Category: dallas

Canyon Club – Getting There?

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

I’m going to a concert this evening (Sunday) at The Canyon Club, part of the Bronco Bowl Entertainment Center. Their site offers these directions from Dallas:

  1. Take I-30 west to Hampton Road exit
  2. Exit Hampton Road South
  3. Turn Right (west) on to Fort Worth Avenue at the first stop light
  4. Bronco Bowl Entertainment is located half a mile from Hampton Road on the left (south) side of the street.

For those that have been to The Canyon Club before, do those directions make sense? Or, is there anything else I should know about getting there?

Oh, the bands — almost forgot about that part ;). The headliners are Nile and Napalm Death, but my main interest is in Dark Tranquillity.

I don’t have any Napalm Death albums, but that's primarily because other albums have taken purchasing precedence. My non-deceased friend Brian Wagner quite liked them and I don’t recall disliking the band when he played them for me. Well, I’ll just have to give them a listen and try to form an opinion.

Before reading about them on the show annoucement page, I hadn’t even heard of Nile (which is a bit surprising, since they’re the headliners). However, a quick search of the reviews at Metal-Rules.com turns up some positive results:

While hard-core death fans, particularly those into complex pay-attention, you�ll-be-tested-on-this kind of metal, will probably take to this CD immediately, the album will probably grow on just about everybody given enough listens. The intricate secrets locked within the music will take a good number of listens to unlock. […]

— Metal-Rules.com review of Nile’s Black Seeds of Vengeance with rating 4.5/5.0

Hmm, so I don’t quite know how to take that. I enjoy some death metal, though there are metal subgenres that I prefer even more (such power metal, in particular). Well, since Dark Tranquillity are not the headliners, at least they won’t be playing last. So, if any of the post-DT bands aren’t good, I can just go home without guilt.

Slashdot Meetup – December

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

This evening, I’ll be going to the Slashdot Meetup for Dallas. Like last month, it’s at Cafe Brazil this evening (the venues are chosen through voting, and it so happened that Cafe Brazil won both times).

I often order a make-your-own omelette, and I’m tempted to do so again. My favorite combination is sun-dried tomatoes, feta cheese, and chorizo sausage. The problem I run into — every time — is that I’m never sure how to pronounce “chorizo” ;). Is it SHOR-zio? CHORE-zio? SHOR-see-oh? shor-SEE-oh?

I’m also looking forward to the dessert options available. With a dessert menu like theirs, I don’t think I could resist ;). I’m a big fan of chocolate-enhanced baked goods (chocolate cake, brownies, and so on) so I decided last time that I would have chocolate cake.

Of course, Cafe Brazil has about half a dozen varieties of chocolate cake, so I asked our waitress, “Which of your cakes is the most chocolaty?“ I could almost visualize the gears slowly turning in her head as she attempted to deduce the correct answer. After a moment, she replied “Well, I think triple-chocolate layer cake would be.“ (apparently using the line of reasoning that, if “one-chocolate” is a baseline, then “triple-chocolate” must be super-chocolaty indeed).

The cake was delicious — don’t get me wrong — but it was a bit of a chocolate disappointment. The icing was chocolate-flavored, but not intensely so. And, the cake-portion of the slice was almost sponge-like instead of a more preferable soft-and-moist texture.

So, this time around, I may still venture for a slice of chocolaty goodness. But, I’ll either decide on my own or decide after consulting with my dining companions (though not with the wait staff, natch).

Wifi / 802.11b Hotspots and Maps

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

I’ll be in the Dallas and Pittsburgh airports over the next few days, so I was curious if either of those airports had 802.11b access. I had a hard time finding information on this, but I eventually crafted the the right search terms to come up with these sites:

Dallas Darkroom

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

At the DFWBlogs Cocktail Event yesterday, I asked Mike how he would recommend learning the techniques of photography framing and composition (as he deals with photography professionally). After all, with a decent SLR, taking physically good picutures isn’t as difficult as it once was, but framing and composition is still a bit of a learned art.

He recommended Dallas Darkroom — “A Teaching Darkroom Featuring Enlarger and Studio Rental”. According to Mike, they even offered basic black & white darkroom training for just $5 (which is true).

It turns out that they offer many photography classes (not just the $5-darkroom training). And, confirming a hunch, most of them were more normally-priced ($150-$300 or so). At first, that was a bit of a let-down but I then realized that if you’re spending a kilobuck on a camera anyway, then an additional $150 to learn how to use it is Money Well Spent.

So, after I purchase an analog SLR (this spring sometime, hopefully), I’ll definitely take one of those classes as well (and, after briefly perusing the course descriptions, it looks like “Elements of Photography” would suit me well).

Digicam Meetup

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

I’ve quite enjoyed the Meetups that I’ve been to so far, including Slashdot and other topics.

In case you’re not familiar with the idea, people sign up with Meetup for their interests, and the system matches people up so that they can meet as a group.

Anyhow, I thought that some of the bloggers may be interested in the Dallas Meetup for Digicams. Right now, there’re only three people signed up (myself and revjim included), so we need more people :).