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There’s nothing like Vegas, or a new cantina and tequila bar, rising in the fall of the year

So, go ahead and deck the halls, or the restaurant booths, with boughs of Chaunte. OK, that’s just plum Loco, unless you blame it on Rio:

— Pudge’s is already decked out in Christmas decorations, as they were striving to take full advantage of the crowd partaking in the annual Tour of Homes, by offering them a taste of the season. Included are several big, gingerbread-style houses now in The 304 restaurant-end of the place that come from the home of the proprietors. There’s even a Christmas tree already up on one of their three patios.
— New local country sensation Chaunte Shayne won the 92 KQRS talent contest earlier in fall. “I did a live interview this morning and I will be heading to Las Vegas in November with the Morning Show,” she posted. The singer of the CD Sweet Trouble, in Vegas!?!
— It now has a name, and will be the second “cantina” in town. To name it, (and embrace it?), the former Ellie’s has been renovated into the Rio Loco cantina and tequila bar, to be open soon. Noteworthy of what you can see of the renovation at the moment, as the windows are shuttered (to make what’s inside a surprise?), is a high wall of stone way above the door, and some fresca-style art work in-between. Their logo has a skeleton-type-creature on a surfboard, and upon my arrival at Pudge’s a block-or-so away, the jukeboxes both upstairs and downstairs were playing almost all Surfer Boyz-type music.
But back to getting stoned, (sorry about the pun), the new cantina becomes the fourth place to open or be renovated in recent times while rocking the house with their use of stone decore. Its practically wall to wall at the new Pudge’s, exists in the form of large boulders and other items that give the patios at the Smilin’ Moose a Lake Superior shoreline feel, and going back just a bit further, there is of course the look that was given to Stone Tap.
— Is this a boy among men? Just before there was an announcement about Justin Timberlake singing at the soon-to-be Super Bowl in Minneapolis, a friend and I discussed how boyishly young the guy looks, and does he really have game? And as far as the famous wardrobe malfunction, it seems much like a pimple-faced high school student exposing the breast of his favorite I-have-a-crush-on-teacher. Clue in Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher,” only with guitar that’s less worthwhile.
— The band Bad Kitty, which played at Pudge’s recently, had something novel going when having one of their main guitar players double as the guy adjusting the sound board directly in front of him. The seating area is cool because of the presence of a fireplace and sofas that spread out almost enough to accommodate a dozen people. That same style of treatment, complete with cushy pillows setting on top, plays out in the downstairs restaurant.
— It may exist elsewhere, but is not seen. Mallory’s restaurant and rooftop bar has an online site that gives an exacting map of areas to which they deliver food, basically everything inside the limits of Hudson and North Hudson, just missing a cranny here and there. And, of course, if you stay home to eat their stuff, you won’t get the ambiance of their rooftop bar. But now that the weather is getting colder … no worries, as the rooftop is heated.
— What, there was the No. 9-ranked Clarkson Golden Knights losing to the Minnesota Golden Gophers in women’s volleyball, while some guys played some virtual golf, as in Golden Tee (the only one of the three names that’s only two words).
— As seen in an ad on sports bar TV: “Tired of hunting for a job?” Well if you no longer like taking shots at animals, how about pouring shots for animals, by being a bartender!
— Last on the entertainment commentary, for a reason, is the concert that was slated called AARP Rocks, headlined by Bruce Hornsby. Or maybe considering the “old man take a look at my life, I’m a lot like you were” factor, that should be either decades-ago baseball player Rogers Hornsby, or decades-ago Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler.
— On the other end of the age spectrum, on Saturday, which was the coldest night of the season, there was a lot of bare midriff to be seen, including a woman at the Smilin’ Moose who had on little more than a bikini, (OK, she did have big boots). Hope she didn’t have to drive back to Minnesota.

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