October 2007
If you and your crew are lookin’ to have a fun time outside before the 7 months of winter set in, I recommend having a bike scavenger hunt through your neighborhood. Here’s an example that I put together for Northeast and it actually turned out to be pretty fun. RULES: Each team must accumulate 1,000,000 points within a two hour time limit. The team with the highest point total at...
September 2007
Forget art crawls or bike scavenger hunts or whatever the hell else goes on Saturdays in the Twin Cities. I’m going to start just camping out at First Ave for Too Much Love, which has had sets from both Diplo and James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem in the last month. And that’s on top of the already awesome remixed music being regularly played on Saturday nights.
I think this is a joke, but no one I've talked to... →
Star Tribune wants you Politically Connected →
The STrib wrote that headline, not me sarcastically.
Doctors Without Borders Mock Refugee Camp
This morning my coworkers and I took the tour of the example refugee camp set up by Doctors Without Borders in Loring Park, and I’d strongly recommend anyone interested politics, refugee and immigrant issues, or just the basic act of seeing how other human beings are forced to live visit the installation. And if you can’t make it to the park this weekend, check out the short film...
Pioneer Press to Launch “e-paper.” →
l'etoile plans your weekend for you →
Editor note: As a former member of the hard-kicking and hard-drinking kickball team The Toxic Shockers, I was privileged enough to play under the watchful of eye of Gary the Umpire, who brought mirth, merriment, and a respect for the rules to what’s an often crass and competitive kickball field. I’m only going to post the first and last few paragraphs of the email Gary sent out...
Hamline University computer equipment dumped in... →
“A boat filled with illegally dumped and potentially dangerous computer equipment is pulled from the bottom of a Minnesota lake. How it got there is only half the mystery.”
Non-Required Listening
Here’s a treat for you guys and gals: Hip Hip Connection’s Top 100 Singles. And don’t tell anyone, but the tracks are available for download, too.
Comcast = Craptastic
As if there hasn’t been enough bitching about how horrible Comcast is — and there’s really never enough bitching — The Consumerist some tips from a Comcast rep. And as you can imagine, the complaints start pouring in from the comments.
You and I did not win a Minnesota Vison award. ... →
Ousted 'Star Tribune' Editorial Editor Says Global... →
Also, I’m going to miss Kate Parry as Reader Rep.
I
But all isn’t half-assed on the Strib page. If I had to pick a favorite local blog right now, I’d go with Michael Rand’s Randball. Even if you’re not into sports, Rand will keep you entertained with absurb but enjoyable posts like this one from this morning: “Note: This is the first in a five-part RandBall series today that was produced from roughly 8:30-10 p.m....
STrib's Pop Life now requires registration →
Jesus F. Christ. I’ll spare everyone my 45 minute long tirade on why it shouldn’t be so hard for the MSM to “get” comments, but here’s the worst possible way to do comments on your site: require people to have one login for startribune.com and another login for wordpress, which is what they’ve got Pop Life on. Incredible.
Vita.mn Interviews the new Walker Director →
Here’s the link back to the Rake interview from the old director.
Slave to Slave to Target?
Browsing the internets, I came across the hyper-fan blog “Slave to Target”, which I hadn’t seen since (quick Google search) 2005. Check it out if it’s been awhile for you, too. It’s just so thorough and well done — the design is great, the commitment’s obvious, it sticks to a simple idea — and seems to have a huge audience. Not for me, but...
Open Letter to Mayor RT Rybak
Dear Mayor Rybak~ You may not be aware that next weekend, October 6th, Minneapolis will play host to the 3rd Annual Zombie Pub Crawl. It is an annual gathering that has not only gained national attention, but has also lead the way for other cities holding their own zombie pub crawls. This year we fully expect several hundred zombies to participate in the event. And as an important event, we...
/FALLS OFF CHAIR
“Yeah, you read that right. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman proclaimed Sept. 22 as “METRO Magazine Day.” Why? Cuz we brought the party to the eastside, that’s why! Honest to goodness, we have the signed/sealed certificate to prove it.” This has got to be a joke, right? If getting a city day is that easy, hey RT, howabout making October 6th “Minneapolis Zombie Day”?
“D’oh! Leave it to Sen. Norm Coleman to step on his own dingbat story. ...”
