Weekly posts are baaaack! This is the catch-up post to bring us into February and you can look for posts on Sunday nights for the upcoming week.
If you liked the monthly list, the link to it is in the Other Things to Do Links at the bottom of this list. As always, please share events I missed in the comments of this thread.

Multi-day Weekend Events

Dallas Boat Expo | Jan 31-Feb 2 | | Market Hall | $12
Salome Opera-in-Concert | Jan 31, Feb 2 | Meyerson Symphony Center | $49 - $169
Star Wars, Parody & Pop Culture Free 3 Day Art Event | Jan 31-Feb 2 | Dallas Marriott | Free
Alice in Wonderland Free 3 Day Art Event | Jan 31-Feb 2 | Dallas Marriott | Free
My Hero Convention: Texas Smash | Jan 31-Feb 2 | Irving Convention Center |$25 and up
Anime Dallas | Jan 31-Feb 2 | Esports Stadium Arlington & Expo Center | $60 Weekend Pass
Cirque Italia Water Circus | Jan 30-Feb 2 | Town East Mall, Mesquite | $25 and up
Helen Hong | Jan 30-Feb 2 | Hyena’s Dallas | Free Thursday with RSVP, $15 and up
Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo | Til Feb 8 | Will Rogers Memorial Ctr, Fort Worth | $12 & up

Local Exhibits

Red Lanterns in Neiman Marcus Court at NorthPark Center through Feb 8
Red Lantern Display at Galleria Dallas Ice Rink through Feb 10
Lucha Libre 2020 at Oak Cliff Cultural Center through Feb 15
Kinsey Collection at the African American Museum through March 1
Violence and Defiance at the Dallas Museum of Art through March 8
Punk Noir at South Dallas Cultural Center through March 21
Ruckus Rodeo at The Modern, Fort Worth through March 29
Barry X Ball: Remaking Sculpture at the Nasher Sculpture Center through April 19
Hip Squares at The Museum of Geometric and MADI Art through April 26
Beili Liu: One and Another at Crow Museum of Asian Art through August 16

Local Theatre

Imagine Broadway | Jan 30-Feb 1 | Theatre Three
Zombie, Dearest | Jan 3 - Feb 15 | Pocket Sandwich Theatre
The Drowsy Chaperone | Jan 30 - Feb 23 | Firehouse Theater, Farmers Branch
Sherlock Holmes and the Portal of Time | Jan 9 - Feb 1 | Rover Dramawerks, Plano
Frank-N-Friend | Jan 31 - Feb 16 | Casa Mañana, Fort Worth
To Be Young, Gifted & Black | Jan 24 - Feb 23 | Jubilee Theatre, Fort Worth
Ada and the Engine | Jan 9 to Feb 9 | Stage West, Fort Worth

