2013 Scotch Pong World Championships - West St. Paul, MN

Last November, our friend Dantigravity came up with a concept for something that had potential to be life-altering – Scotch Pong. It’s like Beer Pong, but much classier. Dantigravity thought D.Rough and I should host this event, since we have the room to pull off a party of this magnitude.

If you’re unfamiliar with Beer Pong, I’ll give you the basics: You set up a triangle of red solo cups at each end of a long table (like a bowling pin configuration). Then, one member of each team throws or bounces a ping pong ball and tries to get it into the cups at the opposite end of the table. If the ball goes in the cup, that opposing team has to drink what’s in the cup. Simple, right?

Now let’s look at some numbers. Beer generally has 3-7% alcohol by volume. Scotch has 40-50% alcohol by volume. Do you see where we are going with this? I had to come up with some way for people not to DIE at this event. I thought we’d go with just a shot of scotch in the cups, rather than a mostly full cup. Also, we’d only use 6 cups, instead of 10 cups. Still too deadly, in my opinion. This event is a double elimination tournament, so participants would be playing a minimum of two complete games. And people sometimes forget to drink water during these events, so I needed to add water into the game. That lead to three cups of water and three cups of scotch for each team.

Then, these games could go pretty quickly, so I needed to come up with a way to drag this out as long as possible,. If participants were required to drink multiple shots quickly, things were going to go south FAST. So…… I changed the red solo cups to glass low-ball (old fashioned) glasses. You might think this isn’t a big change, but it turned out to be the greatest impact on the evening. It is REALLY difficult to get a ping pong ball to go into a glass cup, even with liquid inside the cup. I bought a case of low-ball glasses from a bar supply store and did some trial runs. Plus, drinking scotch out of glass cups is more classy, and we’re all about class at the Scotch Pong World Championships.

Due to the high alcohol content for the evening, the official Twitter hashtag for the event was #MassSuicideFest2013. Thank you, TempleOfDoom for coming up with that most appropriate moniker for the event. And everything is more fun with FUN-fetti cake!!!

The entry fee was simple for this event – bring a new or full-ish bottle of whatever scotch you would like to drink. We had one team accidentally bring Irish whiskey and we would not let them participate. However, KingDavid had brought a bottle of Islay Mist (clearly the Arbor Mist of Scotland), and happily donated it to the team so they could play. Thank you, KingDavid, for your generous donation.

I won’t go into details about the entire night, but it was one of the most fun parties D.Rough and I have ever thrown. We encouraged people to dress formally, since it was a fancy event. Many people did dress up and it enhanced the atmosphere of the entire night. I even broke out a new ascot for the night. (I had already taken off my tux jacket by this point - sorry it didn't make it in the photo)

We had eight teams participating in this double elimination tournament with only one team swap out when one team went home ill (flu-related, not alcohol-related). Awkward Taco was under the weather to begin with, and coincidentally, The Kool-Aid Kids arrived just as Awkward Taco forfeited the game.

We had The Highlander and Braveheart showing on the television to highlight the Scottish heritage of this event. We also realized that we had inadvertently scheduled the event on Robert Burns’ (famous Scottish poet) birthday. What better way to honor his fine work than with a Scotch-drinking event.

We had a crowd of designated drivers, spouses, live-tweeters, photographers, and revelry-lovers. This group provided much cheering and heckling and even some food to help participants absorb alcohol. I’m so glad we had spectators to witness the shenanigans.

There were numerous upsets and nail-biting rounds. Many matches came down to one cup for each team. That cup is extremely difficult to drop a ping pong ball into, especially using glass cups.

In the end, Team Casual (featuring our very own M.Giant and his partner whom he hadn’t met before that night) triumphed TWICE over Bearded Wonders (featuring B.Sweet and ME!!!). Bearded Wonders only had to win one of the two games to win the title and we managed to get both games down to one cup for each team before Team Casual swooped in for the win. Team Casual had to win both games to win the title (which they did). It was an intense battle, but seriously, it was incredible fun for everyone.

(Thanks for the photo, Spike!)

Some other hilarious things that happened:

• Team Commander Stein didn’t realize “cask strength” means super-alcohol-y scotch
• Man wearing ascot vs. Man in Tuxedo
• Team Dan Dan noticed after their second round, that their scotch was 10% higher ABV than everyone else’s
• Space Jam was quite inspiring in Commander Stein’s gameplay, also thanks to Scar for top-notch coaching (You’re the best Mr. Fuji ever!)
• Teams that pre-gamed before the event didn’t fare well
• Unsanctioned extra-curricular scotch pong WILL, in fact, get you weavy-drunk
• Irish AND Canadian whiskeys were barred from participation
• Taki’s go with every party
• More parties need roller derby infield seating
• We even had some subtle product placement from the Twin Cities Terrors’s newest men’s roller derby team – The Thunderjacks! Nicely played, gentlemen.

