Bringing the Drama

Shortly after making the Coffee Cake for Thanksgiving, I went looking for dessert recipes that involved coffee and buttermilk. I didn’t want to find anything that caused me to get 10 additional ingredients or anything, I wanted to use what I had, esp the buttermilk. I have two food blogs on my feed, Pioneer Woman and Smitten Kitchen. I searched both of those sites for a recipe and found the Tiramisu Cake. Not only did it look delicious, but it appeared challenging. I like a kitchen challenge. Thus began my odyssey for about a week to find mascarpone cheese. I finally found mascarpone at a local grocery, in their specialty cheese ‘boat’ near the deli. I call it the ‘boat’, because that’s what the person called it when I had googled.

I actually didn’t have the make the cake for an occasion, I was just making it to make it and use the buttermilk. I finally found time to make it the day I was going to be going to Kelly Clarkson. It wasn’t quite the rush job like the Coffee Cake, so I was able to take pictures of the process.

First the dry ingredients were mixed first.

BTW, I had a dilemma with the unsalted vs salted butter. I had bought both kinds (unsalted for baking and salted that I thought would be better for normal use), and had used quite a lot of the unsalted for different recipes I used (like the Bobby Flay biscuits I made earlier in the weekend), and the cake called for unsalted. I didn’t really want to go to the store for unsalted butter, so I portioned the butter and used probably 65% unsalted. Now I buy exclusively unsalted since now I have figured out the difference between the two, and don’t really notice a taste difference for normal use.

I greased and floured the cake pans. I’ve become quite good at it.

The wet ingredients came together and were ready to go quickly.

Of course, because I am one of the few people in the U.S. without a printer at home, I had my laptop open with all the instructions. I glanced at it quite often to make sure I was getting everything right.

The whole espresso extract thing, I just used the instant coffee I had. I was able to use my John Wayne coffee mug as a tool in this endeavor. The Kahlua is for the filling/frosting.

One thing I didn’t enjoy was washing the bowls DURING this operation. Maybe I should get more mixing bowls, but I’m just working with one set right now. Once the cakes were out of the oven, I put them on cooling racks and had to wait for them to cool so then I could ice them. (BTW, props to my friend Megan for passing down her extra cooling racks)

The ridges on the edge of the cake were from the parchment the recipe called to line the cake pans. I floured and parchment papered the pans, so maybe it was redundant, but I wouldn’t want to take any chances.

I pretty much just poured the syrup over the cakes, which kind of made a mess, but it worked. I might try something different next time. Getting the cakes from the racks to the plate was interesting, especially after they’ve been soaked with syrup. Making the filling and frosting was easy, and the mascarpone worked well. Once the cake was assembled, it went into the fridge to ‘set’ and left for the concert.

I got back probably at 11 pm and cut into the cake. It was excellent.

Sadly, I had to eat at least one piece of cake everyday during the week since I was going to be leaving for Nashville at the end of it. Don’t hate me.

I did end up with about 1/4 of it left after eating one piece a day and pawning off wedges to friends and family, and it still tasted fine when I got back. Win, win.

I woke up this morning and the morning talk radio guy was taking calls from people giving their predictions. I didn’t like the host doing that, because really, most people were just spouting off with homer type predictions. Some guy calls up and says “Saints 45, Patriots 14″. I laughed to myself and said “what an idiot”. I mean, I thought the Saints would win, but not by more than a couple of TDs at the most. I thought it’d be a close game, and in the back of my mind thought the Saints might lose.

Work today was rough. I kept thinking about the game. A couple of friends at work who were going to the game left early in the afternoon. I told them to yell loud enough for themselves and me. I on the other hand, was going to do exactly what I did the last MNF game, go to the gym, go to the store, and get home in time for kickoff. I’m a little superstitious about things if you don’t already know.

Sidebar: at the gym apparently now I can be looked at as a regular. This guy asked me in the locker room if I had been going to the gym for a while, and how did I like it. He was apparently shopping gyms. I told him I go to that particular gym because it’s conveniently located to where I used to carpool from, and I just kind of kept going. Then I found a way out of the conversation because I had a football game to watch.

The stop at the store nearly produced everything I went for but I did not find any mascarpone. I didn’t know if it’d be with the fancy cheeses (was going to take too long to look) or with stuff like cream cheese (I didn’t see it). Reason being I have found my next baking goal for this weekend, this Tiramisu cake. I might even make the Bobby Flay biscuits again to use up the buttermilk I bought to make the Coffee Cake.

