Mountain Dew Cyclone, Crawl, T-Rex Cafe & Amazon Deliveries

In the preceding week, I stopped at a Speedway gas station to try a unique Mountain Dew flavor they have, Cyclone. It is classified as "fruit punch" and I heard it described as tasting like passion fruit and pomegranate, which is accurate. This past Monday I did actually do something: escorting someone to Universal Studios CityWalk as they say they had been there only once and that was like a dozen years ago. Many things were different for them between visits; they wanted to do this as in the future they'll take a friend from out of state there. They chose to ate at the NBC Sports Grill & Brew... which I was more than happy to do as they serve good food there... which was enjoyed by all. I did nothing on Tuesday but Wednesday, I ended up at a Walmart, where things were normal (at least by Walmart standards) and there are no angry or wacky stories to tell of that trip.

Thursday, I ended up at Disney Springs, where I visited some stores, had dinner at the T-Rex Cafe then saw a movie. T-Rex is a place I've eaten at a few times before and even if you discount the tremendous theme that the place has (no surprise considering it's from the same corporation that gives us the Rainforest Cafe) the food is pretty good, albeit priced like everything else at Walt Disney World. After that I viewed Crawl, as I heard strong positive remarks about it. Down here in Florida there was derision over how a movie set in The Sunshine State has a house featuring a basement-those are rarely found down here due to the elevation and sandy soil-but I discovered there were even dumber moments with that movie when it comes to logic. All that said, it was actually rather enjoyable and if you like creature features then this is worth a shot. At least the two leads (which are usually the only characters you see on screen) do a swell job, so there are no regrets with seeing this.

Friday through Sunday were rather humdrum, with an unexpected moment. Saturday I received an Amazon delivery via the postal service, which was a little surprising as it was two items together in a box and one of them was a beverage... more on that later. The day before, a small package came via Amazon, but delivered in an unusual way. Instead of a now-ubiquitous giant Amazon van, it came via... a woman in a new Toyota Corolla? Yes, and later I looked at my e-mail and discovered a message saying the package was sent, with a photo that woman took of it on the front porch! That was a shock to me. Anyway, not much else to say about the weekend, unless people really want to hear about how I went to Firehouse Subs to pick up dinner.

It for certain was not as exciting as the weekend I had at this time last year, which was simply incredible and it will be a long time before I'll ever have a 36 hour or so span where I go see an independent wrestling show and meet up with people I hadn't seen in years (and unfortunately see someone for the last time before they unexpectedly passed away), had a bad experience at a multiplex seeing a French zombie movie... and oh yeah, I went to a comic con and met Rachael Leigh Cook! If only I was not full of anxiety for the professional photo opportunity then later the autograph I got from her.... yet I can't complain even if things did not go exactly as planned. It was great meeting the star of She's All That and when I posted that photo on Facebook, it caused quite a stir. For certain, what I have planned in the upcoming week won't come close to being as thrilling or memorable as that weekend.

Toy Story 4, Mountain Dew Sweet Lightning, Petchpanomrung Kiatmookao & GLORY 67

I will go out of order this time and discuss Wednesday before I get back to the usual chronology. Unfortunately, Wednesday was a pretty rotten day; no, nothing serious happened... it was too many bad little things that happened which made me want to forget all about it. It was not even that I had to drop off someone at the airport then a few hours later pick up someone else from the same airport... as it gave me the opportunity to kill time in the area and I finally saw Toy Story 4. Now, I never wanted there to be a 4 as the first three are very good to great and 3 ended perfectly. Still, I went in with an open mind as seemingly everyone else loves the movie so why would I feel any differently? Well... I hated it! I presume everyone else will vehemently disagree yet I can't lie here and be phony about it.

Toy Story 4 was obnoxious instead of funny, most of the characters of old were barely in it, I couldn't stand most of the new characters, and it did not even feel like a Toy Story or a Pixar movie-instead it felt like something far inferior. Let's not even get into how I felt about the ending or how it betrays the key character in the franchise. The audience seemed to think it was great, so that's something... me, I'll pretend 4 never happened. The rest of the day was full of garbage.-horrid driving on busy roads (including nearly getting sideswiped by some tool who had to be on his phone) and other things I'd rather not get into. When the highlight of the day was eating at KFC for lunch and trying out their Mountain Dew Sweet Lightning... MD with peach and honey was odd, albeit not bad. At least I had a tasty lunch while the muzak in the background was light jazz covers of such things as The Isley Brothers' Harvest for the World and Billy Joel's The Stranger-that was a pleasant surprise.