Here is the final bracket for the night. Very impressive, mainly in people’s ability to hold their liquor.

And finally, the most hilarious part of the night (and a little before and after): the Twitter feed for the evening. It was quite entertaining to read. I broke it all down to only related tweets, to make your lives easier. But, if you are into twitter at all, you’ll be highly amused by the live event tracking for our home viewers. Open this document (which is in Word) and start at the bottom of the page and read up to the top. You’ll thank me later.

Huge thanks to all the participants, spectators, live tweeters, referees, photographers, food-bringers, and designated drivers. We couldn't have done it without you all!

MMA Extreme Challenge 188 – Target Center – Minneapolis, MN

Here’s the surprising part: I won tickets to an event! Here’s the not surprising part: I won them through Taco Bell!

I will give a disclaimer that I’m likely to offend people by this review. If you’re offended, you’re probably one of the people I’m commenting on, and I offer no apology. However, the rest of the population will find it amusing, factual, and will join me in pointing fingers and laughing at you.

I got an email saying I won two tickets to the MMA Extreme Challenge 188 because I had entered some contest. So I wrote the person back basically asking, “Really???” Of course I was suspicious. But the lady assured me I could pick up tickets at the Target Center Box Office the day before. I took off a little early from work and drove downtown. You know when a bad time to go the Target Center Box Office is? Right before a Twins game – right next to the Target Center. So basically to park my car and run in to pick up the tickets was going to cost me $20. Ouch. Thankfully, a nice lady-cop helped me out and it only cost me a dollar. And no I won’t tell you how to make that happen – I’m not giving away my new found secret.

The following night, D.Rough and I headed to the Target Center after hours of deciding what to wear. How would we fit in? Is it classy like a Vegas fight? Is it wife beaters and cut-off jorts? Or is it Ed Hardy D-Bag sparkle shirts with backwards baseball hats and $200 jeans. Turns out it’s the latter.

Let me start by saying the douch-baggery started before we even got into the event. Out in the ticket window area (there were some minor mix ups in the tickets), there was a large group of people with a d-bag father who had bought a bunch of tickets for a group of his kids and his kid’s friends. The handful of tickets were given to the family in the hands of one moronically-dressed two-toned haired whore. She turned around and started handing out the tickets. We heard some of the kids say – wow, we didn’t buy $82 tickets – sweet. Then we heard the father absolutely blow up, insult the window lady, and demand a manager “who wasn’t an idiot” when he didn’t get one of the chosen few $82 tickets and didn’t think to ask his kid’s friends who got the special seats he had bought. He caused a scene and was a complete dill hole about the whole thing. I loathe people like that. L. O. A. T. H. E.

Once inside, the d-baggery continued. I felt I didn’t have enough gold and silver lamé on my shirt – mainly because I didn’t have ANY – and I wasn’t wearing a baseball hat backwards. In fact, the only people who had their hats on the proper direction were the people wearing golf hats and were clearly out of place. Also, my shirt was the proper size. I didn’t choose to wear the same size shirt as I had in Jr. High. Again, I stuck out. I also didn’t have a pencil thin chin strap beard or a soul patch, so I’m sure people thought I was in the wrong venue.

I was amazingly underwhelmed at the crowd at this thing. Seriously, there were 1,500-2000 people there, and that might be generous. The place was barren. They had half of the Target Center curtained off. HALF, and the octagon was in the middle of the floor with whores (the girls that walk around with giant cards telling you what round it is) and d-bags who had paid $200+ for ringside seats – yes, I’m serious. TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS.

The first fight had started right when we got there. They do the amateur bouts first. No knees, no elbows, three rounds. These are just regular joes who like to beat the hell out of each other. Some big, some small, some in shape, some not so much, some scrappy, some monstrous – a wide variety. On top of all this, the ring announcer was completely indecipherable. He basically yelled in a sing-song voice and we really couldn't make out any of the words he was saying. Heck, who knows - maybe the MMA has its own language, or maybe the sparkly shirts are some sort of communication translator.

This is my "Really?" face, seen most of the evening.

The people in the crowd were loud and drunk, even though there was absolutely zero energy in the air. None. I can remember watching AWA and WCW wrestling when I was a kid and despite it looking like it was filmed in someone’s basement with folding chairs, it had a million times more energy in the crowd.

