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It Tastes Like What?!

Posted in food, humor, reviews, soda with tags , , on February 28, 2007 by Paxton

Sodapalooza

It’s happened to you. You are in the supermarket, you pass a product, usually in the drink or snack food aisle, with a weird name or crazy color scheme, you take a look at it, maybe even pick it up, and say to yourself, “This tastes like what?” I do it all the time. Take the Jones Soda Company. Each year their novelty soda line becomes more and more disgusting. Soda that tastes like antacid, turkey and gravy and peas & carrots is not even remotely appetizing, but they make a killing off it. True, though, that people only buy it for the novelty value. As if to say, “Yes, yes I have tasted the soda flavored like buttered mashed potatoes.”

Well, in order to make the same statement, I bought some weird and disgustingly flavored food/drink items recently and I’m going to try them right here, right now. If I die, remember me well.

Cel-Ray Soda
Item #1 – Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda – This stuff has been around for years. It’s almost legendary. I used to see it as a kid at the local deli (shoutout: Diplomat Deli) when my dad took us there for dinner. I say now what I said then, “Celery flavored soda?! Who’d buy that?!” The jury is still out on who would actually buy it. The next question is, “Does it taste like celery?” The answer: Yes it does, if said celery was left out on the counter in a warm glass of Sprite until it rotted away leaving only a dark, foul-smelling death-liquid. I’ve only had 3 or 4 drinks of this and I already have a headache. I hope I don’t get leukemia. Ugh. This also comes in a diet version, but, thankfully, for the sake of the children, Dr. Brown discontinued it. If you have trouble finding this, consider yourself lucky.

Canfields
Item #2 – Canfield’s Diet Chocolate Fudge – Yes, you read that correctly, Chocolate Fudge soda. DIET. Haha. I’m really asking for it this time. Here we gooooo………..oh sweet jesus that is awful. I can’t imagine a chocolate fudge soda tasting good in the first place, but make it diet, and you’ve just created what scientists refer to as a “biological weapon of destruction”. My insides are now under attack by this BWD. Holy crap, I think the soda is trying to burn its way out of my stomach like an Alien. Foul, foul liquid. I actually saw a Diet CHERRY Chocolate soda at the store the other day. After this, I’ll be afraid to even walk down that aisle ever again. This soda now owns me.

Jones Soda
Item #3 – Jones Caramel Apple soda – Jones really made this whole trend popular so I had to try one. This was one of their Halloween sodas from 2 years ago. The cans are cool, and this flavor at least has potential………potential to taste like sun tan lotion mixed with burnt maple syrup. Oh. My. God. That is awful. And do I detect an aftertaste of scalded rubber? My taste buds are going to revolt and suicide bomb my brain for continuing this torture. I can’t even articulate the supreme awfulness of this soda. Stay away.

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Fun With Yahoo! Avatars

Posted in avatars, Elvis, humor, internet, random, technology, Yahoo with tags , , on January 10, 2007 by Paxton

Avatars are pretty cool. They are little graphical representations of yourself you can use in Internet chats, fantasy sports or any website that uses a profile. Some people use pictures of celebrities or random objects, but some sites let you create your own little icon.

Several years ago I stumbled upon the South Park Studio. This website lets you create cool images of yourself as a South Park character by letting you choose different aspects of your appearance (ie hair, clothes, body). I created a picture of myself as a character and when I began this blog I used it as my profile picture. I even created a santa suit version which I used just recently during the holiday season. There’s also a website called StorTroopers where you can create cartoon versions of yourself (seen here). Call me a narcissist, but creating little cartoons of myself is fun and fascinating.

Well, I was playing around on my Yahoo! account and noticed that you can create your own avatars for use with your Yahoo! profile. Needless to say, I was floored. I started playing around with it and you can create some pretty cool stuff. You can create your avatars as anything you want and it doesn’t even have to look like you. So, I created a few and saved them as my favorites. Let’s take a look, shall we?

This is my normal avatar. I created it earlier last year and I use it as my default. Pretty plain jane, but it looks like me and I like the clubbin’ background. This one can go with or without glasses.