Back to being chronological: Monday the 1^st I did nothing at all... Tuesday was a different story. Not only did I get a haircut-more so than usual, it was needed-but I also ate at a Beef 'O' Brady's as my last visit was like a few years ago. The food was fine-the entertainment from two of the people there was better. They were older gentleman, both highly intoxicated. Apparently, they paid their tabs then decided for another beer, which neither really needed... especially once you hear that they both drove him separately. One guy left without paying his tab so the other talked a lot of crap about him-not that he'd remember anything he said about his “friend” the next morning. From a bartender, I overheard that the dude who skipped town usually is a slob and leaves all sorts of trash on the floor-even chicken wings!

After the Wednesday I had, staying in for Independence Day was A-OK with me. At least I watched some fireworks on TV and Friday evening I got to see figurative fireworks in Kissimmee, as I saw my first ever kickboxing event live; I haven't even seen too much of it before in general but I was hoping for a good time, and that's what I got. GLORY is a major kickboxing promotion that has events across the world and they came to Florida for the first time with their GLORY 67 event. Last month I heard about it and there was a discount for tickets so I couldn't turn that down. It still wasn't the cheapest event... I did look at it as a 12 fight event which started at 6 and ended after 11 so I did not feel ripped off. No complaints with the crowd or any sort of silly drama; one of the fighters in the main event was Petchpanomrung Kiatmookao-yes, he was from Thailand.

The weekend I stayed in: as it was rainy anyhow, this was perfect. What was bad was news I heard on Saturday... a person involved with the pro wrestling scene since he was a kid (Shannon Rose) passed away. He experienced a malady of health problems for much of his life but when he could he did various tasks in the independent wrestling scene down here, like publicity and announcing and that sort of thing. I have talked to him before, albeit a long, long time ago. That news did make me sad, for certain.

When I return next, the ratio of good to bad days hopefully will be improved.

Sonic Booms, Hawks, The Pretenders & Annabelle Comes Home

The preceding week wasn't too exciting but at least I do have a thing or two to mention that I've never brought up before. Last Monday and Tuesday were for sure interesting. Real late Monday night I heard a noise that sounded like someone trying to break in. I was puzzled and a little frightened for a few minutes; I happened to be on Twitter and saw that one of Elon Musk's rockets had launched... well, that was the source of a sonic boom, heard like 90 miles away from where the boom originated. Years ago down here I heard a louder sonic boom (which is why I did not recognize it at first), again late one night. Another odd moment was one early evening when I was outside. I suddenly looked up in the sky and saw a small bird chasing after a... hawk; really. The hawk was much larger so I have no idea what the small bird was thinking it was doing. The hawk tolerated it, only for a bit. Suddenly, it reared back and snapped at it once... immediately, the small bird dropped like it was a stone! I saw nature at work there. 

Real late Tuesday night I had to-you guess it-take someone to the airport. It was a red-eye flight but that was OK for me as on the way back I'd stop at a Denny's. I stopped at one I usually don't go to and therein lied a problem. I got there shortly after some random dude in a Jeep did. I went in and the only person I see is that random dude... there are no employees to be seen, even a cook. Was everyone out back smoking joints? I went to the men's room and once I got out I saw that no one had returned, so I left and went home. The only compliment is that the two minutes I was in the Denny's, I heard a song from The Pretenders new to me; via the SoundHound app I have on my phone (it's great identifying songs I don't know... mainly new modern music I don't give a darn about for the most part) I now know that 1986's Room Full of Mirrors is pretty cool. 

Wednesday itself I did nothing; Thursday, late at night it was... another airport run. This time it was picking up someone else from an airport; unfortunately their flight was delayed two hours so we did not even get home until 2:40 AM! At least for me I could stop somewhere and see a movie... after that I had a bite to eat at a Wawa then I drove to the airport. Some interesting characters were in the Casselberry Wawa late at night, that's for sure. The movie I saw: Annabelle Comes Home-that fit my schedule the best. Toy Story 4 is getting pushed back but I'll finally get around to it around the 4th of July. Anyhow, I've seen most of the films in that universe so I might as well check out Comes Home, right? Ed and Lorraine Warren are in it, although they only bookend the movie; that was fine, as the characters they focused on were all fine and it was enjoyable for what it was. Of course the late night crowd enjoyed such a movie and that helped, although I doubt anything will top the time I saw a midnight screening (remember those?) of the Friday the 13th remake, and it was THE PERFECT crowd as they went wild for everything and random women by me were reacting like they were about to soil themselves due to fright!