Daily Things to Do - Jan 31-Feb 2

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Friday, 1/31
Friday Night Stand-Up: Paul Varghese at Dallas Comedy House
Tayla Parx at House of Blues
Lloyd Cole: From Rattlesnakes to Guesswork 2020 Tour at The Kessler
Beat Root Revival at Poor David’s Pub
Maldita Vecindad at The Bomb Factory
Prospère, A Photo-Art Exhibit Charity Gala at Hall Arts Hotel
Delfos Danza Contemporánea at Winspear Opera House
Cheat Codes Live Performance at Theory (Uptown)
Michael Salgado at New West Dallas
The Kingston Trio at Arlington Music Hall
Piano Battle at Eisemann Center, Richardson
Chaka Khan at Winstar World Casino, Thackerville, Oklahoma
Today is National Hot Chocolate Day - check your news and social media sources for specials!
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Saturday, 2/1
Dallas Mavericks vs. Atlanta Hawks at American Airlines Center
Free First Saturdays at the Nasher Sculpture Center
Crow Museum's 21st annual Chinese New Year Festival at NorthPark Center Canceled
The Stuff 35mm (film) + Live Music from Nervous Curtains & Black Taffy at Texas Theatre
Letters To My Beginnings at Clarence Muse Cafe Theater, Black Academy of Arts and Letters
The Blvd – A Scale Model Lowrider Show at Deep Ellum Art Co
The Fab Four - The Ultimate Tribute at The Majestic
Paula Atherton & Julian Vaughn at Bishop Arts Theatre Center
CRUEligans at Granada Theater
Emo Nite Dallas at Lizard Lounge
A Giant Dog at Three Links
Netherfriends at Ruins
Paper Piel by Jimena Bermejo & Chris Brokaw at the Latino Cultural Center,
Frost Fest at Ranchview High School, Irving
Neal McCoy at Arlington Music Hall
Pat Green at Billy Bob’s Texas, Fort Worth
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Sunday, 2/2
It’s Groundhog Day!
Groundhog Day Sunrise Ceremony with Arboretum Annie at the Dallas Arboretum
Hookah & Mimosas at The Island Spot
The Sweet Lillies at Deep Ellum Art Co
Electric Guest at Trees
Industry Night at Punk Society
Sunday Social at Gator’s Dallas
Olympic Pride, American Prejudice (film) at the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum
Super Bowl LIV
San Fran 49ers vs. KC Chiefs at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL
Watch Parties
Big Game Watch Party at The Rustic (Facebook link)
Three Links Super Chili Bowl VI at Three Links
The BIG Game Watch Party 2020 at Gas Monkey Live
Super Bowl Tailgate Party at Hero
Big Game Watch Party at Happiest Hour!
Big Game Watch Party at Granada Theater
Big Game Watch Party at Scout (Statler Hotel)
49ers v. Chiefs Watch Party at Legacy Hall
Bulla Gastrobar, Plano
Big Game Day Watch Party at DoubleTree by Hilton Hotels Dallas-Richardson
Super Bowl Watching Party + Buffet at Cool River, Irving
Big Game Bash 54 Watch Party at Texas Live!, Arlington
Today is National Tater Tot Day - check your news and social media sources for specials!

Other Lists of Things to Do:

Culture Map Dallas Calendar
Plan Your Week from Dallas Voice, The Premier Media Source for LGBT Texas
Do214 Top Picks
This Week’s Beer Events from BeerInBigD.com
Dallas News Events (This page is not paywalled.)
If you liked seeing the whole month in advance, click here to see it on inBigD.com.

