Catching Up...

It's been awhile since I've checked in last. I've actually had to move out of my apartment at the end of July. It's been awhile to get back into a rhythm. So here's just some random musings about some of the nonsense I've been up to the last month...

...since moving into a basement, I'm starting to become paranoid about bugs. There's lots of spiders and other weird centipede-y things crawling around down here. Anytime a I feel an itch or something brush against me while sitting down here, I twitch and spasm. It makes for difficulties getting to sleep sometimes. I've been trying to crush those bastards every time I see one, but they just keep coming back. I feel they may be plotting against me.

...these national political conventions crack me up. I love watching the speeches, the random unexpected events, and the crowd shots of all the delegates dancing around like dorks. It's quality, prime-time entertainment that I enjoy even more than the Olympics every four years. Here's some of my favorites this year:

Favorite DNC speaker: Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer was absolutely hilarious. Not so much of his speech's content, but his mannerisms while speaking. He was so damn fidgety, it was as if he downed a case of Red Bull before he went on. I liked it. Bonus points for doing the Chris Farley-esque shoulder shrug/double chin thing a few times (2:02 mark on the YouTube video).

Favorite RNC speaker: Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson endeared to me. He just had that surly old grandpa demeanor that reminds me of my hometown. I can see this guy fitting in fine with the grumbling old farmers at the local cafe or barber shop. They're always amusing and always blunt. Bonus points to Senator Thompson for constantly clearing his throat every minute, too.

Favorite moment caught on camera: Sarah Palin's second youngest child styling the baby's hair with her own saliva. It either elicits an "Awwwww" or an "Eeewww." Either way, it's a good catch by the camera crews.

Finally, here's a pretty funny picture that was sent to me by way of Lisa:

If you're quite familiar with this show and these characters, it's even funnier. Now who has some cartoon equivalents for Obama/Biden?

...the good thing about having a national political convention in your town is that it brings out some pretty damn good concerts. On Monday, I attended the Take Back Labor Day event at Harriet Island in St. Paul. It featured a line-up of Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine), Atmosphere, Mos Def, and a reunited Pharcyde.

I would describe Tom Morello's performance as spunky. His solo album has a mellow, folksy feel to it, but he treats his live performances as if he's up there with RATM. For example, he closed out his set asking the crowd jump up and down like mad while he played Woody Guthrie's "This Land is My Land."

The Pharcyde was the other highlight of the day. They closed out the show and bucked the trend of playing songs about the poor, the working class, and unions. They just busted out their hits and it was a damn fun set. I was surprised so many people stayed around for them. I honestly thought the entire crowd would dissipate after local legends Atmosphere performed. The only complaint I had about their set is that they would show some of their music videos on the big screen behind the stage while they performed. I preferred the screen to show shots of the group on stage and action out in the crowd.

There were some other notable shows through out the week, including a free show by Michael Franti and Anti-Flag at the Capitol Grounds on Tuesday afternoon. Apparently Tom Morello and the rest of Rage Against The Machine showed up at the end of the event and played Bulls On Parade before they got shut down. No bother, as they had their own gig at the Target Center the very next evening.

So if you want to see a week of great shows, then get ready to make a pilgrimage to the RNC city in four years.

...last and certainly not least is that football season is finally upon us. I went to the Gophers home opener against Northern Illinois last Saturday. The season got off to a good start when we won 31-27. While they look like an improved team from last year, they still made some costly mistakes to make the game a lot closer than it should have been. It's hard to gauge where your team is at when it took a last minute touchdown to beat a MAC school that finished with a 2-10 record last year.

This week's match-up at Bowling Green should be a lot more telling. BG beat us last year in overtime and they opened this season with a 10-point win over #25 ranked Pittsburgh. If we win this game, I have reason to be optimistic that we'll reach a bowl game. If we lose, then I don't think we'll finish above .500 this year.

The "Whiskey Tastes Better..." Book Club

I finished this book over a month ago, but I'm finally getting around to giving my $0.02 on Breakthrough: From The Death of Environmentalism to The Politics of Possibility by Ted Norhaus and Michael Schellenberger. I first heard about this book on 89.3 The Current when Mr. Schellenberger was part of the Policy and A Pint series. I learned a little more about them when I downloaded a podcast from iTunes U that features the authors discussing the book's subject material at Berkeley. So the next logical step would be to actually read the damn book.