But I did take the opportunity to write down verbatim what some of the drunks were yelling. Mainly because it amused the hell out of me. Here’s some select words yelled by the people around me towards the octagon:
Sock em up! Throw the right! Chop him down! 1-2-3! Shoulda kicked! Pick him up and slam him! Choke his ass out! Right in the triangle! Beat them kidneys! Make him piss blood! Keep it going! He's looking for a triangle! Put it on him! Squeeze! Drop a knee on him! Knee hook! Show him what Superior’s all about! (this was directed to a fighter from Superior, Wisconsin) Pound him! Get that leg out!

D.Rough tried to join in by yelling “neck squish!” She claims it’s a technical term. It was ineffective.

I sort of hated everything at a certain point, so I did what I do best – I went to the concession stand. I mentioned there was no one at the event, right? (1,500 doesn’t fill the Target Center if you’re wondering). I even took a picture of the concourse to show you how busy it is. Seriously, this is during the event. Even Lynx games have more people than this (I had a blast at the last Lynx game I went to, so I’m not taking a shot at them, I promise).

I grabbed a brat and some nachos for D.Rough and I to share and we listened to the concession stand worker complain about the number of people working the booths that night when there was no one there. We looked around and they were fully staffed. FULLY. Not all of the booths were open (no State Fair booth, sadly), but there were like 6 booths open and fully staffed with people literally sitting around doing nothing. All night. Sucked to be them and I felt bad.

D.Rough and I ate some of our food out in the concourse, since it was much quieter out there and no one was going to disturb us.

We went back in right before the intermission and were surprised to see abolsultely nothing going on. I’m used to real sporting events where you get some sort of entertainment during the half time space. They could have taken their cue from roller derby and maybe had little kids come out and show their MMA skillz. Yeah, show all these people that your daddies taught you to beat the hell out of someone until their unconscious – that’s fun, right?

The second half started and was the professional fighters. These guys can use their knees and elbows and they go for five minute rounds – five of them. This part just got long and boring. We had moved seats so we could sit with some of our friends who were actually into the event, but we seriously gave up after the second professional fighter round. Just not very action packed and no one was winning. There was a lot of blood though.

Some things I found amusing, besides the d-bags in the crowd:

• “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins is not really the best theme song to walk out to at a sporting event. It’s a real downer until about halfway through the song. Maybe he was trying to lull the crowd – sadly, they appeared already lulled.
• There is a sound played when there is ten seconds left in the round or the break between rounds. It actually is the sound of an orchestra conductor tapping his baton on the music stand to get the ensemble’s attention. Really a weird place to hear that sound.
• The tables on the main floor were for groups of ten – you HAD to buy ten tickets to get a table – and the seats were $102 each. Not surprisingly, not all of them were full.
• I found it amusing the write-ups for this event were saying this is an inferior league to UFC. People who do well in this league get tomove up to the UFC where the real fighters are at. The main event – that we missed – was between two guys who had fought each other 67 times and still weren’t in the UFC. That’s a lot of brain damage to sustain before getting to the big leagues.
• I feel like this sort of thing is one step from sending lions into the ring and watching people die. It’s not like I’m squeamish or anything. I was just bored. Maybe lions would have helped.
• There was a long-haired ginger fighting in one of the bouts. He came out wearing a karate Gi and had his hair ina pony tail. The guy had obviously never even seen the sun, once that Gi came off. The second we saw that, D.Rough said flatly, “I’ll bet he’s got a lot of ninja swords at home.” Classic, and that’s why I’m marrying her.
• We actually paid $12 for a beer at the Target Center.

My recommendation? Skip the MMA and go to a real sporting event, like Roller Derby. The Minnesota Roller Girls draw 5,000 people at their home season bouts and have a pre-show AND a half time show. All for $12. In fact, all for the price of one large beer at the Target Center.

Halloween 2009 - Minneapolis and Victoria, MN

This year’s Halloween festivities took place at two different locations. I thought about going into detail with this post, but due to incriminating circumstances and names being strewn about, I will keep it simple.

Party #1 – Minneapolis
Dr. Horrible and the Crazy Cat Lady

LowVee is definitely a Wild Thing

TheDoctor is a fantastic Bear Jew (NOT a Jew Bear, which we decided should be a kosher gummy bear)

Three hot ladies

Jolly Green Giant and Crazy Cat Lady

Party #2 – Victoria (I think it’s on the west coast – I just know we drove forever to get there)

Yes, those cases were actually full (at the beginning of the night)

A proud family. A weird family, but a proud one, nonetheless...

No one got thirsty, thankfully

Peacetime Wolverine - drinking and claws do not mix

DeltaForceCommander giving out the award for best costume to the Mad Hatter

Spring Break!!! Skin to win!!!

