Not to be one-upped by my best friend Ashlee, I almost saw Debbie Gibson at Karma (a gay bar) in Orlando. Let me start from the beginning…

So I spent the week in Orlando at Educause, an IT conference for folks in higher education.  In addition to being totally re-energized by the awesome presentations and 7500 geeks-like-me that were there, we had a pretty great time in Orlando, except for a few things:

Tourists. I hate tourists, so I experienced a lot of self-loathing in the part of Orlando were I was staying.  I caught myself doing touristy things, like going to the “world’s largest and most unique” McDonald’s.  Eww.

Pedestrian safety.  Orlando is at the bottom of the list of major US cities.  Yikes!  I could tell.

Taxis. I spent about $100 in taxis between bar-hopping and getting to the airport.

Aside from those sore points, Orlando knows a good party.  And I saw quite a few.  In previous trips, I had only gone to Disney World, which is a blast.  But this time I got to see Universal’s City Walk.  Nice. This is what downtown Little Rock should look like.

I also had to go to the Parliament House, an all gay resort/bar/club complex. It was sort-of the Baskin Robins of gay bars.  A cross between Little Rock’s Discovery and the Bates Motel, but dirtier.  More like if Disco was bigger and there were no straight people.

Later I hopped over to the Dragon Room, a “lavish, ultramodern lounge,” and caught-up with a friend from High School.

So back to Debbie, I had planned on just going to Karma, because it was down the street from my hotel, but it was $20 to stand outside (ya’ll, Orlando is hot, okay?!) or $100 for VIP access.  Ouch.  Even worse, there was no one there when I walked by.  Sigh.

So, you win Ashlee.  Hope Angela Bassett was cool.  I’m off to Indianapolis.