And I did.

I don't know where to start with this book. I guess I'll first say that these two guys sound really damn smart. Almost too smart at times. They are very thorough in making their points and use long stories to illustrate their arguments. Unfortunately, I would get too drawn in to their stories and examples and then forget what point they were trying to make.

This is why I'm having trouble trying to write about this book. There were so many bases covered, I can't really find a main point to drive here.

The part I really agree with is that in order to address important issues like global warming, you need to separate it from other "environmental" causes and pitch it as an economic issue. No matter how much press global warming gets, it's still not that important to the vast majority of Americans (and I imagine people of other nationalities don't care that much either). The book cites some polls where they gave people a list of 20 issues and asked them to rate the issues in order of importance. The issues at the top of the list were the economy, health care, national security, energy independence, and the war in Iraq. Global warming was consistently in the bottom 5. In fact, they say they polled once before the release of Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and once after it was released. Even after all of the publicity, discussion, and positive reviews that his movie generated, global warming dropped in importance in the second poll.

To get people behind global warming solutions, it needs to be tied to issues that they are concerned about. From the poll that was in the book, some obvious choices would be the economy and energy independence. My friend Becca sent me a video of Al Gore giving a speech about the future of our country's energy policy, and he said a lot more in that five minute clip than he did in the entire 90 minutes of An Inconvenient Truth. A lofty goal he sets is moving the country to 100% renewable electricity in 10 years. This would mean moving away from coal fired plants and investing heavily in wind and solar energy. This would provide a huge economic stimulus for the country as thousands of jobs would be created for people manufacturing, installing, and maintaining new equipment such as wind turbines, solar panels, and transmission lines. I would imagine a bit of backlash from members of the coal industry, however. I don't know how realistic it would be to completely phase out coal-fired energy plants within a decade, but his ambitions are in the right place.

Another guy that's been making some noise lately is T. Boone Pickens. He's an absurdly rich oil baron who's now devoting his billions of dollars to promoting a new energy plan for the country. In a brief video on his website, he breaks down where all of our electricity comes from. He shows that 22% of electricity is generated by natural gas. He advocates fulfilling that slice of the pie chart with wind energy instead. Then all of the excess natural gas not being used for electricity can be used towards fueling vehicles. He cites that this would save the US billions of dollars each year since we wouldn't have to spend that money on oil imports. This was only on his little introduction video. I haven't really researched either his or Al Gore's full plans.

This is a good sign. Both of these men are extremely powerful and wealthy. They can do some serious lobbying for change in our nation's energy policy and create thousands of jobs in the process. I really hope for the day that I see President Obama/McCain make the same speeches that Pickens and Gore have made. Then the energy revolution will explode.

I believe this is the type of solution we need to get the population to fight against such a vast and complicated issue like global warming. This is what the book means when they say "the politics of possibility." People don't want more restrictions and regulations like carbon "cap and trade" programs (what the book refers to as the "politics of limits"). Instead of simply reducing carbon emissions, it would serve us better to find solutions that give us new technologies that emit no carbon at all. They talk about JFK's "We choose to go to the moon" speech and how the Apollo project spurred a whole era of expansive technological development. This country has vast resources and can do some seriously big things in a hurry if we have the support and incentive from our government. Let's hope that comes sooner rather than later.

You Know What? You Stink!

There was an asinine column by Nick Coleman over at the Strib last week. He's basically complaining about the ballpark being put next to the waste incinerator on the edge of downtown. A note about this columnist is that he has been adamantly against the new ballpark using public funding, and he's been trying to find a way to complain about it ever since the funding bill passed.

It's been discussed over at Twins Ballpark 2010, and here are my two favorite comments:

I spent lots of time in the HERC neighborhood when my company was located in Ford Centre and I never smelled anything. Nothing. Never. Ever. Not even once. As another commenter put it, it doesn't smell any worse there than it does throughout the rest of downtown.

It's a complete non-issue and that is proven by the number of people who are choosing to live very close to it. They wouldn't do that for long if it stunk.

