Cavalcade of Awesome

Archive for 2010

The Cavalcade of Awesome watches Twilight New Moon

Posted in monsters, movies, reviews, Twilight, vampires, werewolf, werewolves with tags monsters, movies, reviews, Twilight, vampires, werewolf, werewolves on May 7, 2010 by Paxton

For regular readers, if you recall, I watched the first Twilight movie last March and was not a fan.

However, thinking back on it, as much as I hated what Stephanie Meyer and Twilight has done to vampires (and literature in general), there were things in the movie that I didn’t hate. Vampire baseball being one of those. The “evil” vampires being another. But I did hate EVERYTHING about Bella and Edward. EVERYTHING. The dialogue, the look, the language, the way they acted with each other. HATED IT. It was a bad Harlequin romance novel, horrible dialogue and all, gussied up with non-threatening “vegetarian vampires”, a weak willed heroine and an angsty, emo pretty boy (who doesn’t wash his hair) as the anti-hero.

Harlequin Twilight book

So, being the pop culture guru that I am, I felt I needed to continue the series and watch Twilight: New Moon, the first sequel, especially if I’m going to continue talking about how much Twilight is ruining vampires for everyone. So I got the movie from Netflix and my wife and I sat down to watch it this past Saturday. Now, to be honest, I wasn’t exactly dreading it. I was totally expecting not to like the movie, but I thought I could enjoy how completely ridiculous it’ll be and laugh the majority of it off. Like watching Battlefield Earth after several shots of Jagermeister and Red Bull. I was wrong.

This movie is so f’n bad that I am ashamed I even watched it. I’m ashamed for the majority of the actors in the movie. This movie makes the first Twilight look like Citizen Kane. It almost makes Battlefield Earth look like Citizen Kane. It is horrible in the same way that someone kicking a kitten is horrible. And I don’t know if I should blame the director, writer, author, actors or just curse God for releasing this upon the Earth.

First of all, I was actually kind of excited to see werewolves get thrown into the mix. The last movie was entirely too full of gay-ass vampires. We needed some thing more awesome, like big bad ass wolves. Well, there were werewolves in this movie. And the wolves were big and bad ass, but look at the guys that turned into the wolves.

Tell me this doesn’t look like the cast of the floor show at San Francisco’s popular nightclub, The Manhole. Are werewolves forbidden from wearing shirts, because these guys don’t wear shirts throughout the entire movie. And why do they all have to wear jorts (jean shorts)? These werewolves are less gay than the vampires in the movie, but that’s like saying Elton John is less gay than Liberace. They are both still GAY. I don’t feel like these guys want to wolf out and murder me, I feel like they want to give me a lap dance. So now Stephanie Meyer is ruining werewolves. Great.

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10 Awesomely ridiculous ’80s songs sung by characters in a movie

Posted in 80s, movies, music, pop culture with tags movies, music, pop culture on May 5, 2010 by Paxton

If you are like me you treasure ’80s movies and how wonderfully horrible they are. One of my favorite movie devices studios used a lot was have the characters in the movie sing a song that could then be promoted on the radio to boost awareness of the movie. This, of course, led to some horribly bad music sung by actors while “in character” that really had very little or nothing to do with the movie. Some of them worked, most of them didn’t.

I say they were horribly bad, but the reason I remember a lot of these is because I owned them either on the movie soundtrack or on an audio tape that I recorded from the TV.

Here are ten of my favorite ridiculously awesome ’80s songs sung by movie characters.

The Nerds Song by the Tri-Lambdas – From 1984’s epic Revenge of the Nerds. The Tri-Lambs put on quite a show for the final carnival. Lamar rapping while wearing the ’80s obligatory Beat It jacket (bonus points for no sleeves) along with Poindexter’s electric violin and Tashi the Korean dressed as an American Indian banging a gong. Classic.

No on 15 by the Tri-Lambdas – From Revenge of the Nerds Part II in 1987. The nerd gang gets back together and puts on a rockin’ show to vote down Proposition 15. If I’m not mistaken, I thought Prop 15 was voted on by the International Greek Council of Fraternities so I’m not sure how any of these random party people can vote “No on 15”. Anyway, Lamar is back rapping again and this time he’s joined by Barry Sobel doing a very Beastie Boys-esque rap. This one is more fun than the last song, but the first movie was a better movie.

