Dallas Days 6 & 7

So Wednesday morning I took my sweet time checking out...Tuesday night ran a little late. But I avoided the midnight pizza. After checkout it was looking like rain, but I headed to the Nasher Sculpture Center. I actually think the outdoor one at the New Orleans Museum of Art is much nicer, although the building at the Nasher is very nice. The only problem is that out of 8 galleries, only 2 and a half had sculptures on display, so that was a little disappointing. THe New Orleans garden doesn't have a building or indoor area, other than the museum itself, but it's free.

Wednesday night RT and I went out for karaoke, and G-rant met us out there for awhile. Got to sing a few songs, some guy jumped in on my last one, but other than that it was cool. Some really good singers at that show, and there was a bull mounted above the stage area that blew smoke out of its nostrils. Unfortunately I wasn't fast enough with the camera so I missed a shot of that.

Thursday I visited the Apple Store in Plano, which wasn't nearly as extensive as the one in Chicago. But it was heavily staffed with geeks. Then I went on a beer quest. I found a couple of places on the net that claimed to have extensive beer selections, so I hit a couple of those. Found the Optimator that I love so dearly, plus a rasberry beer that I've only had once, a new Samuel Smith porter than I hadn't tried, plus Turbo Dog and Purple Haze, which I forgot to pick up for Robbie before I left Columbus. Of course, the reason I was picking those beers up for him was because he claimed he couldn't get them in Dallas. So now he knows where to find them. I am a beer god.

Thursday night I went over to Stevan's and hung out for awhile before we went out to eat at some fast-food derivative of P.F. Changs. The food was good, and the setting was interesting. The floor was VERY red. VERY red. After that we hit some bars and clubs on Cedar Springs, saw someone that I actually had met before, met a couple of new people, and sang a karaoke song. Stevan was a little surprised that I went right for the book. "You're not really gonna sing, are you?" HAHAHA. Of course I was. Only had to wait about 4 songs, too. Didn't drink too much, I was a little burned out last night. I think I'll make up for it this evening.

Today I went back to West End and did a little shopping, ate Sushi for lunch, and hit the Holocaust Museum. That was interesting, but I hope that they flesh it out a little (no pun intended) after they get their new building completed.

Tonight, it's crawfish and beer. Yummy. Sorry I'm gonna miss yet another AM/FM show, but I'll catch up with everyone when I get back to more familiar haunts next week.

Dallas Days 4 & 5 -- College, but without all the sex

Big conferences like this are like college, but without all the sex. There's a bunch of people that you don't know wandering around, there's classes, labs, a cafeteria (a huge honkin' cafeteria that dwarfs even the ass of your prima donna baby momma), and a student center where lots of people congregate. I didn't get so much out of the classes, most of the ones I attended were more sales presentation kind of stuff (although they were good for getting ideas about how you could make better use of the tools). I did get a lot out of talking to people about the ecommerce projects I want to accomplish over the next 18 to 24 months.

Last night's party was lame. I made the mistake of eating pizza about midnight, which ruined a good night's sleep. I'm on my way to the bar, the conference is over, and it's off to Frisco, TX tomorrow for karaoke and a few more days of vacation before I go home.

So I ended up in the hotel bar tonight. Best commernts: while I'm discussing the immigration issue, the bartender asks me if I'm a lawyer. I say, "no, I've never passed the bar. I stop at every one I see"; some dude on Fox News named Jeff Faux is talking about some issue or another and I look up and see his name and say, "that's not the real Jeff."

Fun evening, looking forward to a couple of vacation days. Later.

Dallas Day 3 -- fun fun fun fun

Had a great time. Some really good conversations about ecommerce, a couple of good sessions, some forum management, a couple of parties, and a few beers.

Survived two ESL (english as second language) cab rides. Feet hurt, but not as bad as last night. Skipped the bull riding, though.

Bill Gates is giving the keynote tomorrow, and I have sessions all day long. Another round of parties tomorrow night. Going to try to find a karaoke spot for Tuesday night with my coworkers since there aren't any parties scheduled as of right now. Planning on hitting the sculpture garden Wednesday morning and then a whirlwind schedule the rest of the week for my vacation days.

Later.