But my bigger point is this: Whether you agree or disagree with Coleman, his writing is atrocious. By adopting a condescending tone and a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" style, he somehow manages to lower the level of discourse on just about every subject he touches. Even when I agree with him, I cringe while reading. He belongs on some crappy talk radio station (I can think of one).

His columns are like talk radio for newspaper. That is NOT a good thing.

Between him and Kersten, the Strib B-section is starting to look like the Jerry Springer Show of newspapers: Write whatever you want as long as it provokes a reaction.

If that's your strategy for selling newspapers, you won't be selling them for very much longer...

Posted on July 17, 2008 at 12:24 AM by Rick

before i go: nick coleman points out something from which the ballpark must distance itself: the garbage burner. no matter how much people will go on the record saying there's no smell, the fact that the herc is referred to as "the garbage burner" is a psychological dent in the ballpark. it's kind of like when someone says "don't think about an elephant..." and the first thing that jumps into your mind is an elephant. the herc simply must be moved, decommissioned, or transformed into a wind/solar plant.

Posted on July 17, 2008 at 10:32 AM by yeaklye

These two comments bring up some good points on two unrelated subjects:

1. The first brings up the declining quality of the Strib's columnists. Reading them is like listening to an obnoxious talk radio program. I understand the position the Star Tribune is in, though. Readership and circulation is down, and it has a lot more to do with the changing ways that people now get their news. They keep these writers on staff to have them write columns that will spark arguments and controversy. If they didn't have that, there would be even less readers. But it seriously hurts the integrity and entire reputation of the newspaper.

2. The second comment makes a very level-headed assessment of the situation. No matter what it really smells like down in that area, being next to "the garbage burner" is going to give people a negative perception of the site. I used to park down in the Rapid Park lots a lot when they were open, and I never really smelled anything out of the ordinary. I even toured that plant with a college class and while I was expecting the entire place to reek, the only area that did was the actual warehouse area (I believe it's referred to "the pit" in the article) where the garbage is dumped and stored until it is brought to the incinerator. But any remotely foul smell at this ballpark is going to automatically be linked with the HERC plant. A big sweaty guy sitting next to you while watching the Twins game could fart, and you would automatically think it's the garbage next door. So I do agree with the commenter that they will eventually have to get rid of this plant in order for that neighborhood to continue to develop with new housing, retail, and parks.

Breaking The Law

So I'm sitting here at work on a slow Saturday and figured I'd use this time to catch up on some posts. Our work policy forbids the use of personal e-mail, blogs, and social networking sites while at work, but I feel like rebelling today.

Midnight Premieres of Summer Blockbusters are good! We went to the midnight showing of The Dark Knight on Thursday. I can vouch for all of the reviews you've read that say the movie is fan-freaking-tastic. But what makes the movie-going experience all the more fun is going to the midnight opening with all the other hard-core movie fans.

I've been to the midnight openings of Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones, and The Incredible Hulk so far this summer. The Dark Knight was the largest of all these openings by far. We went to the theater in Southdale and they must have been showing this movie on over a half-dozen screens. Typically, as was the case with the other midnight premieres I've seen, the theater will usually have it on one or two screens. On Thursday night, we got our reserved tickets and the usher just told us the number on our tickets were irrelevant and that we should just grab a seat in any theater that has a seat left. The mall was long closed, but the entire south, east, and west parking lots were full of cars until after 3 am. It was quite the event. I'd never seen a crowd this size at a midnight premiere; not even for Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.

The highlight of the evening was probably about 20 minutes into the film when there were some "technical difficulties" with the film reel. The film basically just came to a halt, complete with the audio slowing down and lowering it's pitch like when you're listening to a cassette tape and the batteries die on your Walkman (if anybody still listens to their Walkman anymore). Then the uproar from the audience came. So what does the theater staff do? They send some employee -who looked and sounded like the Squeaky Voiced Teen character on The Simpsons- to address the crowd. Poor kid. He was probably shitting his pants up there, but the audience was civil for the most part and didn't hassle him too much. Lucky for him that we all left our pitchforks and torches our cars.

