Paxton

Author Archive

Rockin’ Around the Clock with Happy Days trivia

Posted in Americana, cartoons, Happy Days, pop culture, TV shows with tags Happy Days, pop culture, TV shows on March 3, 2009 by Paxton

Happy Days logo Sunday, Monday, Happy Days! Tuesday, Wednesday, Happy Days! Man, I used to love watching the show Happy Days when I was growing up. I loved Fonzi and his catchphrase, “Heeeeeeeeeeeeey!” I loved the show’s catchphrase, “Sit on it!” I loved the theme song, I loved the setting and the sets, I loved the other characters. It was just a lot of fun to watch. I still enjoy it. I DVR it every once in a while to see some of my favorite episodes.

Just a few weeks ago I got an email from Ticketmaster letting me know that tickets for Happy Days the Musical, showing in Jacksonville, were only 20 bucks during the week. I didn’t realize there was a musical based on the TV show, but it’s not surprising considering the Broadway shows based on Saturday Night Fever, Xanadu, Road House and other movies from the ’70s and ’80s. I thought it would be fun to see how they managed to translate the show to the stage so I bought Steph and I tickets and we went this past Saturday. Happy Days The Musical

The show was very good. The guy who played Fonzie was spot on. He had the mannerisms and voice inflection down cold. The guy who played Ritchie was familiar to me because he was in the cast of Avenue Q which I happened to see on Broadway in 2004 right before it won the Tony for Best Musical. Overall, the musical was like watching an episode of the TV show, cheesy and cute. The songs were fun, too. Steph and I really enjoyed watching it. If it comes to your town, and you loved the TV show, then give the musical a chance. I think you’ll like it.

Anywho, after watching the musical, I started Googling Happy Days. I was surprised how much info and trivia was out there. I was reading for like 3 hours about behind the scenes information and background info on the show and characters. I enjoyed it so much that I thought I would pass along some of my favorite tidbits.

So, without further adieu, here’s everything cool about the show Happy Days that you never knew.

* Originally there were three Cunningham children. Ritchie, Joanie and the eldest, Chuck. Chuck Cunningham was phased out of the show in Season 2 (off to college for basketball).

Continue reading →

17 Comments »

Weekly Geeks 2009-07 – Interview with Barney Stinson

Posted in books, How I Met Your Mother, TV shows, Weekly Geeks with tags How I Met Your Mother, TV shows, Weekly Geeks on February 27, 2009 by Paxton

Weekly Geeks, time, people. You, in the back, take that iPod off or I’ll strangle you to death with the headphone cord. Pay attention.

Okay, this week’s theme is “A Character Conversation”. They want you to pick your favorite character from a book and invite them to your blog for an interview. Not a bad idea. I remember doing this exercise in one of my Honors English classes. Yes, I realize I could just say “english class” and not include the Honors, but a) I want you to know I took Honors English because I’m needy and shallow like that and b)…well, there is no b), I pretty much covered my reasons in a).

Anywho, I had several characters I could choose from but I’ve decided to invite one of my heroes, Barney Stinson, to The Cavalcade for an interview. Barney can be seen on the CBS TV show, How I Met Your Mother. However, Barney also penned the bestseller The Bro Code along with Matt Kuhn. I read The Bro Code last month and was thoroughly entertained. I thought this could be a dynamite interview.

Continue reading →

7 Comments »

My Own Album Cover and Action Comics #1 goes up for sale

Posted in comic books, random, Superman with tags comic books, personal, Superman on February 27, 2009 by Paxton

Okay, had an interesting week this week. Work and personal stuff kept me from typing a proper article. So, I have a potpourri of stuff to talk about today. The first is a cool email exercise that creates your own personal album cover, including band name and album title. It’s totally random and uses Wikipedia and Flickr to find the info. It was first sent to me by my friend Steve and I’ve passed it along. Here are the instructions:

1 – Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 – Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations”
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last few words of the very last quote is the album title.

3 – Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 – Mash it all together.

5 – Post it, with this text and TAG the friends you want to join in. (Or just the ones that you think might have the skills to know how to do this – that is why I tagged these people!)

So, without further ado, here is my album cover. My band name is Run Like Hell and the album’s name is “Doing Something Interesting”.

Continue reading →

8 Comments »

Kick ass alternative covers for books and movies

Posted in Back to the Future, books, Harry Potter, movies, ninjas, Penguin Classics, pop culture with tags advertising, books, movies on February 20, 2009 by Paxton

Last week I did a Weekly Geeks theme in which I discussed several alternate, foreign book covers for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It was cool doing the research for that and while looking around I came across several other alternate book covers that were so cool I had to share them here.

The covers we’ll look at today are different than the Harry Potter covers, though. The book covers I am going to show you today are entirely fan created by graphics artists. They create them because they are a fan of design and there are several initiatives on their blogs and in Flickr where they create these designs just to stay sharp and keep up on their designing skills. These book covers may not be real, but they rock. They look entirely professional, like some publisher actually created these and are selling them somewhere. Don’t go thinking they are available in some crazy limited edition in Uruguay, and I had to traipse my lazy, white ass through the Uruguayan jungles to find these little treasures. I didn’t, I barely want to traipse my ass to the fridge for another Girl Scout Cookie. I’m not going to Uruguay for a book. However, if these books were real, I would be very tempted to try.

So let’s start off with cover redesigns from the series I talked about last week; Harry Potter (click the images for larger versions).

Continue reading →

6 Comments »

Gate River Run: My declaration of intent

Posted in Gate River Run, life, personal, running with tags exercise, personal, running on February 16, 2009 by Paxton

Jacksonville’s biggest (read “Most Popular”) race is the Gate River Run (click image up top for more info). I”ve been lurking around the event since I started running several years ago. However, I’ve been too chicken to actually sign up and run it, preferring to only run 5K races. Well, the wife got fed up with me saying that someday I would do it so she pretty much has forced me to do it under threat of spousal violence (ie kicking my ass).

So, I officially started training this past week and I turned in my entry form on Saturday. And just to keep myself honest, I’m making a delcaration of intent to the 3 readers who randomly happen by my blog looking for info about the Hula Burger. I’ll be running the Gate River Run 15K (9.3 miles) on March 14, 2009. It’s possible I may (repeat MAY) try to parlay this into a half-marathon by the end of the year. We’ll see.

Today is President’s Day. My wife, as a first grade teacher, has today off so I decided to also take it off so we can spend it together. Have a good day whether you have it off or not. I’ll be back in a day or so with another article.

11 Comments »