Dallas day 2 -- I am worn the fuck out

Long day. Not sure how long I walked, but I was on my feet for at least 8 hours out of the 14 hours we did the conference thing. I slept surprisingly well considering that I kept waking up throughout the night. The bed is pretty comfy.

Lots of food. I'm going to have to be careful, there's food everywhere at this thing. And drinks. I was well behaved. I chad three during the basketball game, which LSU won, although most everyone in the bar was rooting for Texas. Then we walked back to the hotel about 10 blocks, but took a wrong turn and had to negotiate a tunnel with homeless people. We then bussed out to the opening party, which was pretty swank. Food everywhere -- barbeque, texmex (I might have overdid the jalepeno poppers, I guess I'll find out tomorrow. All the beer you could drink (but I behaved myself), mechanical bull (I didn't do too badly), bad band -- AM/FM would have done a better job -- and food and beer.

Talked to a lot of vendors about ecommerce. I don't think anyone had exactly what I want, but one at least sounded promising. My sessions don't really start til Monday, but I'm hoping to at least talk more in depth to some eccomerce folks. Got two parties tomorrow night, more mechanical bull, but no karaoke :(

I'm going to bed, my feet are killing me.

Dallas Day 1

Tired...

Was up at 4:14 am this morning. Left the house at about 4:50 to gas up and drive to Dallas. The drive was sweet. Very smooth, few traffic bothers, made great time, just under 8.5 hours. When I rolled through Terrel, Tx., right before the exit to US 80W, I passed a Tanger Outlet Mall. Since I needed shoes (badly), I decided to turn around and look to see what they have. The Rockport store was having a 40% off sale on everything. So was the Bass store. So was the Levi store. Three pair of shoes, two really nice shirts, and one barely-fits-my-fat-ass pair of jeans later, I was back on the road for the last 40 miles to the hotel. I was very pleased with myself. Still am.

I checked in without incident at about 2:30. Well ahead of the people who flew. Their GTR-Atlanta flight was delayed because a bird hit the plane as it was landing at GTR to pick them up. They still made their Atlanta flight, but I think that they spent almost as many hours travelling as I did. But I didn't have to deal with TSA.

So I got my internet working and browsed for awhile while I waited for them to get here. We made reservations for the tower next to the hotel for dinner. Very nice. Very good service. Slightly pricy (more than a pair of shoes 40% off at the Rockport outlet store). It's one of those rotating restaurants. We were there for about an hour and fifteen minutes. After eating way more than I should have, I'm now officially too tired to go out. Plus, it's been a long day. Even with good weather and no traffic to speak of, and even though I love long drives, it's still tiring. So I'm going to bed early. I'll hit the town tomorrow night fir awhile. Sunday there's a couple of conference parties (with bull-riding! -- woo hoo -- I thought that wouldn't be til after the conference). Monday and Tuesday are loaded with class sessions of one kind or another. According to Janet, they feed the hell out of you at breakfast and lunch, so I'll probably take advantage of that and save the evenings for a libation or two. There are a couple of bars downtown that sound like they're worth visiting, including one called Old Monk.

I gotta get some sleep. Hope the AM/FM show was good and that everyone stayed out of trouble. Later!

The Turd Reich: Gail Madden, Dallas; John T. Steen, Jr., San Antonio; Jose Cuevas, Jr., Midland

Today's giant FUCK YOU! goes to the commissioners of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. These ass-clowns are cracking down on people who drink -- in bars. That's right, they're raiding legally operating bars and arresting drunk people who have otherwise done nothing to warrant arrest.

What fucking pieces of shit. This is what happens when you have an agency of the government who, in the 80s, patrolled the streets of towns like College Station in pairs and just approached girls walking on streets near bars, and scaring the shit out of them by stopping them and asking them questions without producing IDs. Until a third party intervened or the girl in question tried to avoid them or was unresponsive, as girls that don't want to be fucking hassled on the street by potential rapists are likely to do.

This is what happens when you elect fucking theocratic taint-lickers to positions of responsibility in government. They don't care about little things like constitutions and courts (they're full of liberal activist heathen judges who don't recognize the Lord Fucking Jesus Christ as The Savior, anyway). They know what's best for your stupid fucking drunk ass, because they've got a pipeline direct to some bullshit-language-speaking bad-toupe-wearing asshat like Benny Hinn, and he's got a pipeline straight into Jesus' (and your) lower colon. Game over man, welcome to 1980-fucking-4.