Ahh, yes. Everyone, set your faces to ROCKED!!! This avatar is so unbelievably awesome that you can’t look directly at it for fear of burning out your retinas. Ladies, try not to lose control and start throwing your panties at the screen. While the gesture is appreciated…and understood…it could be embarrassing for you if you are at work…or your parent’s house. As you can see, this avatar is me in an Elvis jumpsuit next to the Las Vegas sign. This is now becoming my default avatar. This will seem familiar to those of you who have seen me in my totally kick ass Halloween costume.

This avatar shows “alternate universe Pax” where I grew up on the “wrong side of the tracks” (FYI…the left side) and I don’t “keep my hair clean”. Check out that gi-normous dragon tattoo on my arm. On anyone else, that tat would seem cliche, but it looks pretty BAD ASS on me. I might have to make that a reality. Oh, you may be wondering why I’m walking through a pretty, floral arbor…well, obviously, since this is “alternate universe Pax”, I’m attending a Sunday afternoon tea at someone’s house. Duh. Hope they have blueberry scones.

It seems Yahoo! avatars pretty much have any situation I can think of covered. What if I wanted to see me in an aerobics class wearing red long johns and a sombrero? Ooooooo, Yahoo!, you are good.

How about me in a turkey costume standing on the moon? Well, played, Yahoo!, well played.

It looks like you won this round, Yahoo! Avatar, but I’ll be back. I’ll. Be. Back.

……………..wearing lederhosen, standing next to a unicorn in front of a bunch of lightbulbs? DAMN YOU, YAHOO AVATAR!! DAMN YOU!!

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10 Best/Worst Christmas Songs

Posted in Bing Crosby, Christmas, Elvis, holiday, humor, pop culture, reviews, Rosie O'Donnell with tags , , , , , on December 19, 2006 by Paxton

Today’s article is a reader submission. I was asked to write about what, I believe, are the 10 best/worst Christmas songs of all time. So, Kathy, this one is for you. If there is something you would like me to write about just drop me a line here. If it interests me and I decide to do it, you’ll get credit for giving me the idea, just like I’m giving Kathy right now. Anywho, on with the article.

I love Christmas and along with that, I love Christmas songs. Especially the celebrity pop culture songs. Some of those Christmas songs can be so awful that you can’t believe how absolutely awesome they are…or, as I call it, abso-awful (I just made that word up). The rest of the Christmas songs are so heinous that you’ll claw out the inside of your ear with a rusty spoon to not have to hear them anymore. Here’s my personal countdown of the 10 Best and 10 Worst Christmas Songs of all time. I’ll also give you a little tidbit of why that song is where it is. You may look at these lists and be like, “Hey Pax, you are a ^$#$ genius, keep it up!” or you may look at it and say, “You are dead to me”. Either way, I’m still an incredibly sexy beast (You know it’s true. Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful).

Let’s start off with the 10 best Christmas songs in no particular order (I’m numbering them for my own sanity).