The weekend, not too much happened, except for an embarrassing moment at a Racetrac gas station I stopped at after dinner to get some beverages. One of them was a glass bottle of a Mexican apple soda called Sidral Mundet, as I was curious. Well, the drinks were put in a plastic bag, as standard... except that the bag had a hole at the bottom due to a manufacturer's defect... yes, a big mess was created. At least it wasn't my fault; then again, neither was it the clerk's fault, as I had never had that happen before and who'd think one of those bags would not be made correctly? At least I picked up another bottle of Sidral Mundet-that soda tastes fine, BTW.

When I return next Monday, I know of a few activities I'll be doing, including finally seeing Toy Story 4.

Great Argus Pheasants, Hopdoddy, Anna, Going Viral & Sociopaths

“Going viral” is a relative term; it happened on Twitter June 14^th as I made a comment concerning the greatness of a particularly wild episode of LivePD. It got 7 retweets, 47 likes and 3 responses-that was by far the most popular thing I had ever said on that platform, and somehow I've been on Twitter for 10 years now. Anyhow, the preceding week had its ups and downs; Monday I did nothing but Tuesday was a bad one. I ate at a hipster burger bar known as Hopdoddy... no I can't explain the name either and I say “hipster” as it originated in Austin, Texas... and the food wasn't bad but the service was-this includes ordering burger & fries but the fries never came so I had to ask for them-so that was a big turn-off and I don't plan on returning there again. Even worse, on the drive there (it's located on I-Drive, at Pointe Orlando), I dealt with a sociopath behind the wheel.

I was almost there and there was a long stoplight to deal with. Soon after that, I honked at a Jeep right in front of me as he was driving real erratic-I don't know if he was high on meth, on his phone, or what... but I immediately then passed him on the right as I needed to turn right on another street in a matter of seconds. Suddenly, this guy flipped out, all over ONE horn honk. He cut me off, tailgated me, deliberately almost hit me a few times... I was in fact frightened by this psycho so when he pulled up right next to me (eyes bugged out and all) I held up my phone and repeatedly yelled, “I'm calling 911!” This guy was a total punk, as he immediately then got away as soon as he could to the point of doing a 180 and going the complete opposite direction. I never did call 911 because of that... although I wouldn't be shocked if someone else did as there were plenty of witnesses to his sociopathic behavior. So yeah, I'd rather forget about Tuesday.

Thursday, I had free time so I went to the Animal Kingdom; that day was far better than Tuesday, even if it was hot and humid out. I went on a few rides, walked around and saw various animals, some up close. The highlight was a few white rhinos up close on the safari ride and some birds that got real up close at that section of the Maharajah Jungle Trek (one of the two areas you walk through and see various animal exhibits) including a Great Argus Pheasant... a very large pheasant it is indeed.

The rest of the week was rather dull; there were more wacky episodes of LivePD and that provided entertainment. Sunday night, I went and saw the movie Anna. That was released to little fanfare as its director Luc Besson had some serious accusations leveled against him (by 9 different women... yeah, it's those kinds of accusations); perhaps I shouldn't support that movie then but unfortunately, there are many bad people in the entertainment world who do bad things so if I boycotted all of those... thing is, the movie is only fine overall (Besson is retreading old ground here) so even though it has some spy thrills and two big action setpieces, if you want to see this it is best to wait for home viewing. Also, the “Anna” might as well be “Annachronistic” as this is set in the mid 80's through 1990 yet such things as modern vehicles are seen in a few shots and there are also flash drives... honest.

When I return a week from today, I do have a few plans, including me finally seeing Toy Story 4.

