I’ve only recently started watching Carnivale (by recently, I mean as in the week before the season finale), but I spent a day out sick from work yesterday sitting through the entire second season.  In what began as an attempt to stay awake for an afternoon conference call that couldn’t be missed, I passed on all the rest my fever was begging for to watch an awesome midget get a rubdown from a scorpion lady, among other things, I guess for thirteen hours straight.

What a fantastic show, I can’t believe I stubbornly passed on watching it all this time.  I won’t bother detailing it, but I’d say watching any two successive episodes would turn just about anyone into a fan.  Give it a shot.

I’m back at work now, feeling very clammy and as if I shouldn’t cough on anyone.  On the plus side, the giant Toys ‘R’ Us across the street had an equivalently giant street sign showing an M&M character in a Darth Vader costume.  I couldn’t make sense of it during the groggy walk to my building, but all signs point to a TRU run during my lunch break.  I wonder if I can land myself a Darth Tater.

Okay, I better get to work before Dora bursts through the wall and yells at me for setting a bad example.  Might as well do a

Survey: Totally lame one, but why not?  Name it.  Name your favorite Simpsons episode evahhh.

Merry Easter!  And what better way to celebrate than with the Ultimate Tribute To Sharkleberry Fin Kool-Aid!  Yes, Kool-Aid is my latest obsession, something I'm not very proud of but totally welcoming of it all the same.  I've decided to devote a whole ten minutes of my life each week to tracking down old packets of Kool-Aid, and since Sharkleberry is an awesome pink shark wearing sunglasses, his flavor topped my list.  Long thought discontinued, the mix is now on sale again in the United Kingdom.  Article provides a taste test, commercial review and a look back at the pages of an all-Sharkleberry edition of The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man comic book.  Oh.  Yeah.  Is this the part where I tell all of you to raid the back of your kitchen cabinets and send me all of the old Kool-Aid ya find?  That'd be swell, thanks.

Thanks to the whole two of you who sent in egg pictures!  I kid, I know it was a late request.  The R2 egg was created by a reader named Anthony, and I've definitely done the same thing to eggs in the past.  "Wanda Waddle," the blue beauty on the right, comes from Kristin.  Big bonus points for using plastic googly eyes.

When you're done celebrating GAWD or waiting for your friends who celebrate GAWD to finish celebrating GAWD, get down with this survey: What's your favorite Kool-Aid flavor of all time?  I told you…I'm on a kick.

Edit: Blog regular and old pal Manimal sent in a great batch of Easter Egg pics — click "more" to see 'em…
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Working on an article now, but as it's not Easter related, I wanted to wish all who celebrate it much lamb leg and dyed egg.  Speaking of which, if you'd like to share your Easter Egg masterpiece with your fellow man, snap a pic and send it to me.  Will post 'em tonight/tomorrow.

Can't believe I managed to get this done during the week, but guess what: A new article, during the week!  I picked up this insanely odd (but definitely interesting) Sticker Collection a while back, featuring plenty of old favorites, from Gremlins to Garfield to stickers that smell like baby powder if you claw at them.  The way the pages are organized is completely genuine — I didn't just slap a bunch of stickers together for effect.  That's what makes it interesting — the pages you'll be seeing were some kid's pride and joy.  Regardless, chances are high that you've had a few of these babies — though I'm not sure a great many of you enjoyed "Noah's Ark" stickers.  Deprived.  Read, enjoy — it won't be posted on the main page till I get home from work tomorrow (probably with a better logo header, yeah), so consider this an early gift from the sticker form of Zeus.  Edit: Okay, it's up now.

Random Fact: I originally canned the article for lack of star power, and while in the process of converting it into a little blog entry, it grew back into a full feature.  Just another chapter in the long line of X-E trivia tidbits.  Did you know that I own Pluto?

Weekend Survey: Tell us what pets you have, describe them and virtually love them.  We want to know.

As mentioned, Toys 'R' Us now considers Easter the most important holiday of the year, and they're celebrating with more candies, more baskets and more SPRING SALES than anyone scheduled to die within the next fifty years could count.  It's mostly a sea of forgettables, but a few of the selections are worth buying billboard space for to celebrate.  Example:

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Easter Egg!  WOOOOO!  This thing is friggin' amazing.  Basically, Playmates grabbed a couple of TMNT toys that by and large are considered obsolete, but once packed in a turtleshell egg with see-thru top (think pantyhose), it's the single greatest contribution to Easter since damned dead lamb.  The egg itself is the only "new" item included, but come on, that's more than enough.  You could do pretty much anything with that thing.  Fill it with toys, fill it with candy, fill it 10% with gravel and 3% with baby turtles…it is your unlikely championship canvas.  Do what you will, take what you may.

Retailing for 9.99, the contents just barely pass as a good deal.  You get two miniature Ninja Turtle figures still in their packages, one regular sized figure sans package, a sheet of stickers, and the ultimate must-have: Retromutagen Ooze!!!  Hell yes.  They had me at "big egg," but if not, they would've had me at "small ooze."  Combined, big eggs and small ooze tag team every frown upside down.  It's the ten buck miracle cure.

Though all of the eggs have the same assortment of stuff, the characters differ.  Dunno how many parents-of-little-ones read this site, but trust an eternal little boy on this: they will love a Ninja Turtle Easter Egg.  I can think of no one who wouldn't.  Except most girls and people who hate Ninja Turtles.  Total minority.

Here is my inevitable review of ToyBiz's "Thing Feet,", a new Fantastic Four toy that challenges Hulk Hands to a damning duel for the title of best toy ever.  I'd heard of them already, and while they didn't surpass my hopes and dreams, they're still pretty awesome.  And they yell things when I walk in them.

While picking these up, I couldn't help but notice how batshit crazy TRU's gone with the Easter stuff.  Inarguably a larger stock of seasonal fare than Halloween or Christmas got.  There were dozens of store-made baskets filled with overstocks and lesser-solds, but the bigger delight was the many number of "TRU exclusive" two-packs — essentially a way for the chain to cash in on the holiday by feeding clueless parents undesired toys packaged by the group in makeshift cardboard.  I picked up one item of particular interest, which I refuse to name until the next blog entry.  Take that.

Yesterday: A few work buddies and I spent our lunch break scouring every McDonald's in and around Times Square in search of the elusive you-know-what — the Shamrock Shake.  When I proposed marriage to the seasonal treat during last year's St. Patty's tribute, a couple of readers chimed in with wild claims that the big city still supplied the goods.  Fucking lousy liars.  The people working the registers seemed almost appalled that we'd even ask for these allegedly still-made shakes, and what's worse, we spent so much time hunting down fast food joints that there wasn't even time to enjoy a much safer bet: green beer.

Regardless, this was my first ever St. Patrick's Day spent in NYC, and it sure was an experience.  Though there's been major crackdowns over the past few years on public intoxication and just generally having anything resembling drunken fun, the sea of green-donning Irishmen and tourists posing as Irishmen almost made me wish my blood wasn't so fully rooted in spicy meatball woposity.

Anyway, it was nutsy.  More people were walking around in costume today than on Halloween — and by costume, I don't just mean "green clothes."  We're talking all-out styrofoam hats, ties, green hairspray…the works.  So gloriously tacky.  There was even a guy in a big shark suit.  I'll show you the pics when I get home.