1. White Christmas (Bing Crosby) – This is, of course, a classic. When Bing wasn’t beating the crap out of his kids, he was busy belting out some of the best songs of his day. This one comes from the equally awesome movie of the same name. Needs no explanation.
2. Mele Kalikimaka (Bing Crosby) – As to this song’s origin, I imagine Bing bet some songwriter that he couldn’t write a song about both Hawaii AND Christmas. Well, Unknown Songwriter 1 – Bing Crosby 0. Makes me think of that scene in Christmas Vacation where Clark is looking out the window at his soon to be swimming pool.
3. Blue Christmas (Elvis Presley) – You knew The King was going to be on this list. Here’s his most famous. Pretty much everyone on Earth with a set of vocal cords and no shame has covered this song. Elvis makes you wonder why anyone even tries to sing anymore.
4. Santa’s Coming to Town (Elvis Presley) – A lesser known Elvis song off one of his first Christmas albums (of which number in the lower millions). It’s a bluesy, rock “version” of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. I put “version” in “quotes” because a) Elvis’ song is very different from the original and b) I’m extremely pretentious.
5. Jingle Bell Rock (Bobby Helms) – Another classic. Fun version of the original Jingle Bells song. Because “jingle bell time is a swell time, to go riding in a one-horse sleigh”. You know it and I know it.
6. Little Saint Nick (Beach Boys) – Seems weird putting a Beach Boys song on a Christmas list, right? Well, I already put a Hawaiian song on, so let’s put the Boys on. Very catchy tune that makes me want to both celebrate Christmas and go to the beach to “hang 10”.
7. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (Brenda Lee) – Featured in pretty much every movie that ever had a passing mention of Christmas. Most notably, though, Home Alone.
8. Baby It’s Cold Outside (Leon Redbone/Zooey Deschanel) – This is just a great song, but this particular version can be found on the Elf soundtrack. I LOVE this song.
9. Run Rudolph Run (Chuck Berry) – Any Chuck Berry Christmas song is bound to be good. This is no exception and, like the song 2 entries up, can be found in Home Alone.
10. Carol of the Bells (Any choir) – This isn’t really a pop christmas song, but I love this so much I had to put it here. I learned to love it when my high school choir performed it at a Christmas event. Very pretty when sung by a choir.

You’ve seen the best, now let’s see the worst. The songs that make you ashamed to be Christian and celebrating Christmas. Here are the 10 worst songs as viewed by me.

1. Feliz Navidad (Jose Feliciano) – I got into an argument with my 5th grade teacher, Mr. Butler, over who was the better guitarist; Jose Feliciano or Jimi Hendrix (I honestly am not making that up). To me, that was not even an argument as Jimi could play with his teeth and I maintain that teeth beats no teeth every time. I still hear this song in my sleep from when Steph and I put up our Christmas tree lights this year.
2. Little Drummer Boy (David Bowie/Bing Crosby) – See this awful, awful video here. Why must singers look soulfully into the distance when singing? Is there something off camera worth looking at? Why can’t I see, too? This is actually considered a classic, but I think it’s a classic piece of crap. Why, Bing, WHY?!
3. Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk this Christmas) (John Denver) – Is this song real? It sounds like a Weird Al parody. I could’ve written this song. Is it supposed to be funny, or poignant? Whatever it’s supposed to be, it’s entertaining, and not in a good way.
4. Silver Bells (Kathi Lee Gifford/Regis Philbin) – This song is every bit as bad as you think it is. Think Riker’s Island penitentiary…but without all the sodomy. Actually, you’d probably welcome sodomy after hearing this song.
5. I’m Gonna Email Santa (Rosie O’Donnell) – Is it redundant to put Rosie O’Donnell on a Worst Christmas song list? This song is pretty much a commercial for Santa.com. Also, Rosie learned that she can’t sing when she released her first Christmas album, so on the next album (which includes this song) her voice is so overproduced it doesn’t even sound like her. Which is good cause it doesn’t sound like her, but bad because the voice now sounds like Joshua from War Games. WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME? Actually, that’s kinda cool…..
6. Do You Hear What I Hear? (Rosie O’Donnell & Elmo) – It’s like someone said, “How can we make listening to a song sung by Rosie O’Donnell worse? I know, let’s have her sing with that irritating Muppet you tickle.” Maybe for the next Rosie Christmas album she can hire someone to come in my house and punch me repeatedly in the testicles as I listen to her album. No, that would actually be better than this song.
7. Have a Rosie Christmas (Rosie O’Donnell) – If Rosie’s goal by singing this was to give me the compulsion to first, kill her, then kill myself, all I have to say is……mission accomplished, Rosie……mission accomplished.
8. Dear Mr. Jesus (Faceless, Abused Child) – I know the intentions behind this song are noble, but, oh dear, sweet jesus, this song is flat out awful. It’s sung by a sweet child, yet it’s about another child who is physically abused by her parents. By the end I’m ready to either search out the abusive parents and string them up for all to see, or slit my own wrists. Since I’m lazy, it’ll probably be the latter.
9. Jingle Bells (Jingle Dogs) – After listening to just one song off any of these stupid CDs, you too will believe in euthanasia for animals.
10. Do They Know It’s Christmas Time At All? (Band Aid) – This one toes the line of being abso-awful and just plain awful, but, for me, it’s just plain awful. Watching the music video is like watching the video yearbook of a drug rehab clinic circa 1982. It’s poetic to see some of the wealthiest musicians of that time sing about awareness of the poor in Africa. Do people in Africa even celebrate Xmas?

