Google Doodle Celebrates Drive-In Movie Theatres!

I know it’s a little late in the day to bring this up, but, did anyone notice that cool-ass Google Doodle that’s been up all day today? And if you noticed it, did you take the time to actually click on it too?

Well, just in case you missed it, here again for your viewing pleasure is Google’s salute to the 79th birthday of the drive-in theatre! Wow…who knew they had drive-ins in the 1930’s? Crazy, huh?

Anyway, enjoy the clip below and if you happen to be lucky enough to live near a drive-in, I command you to head over there and get your outdoor movie theatre on! I grew up near the late, great Skyview drive-in in Santa Cruz and have many tales to tell of my adventures there, none of them suitable for a family blog, but all of them as vivid and wonderful as drive-in culture itself! Oh, the memories…

Happy 79th birthday drive-ins…seriously, you don’t look a day over 50 to me!

Fake Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear commerical

OK, so, I’m sitting at my laptop nerding out on Facebook before bed tonight and I happen to see this very strange, totally retro commercial for something called a Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear. The first time the ad aired, I was like, weird, why are they playing that grainy ass-commercial on NBC? Then, fifteen minutes later, it played again and fifteen minutes after that, it played again!

At that point, I got kinda spooked (did I mention it was late at night?) and decided to Google this crazy toy I had never heard of…and guess what? The reason I have never heard of this cuddly little ’80’s icon is because he is actually a fictional toy/character in the upcoming Pixar release “Toy Story 3”! That’s right, amigos, Disney/Pixar has gone viral. Coolness!

And what a viral ad it is! The grainy VCR-era static, the costumes, hell, even the actors, I was convinced that this was some long-forgotton toy that I had never heard of. Seriously, the toy-collecting geek in me was all outraged that I never owned something as awesome as a freaking Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear, with strawberry scent no less! Crazy, I know, but it looked that real.

So, kudos to the rocking team at Pixar for crafting such a hilariously-real ad campaign for a fake toy from the ’80’s, and if you like the American commercial, check out the equally-realistic Japanese one below. So cool! I can’t wait to see what role the little ball of cuteness plays in the new movie…even he does turn out to be the villain!

Google celebrates Pac-Man’s 30th

Wow, today was really a big day for 30th anniversaries…who knew that video game legend Pac-Man was celebrating a monumental birthday today as well? Google knew, that’s who!

And in honor of the big yellow dude’s 30th birthday, the crazy-cool folks at the Googleplex are featuring a fully playable Pac-Man game where their logo should be on their home page. Wocka wocka yeah!

Better yet, if you double click the “insert coin” button on said home page, you can play a two player version of the game with Mrs. Pac-Man, who, as everyone knows, was always way cooler than her husband. I mean, hello, she had a bow on her head and shit. How cool is that?

And even though I can’t figure out how to insert a fully playable version of Pac-Man into my blog, I can share with you one of the best songs ever written about a video game. I’m talking, of course, about Buckner and Garcia’s cheese-tastic “Pac Man Fever”!

My brother and I practically burned a hole in our 12-inch single of this song back in the day and now you can too. Click here to celebrate thirty years of the sweet yellow fever. Happy 30th, Pac-Man!

Our St. Patrick’s Day miracle of the crockpot…

After sampling an amazing corned beef brisket cooked in a crockpot last night at Trader Joe’s, I got all inspired and decided to slow cook my corned beef this year too. Hooray, I thought, chuck that baby in the crockpot and spend the rest of the day chilling with a frothy pint o’ Guinness!

Well, that’s not exactly how things went down. Things started off great, I got up and fed Greta, Googled some corned beef in a crockpot advice and then washed and preheated our crockpot. Yes, much to Christine’s chagrin, I preheat my crockpot. I’ve been doing it for years and have never had a problem…until today.

The minute that slab of cold corned beef and all that pink juicy goodness plopped into the overheated ceramic crockpot, I heard a horrible CRACK and knew right away what had happened. That’s right, I broke my crockpot crock in half…a nice clean crack right down the left side.

So, with pink corned beef juice slowly leaking into the metal pan of the crockpot, I hurriedly transferred everything to a regular pot on the stove. Crazy! And while that came to a boil I decided to call Rival’s Customer Service number to see how much a replacement ceramic crock would set me back and was promptly put on hold…for 43 minutes!

Now, a sane, reasonable person would have probably hung up and called back later…but not me! I held that sweaty phone to my ear like a crazy person as I rocked Greta to sleep for her nap and when an operator finally came on I told her my plight. And what happened next can only be described as a St. Patrick’s Day miracle…the lovely young woman at Rival offered to replace my ceramic crock for FREE! No shipping charge, no handling fee, no “wow-you-preheat-your-crockpot” charge, nothing.

It seems they’ve been having trouble with their phones today — which might explain my 43 minute wait on hold! — so to compensate for that, Rival was offering their customers all sorts of cool stuff. She even said, and I quote: “Well, sir, the luck of the Irish must be with you today!” Hilarious!!

So, as I blast U2, Sinead and the Cranberry’s and the aroma of boiled corned beef wafts through my house, all I can say is, thank you, Rival Customer Service…you guys seriously rock. And though I won’t be able to slow cook my corned beef brisket till next year, you can bet your shillelagh that I’ll be thanking St. Patrick for the miracle of the replaced crockpot as I do it.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, amigos!