Archive for the Blog Series Category

AWESOME-tober-fest 2008!!! I survive Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights!!

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Florida, Halloween, Halloween Horror Nights, holiday, Orlando, reviews, roadtrip, Universal Studios with tags , , , , , , , , on October 15, 2008 by Paxton

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Welcome to Week 3 of AWESOME-tober-fest!!! Hope you’ve enjoyed the first two weeks so far. I started off week 1 talking about creepy Halloween sodas. Then, on week 2, I discussed a few of my favorite scary movies. What’s on deck for this week? Well, as teased to you at the end of last week’s article, Steph and I took the plunge and went to our first Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights this past weekend. Universal Studios theme parks hold this event annually and this year marked the 18th year they have done it. I’ve been wanting to go since we moved down to Jacksonville but we never did and thanks to some cheap, discounted tickets at work, we were able to do it this year. In case you didn’t know, ever since around 1990, during the Halloween season, Universal Studios closes its doors (along with Islands of Adventure) around 5:30 – 6pm and clears out all the people. Universal then sets up the scare zones and haunted houses and opens the doors again for people who bought Halloween Horror Nights tickets (yes, it’s a separate ticket). There are as many as 8 haunted houses that are setup in various parts of the park as well as what are called scare zones. In these scare zones are park employees who dress up in scary costumes and follow around patrons trying to creep them out or scare them. Like the haunted houses, each scare zone has a different theme, usually based around what haunted house is near it. Halloween Horror Nights usually has an overall theme each year, too. Last year, with Freddy, Jason and Leatherface it was called the Carnival of Carnage. The year before that they did a “best of” theme with all the best haunted houses and scare zones from the years prior.  This year, the overall theme was Bloody Mary; which included famous myths, legends and fairy tales.  Bloody Mary is the spririt that would appear to you in a mirror if you said her name 3 times.  She’s in the picture below on the right.

It’s a pretty cool theme if you ask me and I was very excited to see what Universal did with it.  So, after work on Friday, the wife and I took off for Orlando and our scary Halloween adventure. Continue reading

AWESOME-tober-fest 2008!! Some of my favorite scary movies

Posted in Alfred Hitchock, AWESOME-tober-fest, Halloween, holiday, humor, movies, pop culture, reviews with tags , , , , , , on October 7, 2008 by Paxton

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Welcome back to Week 2 of AWESOME-tober-fest. Last year I did an article telling you guys about some of my favorite scary books.  It surprisingly became fairly popular and has been seeing steady traffic.  So, this Halloween (AKA AWESOME-tober-fest) I thought I’d list out some of my favorite scary movies.

Now, this won’t be a “scariest movies of all time list”, that’s too easy.  This list is gonna be typically Pax-centric.  It’s all about what I like, my friends.  That’s the only way I can work, ALL ABOUT ME.  So this list will consist of movies that I really enjoy watching but not ones that I would consider the greatest Horror/Monster movies of all time.  You can Google “Greatest Horror Movies” and literally get thousands of results if that’s what you are looking for, but this list will be a bit more nuanced.  And by “nuanced”, I mean “stuff Pax likes”.  If that is also your definition of nuanced, then you’ve come to the right blog.

I’ve put this list in chronological order.  Let us begin.

Dial ‘M’ For Murder (1954) – A Hitchcock classic.  This one really ratchets up the suspense (well, it is Hitchcock).  Also, Grace Kelly is beautiful and wonderful as always.  I prefer her in Rear Window, however, as she has more to do because, make no mistake, this is Ray Milland’s picture.  Oh my lord, this guy is the balls.  Cold, calculating, smart.  He never once loses his calm demeanor despite being grilled by a Sherlock Holmes wanna-be detective.  Ray Milland plays a husband who recruits a man to kill his wife (Grace Kelly).  He has everything planned down to the last detail but something goes wrong and he must try to frame another man for the attempt.  The script for this was originally a theatrical play, and you can tell by how the cameras were setup and everything was filmed.  Also, it was originally released in 3-D, which not many people know, and I got to see it that way on the big screen at the Alabama Theater during Halloween 2003, I believe.  This is a great movie.

Psycho (1960) – Hitchcock, again, at his best.  Anthony Perkins pulls a fantastic performance here as Norman Bates.  It’s easy to see why he was typecast after this movie.  His performance here is so menacing, how could he be seen as anyone else?  FYI…stay away from the sequels.  They are awful.  Psycho II is just embarrassingly bad.  Wishful thinkers tend to say that four is not bad, but they are kidding themselves.  This is the only movie with ‘Psycho’ in the title worth watching (and I’m including American Psycho in that statement too).