Well, that’s my list and I’m stickin’ to it. By now you are either extolling the unlimited boundaries of my genius, or cursing me to an early grave. Hey, this is all subjective and only my opinion, except for the Rosie O’Donnell songs. Those are awful, and that’s a fact supported by modern science.

Anywho, hope everyone has a great Christmas. I’m heading back home to Birmingham, AL on Saturday. Hope you all get what you want. Personally, I hope I’ll be getting a Nintendo Wii. After this article, I’m sure Santa is going to give me the Kathy Lee Gifford album.

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Mexican Doritos: I’m Weird

Posted in food, humor, personal, reviews with tags , , , , , on September 25, 2006 by Paxton

As noted earlier, my wife and I got back from a Caribbean cruise for our 5th anniversay last week. The cruise was phenomenal and one of the ports my wife and I stopped at was Calica, Mexico.

While on an excursion, the tour bus stopped at a tiny marketplace where we could go to the bathroom and shop. It was a cool little area with lots of little crafts to look at. What do I get excited about? Not the hand carved stone chess sets or the intricately sewn Mexican blankets. I about lost my composure when I found a snack rack filled with Mexican chips and snack foods. As the title of this article told you, I’m weird. If you’ve read this blog before, you know that I love finding differently packaged sodas and snackfoods. Just check out the Halloween article right before this. It’s a sickness, I know, but I love it. 😉

Anywho, on the aforementioned holy rack of snacky goodness, I found several flavors of Doritos and Fritos that are not found in the US. Check out the two Doritos packages below (queue heavenly music and chorus of angels).

The one on the left is pizza flavored Doritos, which did exist many years ago in the US when Pizza Hut and Doritos partnered on the flavor. It tastes like pepperoni and green pepper based pizza, but there is WAY too much flavor powder in this particular bag. It’s overwhelming. It took a bottle of black cherry soda and two waters to get the taste out of my mouth. Yikes. Hope the other one is better. The package on the right is called Incognito, which means mystery, or puzzle. You have to guess the flavor. How awesome is that? They made it a game! There are pictures of limes and red/green chili peppers on the black packaging. The flavor powder is also black. It’s kind of cool to look into this bag and see dozens of black death chips staring back at you. As for taste, they taste like limes and chili peppers, which also tastes like many salsas you’ll have in the better Mexican restaurants. But there is also a small aftertaste of curry, which is usually found in Indian cuisine. Kudos to my wife for figuring that aftertaste out. Very odd to have that in a Mexican chip, but not unwelcome. It was weird at first, but the more I got into the bag the more I loved it. Much better than expected.

While sneaking around that marketplace I also found two cool sodas. In much of the world they don’t label Diet sodas as such. They just call them Light. I found Coca Cola Light, and Pepsi Light.


I don’t know about you, but this was so exciting to me. I had actually seen Coke Light many years ago on my first trip to Mexico back in 1999. I had traveled to the East Coast of Mexico to a small restaurant in Rosalita. This was the first time that I had found Pepsi Light, though. Words can’t describe it, people.

I want to say that the Coke and Pepsi Light drinks tasted slightly different than regular Diet Coke and Pepsi, but that may be because I drank them in the land of enchiladas and not in the upper 48.

Oh well, I’ll leave you with the last two bags I found, 2 flavors of Fritos that are so totally mexican I’m suprised they didn’t come packaged with a Corona. Behold Chili & Lime Fritos (left) and Chipotle & Chorizo Fritos (right).

