I happened over to the ASI Central Team blog, a few minutes ago and read that today's Tip of the Day is to "throw an office karaoke party." I found this fitting considering the fact that on December 11, Motivators will be having it's very own karaoke party. You could say we're on the ball, but the truth of the matter is, we've been doing this for a while. Motivators karaoke nights have been going on for years now, although there has been a bit of a lull.

You see, there's this classy little joint called Guido's Irish Pub (we know, we don't get the name either) that hosts karaoke every Friday night and going used to be a Motivators staple. In fact, a few years ago, if you WEREN'T going to karaoke, you simply weren't one of the cool kids. If for any reason you had to blow off your 'oke commitment, you could expect to be pelted with promotional stress relievers at the office on Monday morning and that would be the only interaction that people would have with you. If you too cool to sing with us then you were clearly too cool to talk to us, so we'd ignore you until you begged forgiveness. I feel that a Scrubs exchange will explain that:

JD: Was any of that true?

Janitor: Parts of it, I think. Someone would have to read it back to me to be sure.

Regardless, we love our karaoke and we've had some marvelous duos in the past. For example, did you know that if you choose to sing You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth by Meatloaf at Guidos, the machine will inevitably screw up and you'll be left to sing it completely acapella? Keri and Tony do.

Another great thing about karaoke is how many people will agree to sing when they don't actually know the lyrics. Like the time that Keri didn't know the lyrics to Take Me Home Tonight by Eddie Money although she promised to sing with me. PS: In my book that's like 80s blashphemy, but my obsession with Eddie Money is another story for another day. I paid her back when I didn't know the lyrics to I Found Someone By Cher. PS: This has been rectified. I know belt it out randomly.

And then there are the songs that cause all sorts of drama Monday morning, like when a bunch of the girls belted out You Oughta Know by Alanis and we were deemed man haters. In our defense, we were really hating men that day.

You can of course always make up your own lyrics to classic songs. It's for this reason that Keri and I can never sing Sweet Caroline without thinking of Kristen's own version. Sure the Glee version was great, but the Gaubatz version was better.

And karaoke can even lead to celebrities taking action. Just look at the time that for some odd reason Amber Tamblyn (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Ring) was at Guido's for karaoke night. Keri and I got up, did a memorable version of a classic 80s hit by the Divinyls and Amber Tamblyn took action. She...left. It wasn't mine and Keri's proudest moment, but the fact of the matter remains that it's a story that we'll always have.

So I highly agree with ASI Central's blog, that you should throw an office karaoke party. It's a great way of bringing people together in harmony (and in several instances dis-harmony) for something completely unrelated to promotional products. You get up, you have a few drinks, you sing your heart out and then when it's over at 2am you head to McDonalds and you get yourself a Fish Filet sandwich. Can anything else bring people together like karaoke and fish filets? I. Think. Not.