Putting the ghey in geisha (no he's NOT Boy George)

Don't let her kids see this photo

The more drinks there were, the more Crane Kicks we saw from DeltaForceCommander

Lollipop Girls in Hard Candy – Uptown Theater – Minneapolis, MN

I’m not going to go into too much detail on this film, due to the fact that I have … uhhhh… conservative family members who read these posts.

I heard the Uptown Theater was showing a Midnight screening 3D version of an adult film featuring John Holmes (if you don’t know, don’t ask). I read the reviews of it and it sounded like you needed to go see this for the comedy – and for John Holmes – and for the 3D. So I took a quick poll (pun intended) of my out-of-town friends to see if inviting another male to go see this with me would seem gay. The unanimous answer was, “of course not!” So I sent a super tactful message to an unnamed male friend. He seemed intrigued and finally caved due to the same reasons I was interested in going. And Gerd was in no way shape or form interested in going to this, so I didn’t even have to concern myself with her.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this crowd having never been to a rated-X film in an actual theater. Was it going to be creepy single guys in trench coats or would it be couples or would it be normal folks? Turns out it was a combination of all of the above. Including my friend's neighbor kid, Ibanez. When we saw him in line in front of us we assured him his mother sent us to keep an eye on him at this adult film. The place was going to be full of people. We were issued a set of 3D glasses and headed into the theater.

The Uptown Theater is an awesome old theater with a stage and a big screen. It’s a little worn down as far as the seating and paint, but it’s got an awesome homey feel to it. And apparently the midnight crowd is of the Rocky Horror variety who like to be quite vocal. The best line of the entire evening was before the film even started. The MC at the theater walked up on stage to tell us about the theater and film, and someone yelled from the balcony, “it looks so LIFELIKE!” Hilarious.

The MC told us due to the turnout, this type of film might become a more regular feature to their “independent film” repertoire. While people yelled out “porn!!” and “take off your pants!!” and “show us the goods!!”, the guy told us refunds would not be issued once the movie was 20 minutes in. This brought on a chorus of “I won’t last that long!!” and “Who needs more than 20 minutes?!?!” Again, hilarious.

I won’t get into the film too much, but the plot didn’t make sense in any way shape or form. And yes, you will remind me it’s porn, so there shouldn’t be a plot. But let me suggest this: maybe someone took a random movie from the 70’s and then spliced in a handful of hardcore porn. There were roman soldiers who ended up in a bunny suit, a chicken costume, and cockroach costume (I think). Not sure what they were doing. There was some sort of candy factory who was going to go out of business unless they could develop some super awesome flavor. The bad guys stole the aphrodisiac lollipops and mailed them around the country so no one could track them. All this mixed in with every opportunity to put in various 3D scenes of things moving towards the camera. Pieces of mail down a mail slot and then an egg down the same mail slot. A broom being wielded like a spear. And then various bodily fluids moving creepily towards the camera. Not sure who decided that would be fun, but someone did. So the movie would be rolling along with its weak plot, and then BAM! Scene cut to people who may or may not have been in the movie earlier were going at it. Then random scene change back to civilian life in the candy laboratory.

When there was too much dialogue (which was VERY often), people in the theater would yell, “BORING!!!” And there were really long stretches of dialogue. REALLY long. And when things would…uhhh… reach a climax, the crowd would go crazy. It was really quite a sight to behold.

The movie wrapped up, and we all looked confused because of the lack of plot and disjunct scene changes. And as we took our 3D glasses off, my friend and I realized our vision was totally destroyed. Our right eyes were devoid of any red coloring and our left eyes were devoid of any blue coloring. Thank you 3D glasses. My friend asked me how long this effect was going to last and I assured him I had no idea whatsoever. Fortunately, it didn’t last very long and I was able to drive home safely. The entire way home, we would ask questions of each other such as, “what was with those roman soldiers?” and “was that a coackroach?” and “did John Holmes play like three different characters?” Clearly, we were NOT going to be able to understand more than about 20% of this film.

Since I didn’t go into detail on the film, I’ll just give you the top and bottom 5. And don’t bother seeing this movie. You won’t get it.

Top 5 things about Lollipop
1. I’ll never be able to hear the words “Tally Ho” again without giggling
2. Hilarious costume changes mid-scene and mid-sex-scene
3. Comments during the MC announcements
4. The 3D aspect of this film
5. Comments from the crowd

Bottom 5 things
1. My vision afterwards
2. John Holmes’ acting skills
3. The written-In use of 3D effects
4. The audio track was really quiet and then really loud
5. Comments from the crowd

Lollipop Girls in Hard Candy from IMDB

Pizza Lucé – Minneapolis, MN

We got a tip for this place from a guy I work with. He has the best recommendations for ANY kind of food and has never steered us wrong. I’m continually giving him gold stars for his suggestions. We added it to the culinary tour of the Twin Cities with Gerd’s mom because she wanted to get a feel for the downtown. We needed to do some shopping downtown, so we picked Pizza Lucé for a quick dinner.

