A Look at the Weekend Ahead

While I'll be spending this coming weekend in suburban Chicago gaming with friends, there's some good stuff happening here in town.

As a prelude to the weekend, there will be a panel called "Connect or Compete—How do bloggers fit with traditional media?" at 2195 Vilas Hall starting at 5:30. It's sponsored by the UW-Madison Society of Professional Journalists and will feature Wispolitics' Jeff Mayers, Capital Times Web Editor Shauna Rhone, WORT's News Director Nathan Moore, UW-Madison Law School associate professor David Schwartz and Channel 3 reporter Colin Benedict.

The Spring 2006 Ring Game will be taking place on Saturday out at Governor Dodge State Park. The Ring Game is a LARP - Live Action Role Playing - game in which participants dress up like characters from Lord of the Rings and re-enact battles from the books. A friend of mine plays and I can assure you that even spectators will enjoy the geeky goodness. And, weather permitting, you can enjoy a good hike in the beautiful countryside.

On Friday night, prog stalwarts Kansas will be at the Orpheum Theater. If you're a Kansas fan but can't make the show, they are featured in my podcast this week.

A short drive to Wauwatosa on Saturday can get you to the Spielmannszug Bock Bier Fest at Charles Hart Park.

Speaking of beer, don't forget that tickets for the 2006 Great Taste of the Midwest go on sale on Monday at 6PM.

If you're in a theatrical frame of mind, Cows Gone Wild opens at the Broom Street Theater on Friday and runs until 28 May. It's described thusly: "Belle, looses her job as a Gateway Computer supermodel when the company decides to outsource its marketing to a company in India. Unable to find work in a corporate culture that panders to slim attractive people, Belle scrambles to the Atkins diet and then clinical testing before finally descending into a world where only the bad cows go..."