If you ever want to bring the house down on karaoke night, all you need is a rocking tune, an energetic performance and a hairy dude in a poodle skirt. Trust me, it works. It was Halloween night in 2004 and a bunch of us ducked out of a party and headed to a bar on the corner to grab a few beers and show off our costumes. I can't recall what all of us wearing, but I'm sure that our friend Camo made a dashing woman, complete with a pink poodle skirt, blonde wig and a low cut shirt that revealed chest hair whose equal could only be found on Burt Reynolds. So there we were, all dressed up and drinking beers in the back of a dive bar. The seven of us were the only ones in the place wearing costumes, which meant there we were plenty of sideways looks as we walked into the place. Now karaoke is rarely a good idea, but for some reason after a few pitchers of Livonia Lite, those bad ideas start seeming like genius. So of course, impaired judgment somehow managed to get us to put our names in, settle our tabs and head ...

  Years ago (and seeming another life) ago, I lived in Oklahoma. Fresh out of college, it was the best job I could find.   So I'm down there one night covering a town council meeting in the heart of the Little Dixie section of Oklahoma, a village whose sole claim to fame is that it was the site of the last surrender by Confederate forces at the end of the Civil War. Of course, they prefer to phrase it as the site of "the last Confederate holdouts in the war of Northern agression," but I digress.   So I'm there, covering this meeting, during which the dirt-covered, overall-wearing head of the public works department lobbied to buy a new oil pump for the "village truck," and the clerk had to stop several times while reviewing the previous months' minutes because she couldn't read her own handwriting out of the official village spiral notebook. So really, for small town Oklahoma, nothing out of the ordinary happened. Of course, I hadn't yet talked to the mayor, and I had no idea that I was in for down home, ignorant, but at the same time warm welcome to the area.   So after standing there chatting with the guy ...

have a nice day pictures   I've got some rednecks in my family and those rednecks have even bigger rednecks for friends.   Several years ago, Little Brother, Cousin Andy and their friend the Hippie went to visit Cousin Andy's family on Walton's Mountain. Many members of my family were there, including my parents and other assorted aunts and cousins for the annual fall festival. It was a whole big thing and Little Brother, Cousin Andy and the Hippie decided to go along and raise some Hell.   They spent the better part of the weekend hanging with Cousin Andy's brother, Cousin Skippy and their friend McV doing redneck things like taking a smashed up Ford Bronco with the top cut off (they had rolled it months before, so why the hell not?) two-tracking over the mountain. They drank a lot of beer and all came back to the D saying "Git 'er done." It was a very dark time in my family.   Anyway, after a particularly long night of drinking and carousing, the five got up early, drank some beers and went looking for trouble. Their great idea — well mostly McV and Cousin Skippy's idea — was to get some guns and head out into ...

I never thought that I'd need to tell someone before they address customers for the first time at a new job "Hey, try not to drop the f-bomb." Apparently I should have been a little more explicit and told my trainee not to be so, well, explicit. In fairness, I should have known better than to let a trainee lead a class on his first site, but he said he was ready. The trainee, not so affectionately known as Eggs (a play on his last name) was a large man from the upper peninsula who looked like he walked right out of the Hiawatha National Forest and into a newsroom. He wore a plaid shirt (as close as you can get to flannel without it actually being something Paul Bunyan would have worn) tucked in to the elastic waistband of his black dress pants. He completed the outfit with white sneakers and gym socks. Journalists and IT guys are notoriously poor dressers, so he fit right in amongst the newsroom- and systems-types.   Eggs was a memorable character, often more cartoon than human. He brought a snake to his job interview to use during the demonstration portion (we all had to show that we knew ...

I spent nearly four weeks in Hawaii and all I really wanted to see was the places they filmed Lost. Of course there was the pesky detail of having to go to work every day, which seriously got in the way of my site-seeing. I did get a chance to make it out to see a few things and boy were they worth it. Here's the rundown:   Survivors Beach There's not a whole lot to it, but it's worth seeing if you're a huge Lost nerd like me. It's a little bit of a hike down the beach, so be prepared and dress appropriately. Also, since there is quite a bit of walking, take some water, even if you're not Hurley-sized, you'll need it.   To get there, take the Kamehameha Highway from Honolulu towards Haleiwa. Hit a left at Papailoa road and follow that around until you find a parking area and beach access. Once you get to the beach, hit a left and hike for about 1/2 mile. You'll recognize the beach and trees when you see it.   The Others village The Others village is a YMCA camp on Oahu's north shore. You can see it very easily from the road, but it's tricky ...

  With our list of fun things to do in Norwalk exhausted, Schreiber and I decided to head down to the city to hang out with Neil, Katie and Jessica. After some sight-seeing and a bro-magical dinner date in Little Italy, we headed to the bar to meet with some fellow Detroiters.   The night was fun, but also educational. For example, we learned a few things that night that Katie's tolerance is three drinks — not four and definitely not five. If you get to the fourth round, let her just sit there nursing her Vanilla Stoli and Coke, she won't mind if you have another drink without her. If you buy her another round, chances are, the next day she'll mind. She'll mind very much.   We also learned — well I learned anyway — that after that fourth round of drinks, arm wrestling may sound like a great idea. It's not.   So there we are, after a few sodas, heading uptown to get some pizza near Katie and Jessica's place in Morningside Heights. During the trip, Jessica starts talking about how she's getting super strong from her boxing class.   "Kick boxing," I ask?   "No, boxing boxing," she says, throwing a few jabs into my shoulder.   The ...

  For lack of anything else to do in Norwalk, Conn., Schreiber and I went to Norwalk's top tourist attraction (according to tripadvisor.com): Stew Leonard's dairy store. Apparently once featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not, it is the country's biggest dairy store. I'm not quite sure what that means, but it was a shopping trip to be remembered.   We kind of scoffed when a search of things to do in Norwalk brought this up, but shit, we had to go grocery shopping anyway, so we figured we may as well do it some place interesting. Honestly though, interesting doesn't really do it justice. If the folks who run Chuck E. Cheese built a grocery store, it would be Stew Leonard's. Intense is the only way to describe it.   The path through Stew Leonard's reminds me of IKEA, winding purposefully from department-to-department. It was kind of nice to avoid the awkward hokey-pokey you do with your cart when you nearly run into a distracted mother at the end of each aisle. Everybody was walking in the same direction and if they needed something, they'd just pull over to the side and grab it.   The controlled traffic flow also ensures that you get to see ...