Paleobird's Next Big Adventure page 112

[Paleobird]

I went out and tore up the town last night with some friends. Actually they pooped out early and I stayed out til the place closed. I think I have found the place where all the really good singers in San Diego go for karaoke.

Usually karaoke is an exercise in who can make the biggest drunken idiot of themselves slurring through the lyrics of Margaritaville totally off key. This place was a collection of some pretty amazing voices. And I sing in choirs and have sung with the SD Symphony. I have a pretty decent voice which usually blows a karaoke crowd away, "Dayum, you can actually SING".

In this crowd I had to really up my game. Almost every single one of them was that good or better. There was this one kind of frumpy looking middle aged lady who looked like the school librarian but the minute she got on stage she was channelling Melissa Etheridge doing I'm the Only One. It was also a mix of different music. There were some folks there who liked their county tunes and some black folks singing Motown and some old rockers like me and everybody got along great and were respectful of each other's performances. It seems like there was a crowd there of "regulars" who all knew each other.

Karaoke is a great way for me to go out and socialize that does not involve alcohol. I don't drink if I'm going to sing especially in front of people who know what good singing is like this bunch. I may have to go back there without my friends. (Two of my buddies were too shy to sing and the other one sang with gusto but not much else. Even then, the people there were polite.)

[onalark]

Karaoke is a great way for me to go out and socialize that does not involve alcohol.

This is the exact opposite of all my karaoke experiences with friends.

Granted, I don't need alcohol to do karaoke, and can take it or leave it. It does help my nerves a bit, but I'll get up on stage whether I've been hitting the sauce or not. I've got a good voice, and I know not to pick sappy songs for a bar crowd. My favorite if the book has it and I think the crowd will get into it: "Hell" by Squirrel Nut Zippers. "Roadhouse Blues" is a close second, and it's in just about every karaoke book.

I am, alas, a lady with a deepish singing voice, and most songs by female singers are pitched too high for me to carry off well. I do a great Jim Morrison, though.

[Paleobird]

Yeah, I can sing either alto or tenor so a lot of male artist's songs are perfectly in my range. I brought down the house with my rendition of Springsteen's Dancin' In The Dark last night.

[Paleobird]

In other Crio Bru news..........
I can say definitively that the cowboy coffee method is the best wy to extract the most chocolaty goodness from the Bru. Evidence of this is that the used grounds from this method are totally useless for making bark. They have very little flavor left.

Also if you do the Cauldron Method as I like to call it, you can keep adding a little water every time you take out a cup and let the pot keep simmering. The next cup will be just a s strong.

Also, if you let the grounds sit in the water and simmer long enough, they start to get very soft. I was experimenting with Bulletproofing a cup of Bru today and so i used the hand blender on what was in the pot as well. A lot of the grounds get all mashed up into the bru making it delightfully full bodied.

[NourishedEm]

EVERYTHING is expensive down under*. How you guys in the US can often buy Australian lamb at half the price I pay when it's raised only a few hours' drive from my place is a very sore spot with me.

I buy pastured lamb at $7.50 a kilo, but I have to buy it in sides. Contact the farm that's 'a few hours drive' away and find out about buying bulk. It can be waaay cheaper.

And as another example, lots of us find it cheaper to buy stuff on iHerb; having supps shipped in privately is still much cheaper than buying them here.

I agree completely, even with postage it's still so much more economical.

In other Crio Bru news..........
I can say definitively that the cowboy coffee method is the best wy to extract the most chocolaty goodness from the Bru. Evidence of this is that the used grounds from this method are totally useless for making bark. They have very little flavor left.

Also if you do the Cauldron Method as I like to call it, you can keep adding a little water every time you take out a cup and let the pot keep simmering. The next cup will be just a s strong.

Also, if you let the grounds sit in the water and simmer long enough, they start to get very soft. I was experimenting with Bulletproofing a cup of Bru today and so i used the hand blender on what was in the pot as well. A lot of the grounds get all mashed up into the bru making it delightfully full bodied.

I bulletproof my Bru with my coffee grounds making a bulletproof mocha - amazing!

Oh and what is this 'cowboy' method?

[Owly]

PB, I have the opposite problem being a lyric mezzo-soprano and finding that a lot of pop tunes are just not designed for my voice--I am too light in tone for even the higher range songs in many cases. However, I recently discovered that a friend and I do delightfully well together on ABBA, much to my amusement and dismay.

[Goldie]

I wish I could sing. *sigh* When I sang to my babies, they cried louder. :-/

[Paleobird]

I bulletproof my Bru with my coffee grounds making a bulletproof mocha - amazing!
Oh and what is this 'cowboy' method?

Good idea! Cowboy coffee is just tossing the grounds in loose with the water in a soup pot and letting it boil. Then, you can scoop a cup off the top.

PB, I have the opposite problem being a lyric mezzo-soprano and finding that a lot of pop tunes are just not designed for my voice--I am too light in tone for even the higher range songs in many cases. However, I recently discovered that a friend and I do delightfully well together on ABBA, much to my amusement and dismay.

I never really was an ABBA fan back in the day until I saw Mama Mia and remembered that they did make some pretty good music. I think a lot of it just got overplayed til everybody got sick of it.

I wish I could sing. *sigh* When I sang to my babies, they cried louder. :-/

My choir director who also runs the music department at UCSD says that 9 out of 10 people can be taught to sing. Then there is that 10% who simply can't carry a tune in a bucket and there is nothing to be done about it. Just genetic.

[Paleobird]

At the Birdnest Diner tonight's Blueplate Special is meatloaf. Yes. Again. You don't like it, go to Taco Bell.
This is a grassfed beef meatloaf stuffed with a mix of raw cheddar cheese and Mexican salsa with a bit more salsa on the top to keep things moist. Turned out quite nice. A bit of the cheesy stuff oozed out and then got put on top of the broccoli.

Photo on 2012-09-02 at 18.03.jpg

[marcadav]

I wish I could sing. *sigh* When I sang to my babies, they cried louder. :-/

I feel your pain. Just know you are not alone. I have yet to met anyone, besides myself, that was told by their elementary school music teacher to "lip it".