Ohio Blogging Association January Karaoke Night at Noodlecat

Another Ohio Blogging Association meetup - and our first for 2013 – and our first Friday night out - is in the books!

photo c/o Noodlecat’s Instagram feed

The blogroll for the evening:

• Alicia from Poise in Parma (that’s me!) with cameo by brother Drew
• Amanda from Clue into Cleveland and husband Scott
• Charlene from Life in the CLE
• Dave from Health Insurance Issues with Dave and Again? Really?
• Holly from Rust Belt Runner and husband Neil
• Jeanne from Life in Cleveland
• Jen from Why CLE? with husband Matthew and mom Karen
• Julie from Am I There Yet
• Julie from ROJ Running
• Kate at @KateConley
• Kasey at A Case Of…
• Katie from Beer and Clothing in Cleveland
• Kimberly from SMITTEN…in cleveland
• Mary from @MaryLeeS
• Megan from It’s My Time To Sparkle and Shine and Josh from joshkrajnak.com
• Morgan from Morgan J.
• Sarah from Cooker Girl and husband Kevin
• Stuart from sosAssociates
• …and more! Please let me know if I didn’t get you on the RSVP list.

Late last year, Noodlecat put out the call for hosts for their karaoke nights, taking place the third Friday of every month. Before I knew it, the OBA had its January meeting scheduled at the restaurant for this past Friday evening.

When you plan a meetup at one Cleveland’s favorite dining locations, you take advantage of a pre-event dinner. As in the past, the staff at Noodlecat was PHENOMENAL. As our table went from six… to seven… to “can we just pull up another table?”, they rolled right along with us. Big shout outs to Bridget, Mike and Pat are in order for being so welcoming and so accommodating.

I ordered a Tsukemono Pickle Sampler for the table (which I probably ate half of – sorry folks) and a Szechuan Ramen (w/ Szechuan chili spice, red pepper, napa cabbage & chinese long beans) for myself.

Seriously spicy. (Julie, do NOT order this!) Seriously good.

In hindsight, planning for an extra 15 minutes for dinner would have come in handy as about mid-ramen bite, we were being prompted to be trained in the ways of karaoke hosting. Luckily, I was already familiar with the tools:

Especially the stuff in the top right corner.

If you watched Friday’s vlog, I’m happy to report my offer to bribe the first singers of the night with a round of free drinks worked quite speedily. The two lovely ladies sang A Whole New World to earn their cocktails. From there, there wasn’t a single lull in the karaoke action.

Bloggers going back to a PIP karaoke favorite, Love Shack.

The song requests flowed evenly through the night, finding that balance between 70′s rock, top 40 hits from the 2000′s, and even the appropriately-timed love song. Jen held it down at the karaoke machine, which gave me an opportunity to float the room. I do my best spend some time with all of the OBA members, but I was only mildly successful at it Friday. My apologies to all the new attendees for not being able to spend more time chatting.

Before I knew it, two-and-a-half hours had flown by and it was time to wrapping up the final songs for the evening. After Katie kindly allowed me to crash her “Say My Name” performance (performance photo caption contest to come), the final group sing-a-long of “Don’t Stop Believin’” was the perfect way to end the night. We closed out the restaurant that night and I left with a huge smile on my face. Why didn’t I plan a blogger Friday night out earlier?!

Ready to join the fun? The Ohio Blogging Association’s annual Whole Foods Market meet up will take place on Tuesday, February 5th starting at 6:00PM.  The WFM Cedar Center staff have a great menu planned – as well as some surprises, including door prizes! Visit the Facebook page for more info. Shall we see you next month?

I’m always taking suggestions for Ohio Blogging Association events: leave them in the comments below or bring them with you to the February meeting. We have a full year of fun to look forward to!  Make sure to “like” OBA on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at @OHBlogging.