I got home at 7:28 for a 7:30 kickoff. The game started off as expected, it was back and forth. On my way home I heard Reggie Bush and Jabari Greer were going to be inactive, which I was not excited about. I thought Reggie was going to play a huge part tonight, but I guess his knee is still bothering him. The Saints’ secondary has been banged up, and now we’re going to be relying on backups, including two guys who before two weeks ago were not even playing football. In this game though, those guys stepped up. My aunt’s favorite Saint was/is Mike McKenzie, who played for the Saints until last year. He was one of the guys just recently signed, in fact, signed last week. He made some HUGE plays including a game changing INT. Awesome. Then Drew Brees was just a surgeon out there, dissecting the Patriots at every turn. Did you see the ridiculously accurate throws? I mean, really, they were insane. I was pretty much in disbelief when it was 24-10 at halftime, and then when they answered the Patriots TD with one of their own to make it 31-17. Unbelievable.

Final score, Saints 38, Patriots 17. Maybe that dude who had called the radio station this morning knew something I didn’t. Or maybe he had more confidence than I did. Either way, the Saints are 11-0. WHO DAT!

This morning I woke up early and met my dad to go run the Turkey Day Race in NOLA. We got there in plenty of time to get our shirts. Personally, I hate having to get shirts ahead of time, because I have to walk back to my car to drop it off. I much rather races where we get the shirts and stuff after the race. Anyway, I was hoping to beat my time from last year, which was 48:16, with an unofficial goal of 45 minutes. I didn’t think I’d be able to keep a sub 9 min pace up for 5 miles, but I would try to get something close. The cool thing was it wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be, so I was able to forgo wearing a hat to run with.

The race started and I hit the first mile at 8:30 on the race clock, and I knew I had started about 15 or 20 seconds after that clock started. I felt pretty good, but knew it was only the first mile and to keep it up over the next 4 miles was going to be tough. I’ve been running pretty fast times during the week lately, but with my iPod sensor not really accurate, I had no idea how fast. It was off today too, which was frustrating, so basically my iPod was good for keeping time. I made it to the start of the 5th mile, and some guy was calling out times, and I heard him call out 35 or 36 minutes. I was flabbergasted. I might actually get 45 minutes! I almost tripped in a pothole, but saved it and kept going. The little bridges in City Park are a blessing and a curse. I hate running up them because they always seemed to be positioned at the end of races, but they are great to run down because you get a burst. I had a burst over one bridge during the last mile and it kind of propelled me the rest of the way. I saw some kid slow down to walk about half a mile from the finish and wanted to tell him “dude, it’s only half a mile, don’t give up!”, but then I thought maybe he was hurting or something. We finished inside the stadium, so when we broke out onto the track, I saw the clock counting just over 44 minutes. I found energy and bolted for the finish line, which was about 200m from where we entered. I passed a few people and stopped the iPod. 43:55. New personal best for 5 miles, crushed last year’s time, averaged 8:47 a mile! CRAZY! Of course, after the race things bottle-necked because they only had one person handing out timing slips. They really need to work on doing that better.

I walked over and grabbed some free beer and waited for my dad. While waiting I saw Megan finish! Yay running friend! BTW, the beer was Abita Amber. Way better than the Mic Ultra they had after the HALF MARATHON. My dad eventually finished, and we walked around and got a couple of the bananas being handed out. I don’t usually like post race bananas, because they are almost always not ripe enough, but this morning they were handing out fancy organic bananas. They looked like they’d taste really raw, but they actually tasted really good. I’ll have to scope those out next time I’m in the store.

After I got home, I sat in ice again. It worked again, so that was good. I took a shower and then set about making the salad to bring to Thanksgiving. With the coffee cake done, the salad was a snap to throw together. It was so nice to have the hard part already out of the way. I had bought two heads of Romaine, and I only needed one, so now I have an extra. I’ll have to eat more salad this week or something.

I got to my aunt’s just in time to see the turkey carved and then we sat around and talked and ate and watched football and traded stories. One of my aunt’s decided not to come this year, which was weird. I’m not sure anyone knew why. It sounds like she was sad about something, which caused her to not want to come, I don’t know. She’s a big Saints fan, so I said “The Saints are 10-0, no matter what else is going on in life, she can cling to that, and everything will be okay.” It was strange not seeing her, but I should be seeing her at Christmas. I stayed to talk to my aunts and uncles after most people left and learned some casino tips. I came home with a little less than a 1/4 of the cake left and one serving of salad. For the small gathering we had this year, I say it was a good day.