Are You Ready for Freddy? by Fat Boys featuring Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) – In 1988, the Fat Boys were asked to record the “theme” for Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4. This was the result, which included Robert Englund actually doing a rap as Freddy at the end. Yes, the quality is a bit questionable, however I was a huge Fat Boys fan in the ’80s so I loved it. Surprisingly, even though this was released as a single promoting the movie, it was not included on the official soundtrack. I got it off the Fat Boys album “Coming Back Hard Again”, which I still have on audio cassette.

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New Coke turns 25 years old this month

Posted in 80s, Coca Cola, New Coke, pop culture, soda with tags Coca Cola, New Coke, pop culture, soda, sodapalooza on April 28, 2010 by Paxton

Coca-Cola officially released New Coke on April 23, 1985. Which makes it 25 years old this month. Hard to believe that whole reformulating Coke debacle was over two decades ago. I was eleven years old.

Go back and read about the history of that troubled beverage in my 3 part retrospective on New Coke called Misunderstood.

Let’s take a look at some “New Coke” commercials.

This commercial was originally for regular Coke, but was changed after the release of New Coke. It features the slogan Coke Is It! I’ve always liked that jingle.

Bill Cosby was one of the big celebrities who helped launch New Coke. Here he is introducing the reformulated Coke in 1985.

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Reviews of 5 brand new sodas in stores now

Posted in Mountain Dew, Pepsi, reviews, soda with tags Mountain Dew, Pepsi, reviews, soda, sodapalooza on April 27, 2010 by Paxton

There have been some new soda flavor releases recently. I’ve picked up a bunch of them and I’m going to review them for you right now.

Mt Dew is back doing the whole Dewmocracy voting thing. If you remember, back in 2008 Mountain Dew released three test market flavors nationwide (SuperNova, Voltage and Revolution) and had people vote on which one became the new permanent Mt Dew flavor. This resulted in Mt Dew Voltage winning a permanent spot on the nation’s shelves. Well, Mt Dew is doing this whole thing again with three new flavors for us to try and vote on. They were released to stores this April and they are Mt Dew Distortion, Mt Dew White Out and Mt Dew Typhoon. Let’s see if they are any good.

Mt Dew Distortion – This flavor is a lime-blasted Mt Dew. The taste is very similar to the Taco Bell exclusive Mt Dew Baja Blast. This Dew is a little bit more bitter on the aftertaste than Baja Blast, mainly because Baja Blast has pineapple in its flavor to tone that down. I like lime, I like Mt Dew, so I like this flavor. However, the coloring and label are too similar to the original Dew and it doesn’t stand out enough for me. A good flavor that may get lost in the shuffle.

Mt Dew White Out – Unlike Distortion, this flavor does stand out. The bright white and blue packaging and disconcertingly white liquid color make this stand out from the drink cooler in every way. How is the taste? Well, it’s labeled as a “smooth citrus” Dew and it doesn’t lie, it is definitely smooth tasting. A light, sweet Dew with very little aftertaste. I’m just wondering how this smooth citrus is different than the regular Dew citrus? Once again, confusion with the existing brand. I can see this getting votes on it’s mild taste and eye-catching design.

Mt Dew Typhoon – This is a tropical Punch infused Mountain Dew. I love the blue/red color combination and the bright red liquid color (but, that too is very similar to Mt Dew Code Red). The taste is very good. It has a nice fruit punch flavor that works well with the normal Mt Dew citrus. The taste actually reminds me of the limited edition Halo 3 Mt Dew Game Fuel from 2008. I would say that this is my favorite flavor so far, with White Out second and Distortion a close third. However, unless they make these in diet, I really won’t be drinking them. Which is a shame, because I like all three of these flavors. I actually think all of these flavors are much better than the Diet Mt Dew UltraViolet they released last fall. If they made any of these in diet I would regularly drink it.

So, how’s the voting going? If you go to Dewmocracy.com, you can see an up to date map by state of the results.
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There will be an heir to my AWESOMENESS!!

Posted in life, personal with tags baby, life, personal on April 23, 2010 by Paxton

I’ve not mentioned this on the blog yet because I didn’t want to jinx anything but my wife is pregnant. She is right at 19 weeks along and we went to the doctor yesterday and found out what we are having.

We are having an AWESOME baby boy! Yay! Since it’s a boy, we already have the name picked out (we were undecided on a girl’s name). The little boy will not only be born with my awesome looks and sense of humor, but my awesome name as well. Paxton Ted Holley, Jr. We’ll call him PJ for short. So never fear, the total collective bad ass awesomeness I currently carry on my shoulders will be passed on to my first male heir, PJ. Hope the little guy can handle it.

So we are now having a boy. You want to see the first thing I bought after finding out?

AWESOME shirt