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2008!! I review gallons of Halloween sodas

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Halloween, holiday, Jones Soda, Mountain Dew, Pepsi, soda with tags , , , , , , , , on October 1, 2008 by Paxton

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Happy October, everyone.  How crazy is it that it’s October 2008 already?  I can’t even believe it.  It’s like I was watching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy with my wife back in January and seeing Meredith and McDreamy break up, have sex, get back together, stop having sex, then completely ignore each other, AGAIN, put me to sleep, Rip Van Winkle-style, for 6 months.   I got some catching up to do.

Anyway, now that I’m back, get ready for some hardcore AWESOME to come flying at your eyes like Moe Howard and his index finger.  Stand back and bask in the warm glow of your monitor and let the rays of unfiltered BAD-ASS flow from it into you. No need to fear, AWESOME-tober-fest is here. That’s right, October has begun, and with it brings the first of three themed months on the Cavalcade of Awesome. I love the final three months of the year. I theme the blog for each month. October is Halloween. November is Thanksgiving, or just fall in general. December is glorious, glorious Christmas.  As you can see, I’ve done some redecorating for Halloween.  The decorations are up, what do you think?

The new blog banner up top is an homage to a specific Halloween item I will be reviewing later this month.  It’s something I’ve loved from my youth and just recently acquired thanks to eBay.  From my October blogs of LAST year I’ve been wanting to find and review the items I’m currently speaking of but was unable to find any.  I finally have them and will unleash them on you unsuspecting readers later on.  I’d do it now, but I haven’t actually written the review.  Besides, it’ll work better closer to Halloween.

Anywho, today I’m looking at Halloween sodas.  Several have been released over the years, so I thought I’d take a look at a few.  Some are old, some are new, let’s see if any made me spew.  LOL…that was so awesome that I got that to rhyme.  You may as well stop reading now because the article doesn’t get any better than that.  Seriously, that was the pinnacle of this article.  You have been warned, I can’t top that.

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Death by Taurine: Energy Drink Reviews Part IV

Posted in Death By Taurine, humor, reviews, soda with tags , , on April 29, 2008 by Paxton

Sodapalooza

The saga continues…

Death by Taurine has been a surprisingly popular article series for my blog. I wrote the first one as a lark back in 2006 when I became fascinated with the whole energy drink industry. Since then the whole series has consistently appeared at the top of my blog’s traffic reports. So, since everyone seems to still be interested in this crazy topic of energy drinks, I thought I’d continue the series with Part IV. If you missed the first three installments, check out the whole group here. You’ll find reviews of Red Bull, Full Throttle, Jolt and many other popular energy drinks. When you click the above link, Part IV will be first in the list and Part I will last in the list and at the bottom of the page. Scroll down to start from the beginning.

Drinks groupIn the first three installments, I tasted and reviewed several of the traditional and more popular energy drinks. This time, however, I thought I’d try something different. I’m tasting and reviewing the newer alcoholic energy drinks that have flooded the market. In case you haven’t noticed, beer companies are releasing energy drinks with alcohol in them, some as much as 2 beers worth of alcohol. These have piqued my interest so I thought I’d give reviewing them a shot. FYI to everyone, I am of legal drinking age so no laws are getting broken. I’m just a ridiculously handsome guy, over 21, drinking energy drinks filled with taurine, vitamin B and alcohol. Let’s get started.

First, the rules. I’m going to drink the first one, wait an hour, then write the review. Then I’ll move on to the second one, wait an hour, then the review. I want to make sure I’m spacing these out to get the full effect. Okay, everyone ready? Then let’s get this party started.

Bud ExtraBud Extra- The first drink I’ll taste is from Budweiser and it’s called “B to the E”. I’m not kidding, that’s the official title, but it has an alternate name, Bud Extra. So I’ll just pop the top and let ‘er rip. Tastes like a can of Budweiser. There might be a slight Red Bull-ish aftertaste. Interesting. I’ll continue drinking and return in an hour with my final analysis.