On my way home I saw 10-15 people sitting outside Best Buy at 7 pm. Apparently they wanted to stake out their spot for tomorrow and the super crazy deals. It’s going to get down to 31 here tonight, so I hope that cheap laptop or whatever they’re going for is worth the hassle and frostbite.

Things I’m thankful for this year: God, Jesus, family, friends, running, Yoplait yogurt, granny smith apples, being able to see the important things and not worry about the rest.

I left work early today so I could tackle the cake I am bringing to Thanksgiving tomorrow. After last year’s late night baking, I didn’t want a repeat. I was able to pick up some things I was missing on my way home, but it took a while. There was so much traffic. Maybe the world is over populated. Anyway, I made it home about 3 pm, and set about making the cake at a blinding speed. I don’t have pictures of the process, because I didn’t really have time to take pictures. Things happened really fast. Besides, you don’t want to see pictures of the coffee boiling over when being added to the boiling water and the butter melting in the pot. Next time though. The cake really wasn’t too difficult to make. The only thing I think I can do better is to let the cakes sit in the oven a bit longer. They were a bit mushy in the middle, but I was afraid I’d burn them or dry them out.

The icing came together PERFECTLY! I had gotten some tips from blog friend Mandy and my friend Mel on how to make frosting without a stand mixer and avoid the fiasco of last Christmas with runny frosting. I followed PW’s instructions and started with 2 tbsp of cream. I added a 3rd and then VOILA, frosting. It was amazing.

The icing spread really easy and it didn’t take long at all. I stuck it in the fridge to sit until tomorrow. I deem this foray back into baking (first time since the Baklava that I still have not properly documented) a success.

I was on a time schedule because of the Hornets game tonight. I was able to get the cake iced and in the fridge to set proper and make it to the game with a few minutes to spare. Then the Hornets rewarded me by gritting out a win in OT.

Back when I went to the beach with the youth group for a retreat last summer, I was exposed to the greatness that is Five Guys. My friend Brett led us to this oasis of goodness when we had a free afternoon. The burger I ate was so delicious, I came home and spread the news to everyone I could. A month later when my parents were evacuated for Gustav in Tuscaloosa, they happened upon a Five Guys. Remembering what I had told them, they stopped in and were equally amazed. My dad likes to get weird stuff on his burger, so of course he loved the grilled onions and the bell pepper options. Sadly, no Five Guys exists in the NOLA metro, so none of us have been able to enjoy the great burgers since.

The other day my friend Alisa mentioned Five Guys on her twitter page. She likes In N Out better, but I have had In N Out, and the only thing it has on Five Guys is the t-shirts. Reading about Five Guys got me googling, and I came to find out there is now a Five Guys in Biloxi. I emailed my parents Thursday and shared the news. Since I had gone to see Swell Season Thursday night, I didn’t get a chance to check my email until Friday morning. Both my parents had replied asking if I wanted to take a day trip to Biloxi, and since I had the day off work I figured ‘why not?’.

I called them up Friday morning and the plan was set in motion. I dropped my car off at Honda, and my parents picked me up. We made it to Five Guys and it was everything we had remembered. The bell peppers, the fries, the grilled onions, it was all there. We also found out while there that franchises for the NOLA metro had been sold, so there is hope of a Five Guys opening closer than Biloxi. No matter though, a day trip for a fantastic burger like that is completely worth it.

On Saturday after the HALF MARATHON, it was time to go back to Chalmette for the big Halloween party. I was anxious to go again after the fantastic time last year, and then my aunt sent me an email in September about it. I was going to dress up this year, and do more than tape black circles to my shirt. I was not going to have work on a Saturday, so I had no excuses. I struggled for a costume idea though. I posted on Twitter about it, and the only response I had was from my friend Adriene whose suggestion was disappointing. I mean, I figured she’d suggest a Twilight character at least…..but she didn’t. So the week of the party, I’m thinking about not dying in the HALF MARATHON and what costume I’m going to wear. I went to Target, Walmart, and a Halloween store, and nothing. I wasn’t wanting to pay $60 to dress up like the BK King, although that would have been cool a couple of years ago. I had a fake mustache, wasn’t there something I could figure out???

