All long stories are worth telling. ;)

...if you know me at all, you know ALL my stories are damn long. ;)

Ok so, it's been in planning for a month or 2 at work for some of the guys to take a weekend trip to Dallas to see the Detroit Red Wings (NHL) come to town and play the Dallas Stars. Patrick is native-born Detroit and since he moved away, he hasn't gotten to see them play live since. They finally got tickets (I was uninvitedly excited for them) and planned it all out. Well, Bruce got sick and decided he didn't want to go anymore, and $50 later I've got a Golden ticket, I've got a Golden chance to..something, badass weekend.

Any way, fast forward 12 hours and my ass is waking up at 5:30 on a Saturday, meet up with Larry and Brent and we take off. It's note-worthy that we stopped at Centerville at Woody's Smokehouse, my all time favorite place to get beef jerky, highly recommended because they have every kind of beef jerky you want. Also, on the way up we listened to this MP3 CD I made for Larry containing every Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd album I had, which is most all the original Zeppelin and most of Pink Floyd. Any chance I get to listen to The Wall and DSOTM all the way through is an excellent occurrence, not to mention Houses Of The Holy, Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II, III, and IV... well you get the point. It was fantastic. On a different note, it reminded me of when I used to make the 3+ hour trip to see my Dad, since I would just pop in the (pretty much) same MP3 CD and listen all the way through. Hell yeah.

So yeah, we get there and meet up at predetermined destination number one, the House of Blues. I have no doubt that when that place is packed and has a nice band jammin', it is alright. But for a casual lunch spot, the menu was small, pricey, and the food wasn't really what I wanted for lunch. But whatever, after that we walked to the American Airlines Center where the Stars and the Mavericks play, and wow. There were so many green jerseys it was unbelievable. What was even cooler to me though, and perhaps a bit on the strange side, is the number of Red Wings jerseys I saw. I couldn't even count them, it was so many. My first hockey game was a great one. Pro hockey is sooo cool and coordinated, almost as awesome as watching Norm, Patrick and me play NHL '07 on PS2. haha. No, but really, the Stars played a great game, but in the end they couldn't overcome Detroit's defense and Hasek's awesome goal-tending, with a Red Wing victory of 3-0. I could head Detroit fans all the way to the car, and then all night long since I was hanging with Patrick and Larry... haha.

After that, we decided to go to Wizard's Sports Bar to get some food and catch the football games, and get wasted, so we decided to use my Google Maps program on my phone. Big mistake. Not only did it try to take us to an OLD Wizard's that isn't even there (not that we could find) but it tried to take us through construction zones too. Since we vowed not to talk about this anymore, I'll just say that after 50 minutes of frustratingly driving around, Patrick decided we need to go back to Mark's house, Norm's brother. Or to their practice house, we didn't care. So while we're on the way there, we drive by... Wizard's Sports Bar. It was like 20 miles away but it was still a Wizard's so we stop in and get some beer and food, play some pool and eat some grub. Larry and I leave and book a hotel room, and find a liquor store. By the time we get back to Wizard's and play some more pool, we're ready to go hang with the band.

Rivethead is a band out of Dallas consisting of (from their website) Steve on vocals, guitar, and keyboard (not to mention the sweet light shows he was setting up via MIDI), Kevin on guitar and backup vocals, Mark on drums, and Derek on bass and backup vocals. http://rivetheadonline.com or http://myspace.com/rivethead

We roll up to the practice house, which was pretty cool in itself. There were 90 rooms for (monthly) rent for bands to set up their equipment and just jam. I saw a few band stickers on some doors, some promo posters, heard some people sounding great while we made our way through a little mini-maze to Rivethead's room... opened the door, and it was everything I remember about hanging out with a band. LOUD and FUCKING BADASS. I've heard them over at Norm's and of course while I'm cruisin' down the road I'll throw their CD in, but listening to them in person, seeing how much fun they were having, seeing how great they get along... it was awesome. Kevin wasn't there but I got to meet the other 3, and a couple of their friends, and a couple of their wives/girlfriends too, I'm not entirely sure. lol. I recognized a few of the songs, recognized a couple songs from their new album that I can't wait to come out so I can finally get a copy for myself, and had lots of very cool conversations with everyone. I hope I can hang out with them again one day, and next time they come to Houston I'm there. You all should check out their myspace and listen to their remake of Sexy Back, the Timberlake hit. It's way more badass, thx. I also got to hear a version of Smack My Bitch Up, I hope they record that one and release it someday too. Anyway, but yeah what a great band, and great people.

My Dallas weekend was tons of fun, I didn't get to get as wasted as I wanted to.............................but I'm glad to be home now. Too bad I have to go to work tomorrow. haha. Later guys.

PS yeah yeah, so this is the same blog post that's going on my Myspace, my Facebook, and my real blog. File a lawsuit. Thaaaaaaaanks!