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It turns out that we were the Russian judges. But every judging pair was going in for the zingers. We had a guy in an Elvis cape, a guy in sparkly purple skintight everything and a blushing bride-to-be who threw her veil (and her modesty, it seems ... it's called a belt) to the crowd.

So, it's after 11 and the scores are being tallied for round 2. The top 5 move on to the compulsory round, where the organizers pick the song. The emcee looked a little bored, bless his heart. I thought the crowd might revolt when he pointed out "the lady in the A&M orange."

Well, it's official. We were hard on the contestants. Someone, from somewhere out in the crowd, threw something at us. Probably because for some reason, and I'm not calling any names, we were always the first team to comment and score. Whatever, man. This is America, land of the free and opinionated. Check yourself.

We just got briefed by the organizers. It seems there are 11 competitors, each getting 60 seconds to do their thing. No. Props. Allowed. That's instant disqualification. Ray asks, "Are we going to be the Russian judges," no doubt alluding to Olympics of old when those judges always gave the lowest scores.

We're judging on three things: technical merit, stage presence and airness. We get to use a scale of 4 to 6. They brought us more Sprite, and Hot Lixx Hulahan, the 2007 national champion took the microphone (wearing tails, no less). Be back soon ...

So, we're here at the Dallas regional for the U.S. AIr Guitar Championships. My significant other, who drives me everywhere (bless his heart), is going to help me judge. It's six judges tonight, so they're pairing us off. We're trying to think of a cool tandem name, but right now we'll go with the obvious: Dawn and Ray.

We're thinking that we're gonna like this gig. There's a guy in charge of getting us drinks (cold Sprites are us). And we let the organizers know that the Houston championships were in the countdown on ESPN's Sportscenter, of all places. It's dark, hot and the restaurant patrons, I'm sure, don't know what hit them. (There's a girl in the audience who I'm calling Lucy, you know, like from the Cartoon Network series Lucy, Daughter of the Devil? She's wearing red, blinking devil horns, very appropriate, I'm sure.) Oh, what a night this is going to be. Stay tuned ...