So I went and saw Pan’s Labyrinth on opening night last Friday night with Denise, Molly and Adam at the Uptown theater. If you haven’t heard of it yet, it’s actually a Spanish film that’s been getting incredible reviews. On Metacritic’s all-time list, it’s currently #4.
I’ve never seen so many people at the Uptown before. The line of freezing movie-goers stretched around the block. Even the movie itself started about an hour late because of the difficulties of getting so many people out of the previous showing and getting all of us in. It was also due to the fact that Doug Jones himself (who played Pan in the film) was there and spoke to the crowd beforehand.
The movie itself was quite excellent. The acting and cinematography were amazing. The only thing that ruined it for me was the ridiculously tall guy sitting directly in front of me. I had to lean way to one side just to try to see the screen (not to mention the subtitles)!
Last night I made use of one of my Christmas presents from my wonderful folks, club-level tickets to the Wild/Stars game. Even better, I took a certain cute little chick by the name of Denise. Despite being a pretty exciting game, the Wild unfortunately ended up losing in the shootout after like 8 rounds.
Afterwards, we met up with some friends in Cottage Grove for a little moonlight bowling where I proceeded to win 2 out of the 3 games. Yeah, wassup? I also won $2 from 2 separate money shots (for those of you who aren’t in the know, that’s getting a strike when the head pin is a colored pin) and another $1 by getting 4 strikes in a row. The best part is, those 4 strikes in a row were to close out a game, sealing my come-from-behind win against Nick which won me the $5 we had riding on it!
Late last week, I found out that I’d be going to New York with a couple coworkers to demo the project we’ve been slaving away on for the last month+. Well not so much “demo” as “be there for moral support for my boss’ boss, Jamie, who was actually doing the demo.”
So we flew out Wednesday night and did a little bit of drinking at some local establishments (and of course had a couple slices of Ray’s Pizza at 2:30am). We stayed at the Millennium right near Times Square. Here are some cell phones pics I took from that night:
On Thursday, we went to the Dow Jones sales conference which was in our hotel. Since I’m not especially fond of salesmen and I tend to think they’re rather phony, it wasn’t exactly a laugh a minute. But Jamie’s presentation was great and seemed to get everyone pretty excited.
Fortunately, when we broke for lunch soon after Jamie was done, he told Rotzen, Lou and I that we could ditch out on the rest of it and just hang out. So we walked from Times Square to Central Park, stopping for some Mexican food along the way to appease a complaining Rotzen. Then we walked down 5th Ave on our way back to Times Square. Along the way, we stopped at Trump Tower and walked right past 30 Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall. Here’s some more random pictures:
And I had to take this picture considering my brother Ryan’s initials are RCS:
That night we got stuck in some nasty traffic heading out to LaGuardia. Then, because of the rain that day which was now turning into snow, a lot of flights were getting delayed. Ours ended up taking off about an hour late, so not a huge deal. Besides, it gave Lou (who absolutely hates flying and requires sedation) and myself a chance to visit the airport bar!
Published on
January 14, 2007.
Tags: poker.
Last night, Scooter, Nicky, Molly and I drove out to Eden Prairie for Mark Kantor’s monthly poker game. All in all, it was a pretty impressive turnout. The original sign-up sheet had 33 people on it when the tournament started with several more people coming in late. Because of the large turnout and to keep the game from lasting until 4 in the morning, Mark limited rebuys at 9. Even better, because of the large number of players, Mark announced that he’d be paying out to the top 6 players.
In an odd coincidence, despite Mark having 4 tables set up, I managed to get seated at the same table as Scooter and Molly. In fact, I was immediately to the right of Scooter. I wasn’t especially crazy about this turn of events since I’d rather not sit at the same table as people I know. Or more importantly, people who know me and know how I play. But oh well.
Anyway, I managed to take a few key pots and survive to take 4th place before getting mowed down by Jay who took out like 3 or 4 people right before me and went on to take 2nd place. For taking 4th place, I got $132. I also had 3 shootout tokens which got me another $15.
So not a bad night, all things considered!
For the second year in a row, Shaun Cooper and Kevin Dotzenrod had themselves a little wager on the college football national championship game. And for the second year in a row, Rotzen (who actually wants to shave his head) took the underdog. But just like last year, the underdog came through. This year, that happened in the form of Florida clobbering Ohio State by a score of 41-14.
So once again, I got to shave Cooper’s head (with help from special guest barbers, Molly Peterson and Kevin Dotzenrod). Better luck next year, Rotzen!
Click here to see the pics.
