Minnesota/Minnesotans C or D

As for the Vikings, I just like making fun of my dad's team as they choke in the playoffs year after year.. oh jeez, ya know dey won't win da Sooper Bowl so why not root for de Packers der. It would be cool if they did pull it out, but I tend to be pessimistic.

Except for when he pledged to only serve one term. But Wellstone is classic for that campaign bus.

Classic:
Hating all those cake-eaters in Edina
Hating the Bears
Hating the Packers
Lord Fletchers (hey, my aunt & uncle live on Minnetonka, too...and so did I 30 years ago)
Uptown
The Replacements
Prince
St. Paul
10,000 lakes
Boundary Waters
CP & the Strib (except for CJ)
that free zoo in that park that I can't remember the name of

Dud:
8 months of winter
mosquitos
SPAM
1am last call

This is also the gateway into teaching the French Revolution in St. Louis Park. Believe.

Lake Minnetonka must have a ley-line that acts exclusively as a preppy magnet.

Minnesota is a great place to grow up, but people like me need bigger cities than Minneapolis.

The problem with Minneapolis is the same with most large modern cities--there's not much density to it. It's all sprawl. Which is also part of its charm.

Also, SPAM IS CLASSIC.

-Lots of friends there
-Had some good gigs, at the Times and Cabooze and whatnot
-Lots of cool restaurants, and I love going to Maria's or Triple Rock for breakfast
-Halal markets that sell camel meat
-That Sun Ray sign on the way into St. Paul that's had the 'y' out for years, so it says "SUN RA"
-Happy Apple

DUD:

-Asshole drivers, for real
-I can't stand finding my way around Mpls, I've gotten lost there more than anywhere else and (partly as a result of being lost and stressed) gotten in my only car accident, which is still causing me financial trouble
-Driving from Wisconsin to Minnesota is most mind-numbing drive imaginable, and it's just long enough to feel really long but too short to settle into 'driving all day' mode.

You forgot MATOS. KCLASSIC.

Minneapolis road rage is among the most passive-aggressive in the world.

I miss Dayton's, the Lincoln Del, and Excelsior Amusement Park.

First Avenue/7th Street Entry
some restaurant a couple blocks away
some hotel (maybe it was by the airport?)
the mall in Edina
a gas station somewhere between Minneapolis and Moorhead
a Target somewhere between Minneapolis and Moorhead
a dumpy bar in Moorhead
some restaurant that kinda sucked in Moorhead
a Days Inn in Moorhead (we snuck into the pool later that night)
a Chinese buffet place in Moorhead
yet another gas station

Also, Husker Du.

Hah

I'd like to see more of the state.

Well you pretty much covered everything between Minneapolis and Moorhead (as well as Moorhead) so you can check that off the list.

Yet, somehow at the same time: Classic.

tom bernard: racist.

minneapolis was my traumatic home for about a month while i decided i did NOT want to be a flight attendant. it was hell. really and truly.

on a roadtrip a couple years later i decided to give it a second chance. it didn't help.

i don't know about the rest of the state, but i hate minneapolis.

When I was twenty and living alone in an apartment off of Franklin, a woman from the liquor store invited me to her family's house for Thanksgiving. I think that I may have been the only person there under 200 pounds, and the only man under 6'3". They fed me like a brother, got me drunk on Schnapp's, and it was TEH BEST THANKSGIVNG EVAH.

It was just one family in NE Minneapolis, but I'll stick up for Minnesotans any day of the week. Even the screedy James Lileks.

It's been awhile for me, but I always really enjoyed Radio K. College radio sounds so beautiful on the AM band.

God, sometimes I want to move back there so badly.

I can get it in from the cities all the way to Sauk Centre which is pretty damn good. I like it better than Radio K as well. But please don't forget KUMM the praries only alternative. We have to be classic if only for our call letters. Also worth noting is Rev 105 which all us kids thought was the coolest thing ever at the time.