Testing galleries, part deux

OK, I'm testing out some different ways of doing photo galleries. Here's one attempt with a lot of the Stage Door Photos I took from 2003–2005.

It's got some things that I like about it (very easy to put together) and some that I don't (that stupid frame on the slideshow) so I'm still looking some more. I'd really like to have something that supported comments and captioning through a database so that once it was up info could be manipulated right from a browser. At any rate, I went through my photo library at home last night and it turns out that I've got right at 700 photos of various functions around Columbus for the last three years, from karaoke at the Stage Door to parties to camping pictures and other assorted shenanigans. So I'll try to organize those and put them online after I get back from Texas at the beginning of April.

Anyone that wants to play with the other gallery software on the site, that's tied in with the forum software, can find it here: Community Server. I've testing it as a regular registered user, and you can in fact upload pictures, title them, and caption them. The forums kind of suck, though.

Testing galleries

OK, I'm testing out some different ways of doing photo galleries. Here's one attempt with a lot of the Stage Door Photos I took from 2003–2005.

It's got some things that I like about it (very easy to put together) and some that I don't (that stupid frame on the slideshow) so I'm still looking some more. I'd really like to have something that supported comments and captioning through a database so that once it was up info could be manipulated right from a browser.

AM/FM, the Princess, and assorted shit

Saw AM/FM Friday at the Holiday Inn. They sounded good, and they got a nice crowd. I didn't make it back Saturday to catch the show, because I was busy trying to keep beer in my cup at the Princess re-opening.

Saw lots of folks, too. The place was packed with emo kids early, but I spent time with Charley, Matt R., Alec, Sonja, Tammy, Duckie, Wade, Will, Dru, Lu, and a bunch of other people. Saw Brandon briefly and said hello, but I was on my way out to get another pack of smokes and when I got back not 8 minutes later, I couldn't find him, so I don't think he stuck around. The West Point Boys (Chase, Josh, and Jason) were out and about, and I saw Josh, and Matt M. Skip was there, and so was Steve, K.K., and I'm sure there's more and I'm just not remembering. I felt a bit nostalgic a couple of times.

It went pretty well, I thought. Talked with one of the guys about the possibility of doing karaoke, and he seemed open to it, so I guess we'll see. Alec mentioned it for me, since I'm kinda shy, as I'm sure most of you know. Some of the bands yesterday were good, some not so good. Matt R. made his debut, and I was pleasantly surprised that he was playing classical. Some of the bands were bad, though. Luckily, I don't know which names go to which bands, so all I can say is that one band seemed to be populated by pissed off epileptics who forgot to take their medication. But they were enthusiastic, so I had to give them props for that. They did inspire the first use of ear protection for the evening, although I used it off and on all night depending on where I was.

Monday night there's a group called “Whole Wheat Bread” that I'm going to check out. Something about black punk rockers is kind of interesting.

I think I'm going to pass by Amanda's going-away party later this afternoon that Laura invited me to. I don't like it when people leave, though. It sucks.

I'm also trying out this new publishing software that's supposed to connect into blogger. Basically I manage the blog from a desktop application and it's got some cool features that make publishing easier.

Later

Technorati Tags: karaoke, music, nightlife

New domain!

Welcome to my new home on the net, KaraokeJoe.org. This is the new home for my karaoke blog. I still have a zanga set up that I cross post to. I also have a shitty MySpace account, but I don't use that much. So nothing of interest is ever posted there.

So anyway, I've got forums, now. And there's also a photo gallery thingy that I haven't played with very long. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with photos. I like the Phanfare service that I was using a lot, but you can't roll that into your own domain. Apple's .Mac service isn't robust enough and you have the same problem of not being able to put it into your own domain. You can still use their software, but it's not FTP friendly if you try to use it someplace other than Apple's servers. So I'll try to get some pictures put up when I can this weekend, but no promises. I think the software for the forums and photo gallery also lets people have blogs and photo galleries of their own, too. So if anyone figures out how to use them, that's cool. Go for it.

