Kong! Kong! Kong!

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On top of moving to a new home I also had plans to go to New York City to attend the premiere of King Kong. Click on the image above to see more coolness.

FULL REPORT

Our flight to NY was delayed 2 times! Apparently LGA does this often..we finally got into LGA around 10:30PM..what a shitty airport. We got a shuttle to the hotel, was very cool to drive into NYC at night with x-mas music and the Empire State Building all lit up green and red.

Our hotel was amazingly nice, the Westin is very very swanky, our hotel room was on the 38th floor (!!!) and we had a great view of the Hudson. The elevators in the Westin feature CNN and go up and down VERY fast.

Times Square is amazing, last time I was there in the middle of the day (almost 10 years ago), it has changed so much, gone are all the strippers and sex shops...the Toys R Us and Virgin Megastores are amazing. We metup with Chris and Bill (my partners on the site) and our respective wives very briefly before going to bed.

Monday we woke up a little later than we wanted to, but it was still early, Kong fans were gathering at a pub called Stouts near the Empire State Building to have a little 'Kong Fest'...the pub was very cool and we brought a ton of stuff for the fans to giveaway. CNN Showbiz was there to cover the event as well as Japanese TV and a reporter from New Zealand. Michael Pellerin stopped in to say hello and thanks, Michael is the producer of the video segments we feature on kongisking.net, he works very closely with Peter Jackson and the entire crew to feature exclusive behind the scenes stuff about King Kong..I was interviewed for one of these segments, look for it to go online either this week or next.

After the lunchin Kathy and I walked to the Empire State Building and bought some souveniers..that place is amazing. We then walked back to Times Square and took a few photos by the life-sized King Kong they have setup..that thing was AMAZING..it was this 100% life size kong, not a cardboard cutout or an air filled balloon..this thing was REAL...check the photos for more.

We got dressed for the premiere and hooked up with the rest of the crew and made our way to the red carpet. There was a bit of confusion as to where we had to line up to get in, but we eventually made our way into the theatre. There was a TON of security, metal detectors and infra-red goggles to prevent film piracy..there was no photography of any kind allowed.

The film itself was AMAZING, a really great epic film that will take you back to depression era New York and the hell that is Skull Island..watch our for that log! (you'll get it when you see the film).

After the film we hopped on a bus for the invite-only after party. It was being held a place called 'Hudson on the Piers' and it was exactly that, a large warehouse right on the Hudson Pier. The place was decorated with a King Kong theme. The coat check featured a large SS Venture ship bow (along with boat noises), after you walk in the theme changes to 'Skull Island' complete with lagoon and waterfall, hanging vines and creepy animal noises surround you as you munch on triple-bean salad and salmon...it was so cool! The next room was 1933 New York themed, with a shoe shine stand and shop windows..there was even a vaudeville type show with performers doing all types of acts, from dog shows to spinning plates and more.

Kathy and I were separated from the rest of the gang by our theatre tickets, so we also were on different busses to the after party. There was literally thousands of people at this party so it took us a while to find them. But before we did we bumped into Colin Hanks, Tom Hanks son and one of the stars of the film. He was really super nice and even congratulated me on the website..Kathy was super excited to see him. Next we met Adrien Brody, he quickly shook my hand and whizzed past me, same with George Lucas. Andy Serkis (Gollum and King Kong) stopped by and also thanked me for the site..that was cool. We also saw Billy Bush from Access Hollywood, Stone Phillips from Dateline, and others...was a great party.

On a sad note when we finally did catch up with Bill and Chris they were ashamed to admit that their tickets were the ACTUAL tickets to the theatre with all the stars..for some reason Kathy and ours weren't..we were only very pissed off about this..but what can you do?

We got back to the hotel around 2am and crashed. The next morning we woke up at about 7:15 and packed as best we could to catch our shuttle back to the airport at 8:10am..we were lucky enough to get an earlier flight than we had so we were actually home before we were originally scheduled to leave! Another funny note, the rude airline girl who bumped us up was called Dawn King...thought that was funny.