙂

I was in the process of preparing an article but I think I’m going to save it. Work has been cracking the whip something fierce this week and I just want to enjoy the day. Tonight the wife and I are going to Roy’s here in Jacksonville. We have a gift card, so I’m not personally putting money into the corporate coffers. The place looks really good so I’m stoked. As for the after dinner festivities, well, let me just say without the least bit of exaggeration, that nary a woman can resist when Pax puts on his shiny shoes. That’s all that needs to be said. *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*

How cool is the picture up top? A good friend of Steph and mine, Kathy, sent it to us. It looks like she actually created it herself in MS Paint. I love it, so I put it up here for everyone to see. Thanks, Kathy.

Technorati Tags – Valentines Day personal humor holiday