First post on reddit friends. I am problem gambler in early 30s. Little about my self came from different country as a student. Was bright student who got scholarship and job at university. I came from a state were no alcohol and gambling was legal . Did not do any form of gambling till I was 24. Than after 6 months in the states saw one of my close friend talking about winning on scratchoff " I won 100$ today" I didnt know what he was talking about I asked him how? He explained whole scratchoff procedure and I felt like 'wow so easy!' I was in Texas at that time for my studies and needed car to get around as it was small town with buses coming every hour. So I felt like I should try couple of scratch offs to win some money. First ticket I won 20 $ from 1$ ticket and it was big win at that time the person who never gambled in life. I didnt take it as a gambling at that time I thought it was "fun". That scratch off thing started to happen frequently but not majorly.
One day I was at gas station and one of my friend I saw him coming from backroom I just asked curiously "what do they sale there?"
He said they have fruit machines which you can win tickets and pay for your groceries and gas or any merchandise . Come let me show you how if you got "five"
I went. He said it's about to hit. It looked like video games kinda machine which I was playing back home with coin .
Pressed few buttons Bad things started from there my 5$ turned to 250$ My friend got excited and he said you owe me 50$.
I was like yeah if I am getting 200 why not! He went and did his thing to get cash for the tickets. Gave me 200$. I was happy.
Week pass by i went that place again Tried 20$ to do the "magic" again. Which did not happen and I left. I was like eh still I won 180$.
Week pass by I went to that gas station again and saw my friend he was upset. I asked what happen? He said he wanted to pay his bill but instead went there and spent half of money in machine so he is going to casino 30 minutes away for "getting his money back"
CASINO!!!
the place which I have never been to in whole life!
I asked him if I can join him. He said yeah but we will go in my car and I have to pay him 20 because he is broke and he helped me to win money last time.
I was like yeah as I didnt know anything about casino and that 20 can provide me some experiance.
I went to casino in Oklahoma, saw decorations, machines, and saw people winning, and loosing.
I saw my friend putting 20$ bill I gave him and he started pressing some buttons. He lost it and put another 20 and won something like 350$. He told me to enjoy till he plays poker (I didnt know table games that time)
I went to the machine. I put 20$ in it and started betting minimum 40 cents. I was down to 14$ something and was about to cash out after 2 tap as I lost whooping 6$ without single win and I press the button - boom 400$ Win. I felt the rush and joy.i pressed washout button and kept the ticket as I didnt know what to do with.
After few minutes saw my friend at table and he was playing poker and came out. He asked me why you are happy u win something? I said yea 400$ . He smiled and said "you lucky bas***. He helped me to cash it out and those crispy Bills felt awesome. I felt that rush again.
1 month goes by and I have semester break and not going anywhere. One day felt like I should just go to casino which is 30 mins away. Biggest mistake of my life which i regret for 7 years. Till now.
I didnt win that day but after that my visits to casino were frequent.
I lost my 500$ and felt like i gave my winning back. As of now i feel that's when i started feeling it's affecting me. I didnt feel compulsive that time but didnt like it.
One of the night I was just surfing facebook and I see advertisements of casino jackpots and I was like let me give it a shot. I went ther with my own 250$. Saw people hitting big on5$ slot machine and sat there. Was betting 5$ a spin so money was going fast. At one level I pressed button and the screen turned red. It spun 3 or 4 time and notice appeared "call attendant 4000$ win. I couldn't do anything with machine. Attendant came and paid me 4000$ which was 40000$ to me at that time as a full time student. That win messed me up pretty bad. I went frequently to casinos. Even made couple of friends which were high rollers.
They took me to winstar - a big casino, won 22000$ that night playing 5 to 25$ slots.
That year I lost value for money. I remember when I was new here I was thinking just to drink tap water instead of Gatorade and now I was throwing money here and there.
I went to the clubs and frequent trips to highrollers.
Was able to graduate with good grades and moved to east cost.
Now the compulsion begins. Which is destroying my sanity, family, friends and all Let's do that in part 2 as I dont want to post loong story.
This page has helped me since last few months so just felt posting after attending my 1st GA yesterday..
Thank you guys. Will be typing soon
Note - english is not my first language so please pardon spelling and grammar mistakes.
Thanks

So I just turned 18 on August 29th and my dad is a big poker player fanatic, he said I should go to play poker in Oklahoma considering the minimum age is 18 at some if not all casinos. I'm more recreational and this is going to be my first time playing irl instead of online. He's not going to be with me so it's gonna be a bit harder but traveling with other family since my parents are separated. Well enough about me, we are driving there right now from San Antonio, Texas so it would be nice if some locals and regulars can tell me some good restraunts or places of interest, etc. around Winstar casino in Thackerville, that would be great, thanks in advance for taking the time to read this and help is greatly appreciated, anything helps :)