The restaurant is known for its pizza, but it has a lot of other things that look really good on the menu. The pastas all look great as do the salads and sandwiches. There’s nothing bad in the entire place. They also cater to Vegans, but that’s not my thang. Good beer selection and drink specials as well. The staff are hip punk rockers who are normal non-kiss-ass functional staff. They get the job done without schmoozing, but they’re super helpful. This place has won all kinds of city awards for being awesome.

We started with the Focaccia Katerina for an appetizer. It’s a loaf of Focaccia bread sliced, covered with pesto, tomatoes, and provolone. It’s served with red sauce which was waaaay better than standard marinara. Not sure what’s in it, but it’s darn good. Having stuffed ourselves with appetizer bread, we began to haggle over whether to get three pizzas or two.

We decided to get two 10” pizzas since we would be walking and didn’t want to gorge ourselves (well SOME of us wanted to, but were denied, we won’t mention any names…). We got a baked potato pizza and The Wrangler. The Wrangler is a BBQ chicken pizza with mushrooms and cheese (we left off the peppers and onions due to someone’s name which rhymes with Nerd…). It was awesome. The sauce was really good and the chicken wasn’t gristle-y. What’s a baked potato pizza you ask? Only the best pizza idea ever (with a close second being tater tot pizza from Pizza Joynt in Milan, Illinois). Pizza crust without red sauce, but covered in ruby red mashed potatoes. Add some broccoli, tomatoes, cheese and bacon bits and serve with a side of sour cream. Seriously, it’s awesome. I’ve been to a couple of places in Minneapolis with mashed potato pizza of some sort but this one is the best, I’m saying. It’s really really really good.

Top 5 things about Pizza Lucé
1) Random pizza selection which will shock you at first, but will make you want to experiment
2) Awesome décor (cool menus) (downtown location only – we haven’t been to the other ones – yet)
3) Staff are “quirky” but great
4) Menu has soooo many good things on it
5) They have a “slice” line for grabbing a quick and cheap lunch if you work downtown

Bottom 5 things
1) Only have one stomach
2) Location can be crazy during normal work hours
3) Some of the staff might be mistaken for surly
4) Like any downtown restaurant in any city, there are some freakshows that roll in
5) Some of the waiters wear those stupid punk rock skin tight pants

http://www.pizzaluce.com

Potbelly - Minneapolis, MN

I’ve never been to this chain restaurant, so we decided to go there after work one day, despite it being really far out of the way for me. It’s got a pretty slimmed down menu for sammiches, which, to be honest, was a welcome change from having to decide between 50 different items. The sammiches were well described, with the exception of mortodello, which I thought came from morte=death and dello=I don’t know: loosely translated as death-meat. It was not. It was actually kind of like ham. They also have a sammich called the “wreck” which rules. It has everything on it. It’s a mama-cass killer.

The guy working the counter was hilarious. He held up the mortodello and modeled it for me. I started to talk about toppings and he told me we would have that conversation a little later. The guy was awesome. He talked us into buying some broccoli cheese soup, which was pretty good, although the broccoli was a little soggy. Other than that it was good. We talked toppings and drinks and he finished up the sammiches. The guy had dreads and awesome sideburns, so if you deal with that guy, sit back and enjoy the ride. The girl behind the counter was also funny, commenting on how the wreck was her favorite sammich. She loved to get wrecked. She couldn’t wait until she got wrecked again.

The sammiches are toasted, which I’m usually not a fan of, but they ended up being more warm than toasted, so everything was quite good. They both had a good amount of meat, good amount of cheese, good amount of toppings. No complaints. The Italian sammich and the Wreck were both great. I would go back and get either anytime.

Top 5 things
1. The staff, both the guy and girl there were super helpful
2. Small menu, but still had everything I needed
3. Really good price. Like $4.50 or something. Wurd
4. Soup was tasty
5. They have all kinds of crazy milkshakes

Bottom 5 things
1. If you’re looking for a big menu, this isn’t it
2. No pepperjack cheese
3. In a college-ish area, yet a distinct lack of hot college ladies
4. I’m still not a fan of toasted subs
5. Doesn’t anyone have Mt. Dew in the Twin Cities?!!?!?

www.potbelly.com