[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7T0hsaaLho[/video]We’ve all felt the lure of the largest city in the United States. New York City’s endless shopping opportunities, the perpetual line of yellow cabs that stream down the roads, and some of the world’s best night life all beckon to us from the movie and television screen. The night life is so good, in fact, that jet setters from all over the globe think nothing of flying into New York City for a good party. With so much to do, how does a mere mortal like you and I figure out where to best spend our time? The entertainment choices are daunting, to be sure, but there are some good guidelines to use to weed out the dud venues and find the stuff great vacation memories are made of.
The best place to start is to determine what to do. Dancing? Clubbing? Theater? New York City has it all.

Clubbing and Dancing
Most of the better bars and clubs will have a cover charge ranging from $1 to $15 and many of them don’t even open until 9pm or later. New York is broken down into districts and is quite a large city. If you’re not familiar with (or able to figure out) the complex subway train system, you might want to look for bars that are close to where you are, but there are always an endless supply of those yellow cabs to help you out if you want to stray farther afield. So what are the best bars in New York City? Well, tastes in bars is as varied as the bars themselves so the quickest way to find a bar that interests you is to go online and take a look.

TicketsinSeconds.com has a great section on New York night life as well as listings of concerts and other activities in the bustling metropolis. The aptly named NY.com (http://www.ny.com) has a listing of bars categorized by genre – Jazz, Dance, Bars & Pubs, and even a section listing venues that people under 21 can get into. Finally, 10 Best (http://www.10best.com/New_York,NY/Ni…ubs/index.html) has a ranked list of dance clubs in New York City. How they’re ranked isn’t all that clear, but if you like top 10 lists then this is the site for you.

Theatre
Aside from the clubs, New York City is world-renowned for its theater. We’ve all head of Broadway and guess where Broadway is? You guess it! Broadway is in Manhattan which is one of New York City’s largest boroughs. There are almost 40 theaters on Broadway so if you’re into theater it’s almost inconceivable that you won’t be able to find something to interest you on Broadway. Check out Broadway.com (http://www.broadway.com) for show times and to book tickets online.

Television Show Tapings
All big cities have clubs and some theatre, but New York City also presents some really exclusive opportunities. Saturday Night Live, a popular live comedy show that has been on the air for over 30 years, is recorded in New York. There are only two ways to get tickets to SNL. If you’re thinking ahead you can submit a request for tickets in August for the upcoming year to snltickets@nbcuni.com. Sooner or later, you’ll get tickets to either the live show or a dress rehearsal. The other way is be a ‘standby’ which means lining up at 7am at 30 Rockefeller plaza. If you’re lucky, you’ll get tickets to either the 8pm dress rehearsal or the 11:30 pm actual show.

As well as Saturday Night Live, other night time shows such as David Letterman (http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/) and Conan O’Brien (http://www.nbc.com/Late_Night_with_Conan_O’Brien/index.shtml) also tape in New York City and ticket information can be found on their respective sites.

The trick to mastering New York City nightlife isn’t finding things to do, it’s wading through the mountain of things to do to find the stuff that interests you. With a little planning and little time invested online, you’ll be able to narrow down the field and have a great time in New York City.

I think I will work on this list for this year…

Hannah Montana / Miley Cyrus – Who?!?!

Good grief! I cannot keep up with my kids – Yesterday was crazy in Austin, TX as Hannah Montana / Miley Cyrus showed up for her concert here, along with Aly & A.J.

All this fuss over a teenage singer… So many people including myself think it is madness the way some parents spoil their children spending hundreds of dollars on tickets for what amounts to a children’s show.

However, there is something to be said about “gladdening the heart of a child.”

Bottom line – I am proud of my daughter, she is a great, kind, polite, considerate girl at all times (well, most of the time…) She never came to us begging to go to this event, she realized that we did not have the money to spend on something like this especially with all of her girlfriends at school talking about how much scalped tickets were costing the people who were going. My wife had mentioned something to me about a week ago that it might be something that our daughter might want to go to, so I spoke with her about it and she told me that she thought it would be fun, but that she knew she would not be able to go. I really was very proud that she had come to that “realization” on her own – she has a great head on her shoulders.

So, yesterday was like any other day until I received a call from my wife that a friend of ours had an extra ticket, but it was separate from the family that was going. Of course, we were not going to let our ten year old daughter sit by herself in a concert, but, it started me thinking about how I would love to do this for her (be able to send her to something which she would remember for years…) so I started searching the internet for tickets.

