karaoke showdown 2006

very delayed but check this out


a few months ago, i held the first annual karaoke showdown party at my house.

the following is a brief recap and then i'll get to pictures.

for a second opinion on the party, check out cyndi's awesome blog.

first of all, whenever i'm throwing a huge party, it somehow always ends up that i'm scrambling at the last minute with doing dishes or making beds or some other tedious chore, but not so before this party.

my best friend's little sister, sarah (shown right), volunteered to come over before hand to help me clean up. (because when you're thirteen, it's fun to clean anybody else's house but your own.)

i didn't have her scrubbing toilets or anything, but the extra set of hands was so helpful and allowed me to be totally de-stressed.

in fact, my house was completely clean a full two hours before the party was scheduled to start! you rock, sarah!

secondly, mad props to nathan, who hooked up the professional grade p.a., to jeremy, who delivered on the karaoke machine and cds, and to my awesome judges (below, left to right), jairus, diane and nathan.


all right, the actual party...

i understand that the very word "karaoke" causes some to be trepid, so i had a sign-in sheet and made sure that everyone was on the list. i allowed nathan and jairus to sit out on the singing, because they had volunteered to be judges. still, i'm convinced that my own performance would have inspired nathan to throw down, if he hadn't had to leave to let his dog out.

cyndi and dave were solid starters for the evening, but early on jeremy's five-year-old son, gideon, surged ahead in the rankings for his amazing performance of neil young's "heart of gold".

did i mention that he's five? and he was singing every word to neil young? AND HE CAN'T EVEN READ!?!?!?

AWESOME!!!! (cuteness to the right)

jeremy sang a garth brooks song, because that's jeremy. LOL

best duet went to cyndi and dave for their rousing performance of the b-52's "love shack."

mason sang billy joel's "piano man" very low and intensely. the poor kid's super-competitive nature reared it's ugly head when the judges gave him some good-natured ribbing. the rest of the evening was really intense for him and he refused to sing another song.

when his older brother, harrison, won the best in show award, it was all over. the kid needed a chill pill in a major way.

my dad and cheryl sang the "ooga-ooga-chacka" song. i honestly don't know where i get my hammy side from. :-p

delaney then upped the "awww" factor with her performance of the "beauty and the beast" theme.


mom, melody and cyndi performed "my boyfriend's back."

most awesome come-out-of-her-shell performance of the evening definitely went to diane, who tore the roof of the mother with tom jones' "delilah"

and you gotta love brad for trying on "hotel california."

since i was the host, i wasn't eligible for any of the super-awesome prizes, but check the score cards, baby! that 14.4 was for my throw-down on the black crows' "hard to handle". best score of the night!

of course, the judges had to knock me down a peg or two, because they're my friends. jairus said that he didn't think that it was possible to watch someone's head inflate to such a huge size in such a small time. diane said that i was working the judges too hard in my performance and nathan said that if you looked up the word eccentric in the dictionary, you would find a picture of me there.

how dare they imply that i'm a raging ego-maniac? i think they're just jealous of my amazing talent and ruggedly handsome features.

more pictures...