Two days before the big day, I noticed I had a new follower on Twitter, and it was the Quiznos toaster oven. You may know him from the commercials where he talks to Scott, the Quiznos employee. Apparently he had started following me when I asked about costume suggestions, so clicking through his page I came upon a page full of suggestions related to Quiznos. A couple of them were dressing up as the oven himself, but I didn’t have a box big enough to pull that off. But behold, dressing as a Torpedo! BRILLIANT! It’s unique, it’s something I can make, and it’s cheap. I could even wear my fake mustache!

On Friday I went to WM and bought a white sheet for $4. FOUR DOLLARS! I’m not sure how many other people were going to be dressing as Torpedos, but I got one of the last white sheets. After running the HALF MARATHON on Saturday, the costume was put together. I had some help drawing the logos on and pinning it, but I thought it came out fine. The result is below:

And yes, that is my HALF MARATHON finishers’ medal I had EARNED earlier in the day that I was wearing no matter what.

One of the highlights was a drunk lady who tried to befriend me by showing me her Star Wars shirt and saying it was vintage because it had Jar Jar on it (she kept saying it was a jabberwocky). That doesn’t mean it’s vintage, that means it sucks. I didn’t tell her that though because she was really excited about it. She was going around by herself and told me she lost the rest of her family, but she was still collecting candy in 3 bags; two for her family, then one she said was for her dog. You know you’ve hit rock bottom when you are trick-or-treating for your dog, or worse….LYING about it.

Sunday morning I woke up and went to early church. I hadn’t been to early church in a long time, but this Sunday happened to also be the week my mom was doing the scripture reading. The sermon was once again not really on the mark for me, but I enjoyed being up early on a Sunday seeing friends and family at church. After church I went to the store to pick up some things, and on my way home thought I would stop at the Quiznos near my house. I hadn’t been in a while and I wanted to stop off and have someone make me lunch. About 11 I pulled into the parking lot and parked the car. I started walking up and noticed a ‘For Lease’ sign in the window. QUIZNOS WAS CLOSED! The tragedy comes from the fact that now the only food places on my side of the interstate are Krystal and Sonic. Of course, there’s tons of stuff across the interstate but when there’s a lot of traffic, it’s not the most convenient trip to make. I went home and made myself a PB&J.

My grad school class project team has been meeting each Sunday night. I am the CEO of our fake company, and Sunday I was also up in the rotation for typing out the agenda and leading the meeting. Since the Saints game was not until 3, I set about to get that night’s meeting organized. I edited some of the final presentation slides and typed the email out to the team. The plan was for everyone to edit the presentation and send out their edits during the week, but I guess with the test we had last week no one really had time.

I had about 2 hours before the Saints game, so I went out to try to cut my grass. My lawnmower had to have some maintenance done to it because I had overfilled the oil. I had to replace the spark plug and the air filter, which wasn’t a big deal. With all the stuff that’s been going on with going out of town and working late and studying for tests, I had not been able to do anything with my yard. After a struggle to add oil and figuring out what the dipstick was actually saying, I had the oil done during the Saints game. I would go out to the garage during commercials and check on the oil, and add some. At halftime, I went out and tried to cut part of my backyard. The game had been going terrible for the Saints, but I had not lost all hope yet. I was outside cutting the grass and emptying the grass catcher when I heard loud cheering in my neighborhood. I remembered meeting Marlon and him telling me the Saints party was at his house Sunday and realized they were cheering, so obviously the Saints had done something really great. (it ended up being Darren Sharper’s INT return for a TD at the beginning of the 2nd half). The cool thing was it wasn’t just that crowd that I heard, it was multiple people from multiple houses in my neighborhood. I thought that was pretty cool, the community feel. That was one of the things I liked so much about the 2006 season.

I finished up with the lawnmower and went inside to watch the rest of the game. I had my team project meeting at 6 pm, and the game was still going on. I was going to have to multitask. The meeting started and I was steering us very well. I was watching the game on TV that was behind my laptop, so I didn’t miss much. I saw Reggie’s leap for a TD and everything. When Carney missed the XP, I remember back when he missed the XP after the most incredible last second play in Saints history. When they went ahead 40-34 I thought “it’s only 6 points! They need more!” Then I saw Tracy Porter get the INT and run it back for a TD and they locked the game away.