New Coke, Shaft, Fire Ants & Salem's Fresh Eats

The preceding week was a more entertaining one than usual. Monday and Tuesday weren't too eventful (except for losing power for almost 2 hours late Tuesday night! I wasn't pleased by that although at least it wasn't during the hot muggy day) so I'll mention something that happened to me for the first time: a fire ant bit me. Yes, for a creature so tiny, it does sting like an SOB. It was literally only one of them, which I did not even see before it ended up biting me on my right forearm. Thankfully, after only stinging for a little bit, that sensation went away and it was like that never happened. I am glad I did not stomp on one of their nests or accidentally do something else which caused a swarm of them to attack me as that would be a nightmare; I saw online that cold soap and water would help for bites and at least for A bite, that seemed to do the job.

Wednesday, I went with someone to a restaurant I went to late last fall, Saltgrass Steak House. Back last year, I visited their location on Vineland in Orlando; Wednesday, it was their second location on I-Drive, at the building that formerly housed Brick House Tavern & Tap, which was a decent place I ate at a few times. It's not like that joint just opened so I presumed they would have their act together... I was mistaken. The service wasn't great (that includes the food taking forever to come out, and it wasn't too busy at the time) & my burger was more burnt than medium-well-at least the person I was with had a better time and they loved what they ordered. The Texas theme there was great so I will say that for now people should go to the one on Vineland and maybe in the future the I-Drive one will be better.

Also on Wednesday I received via Fed-Ex what I ordered a few weeks ago: the Stranger Things promotion that Coca-Cola is doing. Yeah, it's overpriced yet I wanted to be guaranteed to have New Coke, as even living near Orlando it'd be unlikely to stumble upon a pop-on vending machine briefly offering it this summer. At least the packaging was nice and those two small bottles of Coca-Cola and Coke Zero looked neat... the New Coke was the one I was interested in. I put one can in the fridge to consume on Thursday. That's what I did and... meh. Note that I like consuming all sorts of caffeinated sodas and I don't have a particular favorite, aside from avoiding most of the generics as generic cola usually is mediocre at best. I don't remember having New Coke when I was a kid as I was 4 when it first came out and I am sure my parents weren't fans of it so whether it was New Coke or the rebranded Coke II in the 90's, it was never purchased.

Having it in 2019, I was not a fan of its taste. I get why some don't care for Coca-Cola's unique properties and the tang it has; to me that's never been an issue and New Coke not only seemed like a worse version of Pepsi, it also came across as a lousy generic soda. I understand why some would like it-it is not for me. I'll save that second can to drink sometime down the line, even if that is weeks away from now. Friday I did nothing and the same goes for Sunday (except for wishing my dad a Happy Father's Day) so let me talk about Saturday. I went and saw Shaft, the new version. In the past I have seen the 1971 original a few times but never the sequels. Friday night was the 2000 movie of the same name, which I wasn't a fan of although I found out on Saturday night that it's better than Shaft 2019.

Before that I ate at a small fast food chain new to me called Salem's Fresh Eats-their offerings include seafood, subs, gyros and chicken. My meal was fine so I will have to visit them again in the future-their closest location is in Lakeland. As for Shaft 2019, I was not a fan. First off, the movie was a comedy, and one not too funny to me. Samuel L. Jackson (Shaft II) suddenly has an adult son (Shaft III) and the movie was made by old men in Hollywood woefully out of touch as all this did was crap on millennials and how they are “soft” and love such things as respecting women, coconut water, texting, are anti-gun, and use terms like “cis-gender”. III is made out to be a wuss because this is how he leads his life, while his incredible crude dad is awesome for being politically incorrect; it's an awful buddy pairing sort of movie, and Richard Roundtree doesn't even show up until deep in the final act. This was also incredible crude and vulgar; between that and this not having memorable villains, original music or action... I was not a fan. For what it's worth, the rest of the crowd at the screening seemed to love this.

It has rained all of June, which is fine except for dealing with Florida drivers in wet weather-yes, still amazingly clueless. Saturday had some heavy rain so no surprise I saw the aftermath of a few wrecks and of course some people still drove like A-holes despite the conditions. Hopefully I don't have to deal with any of that in the upcoming week.

Andy's Frozen Custard, Dr. Pepper Dark Berry, Brightburn & Mountain Dew Liberty Brew

Last Monday I did nothing at all except having a meal at a local Chili's-that went fine. Tuesday was different-yes, I had to make yet another airport journey. After dropping someone off at the Sanford airport, on the way back I went to a Big Lots where I purchased some items (including movies; the highlight there was eight Blumhouse horror movies on DVD for only 10 bucks. This includes Get Out, the first three Purge movies, and Split. No way could I turn down such a deal) and I also stopped at place new to me, Andy's Frozen Custard. I had a creation named after James Brown as it seemed like a cool thing to do; while decidedly unhealthy, it was also very good. 