[1 hour later] Okay, not bad. I’m feelin’ pretty good. Got a nice buzz on, feelin’ no pain…this is what I’m talkin’ BOUT! Man, I could totally have another one of these. That’s the mark of a good drink, you have one and you immediately are ready for another. Nice. Too bad I only bought one for this review. Crap. Hey, it’s time for Round 2, SWEET! Let’s go…

Sparks- Sparks is made by Miller and it is another of the more popular alcoholic energy drinks. There are like three versions of the Sparks drink and I’m not sure what this. Nor do I care because I’m ready to pop this top and throw down the juice. Hmmmm….like Red Bull, Sparks is filled with Taurine, Ginseng, Vitamin B, but unlike Red Bull…it’s rockin’ some serious al–kee–hol! Haha! Whew, let’s throw some of this bad boy back and see if this can of Sparks is, like myself, ready to Par-tay! Mmmmm…nice flavor. A little more Red Bullish in taste than Bud Extra. I like it. I’ll just continue drinking this and see you in an hour.At Table

[1 hour later] Maaan, whew! These cans are like double the size of normal beer cans. With two of these bad boys down I think I’ve had the equivalent of 4 regular beers, and I’m just getting this little shindig started. I know it says 1 hour later to the left there, but it’s really about 45 minutes later. I got tired of waiting for another energy brewski, so I’m drinking the next one, it’s called Sparks….no wait, I just had Sparks, right? No…yes…whatever.

Tilt- Allright, I don’t really remember who or what makes this one. The can is silver and it has writing on it, so that’s good enough. Time to pop the top and down the hatch…..awesome! This one hits the spot! WOO HOO! I might have found the winner, bitches. Look out energy drink bitches…this silver can of something is gonna ROCK YOUR WORLD!!! WOO HOO!!!

[30 minutes later] WOO HOO!! MAN THAAT WAAS THE LASTY ENRGY BREUW I HAD….WTF?! I DON’THAAVE ANYMOREEE…WWAIT I THINK I HAVEE AN RED BULLL IN THE FRIDGEY-FRIDGERSON…..YEPPERS, THER IT TIS, YALLLLLLL. AND HER’S A BEER,YO.. HAHA I CNA MIX RD BULLLZ AND MY BEERR AND HAVE A NEW ALKEYHOLIC ENRGY DREENK! AWESUME! I MITE HALVE TO SSELL THIS ITS THAAAT GOUUD. MMMMMNMMNMNMNN.

[30 minutes later] thaaaT caAn UF hommadie bruew wentu quielckly. im st1ll naut feelinG anYthieng. WYF?1 THEIZSE drEEnks r SPosed 2 haVVE alCAHAUl!11!!!1 AHAAHA!1!111 I cEE SUM BAKARTI 151 HiddoN n mie kabinet. BARTNDR, ROUEOND OF SHUOTS ON ME!!!!!11111

[10 minutes later] a;dlkf ;a;;oobviqa;n qehjnleroucuya[oif neepoifpodlajhd papdofiaF!!! !PAEDIUQ;P PADOIFH APAO APAODIFA PAODF PA0DA-VOP KIDFNQ;’ER,KE PEKQTRQPFIOAJDAP[ADOIUPADOF P IF F ~~~~

Man Down

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Hollywood Life Lessons Pt II

Posted in hollywood life lessons, humor, movies, pop culture, TV shows with tags , , on March 11, 2008 by Paxton

Hollywood SignWhile watching tv my wife and I came up with some life lessons that had been taught to us by tv and movies. I posted the first five earlier but we came up with another five. Learn these lessons now, that is what TV and movies are for, to teach you things you can’t learn on your own.

In case you missed the first part, you can find it here.

This is a quick entry today, I have another one scheduled for Friday that has to do with St. Patty’s Day (which is on Monday, I know).


  • Everyone buys the same thing at the grocery; leafy green lettuce and a long loaf of french bread that sticks out just so from the top. And everyone gets it in a brown paper bag.
  • Everyone has that one friend/drinking buddy that does nothing but speak in funny/snarky one-liners.  The friend has no shame and hits on anything that moves.
  • If a guy’s best friend is a girl who’s secretly in love with him, the guy will not even notice her as a prospective girlfriend and only think of her as “one of the guys”. Oh, she will always be hot.
  • If a girl’s best friend is a guy that’s secretly in love with her, the girl will not even notice him as a prospective boyfriend and only think of him as “a friend”. Oh, and he’s always kind of a dork.
  • No matter where you are going, if you have to drive there, you will find a parking spot right in front.  Even in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.

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