During all of this, I was leading this team project meeting. We’re assigned a mentor who ties in to all of our meetings. At the beginning of the meeting, he asked me if I was watching the Saints game. I told him I was and that if I randomly yelled out it had to do with the game not the meeting. At one point while I was typing something and said “NICE!” when the Saints scored, then had to cover saying “I said ‘Nice’ when referring to Drew Brees throwing another TD, not really this slide” which was about marketing or something. Once the game ended it was easier to focus on the meeting, and we actually finished half an hour early. The meeting ran really well, and I got props from the mentor guy. After such a crappy week last week (except for IMGL), the weekend was awesome. I need to find an SI with the new Saints cover!

Saturday morning I woke up for the Middendorf’s 10 mile race in I had signed up for last week. My family used to go to Middendorf’s when I was a kid and meet up with friends they knew from Baton Rouge. I don’t remember much except the restaurant being in the middle of nowhere and they had really good seafood. I thought it’d be cool to go back to a place I hadn’t been in a while to do something I had never done. I had looked at the course (it was down and back on old US 51) and noticed it included the bridge over Pass Manchac. No problem, I’ve run over bridges before.

I got there with plenty of time and was glad it was not raining. The forecast didn’t look good all week, and on the way there I passed through rain, but once I got about 10 miles north of Manchac, things cleared up. I got my number and met up with my friend Megan. The race started a few feet from the foot of the bridge, and I looked at it and thought “on the way back, i’m going to smoke that thing.”

The race started off like most races, having to be patient and pass people. I don’t know why slow people always try to start at the front. It didn’t take long to get into a groove within the crowd though, and once we got over the bridge I wasn’t really slowed at all. They had a 5K race also, so all those people turned around at the 5K turnaround, while the rest of us kept going for the 10 mile. I felt good pretty much the whole race, but my knee was bothering me a little. No hamstring or foot issues though, which was good. It started sprinkling about mile 2 or 3, and I thought the rain would get heavier, but it never did. The leaders passed me going back when I was around mile 4, so they were going pretty fast. I noticed my iPod was off around mile 3, and said I had not reached mile 3 when I ran past the mile 3 sign. I realized this must mean I’ve been running longer than it’s been giving me credit for, which meant I ran longer than 8 last week. Maybe this 10 mile thing is going to be okay.

I hit the 5 mile mark with a pace under 10 minutes a mile. On the way back it felt like forever between miles 6 and 8, because there was no sign for 7. A few people passed me on the way back, but I kept thinking “I need to save my energy for the bridge”. That and I didn’t really have a lot of extra energy to keep ahead of someone, I just wanted to finish. Finally I made the turn to see the bridge in the distance. I still thought I was going to be able to race up and then down. I hit my iPod for my power song and started up the bridge. It was the hardest physical thing I think I’ve ever done in my life. It wasn’t hard at the beginning of the race, but after 9.75 miles it was excruciating. My thoughts went from ‘i’m going to sprint up this bridge’ to ‘this is harder than i thought’ to ‘OMG, i don’t want to do this anymore’ to finally ‘the top is right there, it’s almost over’. I hit the top of the bridge and was thankful for the downhill portion and finish line. My iPod only gave me credit for 9.5 miles instead of 10, but it didn’t matter. I ran TEN MILES and in less than 100 minutes, so less than 10 minutes per, 1:37:44. I was happy with my time and mostly happy to be finished.

Post race I noticed my shoes were SOAKED so before I ate anything, I went to my car to put on my soccer slides. I had read something during the week that when your shoes are really wet, to put newspaper in them while they dry so the newspaper soaks up the water. It took 5 full pages of newspaper between my two shoes to soak up the water. The shirt we got was kind of lame. Our numbers had crawfish and oysters on them, which was cool, but the shirt just has a running silhouette and the name of the run. I noticed with the picture, the numbers were dated for last year’s race, so I figure that’s a result of last year’s race being canceled.

They had the thin fried catfish Middendorf’s is famous for, along with the usual post race stuff like water and Gatorade. The food was AMAZING, and I might have been quoted saying “this is the best cole slaw I’ve ever had!”, and while I’m sure it was really good, it was probably made better because I had just finished a race. It was cool hanging out with Megan and Corey, eating good food, on a cloudy day in Manchac. Next race is the half marathon, which at least won’t have a bridge at the end.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Remember how I said it was inevitable I would join Twitter? Well, I did, at the beginning of the month. It was bad for a while, but I think I’ve gotten into a groove and not felt the need to CHECK ALL THE TIME. I posted a bunch of pictures on Saturday while I was in Baton Rouge for the LSU game. It’s cool, and I’ve already had an argument with an accomplished writer through Twitter. Of course, he went with the direct messaging so people couldn’t see his statements, and maybe that’s company policy. Now to get a reply to someone famous who I actually like!