What's up?

btw, I have a family member moving to minnesota so the possibility I'll need some recommendations or will be passing through seems likely

Just the biggest snowstorm since '91 lol

this is going to mentally break me

That it's happening now, with the inevitable 3 or 4 March/April snowstorms yet to come, is what's really spirit-crushing.

We're going to have snow on the ground into June.

oh god

I was absolutely done with snow weeks ago and we had a measly five inches last week and it made me sad.

best of luck

Even the low-end estimates are well over a foot, and those models are now the outliers

watched the local tv this morning and the most conservative model of the 7ish he showed on a graph was 14.5" :(

Minnesotans being fearfully aroused by incoming big blizzard, quel surprise! Seriously, though - stay safe.

(I got snowed-in helping take inventory at the much-missed Northern Lights in ‘91, until the owner turned up in 4WD to drive everyone home)

and to think The Beths have to travel into this

I’m only annoyed that this blizzard is going to make everyone talk about The Halloween Blizzard without eclipsing and replacing the Halloween Blizzard.

— Fentanyl Dusted Donut (@David_5mith) February 21, 2023

Ugh, here we are at the very much now annual April that is 90% winter, just not quite as extreme. I've had it with this place that only gets literally 14 weeks of acceptable weather per year.

Yeah, this winter/spring blows.

not a fan

i relocated from mpls to pdx last fall and it's been unseasonably wet and cold here, and people are complaining, it's hilarious because i've been keeping track of y'alls winter... weather like that was certainly one of the underlying motivations for the move

Lol I’ve made friends with someone who at the turn of the year moved from Portland to here, and just this week he meekly asked “so this winter’s been one of the worst, right?” While on paper, yes, it has been, I couldn’t tell him that every March and April here inevitably brings you to the same mental crisis

xp global I am in Eugene and this has been the coldest wettest spring in my 32 years here, it's been brutal

it has also been a surprisingly wet and cold winter and spring in SF too, we got record rainfall this year, and from what I've heard from my friends and family, it has been the same in LA and San Diego too

it's spring, but most days so far haven't gotten up from highs in the 50s, and there have been no warm days. thankfully the rain has stopped now and it's starting to warm up

I’ve been keeping an eye on Palm Springs and thinking how much this winter must’ve sucked for those used to Palm Springs weather

It’s me, hi, I’m the biggest planning blunder in Minneapolis history, it’s me❗️ pic.twitter.com/qFAFHsWRwN

— Abigail Blonigen (@abigailblonigen) October 31, 2023

I haven't been around Minneapolis that much for a number of years but the moment I heard "k-mart fire" I knew exactly what building was burning!

I'm actually K Mart defender, it was a store where the local population without cars could get basic household goods and clothing.

I don't think the existence of a k mart on that block was what people disliked about it, but again, was never a local

Correct; no objections to the Kmart itself (though, obv, I don't speak for everyone ... I'm sure there were plenty of residents who hated it because it attracted lower class shoppers). It was merely the building's function as a bulwark, dividing the neighborhood in half.

I also believe that the largely immigrant restaurants that turned Nicollet North of Lake into "Eat Street" never could have thrived without that K Mart making it less attractive to developers. the only harm it caused was drivers having to drive around it, big deal.

I'm sure they are licking their chops to gentrify it now and drive the local low income population out.

look forward to a couple new ugly apartment buildings with a shitty brewery on the first floor

LOL, plenty of speculation lately that they'll do exactly the same thing to the brutalist Nicollet Mall YMCA building if/when they knock that down

Related-ish: https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/new-study-says-downtown-minneapolis-has-one-of-the-worst-post-pandemic-recoveries-but-there-are-questions-about-methodology/

Apparently Minnesota is redesigning the state flag, and there have been over 2000 submissions to date. Needless to say, there are some really good ones, if you are willing to dig:

https://serc.mnhs.org/flags

good riddance and FUUUUUCK YOU

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/15/business/uber-lyft-minneapolis-minimum-wage/index.html

I don't want to clog up another thread with a niche observation, but the new Taylor Swift album so far is very Cities 97 circa 1990.