I found tickets being sold by “internet scalpers” – companies which profit off of ticket shoppers by purchasing hundreds of tickets at a time, as soon as they go on sale. Two tickets behind the stage at the Frank Erwin Center were going for $350 last night from these sellers (the original price for the same tickets were about $105 – not each, but for two). We looked on Craigslist and it was full of offers for tickets if you paid hundreds of dollars per seat. Basically, I had given up and then thought of a totally crazy idea and tried one more thing – I did a search on Google for Hannah Montana Frank Erwin… (so crazy, it just might work…) – and found a site – Texas Box Office – they were selling plenty of tickets in good seats for face value – a friend of mine couldn’t believe his eyes – he had paid about $300 for two tickets earlier in the week from a “Craigslist benefactor” (I use the term very sarcastically).

We purchased our 2 tickets from Texas Box Office for $153 which included taxes and fees – that was the final price for seats which were in front of the stage in section 45. To my mind, still a lot of money – but, my daughter had a great time, she is a great girl and her heart was definitely “gladdened” *grins*

I cannot seem to get anything done, everything is always in some sort of state of incompleteness – a few minutes ago, I remembered “out of the blue” that I started signing up for the new Google YouTube AdSense stuff the other day and never completed it, because of the other projects which took my attention.

Do you ever feel like you are riding the tail of a twister?

I feel that way most days… right at this moment, I have no fewer than 26 windows open across two computers and three flat panels that I am currently switching back and forth between, working on projects in varying stages of chaos and completeness…

In the midst of all those windows open, at 2:33a.m. (with no end in sight, I might add) – I have to find time for my family, the business I own which actually pays the bills, change one of my hosting plans, find time to do all of those “honey-do” chores my wife has been pleading with me to get done… Oh! And we are planning on selling out house soon, so I will need to etch out time for that – here is the amazing thing, as busy as I am, I know the majority of folks out there in the world, are just as busy if not more so.

As annoying as it is to seemingly NEVER get things done, I have to think that this state of incompleteness is one of those things to be “thankful” for – I am blessed to live in the United States and although our family is not rich, we have enough work and things to keep us busy, as we strive to reach our potential to break through that “glass ceiling” and “make it.”  So, in spite of the seemingly never ending work – I am thankful that it is there as there are those who do not have the potential that we do to keep going!

I would love to hear from you if you are facing similar issues – oh, by the way, I actually did find time to finish something today – you will notice the Google YouTube Ad above – *yee-haw*! (not sure what I think about this thing – it is HUGE – and this is their smallest one! But that is blog fodder for another day )

Just take time and feel good today.

Has anybody noticed that there has not been a new post at Internet Marketing Tell All for over a week? It sounded like Tatman was going to be posting pretty faithfully through April 14th. I have tried to reach him via his BUMPzee! account, as well as, the blog.

I have found this blog to be a great resource, and I am a little concerned about the author. He was posting anywhere from 4 – 6 per day consistently and then nothing… with no explanation.

I hope Tatman is alright and that we see him back soon!

Of course, the program planners, the writers argue that media reflects reality.  Others would say that reality reflects media.  Now, we are all adults, aren’t we?  We are all capable of making decisions on our own.  It is too simple a thing to say that the media influences us or that we influence the media.

 

I have long believed in what I have observed – media very much has the capacity to influence our actions and emotions.  After all haven’t you ever found yourself laughing or crying at a movie, theatre play, or even from a familiar piece of music, and then days or even weeks later thinking about the thing which touched you?  Slowly, these things have an impact.

 

However, after watching things over the past few years and most recently the past few weeks, it seems that the general public can be found, at least, partially at fault for the tremendous pandering the media performs on a daily basis.  I am not certain that there is some grand conspiracy where a group of people plot to distract the masses because it appears to be our Nature to be distracted.

 

The interplay is like some tragic, mythic hydra where the separate heads keep cannibalizing each other and more keep growing back.

 

It seems a bit fantastic that we choose to be distracted by the comedy of a young mother shaving her head or the tragic losses of Anna Nicole Smith?  Albeit, I think the distraction here has a lot more to do with money than with the tragedy of Danielynn’s loss.

 

What should we do?  Who knows – although, I think Hercules might be inclined to torch the heads and bury the root.  Irregardless the center of the issue appears to be unending and its lifeblood poisonous and until we can admit that, we will never take steps to correct it.