Lots has actually been going on. I’ve been keeping track on my good things for September post, and I’ll probably elaborate on some of that later. However, I just got home from the store restocking on yogurt. I have been addicted to yogurt the past couple of weeks. It first got into my head at work when I saw a friend eating some one afternoon. Then when I was in Dallas for Macca, the hotel had yogurt as part of the continental breakfast. I tried some, and it was not as bad as I remember. I remember one time thinking vanilla yogurt would taste like the stuff from TCBY. Since that day, I really didn’t want any part of yogurt. After Dallas though, I was at the store and grabbed a few things of yogurt in a bunch of different flavors. It’s delicious, and now when I go to the store it’s like a kid in a candy store. There are so many flavors to choose from! I can’t get enough.

In other news, I’m going to my first NOLA Eat Club tomorrow night. It’s going to be a kind of double date thing, and I’m stoked. My friend Chet and I have talked about the Eat Clubs, but they’re usually pricey places in NOLA. We spied a place on the northshore for $45 a person all inclusive, and pounced. I cannot wait, I might even get to namedrop my friend Alton. (BTW, I have not gotten his book yet, but if you have, let me know what you think)

I keep a list of every concert I’ve ever been to, and one of the first few concerts I had ever gone to see was ZZ Top with my dad when I was in high school (or maybe junior high). I don’t know because I don’t remember the date, and what I’ve found via google is either 1991 or 1996, but I thought it was 1994. Anyway, I remember my dad and I sitting up left of the stage at UNO surrounded by a bunch of tough biker type people. I really don’t remember at the time knowing many of their songs except for the songs that were made into videos, so when they scheduled a show for Biloxi I was excited to get the chance to see them knowing more of their songs. I still don’t know a lot of their stuff, but I do know my favorite song is “La Grange”. I LOVE playing the song on GHIII (and have since gotten 5 stars on medium).

So on Friday night, I picked up my dad and we went to this BBQ place he had found out about that has a location in Gulfport. It’s been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives (according to the magazine article posted at the door), which means it’s probably the first time I’ve eaten at a DDD blessed place. The food was good, and by that I mean the pulled pork and the banana pudding. I love homemade banana pudding….also sweet tea. Winner.

The ZZ Top show was at a casino, which I generally do not like going to. They seem cool on TV, but actually going to one and seeing people who probably should not be dropping money into slot machines sitting there entranced doesn’t make me feel good. To get to the theatre, we had to walk through 2 levels of casino, which I guess was a planned thing. The theatre was pretty small, and I would estimate about 1250….maybe 1500….people could fit in there. There were three bars that I saw, and all of them were full up with people in line buying drinks about 15 minutes before show time. I thought about getting a drink, but by the time I wanted to go there were too many people in line. Also, the people on our row didn’t really seem to realize it’s easier for people to walk past you if you stand up and make an effort, than just sitting there and hoping no one trips on your knees.

The show started and the sound wasn’t very good. Billy’s mic was all messed up, and Dusty had to sing a few verses, but they eventually got things situated. I knew judging from recent setlists that they saved most of their hits for the 2nd half of the set, and that’s just what they did. Since they were in Mississippi, they did some blues covers, which was cool. People were still yelling out for songs in between though, as if they weren’t going to play “Sharp Dressed Man”.

They had guitars that had gold glitter on the front, and were bright purple on the back. They even still had the synchronized steps and sways going, which was awesome. Billy showed off by playing one handed, which I’m still not sure how he pulled that off. I tried to take some pictures, but unfortunately there was a stage light directly pointed in my direction, so sometimes it was like watching the band play directly in front of the sun.

“Just Got Paid” was amazing, as were the fur covered guitars they used for “Legs”. They saved “La Grange” for the encore, which was alright with me. The last song they did was “Tush” which had about half the theatre standing up. People didn’t stand up much at all except for some people down in the pit section, and even they didn’t stand up until the end. I thought the show was great, but the venue kind of sucked. The sound was just okay, the seats were crowded together (at least there were cupholders), and we had to walk through a lot of casino to get to the theatre. Despite all that, we saw ZZ Top live again and if they came back to the same place, I’d probably want to go again. On the way out my dad and I posed with show posters.