Image Credit: Rob Dolecki/DigBMX.com

When Mountain Dew gave me the opportunity to head down to Orlando, Florida for two days to learn how to ride bikes with professional BMX riders Chad DeGroot and Mark Mulville, I couldn’t shirk off the responsibilities of fatherhood, home ownership and general employment fast enough.

Kickstart by Mountain Dew is a sparkling juice beverage made to kick-start your day and get your rear into gear. With just 80 calories per 16 oz serving and 92 milligrams of caffeine (roughly as much as one cup of coffee), Kickstart gets you moving without the bloated, heavy feeling supplied by most “energy drinks” on the market. Don’t think of this as an energy drink — think of it as Mountain Dew for breakfast! Didn’t we all go to school with someone who drank Mountain Dew for breakfast, anyway? My buddy Eric Hoffman drank so much in the ’90s he pisses Yellow #5 to this day, exclusively.

Loaded with Vitamins B and C, plus 5% fruit juice, it’s a morning drink (not an energy drink) that gets your body and your mind higher than BMX pro/stunt cock Mark Mulville off a 10-foot wall at Orlando Skate Park!

Speaking of OSP, (which is what you call it, Brojam), getting there at roughly 7 AM was a serious thing of beauty. The sun had just began to rise, which gave everything a cherubic, surreal glow, and was accompanied by an endless chorus of early morning bird chirping action. It was like a bird mixtape that you made to impress a chick (when you used to do shit like that), except this was played against the backdrop of crisp morning air and the excitement of doing something you had never done before: riding a BMX bike.

When I first attempted to straddle the BMX, my first concern was for my nutsac. I’m all vasectomied up, so I wasn’t worried about reproductive function being compromised (spray and pray, baby); I was literally worried about crushing my nutsac on the pointy plastic seat. When I asked pro rider Chad DeGroot about the protruding seat, which could tear anal membrane or ball sac-age with equal ease, he said, “Well, you really don’t have to worry because you’re usually standing when you’re on the bike, anyway.”

And with that, I mounted the bike from behind, and rode it, in a rather wobbly way for about 10-15 feet. The bike was really small, my legs felt super long, and the safety of my ballsac was still floating through my mind. Maybe it’s because when I was 13 and playing little league I watched a kid in the on-deck circle take a well hit, yet foul, line drive directly to the nuts which resulted in one of his balls deflating, right there on the field. What a sound!

We get the sense that the festival organizers received a lot of criticism about last year’s lineup, because this year’s batch of bands skews decidedly younger and, dare we say, hipper than years past. Sure, it has the token appearance by this or that modern rock trailblazer — namely, the Cars and Big Audio Dynamite — but look at the names just underneath the headliners, which we’ll get to in a minute. Deadmaus (sorry, we’re not printing the ‘s’ as a 5)? Are they really that high up on the food chain, as high as My Morning Jacket and Cee Lo Green? Likewise, is OK go really that low on the food chain, that Ratatat, Atmosphere and Beirut would be listed ahead of them?

All in all, this is a strange group of bands, a blend of popsters (Cee Lo, Lykke Li, Ellie Goulding), screamers (Deftones, Manchester Orchestra, A Perfect Circle), and even some alt-country guys (My Morning Jacket, Bright Eyes, Ryan Bingham). But it looks as though that is the point: this year’s Lolla will not be like the others, and the headliners alone make that abundantly clear.

There are four of them this year.

As expected, the early leak announcing that Eminem, Muse and the Foo Fighters would headline this year’s festival turned out to be true, but Coldplay is playing as well. This suggests that some serious stage shuffling is in the cards, because the way the stages have been laid out the past few years, it just isn’t possible to have more than two top-tier bands playing at once. All of the other stages are simply too small to support them, or the visibility is too limited to handle the crowds. It will be very interesting to see how they schedule eight bands over three nights.

As for the overall lineup, well, we’re nonplussed. There are usually multiple bands at each level that we’re excited about seeing. This year, not so much. This is not the first time this has happened, nor do we suspect it will be the last, but it’s still disappointing when it does. On the plus side, our Estonian crush Kerli is performing, and for that, we are happy.

Ain’t she purty?

Bullz-Eye and our fellow bloggers made it to Dallas (North Texas!) for the Big Game, ready to have some fun. It was great to finally drive into Dallas and see all our comrades who finished their drives earlier and flew into Texas. We all made it to our destinations safely and securely in our Chryser 200s. I must say that none of us had any idea that the Eminem ad was going to launch the 200 as no other car before the 200 has been launched!

Our overall experience at the Big Game was one we'll cherish for a long time, from the pre-game tailgating, the facilities in North Texas and one of the best championship games we can remember. From the time we left our hotel to our smartly placed pre-game tailgating location we knew it was going to be one memorable day in North Texas. The weather broke with the sun shining on football fans by the tens of thousands and our Chrysler 200 Game On team was right in the middle of the action. We were literally a few football passes away from Cowboys Stadium, and we watched the Green Bay and Pittsburgh fans walk by right from our patio area with a clear site of the stadium. Yes, the Chrysler 200 bloggers were right in the middle of the action!

The food at the tailgating event was about as good as it gets and we are always down for some great food and friends. The Chrysler team hooked us up with a great chef who prepared an amazing spread that included grilled duck tacos and Kobe beef sliders!

When it came time to enter Cowboys Stadium for the game the checkpoints were pushed so far out it took extra time to maneuver through the crowds. We were able to sneak in through one of the clearer entrances and it was Game On! The outside of Cowboys Stadium is a site to see in itself and with it dressed up in championship garb it was heaven for any football fan. The energy from all of the Green Bay and Pittsburgh fans was contagious and we can truly say it was everything we expected and more. Once you enter Cowboy Stadium the pure size of the building is jaw-dropping and when you add in the crazy huge indoor screens it sets the stage for probably the top football venue in the world. Some of the concourses could have been designed a little better for foot traffic, but Cowboys Stadium is the real deal and proved to be the ultimate venue for a championship game.

We soaked it all in, as Christina Aguilera flubbed the National Anthem to the visual spectacle of the Black Eyed Peas during the halftime show. But the best part was the game itself which will be remembered for years as we joined the 100,000 plus who saw the game live and the over 1 billion around the world who watched on TV as Green Bay took home the coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy back to its namesake's pro football home. Both teams battled throughout but only one could wear the belt of a champion and in the end it was Green Bay. When we regrouped back at home base the Chrysler 200 team showed us the halftime commercial for the 2011 Chrysler 200 starring Detroiter Eminem. In the end, it was a thrill to be a part of introduction of the all-new 2011 Chrysler 200 and a game that brings the nation and the world together for one Sunday every year.

Our overall experience at the Big Game was one we’ll cherish for a long time, from the pre-game tailgating, the facilities in North Texas and one of the best championship games we can remember. From the time we left our hotel to our smartly placed pre-game tailgating location we knew it was going to be one memorable day in North Texas. The weather broke with the sun shining on football fans by the tens of thousands and our Chrysler 200 Game On team was right in the middle of the action. We were literally a few football passes away from Cowboys Stadium, and we watched the Green Bay and Pittsburgh fans walk by right from our patio area with a clear site of the stadium. Yes, the Chrysler 200 bloggers were right in the middle of the action!

The food at the tailgating event was about as good as it gets and we are always down for some great food and friends. The Chrysler team hooked us up with a great chef who prepared an amazing spread that included grilled duck tacos and Kobe beef sliders!

When it came time to enter Cowboys Stadium for the game the checkpoints were pushed so far out it took extra time to maneuver through the crowds. We were able to sneak in through one of the clearer entrances and it was Game On! The outside of Cowboys Stadium is a site to see in itself and with it dressed up in championship garb it was heaven for any football fan. The energy from all of the Green Bay and Pittsburgh fans was contagious and we can truly say it was everything we expected and more. Once you enter Cowboy Stadium the pure size of the building is jaw-dropping and when you add in the crazy huge indoor screens it sets the stage for probably the top football venue in the world. Some of the concourses could have been designed a little better for foot traffic, but Cowboys Stadium is the real deal and proved to be the ultimate venue for a championship game.

We soaked it all in, as Christina Aguilera flubbed the National Anthem to the visual spectacle of the Black Eyed Peas during the halftime show. But the best part was the game itself which will be remembered for years as we joined the 100,000 plus who saw the game live and the over 1 billion around the world who watched on TV as Green Bay took home the coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy back to its namesake’s pro football home. Both teams battled throughout but only one could wear the belt of a champion and in the end it was Green Bay. When we regrouped back at home base the Chrysler 200 team showed us the halftime commercial for the 2011 Chrysler 200 starring Detroiter Eminem. In the end, it was a thrill to be a part of introduction of the all-new 2011 Chrysler 200 and a game that brings the nation and the world together for one Sunday every year.

Of all the concerts this summer, none could be hotter than Jay-Z and Eminem pairing up for the “Home and Home Tour” in the artists’ respective hometowns. To celebrate two of the greatest living rappers performing side by side, 1800 Tequila has put together two cocktails to sip in honor of this historic hip-hop milestone.

For Eminem, it’s the Motor City Margarita:

2 oz 1800® Silver Tequila
1 oz triple sec
½ oz lemon lime soda

Combine with ice and stir, garnish with lemon wheels and a sprig of mint.

And for Jay-Z, 1800 gives us the Manhattan State of Mind:

2 oz 1800® Silver Tequila
1 oz sweet vermouth
1 dash lime juice
1 slice orange

Shake tequila, vermouth, and lime juice with ice and strain into an old-fashioned glass over ice cubes. Add the slice of orange and serve.

Fans of “Friday Night Lights” have known about Minka Kelly for years, but we think she has what it takes to become a household name. I noticed her recently while watching “500 Days of Summer” on cable. Minka grabbed my attention with her beautiful eyes and killer smile even though she had a very minor part at the end of the film. I was also pleasantly surprised last night when Minka appeared on “Entourage” in a brief cameo as herself as Vince tries to hit on her at Eminem’s private party.

UPDATE: Since our original post, Minka Kelly landed one of the starring roles on “Charlie’s Angel’s.” We’ve updated our slideshow to add some photos from that series, and we have some pics from “Friday Night Lights” and “The Roommate.”

We also have a page with more celebrity slideshows, so check it out!