Minnesota/Minnesotans C or D

takes the pancake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDYXmUOasgw

The universe is righted again. xpost

That being said, pancakes with bananas and chocolate chips would be awesome.

lol Fred Willard?

old guy curling club
LOL. my granddad was in a curling club. my aunt is a bartender in this town

fancy ray commercial for auggies!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ8dyfDC2So

greg gagne: "look at those nails"

the man, for nicollet village video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOh661-zDZo&feature=related

ok so i haven't read anything but i caught a mention of FANCY RAY

my dad was in X-TREME CURLING when I was a kid, with a bunch of aging metalheads - the team's uniforms were variously colored neon zoobas.

Zubaz? Ewwwwwww.

That does paint a picture, doesn't it.

That's Tom Barnard and the KQ morning crew's influence on Minnesota men's fashion, right there.

STRETCH

nothing will ever top fancy ray's prince impersonation, with the commercial ending with a huge closeup of his jiggling ass

this thread makes me want to go out and like, do more
but then i realized its the end of march, so its still 10 degrees and fucking snow everywhere

guys i am totally taking up NORDIC SKIING when i move back

not even fucking around

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/154/408672209_ac22849c30.jpg

^^ top result for "serious face"

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/172/408672207_47a11ba454.jpg

I AM SERIOUS ABOUT CROSS COUNTRY SKIING.

Oh man, Ernies. Once I got this amazing old Toru Takemitsu record of weird tape manipulations there for ten cents. I wonder if it still smells. I think everything else I've got there I've sold by now.
Speaking of the River Hills Mall, that's where Tune Town is these days. Sigh.

Minnesota classic: My mom and dad!

Minnesota dud: MARCH. It gives you hope for Spring and then TAKES IT AWAY! Pretty nice out today, actually.

Hey fellas--MT. KATO!

So where should i eat and drink in the Twin cities this may?

The Rainforest Café inside Mall of America

I'd like to know that, too. In fact, I should know that. For the most part I don't have much of a life outside of downtown Mankato. Nearly all my time can be split up between three places: a) here in my apartment, b) at work, or occasionally at c) suzy spew's pad a few times a month. That's...about it.

Ed, go to citypages.com and look at the back columns for Dara Moskowitz. She is good at cheffy stuff, places I never eat at in the US.

Your closest Mexican to 'work' is La Cucaracha, as described upthread (read the whole thread for good food recs). I have told you about Fuji-Ya (St Paul and Lake/Lyndale); see also Tampopo and the shitload of Korean restaurants in St Paul. Vietnamese at University and Lex (I think) in St Paul also amazing. You have to go to the International Centre on Lake Street, where all the signs are in Spanish/Vietnamese/Somali and there are plenty of vendors inc. Indian and soul food. Lake is where there are tons of mom and pop Mexicans and markets with Mexican soda (yum). Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis will feed you all manner of things at all manner of prices, but of those you'd enjoy Black Forest, Quang's, Market Bar-B-Cue. Barbette in Uptown takes French stuff and wine seriously.

Also for sports bar experience get my mom to take you to Bunny's by on Monte Cristo special night when my sis is working.

I so want to try Tampopo. I have also been craving Thai food. So hungry.

What's open late? I'm seeing the Boredoms tonight and will probably be hungry afterwards.

the weinery (west bank's greasy spoon), hard times, galactic pizza (brilliant, though unless you really enjoy listening to The Big Wu whilst eating, I'd suggest take-out)

oh, Minnesota dud: The Big Wu

lol at wheelchair guy getting kicked out of hard times.

hard times can eat my ballz

hahaha

generally i agree, but why do you say so??

hahahaha i also DNFW, but i cant come up with a succinct description why

i don't know, it's just this vibe...of that whole west bank thing that kinda rubs me the wrong way...i always feel like everyone's looking at me like i'm not down 4 the cause when i've been in there, and it's kinda dirty and grosses me out...i dunno, it's a feeling more than anything...tall bike envy??

It's been a long long time, but is this the place over near Riverside and those Slums in the Sky?

yup

ah the crack stacks. or 'vertical mogadishu' for the verbose and racist among us.

i always like the story of dave pirner bringing winona ryder there and getting booed

the hard times, that is. not the projects.

aren't those apt. buildings supposed to be kinda famous in architectural circles?

they look pretty grim.

yeah the west bank black label bike club dudes are not my favorite, we played some show with this electroclash band from portland that was weirdly aligned with them at the bowling alley and we had to load out through a gaggle of drunken black label dudes arguing and getting into scraps amongst each other. someone had grabbed someone else's sister's boob or something.

Seward Cafe is way nicer (same owners), but has really short hours.

I second the Wienery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Plaza

LOL, "brutalist."

weinery is great!

I spent time in Minnesota as a college student, coming from Oregon. I was not happy there. There was a certain amount of culture shock involved. The other students all seemed so bland to me, so resolutely unimaginative and unwilling to venture so much as a toe beyond the line of conventionality, that I felt like an alien.

After the lapse of many, many years, I do not wholly trust these memories. To a certain extent I think whatever validity these observations have is founded in part on the callow age of the midwesterners I was thrust among. But I recall the feelings very well. They haunt me, when I let them.

Bland, sure, but compared to Oregon?!

When I was 20 and looking for a place to live, I got an application for Riverside Plaza. I had no idea they were "projects".

Hard Times can suck it too. Dunhill-smoking baristas making me put away my own dishes.

(^^^^ One of the more white AND privileged posts I've made, sorry.)

I grew up in SE Portland and attended high school from 1968-1972. Bland it was not.

This is wholly dependent on where you went to school; I can easily see large swathes of U of M subculture being bland and unadventerous but not so much Macalester.

I have heard the complaint more often that outsiders think "minnesota nice" is a bunch of bull, and that people here are generally as cold as the weather. As a cold person, I guess I agree.

"Minnesota Nice" = bizarre passive aggressive behavior.

example: No one will take the last bar of a pan of bars. People will literally halve it down to a sliver in order to not be so impolite as to take the last piece.

Also, there ARE a lot of bland people wandering around MN, even on college campuses. (Dan OTM about it depending on which college you are talking about).

example: people eating bars