Wednesday night, I went to a movie theatre that recently opened in Kissimmee, right by the new Margaritaville resort. A few years ago I went to Tampa and a Studio Movie Grill to see Train to Busan, a great Korean zombie movie set on a train. Unfortunately that whole day was rotten, including that screening. That place had some rude/dumb employees, assumed too much for anyone who had never been there before and there were some awful people at the screening. I hadn't been there since but hoped for better at this new location. At least the employees were friendly and the place looked snazzy... but just getting to your auditorium was a giant hassle, as unlike everywhere else the ticket-takers don't scan tickets from your phone and you have to do it yourself, only it doesn't work properly, then no one knew if my auditorium was ready... not the best first impression. At least the food was as good as the one in Tampa.

The film I saw was Brightburn. While not fully living up to its great premise and having some rather dumb characters, at least it was entertaining and had some rather gruesome moments. I was the only person at the screening so I truly felt like a VIP.  Thursday and Friday there is nothing to report so I will mention now two new limited edition sodas that came out. The first was Dr. Pepper Dark Berry, which I heard about on YouTube and it was good. The second I stumbled upon at a store: Mountain Dew Liberty Brew. It has FIFTY different flavors! What a wacky idea... it might as well be one flavor, “bomb pop”; I heard it described as that popsicle and it is not the worst description. Again, I'll say that is good.

Saturday I went to the Florida Mall to purchase some clothing items that I needed. Also, in the early evening some people who live near me were having an outdoor soiree and the music they played was not only DISCO, but mostly deep cut tracks to where I had to use the SoundHound app to ID what they were-I was impressed. Sunday was... the airport! Again I went to the one in Sanford, but before that was me having food & a drink at an Ale House, where I saw some sports-including the big hockey game-before making it to the airport. While a rainy day, I had no issues there.

When I return a week from today... I have no plans as of yet but as always I'll stumble into something.

Old Town Road, Godzilla, Sunset Walk & New Grills

No, by “new grills” I don't mean I am like Paul Wall and I have grillz in my mouth! I'll explain at the end. The preceding week I had wasn't too terribly interesting until the weekend. I did have a plan or two but things changed so for the most part I was low-key. The main thing I'll mention is that on Tuesday, I had free time so I ended up at a BJ's Restaurants & Brewhouse as I hadn't been to one in awhile. They have tasty food and my time there went fine. The drive there and back was at times hairy but that is typical, really. It was actually nice not being stressed out over traffic for a few days. Thus, let me mention a song that has been mega over for awhile now but just heard last month.

I knew there was a controversy over a tune called Old Town Road, by Lil Nas X... specifically, that it was taken off the country charts. Finally having heard it-both the original and the remix with Billy Ray Cyrus, how it is a country song? It's a lame rap ditty with my “favorite” device, Autotune! As I've said before, I am happy now to ignore modern pop music, with only a few exceptions.

Anyhow, the only other things of note happened during the weekend so let's get to that. Saturday I finally went and saw the new Godzilla. In the past I've watched a decent amount of the old Japanese Toho movies; I hate the '98 American one but the 2014 version was pretty cool, even if yeah there should have been at least a little more Godzilla. I had already heard this latest edition was quite different, and it was. It became a dumb modern summer blockbuster, which typically is something I avoid as they are just stupid. However, it was also inspired by some of the Godzilla films of the past, including villain motivations and honestly, the villains might as well have been aliens... and could have been but never were identified as such. The plot of King of the Monsters is outlandish... but, some of the Japanese films had such things as time travel, cyborgs, aliens that are actually apes, and humanoids that live underwater named Seatopians... so in comparison King of the Monsters is not as peculiar.

After the film I went to Sunset Walk, the new area by the new Margaritaville Resort in Kissimmee. I picked out BurgerFi as I hadn't been to one in awhile and I did have some good food. Sunday, I helped a parent put together a new grill; their old one became dirty and rusty so it was time for a new one and it was cheaper to buy one and assemble it yourself, so I helped them out with that... as it was a two person job. That job was completed w/ no complications. When I return a week from today... of course I know of a few things I will be discussing.