– TPM
KARE11 reporters win big time Emmy
Holy balls, Ballstein! Some guys from KARE 11 beat out CBS Sunday Morning and an ABC World News Tonight for an actual Emmy, not the regional kind that DeRusha and Flak Radio are going to win. You can see the winning segment — Project Compasion — here.
Kirstin Allio, whose debut novel "Garner" was... →
Non-Required Reading: Spring Break '08 IRAN
I don’t know about you guys, but I was getting a little worried that this whole Iraq thing was winding down and we’d be without another corporate imperial project to pick up the slack. (Seriously, what would the politicos talk about? Black disenfranchisement? Yeah right.) That’s why I was pumped to find out today that the Senate will be passing the Kyl-Lieberman amendment,...
Manhole Covers (photoset) →
Tad Simons Recaps the Ameriprise Financial IVEY... →
“Boy meets girl. Boy and girl exchange cell phone numbers. Boy and girl text...”
– OUCH. From Mariam at Accident Prone.
The Rake Interviews Departing Walker Director... →
A Total Non-Sequiter
Weekly readers of the New Yorker must surely be as astounded as I am by the pantheon of names schedule for this year’s New Yorker festival. Junot Díaz with Annie Proulx? Error Morris on film? George Saunders and Foer talking about ‘the incredible’? David Byrne does NYC bikers? A candid Seymour M. Hersh?!? Fuck. It’s going to be awesome. Perhaps most the...
@MinneapolisMN - The City Twitter →
WSJ says Minnie has reached "critical coolness." →
Actually Tim Gihring said that, the WSJ just wrote an article about how some yuppies are making a bunch of money in the Twin Cities and quoted him.
TPM Runs Down MN US Attourney Paulose's New... →
Matters of Local Taste
Here’s an interesting follow-up to what Sarah and I mentioned in the Picked 2 Click interview; in today’s STrib, Chris Riemenschneider writes up and interviews Motion City Soundtrack, who he hails as “today’s biggest local rock band”. Bold as it is, it’s unfortunately a true statement. Even though MCS play the short form pop you can hear on KDWB, I don’t...
WatchDave captures the performance of up-and-coming ambient band To Kill A Bourgeoisie at the Turf Club last weekend.
LIVE BLOGGING the new issue of MnMo
Okay. I’m over at my buddy’s house, having a bunch of beerz and waiting for the grill to warm up before he starts making fajitas for a bunch of us. He just got the new issue of Minnesota Monthly in the mail, and I’ve grabbed his ibook to LIVE BLOG a page-through of it. Here it goes. The cover: Oh, that chick is kind of hot. Who is that? “Gossip, Celebs, and faux...
Man Assaulted by Jerk MSP Airport Cop Wins In... →
An Open Letter To Senator Amy Klobuchar
Senator Klobuchar~ It was both sad and disheartening to read that this week the United States Senate did not pass an amendment extending recovery time for our service men and women deployed in Iraq, but however did manage to pass a resolution to condemn MoveOn.org’s advertisement that questioned General Petraeus’s testimony on the continuing military debacle in Iraq. Thank you for your...
“Visitors to the American Civil War Center, located in a Civil War-era artillery...”
– The Canadian Press
A List Of Local Apple Orchards For Apple Pickin' →
Where did all the tickets go? Welcome to the... →
"Picked to Click: WTF?!" or "Interview: CP Music...
This was a big week over at City Pages, especially for CP music editor (and sometimes glamorous DJ) Sarah Askari — the votes were tallied, the summaries and introductions written, and the newest “Picked to Click” list has hit the internets. Now that the local musical establishment chimed in on who will be the next big fish band in our small musical pond, the big commish herself...
Metro congestion even worse →
Rep. Ramstad's Retirement Because The House Isn't... →
“If I was going to work for any new internet blog, it would be Kramer’s...”
– Fake Par finally started posting again no that he’s — well, real Par — is going to have some free time.
Randball, the best damn sports blog in the Twin Cities, links to an interesting discussion of lady bloggers who have lady blogger sports blogs. Also, if you don’t subscribe to Randball you should, and make sure you read his comments, which are maybe the best comments on a local blog. This particular post features comments on the Eagles, Crocs, and My Humps, no less.