Nearly a dozen food trucks. Hundreds of hungry Durhamites. Excellent street-side fare. 

Exhausting, epically long lines and decadent food worth an extravagant wait. This was the general sentiment shared by the many Durhamites I spoke with while waiting in line last week at the seasonal Food Truck Rodeo in downtown Durham. The "rodeo" decends on the Durham Central Park in a quarterly gathering of the best food trucks the Triangle has to offer.

On this particular Sunday Central Park was transformed into a foodie’s paradise on a rather balmy Sunday evening in mid-August, where the smells of fresh artisanal bread, spicy fish tacos, smoky bratwurst, hot pepper nachos, tangy chicken dumplings, textbook-thick Chicago-style pizza and massive triple-decker hamburgers were just some of the olfactory stimulants that filled the air of the marketplace.

However, lines cut at sharp 90-degree angles and carved switchbacks across the concrete in front of nearly ever truck and cart. The average wait, from what many of the diners could discern, was upward of an hour per food truck. Vendors began running out of food early in the evening as the demand far exceeded their expectations. Local Carrboro eatery, Will and Pop’s, began 86ing their menu early on, and by 6:30 p.m., just one hour after the rodeo had begun, Pop’s along with several other businesses began closing their hinge-operated awnings and exiting their vehicles for slightly cooler surroundings.

While the wait was long, a full sixty-eight minutes for my local bratwurst, the food was amazing. Look out for the next multiple food truck outing on September 3 in downtown Durham off of West Main Street. You can get out more details from local kitchen The Cookery. 

75% of all chefs nationwide are male. But three of the best in the Triangle aren’t.

Ashley Christensen of Poole’s Diner in Raleigh.

Andrea Reusing of the Lantern in Chapel Hill. 

Amy Tornquist of Watts Grocery in Durham.

Two are self-taught (Christensen and Reusing). Two are working moms (Reusing and Tornquist). And all three are getting national attention.

Andrea Reusing just received the much-coveted James Beard Award as the Best Chef in the Southeast. According to Time Magazine, that’s the Oscars of the food world.

Amy Tornquist is a Bon Apétit noted chef whose dishes have been featured there, in Food & Wine, and in Southern Living magazines. Her specialty, appropriately, is updated Southern cuisine.

I can only imagine the confusion between her and my Boston mom if they got together to dish about food.

Tornquist:    Steamer? That ‘s a ship not a clam.

Mom:           Pig’s Feet? Seriously?

Tornquist:    Jimmie is a guy, not an ice cream topping.

Mom:           Yeah, well I bet you’ve never even had a whoopee pie!

It would be a sight.

While that probably won't happen, Mom can watch Ashley Christensen battle renowned grill-meister Bobby Flay July 24^th on Food Network’s Iron Chef America. And there will be blood. Or at least strange ingredients and oxidized cookware. Don’t miss it.  

TV aside, if a woman’s place is in the kitchen, why don’t more of women have top jobs in the finest ones? Working the line is physical, grueling, competitive, dirty and intense. But so is being female. Or perhaps it’s that the culinary world’s been a boy’s club for so long, that it takes a place like the Triangle that’s not so set in its ways for a gal to make it to the top of the line.

Go Ashley!

Catch Ashley Christensen on Iron Chef America, July 24^th at 10 pm

What’s guerrilla artist and 'Barrel Monster' creator, Joseph Carnevale, doing these days?

Rebelling against society’s “sanitized bastardization of original independent spirit” on his website, No Promise of Safety?

Growing the barrel monster family with other traffic cone cohorts?

Going to the library?

Yes, yes and yes.

I discovered one of his creations, ‘Street Knight,’ guarding the second floor of the Cameron Village Library. Turns out it was constructed on the shopping center grounds in 2010 as part of a ‘Scrap to Sculpture’ contest- the knight is made from old street signs.

If you’re in Raleigh, stop on over, grab a good book and check ‘em both out.

Gail Marie and Naomi Newman in a photo booth at the Lincoln tent outside the convention center.

Jonathan Cude, Trevor O'Brien and Scott McCall lunching at The Boiling Pot.

Christin Prince and Becky Minervino at Manuel's.

Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Palestine, Libya...

The Social Network didn’t win the Oscar, but Zuckerberg’s Website is the platform of choice for millions of activists worldwide. That’s not sloppy seconds.

To be clear, Facebook doesn’t support a specific group, they just make freedom of assembly a lot easier for everyone. Facebook is Paul Revere’s horse. Or Martin Luther’s printing press. It’s a means to an end, in this case of authoritarian leaders like Mubarak and Gadhafi.

Great! I’m thrilled that social networking is being used for social change. But now my page is feeling a little cause-deficient.

Sure, I like Planned Parenthood and Amnesty International. I even shared SPENT, a game you play for the Urban Ministries of Durham to see how far a meager income gets you. But those small inklings of social activism are countered by Boo the dog, Eli’s Dirty Jokes and Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology.

Wait, I’m deeper than this! You can find inspirational things on my wall. Really. Just yesterday the Dalai Lama told me I have the keys to happiness. (Knowing me, I probably lost them.) And this EAS guy did 30 sports in 30 days. If he can do that, I can make it to a dance class!

PS

Afraid your “friends” look at your page and think you’re an opinion-less sap? “Causes” can help you find something to care about, be it children with blood disorders or animal cruelty in Romania. With 22, 870,074 users, it’s the 7th most popular app on Facebook.

Last week, within a 24-hour period, I had been talked into going to both a hip-hop show and a hockey game - two things I know nothing about.

When I heard about each of these events (and their ticket prices), my initial reaction was to decline the invitation.  But with a little bit of peer pressure, I reconsidered and I'm very glad that I did.