Pocono is the next stop for the Cup and Xfinity Series for the Axalta presents the Pocono 400 and the Pocono Green 250. About 1,526.8 miles away, the Truck Series joins the IndyCar Series and Stadium Super Trucks at Texas Motor Speedway with the winstaronlinegaming.com 400.
Since its first race in 2016, the Pocono Xfinity race has never had a title sponsor, so they won't be covered in this edition.
Cup: Axalta presents the Pocono 400
I suppose Axalta doesn't need much of an introduction for NASCAR fans, especially those who know it as DuPont Performance Coatings. For the sake of this series, let's go as far back as possible, when DuPont first joined the sport.
DuPont's involvement in NASCAR did not start with Jeff Gordon, but with Ricky Craven's #99 in the Busch Series in 1992. Running the full season with DuPont sponsorship, he finished 14th in points. When Craven started his own team in 1994, the #2 was also adorned with DuPont livery. In five seasons together, Craven/DuPont won twice (both in 1994).
At the end of the 1992 season, DuPont decided to sponsor a Winston Cup Series car: the #24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, driven by a young, mustachioed California kid by the name of Jeff Gordon). The youngster and DuPont's Cup debut did not go as planned, crashing on lap 164 and finishing 31st.
Gordon and DuPont moved up to the Cup Series full-time in 1993, where he earned Rookie of the Year honors before winning his first Cup races in 1994. The rest is history.
For much of the 1990s and early 2000s, Gordon's rainbow #24 featured DuPont as a primary sponsor, with occasional one-offs sharing the hood with the navy blue oval like NASCAR Racers, the silver NASCAR 2000 car, and the (in)famous T-Rex.
Besides Gordon, DuPont also sponsored other drivers in the lower series during the 1990s. In 1995, the newly-formed SuperTruck Series also featured a rainbow #24 car sponsored by DuPont.... driven by Scott Lagasse. Gordon's teammate Terry Labonte also drove a DuPont truck – the #5 – part-time that year. Over the next four years, DuPont made sporadic appearances on trucks: Lonnie Cox's #36 featured DuPont Thompson PBE sponsorship, while Bill Sedgwick and Austin Cameron had DuPont Stainmaster Carpet in 1998 and 1999, respectively. In 1999, Gordon and crew chief Ray Evernham's Busch Series team – Gordon/Evernham Motorsports – fielded the #24 Pepsi car for Ricky Hendrick, though Hendrick also drove a DuPont car on two occasions.
In 2001, Gordon announced he would be dropping the 51-time race-winning Rainbow Warrior and speculation arose regarding what its replacement would be. As every fan would know, in came the flames.
"I feel like the team has really worked hard and come together this year," Gordon stated. "That should put us in a real good position and I think the new paint scheme will be a great way to re-ignite this team going into next year."
"NASCAR has been a tremendous showcase for our paint finishes and this new paint scheme utilizes our latest undercoat and most productive clearcoat, and features brilliant, exciting colors," DuPont Performance Coatings president Lou Savelli added. "We think it will generate even more recognition of the DuPont name among NASCAR fans throughout the world."
Gordon would drive the blue-and-red flames car to Victory Lane 29 times, including his fourth and final championship in its debut season in 2001. Other DuPont variations began to appear on the #24 starting in 2002, such as the DuPont 200 Years car at the 2002 Daytona 500, DuPont Hot Hues at the 2006 Fontana/Indianapolis races, and Cromax Pro at the 2007 Fontana race. DuPont also served as associate sponsors for races like the Pepsi 400, appearing on the side panel as Pepsi adorned the hood; Nicorette and National Guard have also done the same.
At the turn of the decade, Gordon replaced the blue on the DuPont car with black. He won once in the new car at Pocono in 2011. During the year, DuPont's role as Gordon's sponsor decreased as he picked up AARP/Drive to End Hunger for more races; DuPont would serve as a primary sponsor for just 13 races each in 2011 and 2012. In 2012, Gordon and DuPont celebrated their 20-year anniversary with a Sam Bass-designed black-and-red car, followed by a silver scheme for the season-ending race at Homestead, one that would be driven to victory.
After the 2012 season, DuPont Performance Coatings was sold to The Carlyle Group, who rebranded the company as Axalta Coating Systems. The "new" company quickly formed a relationship with Rick Hendrick, becoming the exclusive paint for Hendrick Automotive Group.
With a new name came a slightly different paint scheme for Gordon. Axalta brands Cromax Pro and Imron Elite appeared on track before the main Axalta scheme, doing so at Texas, Talladega, and Darlington before the primary car made its debut at the June Pocono race, where Gordon finished 13th. Another Axalta paint, Standox, sponsored Gordon at the August Michigan race that year. In 2014, Gordon finally broke through to win his first race in an Axalta car at the spring Kansas event, and backed it up with two more wins in the same car at Indy and Michigan.