I'll be at the Holiday Inn for a little while tonight to see AM/FM play ('cause I believe in supporting friends like that) but then I imagine I'll be at Zachary's to close the evening. Tomorrow night is, of course, the Princess re-opening. I'm going to plan on going over there kind of early to hear the "new-wave" band that starts around 6 or so in the coffee shop. Monday night I want to remember to catch the punk band in the theatre.

Oh, and they did get their beer license. So I won't have to walk down the street to drink. That would suck. I'm interested to see what they intend to do with the place. Mostly, how they intend to run it, who's going to be welcome, and who's not going to be welcome.

Later!

Theater owners confused about lower attendance

They don't understand why people don't go to the movies as much, anymore. They think that if they can get permission to block cellphone signals that they'll stop conversations in theaters during movies. Actually, while that step would be welcome by me, I don't really notice that many people are spurred to talk on the cell phones during movies. Over the last 5 years I've really only seen one person try to actually talk on the phone during a movie. But then, I don't go to the movies much. What I see a lot more of is rude ass people who just fucking talk to the person sitting next to them like they're in their goddamn living. Instead of repealing the laws and regulations against blocking cell phones, theater owners should lobby to pass a law that allows you to assault people who talk during movies. That way, I could just get up and punch the fuck out of some lowlife loudmouth without having to worry about being arrested.

Amazing Idiots

The couple from Hattiesburg on the Amazing Race are fucking idiots.

Actually, it's just the guy. He's a complete asshole. Of course, she doesn't earn any style points for letting him treat her like shit. It's embarrassing to watch this guy make an ass out of himself by being completely incompetent while ignoring her when she can tell the difference between her ass and her elbow.

Karaoke at Zachary's

Went pretty well, there was a decent crowd early and a nice crowd late. A guy named Jon kind of stole the show, though, with an all-over-the-place rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody and a new drinking game based on the musical break: "Musical break...everybody drink!"

I had a good time. But I was very, very tired by the time I dropped off the PA (thanks Bryan, it's much appreciated). On the way out of Southside, I noticed more houses for sale, including one that I was eyeballing about 6 weeks ago. It's an interesting looking place, not too small, not huge, but definitely a nice size, with a decent sized front porch and a second story. I think I will actually get off my ass today and do some shit for me, like go look at that place and maybe, just maybe, even call the agent. I really should be experiencing the "joys" of home ownership instead of just constantly renting. Now that all that 16th section land is marketable again, I expect that the next 6 months will offer a lot of opportunity.

I also need to get a new grill, I think, I haven't wanted to use mine because it is a royal pain in the ass. I've seen some that looked pretty decent for prices that didn't seem out of the box. But the one I've got definitely has to go. It's gotta be gas, because the charcoal thing isn't effective when you're cooking for one damn person. It takes too long to set up, then you gotta wait, then you gotta let that shit burn out, then you gotta clean up the mess, it's just not efficient enough for me to worry about.

I need to get a staple gun, too. My red carpet from the Oscar party is now adorning my upstairs deck (which needs a couple of Adirondack chairs and an umbrella) and keeps blowing around. I think staples will do the trick.

It was great seeing everyone last night, sorry I either was too busy and subsequently too tired to spend much time with anyone. I love nothing more than to just hang around bullshitting with friends over numerous beers. Next time.

Later!

Karaoke Saturday at fabulous Zachary's!

9 pm. Drink early, sing often. :pleased:

It's been awhile since I did karaoke someplace my peeps wasn't afraid to go, so I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully people will be into it and not just make me sing the whole night. I haven't been singing very much lately, so my personal song selection has dwindled somewhat. Although my overall song selection has grown. Sadly for V.D. Sally, I still don't have any Patsy Cline.

Actually, I haven't seen her around, so it's probably a bad idea to mention her at all, 'cause with my luck, now she'll pop up and proceed to annoy the shit out of me all night.

I think there's a cool drink special, too. If you buy three drinks, you can buy as much as you want for the rest of the night. LOL. I plan to be bad tonight so that I can be good tomorrow night. Somehow karaoke is easier when I'm not drinking like a fish. Although, it seems to last longer.

When I get home tonight I'll try to post the pictures I have from Mardi Gras (not my party, 'cause I forgot to take pictures, but from "The Night That the Lights Went Out at the Sports Page." If I don't forget. I also need to remember to call some peeps to let them know about the impending festivities at Zachary's.