I haven’t tasted those 2 Fritos yet, but I will. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.

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Summer TV Shows That Rock!

Posted in reviews, TV, TV shows with tags , on July 11, 2006 by Paxton

Summer is generally considered the “dead time” for new tv show episodes. For the most part you get re-runs of regular prime time shows or retread reality shows that would never last during the “Big Show”, the fall schedule. The last few years, though, have shown a trend in certain networks airing new episodes, or entire seasons of shows, during the summer months. With these shows having their seasons during the summer, it reduces the amount of competition for viewers. It also will give viewers new episodes of shows that they might have not seen otherwise during the crowded fall viewing schedule. I thought I would point out a few good shows that air new episodes during the summer and that Steph and I actually watch. Maybe you’ll discover a new favorite.

The Dead Zone – This was the first show I started watching during the summer. It premiered during the summer of 2001 on USA Network and its normal season runs from June/July through Sept/Oct. I’ve watched this show every season since that first season in 2001 and even got my wife hooked on it. The premise of the show is based on the general storyline of the Stephen King book, The Dead Zone. I read this book many years ago, and enjoyed it, so I was very interested in this series. It stars Anthony Michael Hall as Johnny Smith who, after a car accident, goes into a coma for 7 years. After waking up, his life has been turned upside down. His girlfriend has married another guy and has a kid (which turns out to actually be his kid), and he discovers that he has psychic abilities that are triggered when he touches personal items. This is roughly where the similarities between the book and the tv show end. Johnny starts to learn how to use his abilities to help people. The special effects and stories in the show are fascinating, and Anthony Michael Hall is wonderful as the lead. We love this show and definitely recommend it to everyone. It airs on Sundays at 10pm EST.

Psych – This show just premiered this summer on July 7, 2006, and like Dead Zone, it’s on USA Network. It’s a comedy about a guy, Shawn Spencer that was trained as a young kid by his detective father to observe and remember everything. He now has honed this skill into an almost photographic memory. The problem is, the guy is a slacker and never focuses on any one thing for any particular length of time. He does manage to call in tips to the police and solve crimes based on things he notices during the local news. Shawn does this so many times the cops think he has something to do with these crimes because they don’t know where he’s getting his information. So to get himself out of trouble when they interrogate him, he says he’s a psychic, and that’s how he’s been getting his information. It’s very funny as we see Shawn pretend to be a psychic detective while using his hyper-sensitive observational skills to solve police cases. He opens up a private detective agency and brings along his friend Gus. The pilot was very good and I will continue to check this show out. It’s on Fridays at 10pm EST.

Treasure Hunters – This is the first season for Treasure Hunters, and it airs on NBC. It had a large marketing campaign where it made you think it had something to do with the Da Vinci Code by showing pics of the Mona Lisa and making the A in ‘treasure’ look like the upside down V in Da Vinci Code. In actuality, it’s a reality show that is more like a combination of the movie National Treasure and the tv show The Amazing Race. I never really got into The Amazing Race, but this show has me and my wife hooked. Clues are hidden in specific historical places across the US and teams of 3 people must solve the clues to follow a path that leads to 7 artifacts which will then lead them to a treasure. Each of the 3 person teams is a specific group of people (Miss USA contestants, Geniuses, Grad School Students, ex-CIA, Air Force, etc.) with all the ensuing drama and alliances and back-stabbing you would expect. The mixing in of historical facts about our country into the tasks and clues makes it extremely interesting. Check this out on Monday nights at 9pm EST.

The Closer – My wife just got me watching this. It airs on TNT and stars Kyra Sedgewick as Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson. Mrs. Johnson, despite being an extremely capable detective, has as many quirks and obsessions as Monk on USA Network. Now, I’ve seen Monk, and it’s okay, but it just doesn’t grab me. This show, however, has kept me interested. I don’t know if the shows we’ve been watching are repeats or new, but they are good. We could be watching re-runs and I would have no idea. It would be cool if this were a summer show because fall is getting extremely crowded. If you get a chance, check this show out Monday nights at 9pm EST.

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