2015 marked Gordon's final season of full-time NASCAR racing. Axalta sponsored Gordon's car nine times during the year and even brought back the Rainbow Warrior for the Bristol night race. Although he was unable to win a race with Axalta sponsorship that year, a Chase win at Martinsville placed him in championship contention at Homestead, where Axalta unveiled a silver flames paint scheme; after finishing sixth, he ended the points battle with a third-place finish.
With Gordon's retirement, he remained close with Axalta, becoming its global business advisor and a spokesman. Axalta also opened a Customer Experience Center in 2016, located near the Hendrick Motorsports facility.
"I think this is a tremendous tribute to NASCAR and the race teams to have a sponsor as big as Axalta that is willing to put a center like this in the middle of your complex," Hendrick commented. "It says a lot about the way they use the sport and the success they’ve had on and off the track."
Axalta moved to Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s #88 car for the 2016 season. Earnhardt drove the car in five races before stepping aside due to concussion problems. Gordon and Alex Bowman served as Earnhardt's substitutes, both running four races each in an Axalta car. Bowman also drove a University of Michigan scheme at the Pure Michigan 400, the third time a college had partnered with Axalta and HMS (after Texas A&M and Penn State). During Earnhardt's own final season in 2017, his Axalta car featured a new Solar Flare design, which he has driven four times so far.
As a paint provider, Axalta has done so for Hendrick Motorsports and lower series affiliate JR Motorsports (with JRM drivers Regan Smith and William Byron driving Axalta-sponsored cars). Interestingly, Kyle Busch Motorsports also has Axalta as a partner (and can be noted when looking closely at their trucks). Stewart-Haas Racing also started receiving Axalta paint in 2014. Outside of NASCAR, Axalta's Spies Hecker brand provides paint for Mercedes F1, which team principal Toto Wolff has described as being light enough to reduce the weight of the Silver Arrows.
While DuPont had never sponsored a Cup or Truck Series race, it sponsored the first Nationwide race at Iowa in 2013, dubbing it the DuPont Pioneer 250 (won by Trevor Bayne). Axalta, on the other hand, began its sponsorship of races in 2015 with the spring Phoenix Xfinity race. Compared to its predecessor, Axalta had more "unique" race names, like the aforementioned Phoenix race being the Axalta Faster. Tougher. Brighter. 200 (lasting two years) and its first Cup race sponsorship, the 2015 June Pocono race, being the Axalta "We Paint Winners" 400. Ironically, the winner of the first Axalta 400 was not an Axalta driver (Martin Truex Jr.); SHR's Kurt Busch won in 2016. For 2017, Axalta simply named the race the "Axalta presents the Pocono 400".
Truck: winstaronlinegaming.com 400
WinStar World Casino and Resort is an Oklahoma-based, well, casino and resort. Originally known simply as the WinStar Casino, 2009 saw a big year for it as it underwent renovation, renamed itself to WinStar World Casino, and began to dabble in NASCAR race sponsorship with the both of the Truck Series races at Texas Motor Speedway. The first race is a support event for the IndyCar Series, while the second is for the AAA Texas 500 weekend.
Both races use kilometers to determine distance; from 2009 to 2013, they were the WinStar World Casino 400K and 350K; in 2014 and 2015, they became the WinStar World Casino & Resort 400 and 350; in 2016, WinStar withdrew their sponsorships as the races became the Rattlesnake 400 and the Striping Technology 350. For 2017, WinStar's winstaronlinegaming.com became the title sponsor of the June race, branding it the winstaronlinegaming.com 400.
Interesting, WinStar never sponsored a catruck (in the national series, at least) until 2017. At Texas' O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 Cup race, WinStar was an associate sponsor of Landon Cassill, who finished 29th.
Let's go racing.

President Ewing's first major speech since his inaugural address took place at the WinStar Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma.
"First of all, I have to thank John Yantsy for inviting me and my delegation to stay in this fine hotel, and I'm proud to announce that something long in the making might finally happen. The people of Oklahoma and the people of Texas really aren't that different, despite what any fan at a OU-UT game might say. We all value hard work, a strong family, and freedom. So it seems natural that we should work together, a stronger, united nation, under the Banner of the Lone Star Republic. It's a good day for Texas and Oklahoma, today is the day that we rise!"
Final arrangements should be made by July, congress will be reworked to account for the influx of citizens.