Yeah, I'll Play

Sorry I haven't had anything real posted in a while, but I couldn't resist this nonsense. I dedicate this to my three faithful readers. It was a fun little game, but my Google settings have all the filters turned off. There were some pretty appalling photos I found for "Christopher," "Louise," and "farmhand." If you want to know what I'm talking about, go to the Preferences link on Google, turn off the SafeSearch Filter, and then look up those words I mentioned.


Answer the following questions by typing the answers into Google Image Search. Then post the picture that you like best for the answer.



My Age:





A Place I Would Like To Visit:





My Favorite Place:





My Favorite Object:





My Favorite Food:





My Favorite Animal:





My Favorite Color:





Town Where I Was Born:





A Past Pet:





My First Name:





My Middle Name:





My Last Name:





A Bad Habit:





My First Job:





My Current Job:





My Grandmas' Names:







What I Am Doing Now:

Good Lord...

As the 4th of July holiday approaches here in Minnesota, I thought I would post this little article in case anybody is making plans to go tubing on the Otter Tail River. Just imagine leisurely floating down the river, sipping a beer, when suddenly this guy jumps up and bites your damn arm off! No, I'm not talking about the old man biting your arm off; I'm talking about the gi-normous muskie he's holding. It could happen.

We can pants if we want to

I have recently been riding my bicycle to work. No, it's not because I am trying to "save the environment." It's not that I don't care about those issues, but I'm just not naive enough to believe I'll have some sort of grand impact on the Earth's carbon levels by not driving my car every other day. No, I have more self-centered reasons for my choice of transportation.

The first motivator is my own narcissism. Over the last year, I had gained 25 pounds and it was starting to show. I started to avoid looking at myself in the mirror when my shirt was off. This was the first significant weight gain since I was finishing up puberty back in high school. I had managed to stay the same size all the way through my college and post-college years until I moved out to the suburbs last summer.

What does living in the suburbs have to do with it? Well, I used to be able to walk everywhere when I lived in Loring Park. I walked to work and back twice during the day because I would usually hike home for lunch each day, too. Not only that, but my trips to Target and Blockbuster were walkable because the stores were within a half-mile of my apartment. I'd also walk to bars and restaurants in the Downtown and Uptown area when going out with friends. On top of all that walking, I'd even work out by running and biking every other day, too.

When I moved out to St. Louis Park, I found myself driving everywhere: to work, the grocery store, and the bars. I no longer had all of that daily physical movement. The running or biking every other night wasn't enough to combat the weight gain. It sucked. For the first time in almost a decade, I was going to have to buy new pants because my old ones were too small.

Biking to work has now got me back to that daily physical activity. It really helps that my office is over 10 miles from my apartment, and the last stretch of road has about 10 good sized hills I have to climb. It's a good feeling coming home and knowing that you already worked out for over an hour and a half just by going to and from work. It's one hell of a workout, and any other physical activity occurring that night is just bonus points.

The second motivator for using my bicycle is the almighty dollar. Or perhaps I should say the almighty $4; as in $4 a gallon. Gas is getting damn expensive and I'm pretty sure it will remain that way for the rest of my life. By only driving to work every other day, I estimate I'll save $60, or one tank, each month in gas. That adds up to $720 a year. $720 adds up to a pretty solid weekend trip to Las Vegas.

However, I discovered a hidden cost of excessive bike riding which will lead to an explanation of this post's silly title: my jeans are rapidly deteriorating in the groin area. They haven't completely decayed, but they're going fast. If I have to dip into my gas savings to replace my pants periodically, it will take its toll on my Vegas fund. If anybody has some good tips on how to prevent crotch decay on blue jeans, I'd like to hear it.

Love hurts

So the Wolves selected OJ Mayo last Thursday in the NBA Draft, just as I had hoped they would do. As everyone drifted off to sleep with visions of OJ becoming the Rookie of the Year, the Memphis Grizzlies traded their #5 pick, Kevin Love, and three other players to the Wolves for Mayo and another three throw-ins.

This has been a highly divisive issue here in Minneapolis. Some are adamantly defending the pick, but the majority are kicking and screaming because they think Mayo is the next Michael Jordan.

