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Prelude to AWESOME-tober-fest 2011

Posted in Halloween, holiday, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2011, Halloween, holiday, pop culture on September 16, 2011 by Paxton

So, AWESOME-tober-fest begins in like 2 weeks and I’m completely and totally unprepared. I’ve been seriously scrambling to set up articles for my daily celebration of Halloween next month. This is going to be a complete debacle. FYI, for the new readers, complete and utter chaos due to unpreparedness on my part is just business as usual here on the Cavalcade of Awesome. That guy knows what I’m talking about, don’t you?

So, not only is it going to be AWESOME-tober-fest, I’ll also be participating in the Countdown to Halloween blogathon all month.

The Countdown is run by John Rozum and Shawn Robare. I’ve been doing it since like 2008 or 2009. Hundreds of other blogs are a part of this enormous celebration of Halloween so check out the Countdown website for a ton of blogs contributing awesomely scary content. And it all begins on October 1st.

Anyway, I was shopping at my local Halloween store and found a bunch of cool Halloween props and costumes already. So, as a prequel to the coming Halloween festivities, I thought I’d throw up a few choice items that I’ve found in my hunt for Halloween goodness.

First of all, there’s a company out there called The Chop Shop. They are making some of the most gruesome Halloween props I’ve ever seen.

These two items are the eyeball bucket and a meat tray of human parts. And it’s wrapped up just like meat at your local supermarket. I have to say, I love the attention to detail in the packaging for the meat parts. It’s gross, but it’s clever.

Also by Chop Shop, here’s half of a skinned man that you can hang from the ceiling and a mutilated severed head. Take a look at that sumbitch. It is gruesome. I have to say I’m impressed with how gory and gross Chop Shop is going with this stuff.

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18 Slot machines based on movies and TV shows

Posted in casinos, movies, slot machines, technology, TV shows, video games with tags casinos, movies, pop culture, slot machines, technology, TV shows, video games on September 8, 2011 by Paxton

I mentioned last week that I was going to Vegas with my wife to renew our vows with Elvis. While there, we spent some time in a few casinos. I’m not a big gambler but I love walking casino floors and checking out the other gamblers and the various themed slot machines.

Casinos are awesome. It’s like walking into an arcade back in the 80s. Lots of lights and noise. People hunched over lighted consoles hoping to get high scores. I love going to casinos. Like I said, I’m not a huge gambler, but I love looking at slot machines. They are the modern equivalent of upright arcade games. I’ve talked about my love for slot machines before and their taking the torch of the arcade machine.

Anyway, here are 18 slot machines I found that are based on movies or TV shows. You can click any of these images to see them bigger.

The Hangover – I’ll start with this one because it’s the most obvious. Expect to see images of tigers and babies on the reels. “Tootle-loo, mutha-f**kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

Alien – As you can see, there are two versions of the Ridley Scott Alien slot machine. One slot machine has the picture of the egg from the theatrical one-sheet and the other has a picture of the alien xenomorph and includes a special Alien Hunt bonus.

Alien vs Predator – You got an alien slot machine, you also get an Alien vs Predator. Unfortunately, there isn’t a standalone Predator machine.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail – One of my favorite movies of all time. This slot was great because it had a ton of quotes from the movie, as well as clips and a special bonus round where you fought the black knight. There were even “hot spots” on the screen you could touch to generate a random quote or sound from the movie.

Star Wars Droid Hunt – This slot machine was pretty awesome. Lots of images and sounds from the original trilogy. Back in the late 90s, there was another Star Wars slot machine called Death Star Escape. It was cool because there was a bonus round that activated a model Death Star built into the housing that started spinning. Funny, I’ve never found a Star Wars slot machine based on the prequel movies.

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A collection of vintage milk PSAs

Posted in 80s, commercials, nostalgia, pop culture, TV with tags commercials, nostalgia, pop culture, TV, vintage on August 26, 2011 by Paxton

I loved milk commercials when I was growing up. There were tons of them and they were shown all the time. And there were so many versions of the ads that it was endlessly interesting.

So on this Friday, I’m going to show you a bunch of my favorites.

Let’s start with one of the most iconic. The one directed by Michael Bay. The “Aaron Burr” commercial.

Next up are the “Milk it Does a Body Good” commercials. These are the ones I generally think of when I think of milk commercials. There were two versions of these. The first was a series of musical numbers featuring kids and random images of things flying all over the place. Things like animals (cows, penguins and kangaroos).

Check out the awesome 80s randomness of this ad featuring a lot of kangaroos. Seriously, kangaroos on pogo sticks and tap dancing kangaroos.

Here’s the “cow on the moon” musical PSA.

…and here’s the penguin version.

The other version of the “Milk it Does a Body Good” PSA involved kids talking to someone about the benefits of drinking milk. As they talk, they transform into an older, taller, better looking version of themselves. There were even two versions of this ad, one in which the kids were talking to someone else and one where the kids were looking in the mirror talking to their future selves. All of these commercials are filmed in front of a gray backdrop that looks like a crinkled up curtain.

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7 Got Milk? ads featuring movie versions of comic book super heroes

Posted in advertising, Batman, comic books, movies, pop culture, Superman, Superman Returns with tags advertising, Batman, comic books, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, pop culture, Superman, Superman Returns on August 25, 2011 by Paxton

I love the various advertising campaigns for milk. From as far back as the 80s, they’ve had some of the more consistently entertaining commercial and print ads ever. There’s just something about them I enjoy.

Everyone remembers Michael Bay’s “Aaron Burr”. Or the fun “Milk it Does a Body Good” commercials. Or the ubiquitous “Got Milk?” print ads. Classic advertising. I especially like the ones I’m going to show you today. They are all print ads for the “Got Milk?” or “Body by Milk” campaigns and they all feature movie versions of comic book super heroes. I love explosions of pop geeky culture like this. I found many of these while thumbing through old magazines I had in my garage.

Please to enjoy.

Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) – Two of the greatest Batman movies we probably will ever see. The Dark Knight is great, however, for re-watchability, I pick Batman Begins every time. I love the sequel, I really do, but when I want to watch a Batman movie I put on Batman Begins.

Superman Returns (2006) – I love Brandon Routh. However, this movie sucked. One giant missed opportunity. The lead was great and the effects were awesome. But everything else was wrong.

Green Lantern (2010) – This movie ended up exactly like Superman Returns. The lead was great and the effects were awesome, but everything else was a fumbled missed opportunity. Kudos for a great looking ad, though.

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Uploading the Mad Magazine Computer issue from 1985

Posted in 80s, computers, Mad magazine, magazine, pop culture, technology with tags Book Report, computers, Mad Magazine, magazines, pop culture, reviews, technology on August 19, 2011 by Paxton

Earlier this week I looked at the awesome Star Wars Q&A Book About Computers from 1983. In there we got to see Artoo and Threepio show us the until then current history of computers including an awesome painting of the droids playing an upright video game.

Then I took at look at the Marvel Super Heroes Computer Fun Book Two from 1984. In there we saw lots of BASIC code for programs based on Marvel Super Hero adventures like the Iron Man Robot Retriever and Doctor Strange and the Computer Gremlin.

Today, I’m continuing my look at vintage computer activity books with Mad Magazine #258 from October 1985.

This particular issue of Mad had a special “computer section” in the middle of the magazine. The feature article in that section was the Mad Computer Program.

The article provided code for three major BASIC platforms that you could enter into your computer and when you run the program, it would print out a special surprise output. You can click the images above to see the code more clearly.

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