Out To Lunch

We're taking a break and will be back bloggin' on Friday February 29. Until then, enjoy this picture of a Black Hole Lunch Box!

Smurfs Live in Washington D.C.

Today we track down the Smurfs in our nation's capital. Here's another photograph from the ol' family album, this time we're at the White House Easter Egg Hunt in 1982. They had lots of costumed characters there but the big highlight for us was the Smurfs, although I suppose there was actually only one smurf there. That's me on the end (the tall one.) Please note that all three of us in this picture have our Smurf shirts on. How smurfy is that? Down below check out the smurf's own personal secret service agent.

Smurfs Live in Canada

Here's a snapshot of a live stage show at Canada's Wonderland in the summer of 1986. The show was The Curse of Gargamel and it was presented at the creatively named Smurf Theatre. And yes, that's Scooby-Doo on stage somehow involved with the Smurfs!? Anywho...you can bet that I forced the family to sit through this smurfy production.

Click on the picture if you can't see it.

Happy Valentine's Day, Ya'll!

Oh, Mrs. Britney Spears! How far you've come from your early days as innocent jail bait to your role today as international insane lunatic! No matter how looney she is, I found these Valentines funny in 2000 and they are still funny to this day. They're just random publicity shots of Britney with "Happy Valentine's Day" stamped on them. How creative! Anyhow, going back to the year 2000, I'm sure my Vietnamese neighbors didn't know what the heck was going on when I scotch taped a handful of these Valentines to the front door of my apartment!

Dino S'mores Pebbles

I've been doing a pretty good job of keeping the sugary/cartoon cereal out of my morning routine lately, but I couldn't resist picking up a box of this new breakfast cereal from the Pebbles family. It's got lots of bold colorful graphics of The Flintstones which (from a marketing standpoint) works on me like a trained dog hearing a whistle! However, Dino S'mores Pebbles does not live up to the tast expectations of other chocolate/s'mores cereals I've had in the past. I give Pebbles credit for making the little bone shaped pieces -nice touch. And the marshmellows that look like little marshmellows is pretty clever too. But the main part of the cereal, the "crunchy chocolate nuggets" aren't your standard Cocoa Pebbles, they taste almost like cheap knock-off's of Cocoa Pebbles -like the generic grocery store brand. They aren't very crispy and they don't have the little air bubbles like Pebbles or even Rice Krispies. The bone shaped pieces and "fun marshmelloy boulders" are way too small to be detected in a spoonful. It all just tastes like the bland chocolate pieces. I ask you, What's the point of having marshmellows if you can't taste them? In the end, it's all just a Yabba-Dabba-Letdown of a cereal. Luckily, the back of the box is filled with a nice new graphic of the Flintstones and the Rubbles camping, which you can stare at while you're wasting your time eating the cereal.

On The Air with Mr. Ed

Here's another stupid photo from my college days. This is a lame publicity shot for one of my first radio shows on the campus radio station. I was very involved with the radio station in college, eventually ending up as the station's general manager. But before that all happened I started out as a DJ on a Friday afternoon time slot when the campus was empty and just about nobody was listening. While the rest of the DJ's played "college music" and alternative records, I came in with my collection of terrible music and comedy recordings and stood out from the pack a little bit. The following semester I was given a much better prime time slot where "Mr. Ed and the Afternoon Nut Hut" debuted. This publicty shot shows crazy ol' me in my zany Hawaiian shirt with my on-air sidekicks Wacky Jackie and Steve "More Music" Michaels.

After years of pouring my heart and soul into the radio station, it closed a year after I left. The station's studio has since been renovated into offices.

Let's Meet Our Judges

During our college years, my good buddy Aaron and I often found ourselves in some crazy situations. One such time was when we ended up being judges in a beauty pageant. The story of how we came to be judges isn't too crazy. The pageant organizers had sent a letter to our college asking if two representatives from the student government would be able to serve as judges. The SGA president and vice-president already had plans made for the date of the pageant so they turned to Aaron and I who just happen to be sitting in the SGA office at the time. Of course we jumped at the chance to be judges of a beauty competition. We were especially looking forward to judging the swimsuit portion of the progam. However, as it turned out there would be no swimsuits to be found as this particular pageant.

In a world before Jon-Bennet nobody really knew that there were pageants for little girls, alas this was such a pageant. The picture above is us standing with the winner of the older teenage division. But we were assigned to judge the smallest group of kids. Disapointed at first, we later ended up having a great time with the younger contestants. They were all so adorable and so sweet.

Our first duty as judges was to conduct interviews with all the girls. We spent the better part of a Saturday held up in a hotel conference room having the girls ushered in one after the other and asking them all sorts of questions like "What's your favorite TV show?" and "How is your family important to you?". We could tell that most of the girls had already had their answers fed to them by their parents.

We spent the next day at a high school auditorium where the actual pageant was held. The funny part was that the audience for the show was made up of only parents of the contestants. Here on the left is Aaron and I with the winner in our age group. I can't remember her name or pretty much anything else from the afternoon except that the little girl's question was "Where is your favorite place in the whole world" and her answer that sealed her victory was "Walt Disney World". Obviously a child with good taste.

"It's Mine"

I didn't see seven seconds of the Super Bowl but since the internet was flooded with Super Bowl commercials yesterday, I didn't miss any of the real entertainment. I really liked this new Coke ad which blends classic cartoon characters with a modern star. I love when cartoons get a grown-up treatment like this: