Holiday Geek Parade

Let's face it, most holiday parades are overshadowed by Macy's bloated cavalcade of d-listers and dance numbers. For many, anything less is usually considered a bargain basement motorcade. Not true, however, as Dallas' Neiman Marcus Adolphus Children's Parade crams downtown's Commerce Street with enough holiday hullabaloo to choke eight tiny reindeer.

In the past I've given little thought to parades in general since the only elements that ever grabbed my attention were the giant balloons shaped like playthings from the past. Luckily I didn't have to wait long.


Attention getting? Sure. The Mr. Potato Head balloon was enough make me take notice. But my short attention span demands more fanboyish sights to hold my interest. So in an effort to force my sadly myopic view onto the world, here are the geeky highlights of the 2008 Neiman Marcus Adolphus Children's Parade:


One thing that may be important to note is that when an object is in motion, it tends to be difficult to take a picture of it that is in focus. So that's my lame excuse for this slightly out of focus picture of Iron Man. It's a shame too because he had one of the cooler costumes of all the characters in the parade. Oh well, there's always next Christmas.


The fighting 501st Garrison made an appearance, trooping through the procession, on their way to becoming cannon fodder. It's true, no one can take a blaster shot to the face like a Storm Trooper.


No float could contain the Amazing Spider-man or his amazing hand shaking powers. One wonders if Spidey feels he needs to work a little harder and vamp for the crowd as a way of damage control for the crappy reviews from his last movie. As you saw, the well reviewed Iron Man stayed comfortably perched on his fire truck. Speaking of which:


So did a particularly creepy looking version of the Hulk. Instead of hearing cries of "Hulk smash!" We got bellows of "Hulk feeling a little cocky after comeback movie! Hulk will most likely be in Avengers movie so Hulk not have to make effort to work crowd like Spider-man."

That's all fine and good but at the very least I thought he could have worn one of the cute little Santa hats.

So on that note of overconfidence the parade comes to a close. Nothing left to do but watch the guys dressed like Elvis clean up the horse poop.


Happy Festivus everyone!