The Road to Texas – Vacation Day Zero and One

We’ve been trying to get to Texas for several months, but the timing wasn’t right. We finally made it happen with an extended weekend vacation south while J. Felbs was on Spring Break. We left after work on a Tuesday, heading to Wichita to stay the night and break the long drive up a bit.

On the way, we listened to The More You Nerd which was like reconnecting with old friends. It’s one of our favorite podcasts, but due to technical issues with computers, internets, and iPods, I hadn’t been able to upload in a long time.  Wichita brought a trip to Braum’s and a couple games of MtG, where I learned the importance of taking my brother-in-law out in a match as soon as possible.

Besides the weather being nice, we got a little adventurous on the road trip the next day. First, we stopped at a small BBQ joint called Stevenson BBQ. The hearse in the parking lot was a little unsettling, as were the scary bathrooms. But the smell of BBQ was wonderful and the food ended up being delicious.

Pretty sure this used to be a Braum’s

Order up at the front counter

Brisket sandwich and fries

We decided to go off the beaten path and have an adventure, so we drove into Paul’s Valley, Oklahoma and visited The Toy & Action Figure Museum. It was so cool. There were, of course, action figures of all kinds, including some horror figures from some of my favorite movie franchises. There was a neat playroom where people (mostly kids, but there were some adult costumes too) could dress up and act like a superhero for awhile. There was a Bat Cave that had everything Batman and a corner that featured Oklahoma cartoon artists. It was fun to geek out on all the displays. 

One of my faves! It was kept behind a glass case. This was probably good.

This was only part of the many TMNT memorabilia

Our side trip, road work, and rush hour traffic put our arrival time a little later, but not too late. We got in, visited with Grandma L, then ate dinner at The Porch, a local homestyle restaurant in Burleson.

We ended the night watching Duck Dynasty (which cracked me up) and Bates Motel (which intrigued me and made me sad I don’t have cable).  All in all, a successful first day of vacation.

Brushing Shoulders with Internet Fame

I have a certain perception of internet fame.

There are some people I consider to have a certain degree of popularity on the web. Usually it’s because of a blog or a podcast. These people don’t actually have to be well known by celebrity definitions. If they’re known to me, and they entertain me, I instantly think they’re super cool and internet famous.

Most of my “famous” people come from podcasts and blogs.  Also, internet fame for me doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with looking good or being a movie star. It’s more about being an interesting person who has something interesting to say. That’s not to say I don’t have my share of celeb fan stalking, but it’s hard to classify them all in one.

Twitter has been the best platform for making me feel like I’ve brushed shoulders with internet fame.  Not going to lie…when I get re-tweeted, I instantly feel super awesome. It doesn’t matter who it’s by, it’s a total ego boost. The exception to this is spam bots, but they mostly just follow me and send me weird links. Beyond that, I’ve gotten re-tweets from Lords of Acid and Woodchuck Cider. I’ve also gotten a Twitter reply from Chaz Bono, and I’ve had short conversations with people who’s podcasts I’ve listened to and enjoyed.

Tumblr is another platform that makes me feel special.  I recently had a post  through GetGlue that got several likes and reblogs.   I realize I didn’t do the work, GG did. But it was still fun. Tumblr itself has Tumblr famous people. One of those people actually follows me on there. We don’t interact, mostly because I have nothing brilliant to say, but I was completely fangirly the day she followed.

This past week, J. Felbs had his own brush with internet fame when the guys from The More You Nerd podcast took his challenge to listen to some Scrub Club Records music. He was totally geeked about it and so was I! I found TMYN  just a few months ago and it’s been our go-to podcast for road tripping. It’s funny, relevant to our interests, and it’s introduced us to new movies, music, and books (it’s thanks to Mike and Drew that we are now fans of the comic Chew).

Maybe it’s not the idea of “fame” that makes things like this fun. Maybe it’s just the fact that we’re getting to meet people we admire or feel we could be friends with if geography worked differently. It’s one of those wonders of the internet, and it’s a reminder of just how much social interaction is changing.  Normal people can now have a following if they’re interesting, and truthfully, I find some of the people I follow on Twitter to be more interesting than most of the media celebrities.

Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll do something awesome and have my own fifteen minutes of being internet famous.