Some of the best experiences happen when you step out of your comfort zone and break your own rules. If I had stuck to my usual pattern of listening to indie rock and avoiding all sports events, then I not only would have missed out on two great nights with friends, but I also would have missed the opportunity to be in the presence of two very different types of fans.

On Friday I found myself standing in the back of Motorco, watching a small group of hip-hop fans gather in front of the stage.  The next night, I sat in the second to last row at the top of the RBC center watching hundreds of hockey fans screaming for their team (and screaming for the fights).

This morning, back in brand land, an E-mail circulated around the agency that stirred up a conversation about brands and attracting Likes on Facebook.  Which got me thinking that music fans, sports fans, and Facebook fans might not be all that different.

It surprises me that there are still so many brands that don't get it. Getting someone to click "Like" is not the same thing as earning a genuine fan. If there is one thing I learned this weekend, it's that good experiences are at the core of any fan relationship. And I can guarantee that the next opportunity I get to go to a hockey game, I will be there, beer in hand, screaming with all the other fans.

I eagerly check Crows Nest twice a day while at work, and I always learn at least five new things. Yesterday, I was taken to Komodo Media’s blog written by a guy named Rogie who gets “giddy about using CSS and newsk00l JavaScript to create sweet stuff.” But Tuesday’s post was not good news. His sister Kristina, her husband and their five kids lost their home and everything in it to a house fire the previous morning. And she’s due to have their sixth child in just two weeks.

The post provided an address in Montana for “Project: Love Kristina,” as well as the children’s clothes and shoe sizes. This morning I put two small boxes of each in the mail. Hopefully the few things I was able to pull together, including hats and scarves, will be immediately useful to this hurting family.

Consider doing the same! And thanks, Crows Nest.

A silent nod when you enter.

Hand-sharpied CD shelf dividers.

Record store smell. It’s like a library, only cooler.

Playlists compiled by the original artist.

CD’s you can scour through for hours, in cases, with artwork.

Used bins!

 Anything by AC/DC. Also, Garth Brooks, Kid Rock, Tool, portions of the Black Sabbath and Def Leppard catalogues, Bob Seger, Frank Zappa, Jay-Z’s American Gangster album and the Smiths.

Listening stations and the occasional live show. (“Preview” just doesn’t compete.)

Recommendations you can trust.

Plans for Friday night.

Rock art covering every inch of wall and shelf space. 

Schoolkids, 2114 Hillsborough St. Raleigh

“Drummer/guitarist/singer/keyboardist/-wanted” ads you consider answering.

An afternoon well spent. 

Places where you can find the items above:

 Schoolkids Records

Chaz’s Bull City Records

CD Alley

 Offbeat Music

And don’t forget to support 5^th Annual Record Store Day, April 16, 2011

Some days you lose your work, an earring, your sanity or all three. And it takes a lot to look at things in perspective—and to laugh.

It takes Ru Paul’s Drag Race.

Image courtesy of Fashion Rules.com

For those unfamiliar with the show, it features contestants vying to be ”America’s Next Drag Superstar.” The queens battle it out with a mini-challenge and a main stage event, resulting in the bottom two queens “lip-synching for their lives.”

The Lady-to-Tramp RuPaul Doll Mini-Challenge

For these 60 minutes, I feel fabulous. If anything rears its ugly head in my head (or in yours), this show probably has the answer.

What I've learned in drag therapy.

Body Image Disorder: There’s nothing the right undergarment can’t tuck, flatten, boost, lift, squeeze or augment.

Schizophrenia: If you think you’re Cleopatra, then buy a wig and be Cleopatra.

Social Anxiety: People judge you more on how you carry yourself than what you look like.

Anal-Retentiveness: Sometime’s the wig is just going to come off, no matter what you do.

Lonliness: You're never alone if your friends always want to borrow your makeup.

Stuttering: Can't speak? Write it in lipstick!

Exhibitionism: What? That's not a disorder, it's an attribute.

Depression: Do WHATEVER makes you happy.

Personality Disorder: Most of us change our identities daily. Only some of us do it with false eyelashes, padding and tucking panties.

Low Self-Esteem: In the words that RuPaul uses to close each show, “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love anybody else?  Can I get an amen?”

Amen, Ru. Amen.

I've been telling anyone who would listen for the past 5 years that video games are the "next-big-thing" in Advertising (and that "microtransactions" are the next-big-thing in gaming).  I was a part of the first ever MMO team (Anarchy Online - Funcom) to implement in-game ads- streamed on clickable billboards with rotating content.  This advertising allowed Anarchy Online to become the first major "Free To Play" MMO game ever, a model that has been eagerly copied since. 

Today, over 50% of major Online games are free-to-play, supported by in-game ads and microtransactions (used to purchase premium content, expansions, additional features, and social things such as clothes and props).  The free-to-play model has been best exploited so far by Dungeons and Dragons Online (and soon followed by its sister title Lord of the Rings Online- both by Turbine) which turned a game that was hemorraging users and operating at a loss into a profit generating workhorse that was a major factor in Turbine being purchased by Warner Brothers this year.

We are reaching a point where only 1 or 2 industry-best titles like World of Warcraft will be able to survive using the antiquated subscription model ($14.99/month for WoW).  It is akin to the early days of America Online, where you paid by the hour (and later by the month) for access.  Once real competition developed, their model was no longer feasible and was eventually dropped (but not before America Online became an irrelevant dinosaur and butt of jokes).

For more information on the continuing fusion of Advertising and Gaming, check out this Mashable article "6 Reasons Why Social Gaming is the Next Advertising Frontier".