What do these # have in common: 37, 42, 81...

Those would be the temperatures today in Chicago, Atlanta, and Santo Domingo respectively.
So yeah, we're off, and as I'm typing this, we're in the air to Santo (or as I like to call it, 'santa') Domingo. It is nearly Christmas after all.

This is my dead sexy plane face. I call it "The Delta"

Anyway, we survived the usual airport rigors. Nothing terribly out of the ordinary and were able to make our connecting flight. Our flight out of Midway was at 6am. Which meant meeting up with my sister and folks at 3:30am, which meant leaving the house at 2:30am. Which meant I was left with the decision to either sleep for a couple hours and get up at 1:30, or stay up and play with my other late night Friday friends. Chris went to bed at 7 and actually got about 6 hours of sleep.

So anyway, last night at Karaoke...

Matt and I decided that last night was our best bet for getting a decent group of folks together (not to be confused with a group of decent folks...) for a night of singin' and general frivolity. And I gotta tell you, in that, we succeeded. I believe saying that the evening was 'off the hook' is an understatement. 'Off the hook' doesn't require therapy afterwards.

In recent weeks I've been acused of being... oh what's the word they used... "Addicted" to karaoke. This is total garbage, and I assure you I can quit any time I want. Besides, the first sign of having a serious problem is that your friends notice a change in your behavior. And I swear to you that whatever you've heard about me hasn't come from any of my REAL friends. Pack of lies. Anyway, I'm always glad when I can share the joys of my... um... dependency with others.

But I don't have a problem. I can talk about other things. I mean, I could tell you about how I'm typing this with my arms pinned to my sides and the screen folded nearly in half because I'm squished into the T-Rex position on this plane. I'm getting the full flavor of this flight... 3 hours and somehow the guy in front of me has managed to lower his chair completely into my lap. My laptop sitting on his sleeping face as I type.

So anyway, this one time at karaoke...
What I love about this karaoke bar is that noone sings half-assed. Sure, there are those that use their whole ass, but in those cases you celebrate the effort, or the amusement factor, or maybe the opportunity for improvement... whatever, as long as everyone's having fun.

Oh, wait, I was talking about the flight wasn't I? So Chris and my sister are sitting next to me planning the week out. Calculating what we can do, where we can go, how we're going to get there, what time, etc, etc, etc... Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they're getting a grip on the trip. I mean somebody's got to do it, otherwise we'd just sit on the boat and like, I don't know, hang out on a big flippin boat.

So anyway, back at Karaoke, I heard the raunchiest version of "Summer Loving" I've ever heard. And an impressive rendition of Manilow's "I write the songs." But my personal highlight was when I started singing a song by Bush and 3 folks came up and airguitar'd, airbass'd and airdrum'd behind me. I had a full air-band rocking out behind me, but the whole experience was nearly eclipsed out of my memory when Matt came running up and lifted his shirt. It's not like I threw beads at him or anything, he just did it. (Remember the part about needing therapy?) Yeah, well I'm scarred.

As it turns out, there are some unwritten rules to karaoke. I didn't really realize this until they were broken, of course... But for instance, it's never appropriate to flash the singer if you're a guy. Teh funny is not directly proportional to the damage. The other rule we figured out was that if you are actually IN a band, karaoke'ing to a song your band covers is cheating. It just is. Part of karaoke is singing stuff you don't normally perform. Listen, I don't make the rules, I just point them out when they're violated.

Don't you judge me. I don't have a problem.