April | 2009 | Cavalcade of Awesome

Archive for April, 2009

Star Wars Celebration I: The 10 Year Anniversary

Posted in Colorado, Denver, movies, nostalgia, personal, pop culture, Star Wars with tags Colorado, conventions, Denver, movies, pop culture, Star Wars, Star Wars Celebration, Star Wars Roadtrip on April 28, 2009 by Paxton

Well, I was going over some pictures a few months ago trying to pick some good ones to upload to my Flickr blog when I came across pictures of my trip to Denver, CO in 1999 for the first Star Wars Celebration. While looking at them, it dawned on me that this trip happened 10 years ago this weekend. TEN YEARS!!! Man, time flies.

The Star Wars Celebration I occurred from April 30 – May 2, 1999 in Denver, CO. It was held as a “celebration” (obviously) of the original Star Wars trilogy as well as a “release party” for the new Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Menace (which was set to release in less than a month from that time).

At that particular time I was on a client site in Tampa and I went to the Celebration with my friends Jason Collier and Jonathan Loden. Denver had inclement weather the entire weekend so it was either rainy or sprinkling at all times. Plus, since this was the first official Star Wars convention in many years, some of the mechanics of the operation were not as well oiled a machine as you would come to see in Celebration II and Celebration III. Despite that, it was a lot of fun and I’m glad I went.

Let’s take a little photo walk through some of that weekend’s festivities.

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I’m OK, you’re OK: The story of OK Soda

Posted in Coca Cola, nostalgia, OK Soda, pop culture, soda with tags Coca Cola, nostalgia, OK soda, pop culture, soda, sodapalooza on April 21, 2009 by Paxton

OK Soda logo I’ve been surprised at how popular my history of New Coke articles have been since I wrote them almost three years ago (Oct 2006). I constantly have people linking and reading the three part saga. It was fun to write and it was one of my favorite articles on this blog. So, I thought to myself, why not do a “sequel” to the New Coke articles? I mean, my energy drink reviews started off as a one-shot article and they became popular enough that I did four of them (and I’m considering doing another). I mean, soda has been one of the tenets this blog was built on. I talk about new soda flavors, graphics and packaging, as well as wax nostalgic on sodas that are no longer available. So what soda am I going to pull from the mists of the past? I’m going to mine the Coke back catalog one more time to discuss OK Soda.

In the early ’90s, Coke was still smarting from the marketing stink bomb that was New Coke. Coke regained its older demographic with the switch to Coca-Cola Classic, but the younger teen generation was still scoffing at the stodgy, elder soda company. Greatly needing to boost their share of the highly coveted Gen-X demographic, Coca-Cola decided to try something new.

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How my iPod Shuffle controls my runs like a mini-dictator

Posted in Apple, exercise, humor, iPod, life, running, technology with tags Apple, exercise, humor, iPod, life, running on April 16, 2009 by Paxton

Okay, I mentioned earlier that I ran the Gate River Run here in Jacksonville on Mar 14. Well, I was able to run the whole 9.3 miles and I finished in 1hr and 33minutes. That’s right at 10 minute miles. I’m happy with that and I hope to break that next year. If you want to see some pics of me during the race click here. Beware, I look ROUGH.

I’ve had a few people ask what I like to listen to when I’m running and the answer is my iPod Shuffle. I load it up with some awesome running tunes and then just let it pick the order. It’s great. As for the type of music, I enjoy hard rock and a bit of gangsta rap when I run. I need high energy to keep me going. No ballads or wimpy crap. I need ball-drivin’, head-bangin’, car-crashin’, ear-splittin’ RAAAAWWWWWWK when I run.

The other day I was feeling saucy so I hooked my Shuffle up to the computer and set iTunes to auto-load songs. This means I have no idea what was picked as everything was just picked at random. Normally, I tell iTunes what songs I want, then the iPod picks the playlist order, but this time I let iTunes pick the songs. FYI…that was a HUGE mistake. I have this running condition called MADD, Music Attention Deficit Disorder. I may LOVE a song in the car, but when I’m running, odds are, I’m going to hate it. Seriously, when I’m running, the chances of me liking a song are cut to 50%, at least.

Want to know how my run went? Below is the horrible sound track to a man dying. There were some good songs, but then, there was everything else.

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Spockcation 2009: Preparing for Spock’s Arrival plus I’m on Twitter

Posted in movies, Star Trek, technology, Twitter with tags movies, Spockcation 2009, Star Trek, technology, Twitter on April 14, 2009 by Paxton

Hey, everyone, with the impending release of the new Star Trek movie in May, the toy blog eclectorama is hosting what it’s dubbed as Spockcation 2009. A 12″ figure of Spock is being sent across the country to various blog owners in order to be photographed in various cities. I was chosen as the representative for Florida. So, at some point, I’ll have Spock come my way and I’ll get to take a bunch of fun pics with the little guy. Can’t wait.

Anyway, today, April 14, is the kick off day for Spockcation. The tiny Vulcan is heading to Canada for his first stop. Here’s Spock’s itinerary.

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The Grocery Aisle of long forgotten breakfast cereals Pt II

Posted in advertising, Batman, breakfast cereal, movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags advertising, Batman, breakfast cereal, commercials, movies, pop culture, Star Wars on April 3, 2009 by Paxton

Allrighty, here’s Part II of the discontinued cereals article. If you missed Part I, click here, my friends, otherwise, let’s walk back down Aisle 7c (Nostalgia) and take a look at some more forgotten cereals from our childhood.

Burgen, flurgen, murgen…BORK BORK BORK!! The cereal with the nonsense name. Swedish Chef was one of the more popular Muppets, so it’s not surprising he got his own cereal. This was released in the late ’80s and the commercials for it were produced by Jim Henson, right before he died. Here is one of the commercials.

What if you want a breakfast food that looks like other food? I mean, why eat donuts for breakfast when you can have cereal…shaped like donuts? Or waffles? Or ice cream? These cereals remind me of that Jim Belushi skit on SNL where he’s an Olympic athlete that eats “Little Chocolate Donuts” for breakfast. See that skit here. Here are cereals based on donuts, including a Dunkin Donuts branded cereal. I actually remember each of these.