Right now, this trade looks to be in favor of the Timberwolves. As I mentioned in a previous post, I would be all for trading this pick if they are able to dump Marco Jaric's terrible contract in the process. Not only did they do that, but they also got rid of some other big contracts in Antoine Walker and Greg Buckner. Here's how the trade worked out:

Jaric for Memphis's Brian Cardinal: They are both equally useless and overpaid, but Jaric has 3 more years left on his contract, while Cardinal only has two. Advantage Wolves.

Walker for Jason Collins: Both only have one year left on their contracts. Walker rarely played last season and was most likely going to be bought out this year or traded. In return the Wolves get a solid center with only one year left on his contract. This looks like an even exchange.

Buckner for Mike Miller: The Wolves got rid of a guy that rarely suited up last season and had three more years on his contract. In exchange, they received a starting forward/guard who averaged 16 points a game and shot over 40% beyond the arch last season. Advantage Wolves.

Mayo for Love: Here's the wild card. Jim Souhan put it best when he said the Wolves got the sweet end of this deal...unless Mayo becomes a huge NBA superstar and Love does not. There's really no way of knowing if that will happen. He could end up playing at the same level as Clyde Drexler, Ray Allen, or even Kobe Bryant. Or maybe his ceiling will be at the level of former Gopher Bobby Jackson.

That's why Wolves fans need to mellow out about this trade. If you all want to get pissed about something, then look to the trade they made to Miami with second round pick Mario Chalmers, a point guard out of Kansas. He was the floor leader on the team that won the NCAA Championship last year and was projected by some to be gone by the middle of the first round. The Wolves got some cash and two future second round picks from Miami.

At first, I was a little upset that they gave away a player that seemed to be a pretty good steal, but I understood that they were pretty jammed up at his position when they had Randy Foye, OJ Mayo, Marko Jaric, and Sebastian Telfair projected to be playing point guard. I still thought they should have been able to get something better than two future second rounders, though. Oh well.

But then the next morning came and I heard about the big trade that happened late that night. OJ Mayo and Marko Jaric were now gone. In addition to that, the Wolves did not extend a qualifying offer to Sebastian Telfair, making him an unrestricted free agent as of tomorrow. This leaves only Randy Foye left at the point guard position. In the matter of 24 hours, the Wolves went from having 5 players at the point guard position to just one.

As I said before, there's really no way of knowing how any of these rookies will pan out in the NBA. But as a Timberwolves fan, I feel a little more pissed off about losing Mario Chalmers then I do about OJ Mayo. Only time will tell.

And now, a word from Chuck Klosterman

No, it's not a guest post. I just finished reading Chuck Klosterman IV, a collection of essays that were published in places such as the Esquire, Spin, and the Fargo Forum. I thought I would just share an excerpt from a column entitled "Cultural Betrayal" that was printed in Esquire in 2005:

Do you want to be happy? I suspect you do. Well, here's the first step to happiness: don't get pissed off that people who aren't you happen to think Paris Hilton is interesting and deserves to be on TV every other day; the fame surrounding Paris Hilton is not a reflection on your life (unless you want it to be). Don't get pissed off because the Yeah Yeah Yeahs aren't on the radio enough; you can buy the goddamn record and play "Maps" all goddamn day (if that's what you want). Don't get pissed off because people didn't vote the way you voted; you knew this was a democracy when you agreed to participate, so you knew this was how things might work out. Basically, don't get pissed off over the fact that the way you feel about culture isn't some kind of universal consensus. Because if you do, you will end up feeling betrayed. And it will be your own fault. You will feel bad, and you will deserve it.

Now, it's quite possible you disagree with me on this issue. And if you do, I know what your argument is: you're thinking, But I'm idealistic. This is what people who want to inflict their values on other people always think; they think that there is some kind of romantic, respectable aura that insulates the inflexible, and that their disappointment with culture latently proves that they're tragically trapped by their own intellect and good taste. Somehow, they think their sense of betrayal gives them integrity. It does not. If you really have integrity--if you truly live by your ideals, and those ideals dictate how you engage with the world at large--you will never feel betrayed by culture. You will simply enjoy culture more. You won't necessarily start watching syndicated episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond, but you will find it interesting that certain people do. You won't suddenly agree that Amelie was a more emotive movie than Friday Night Lights, but you won't feel alienated and offended if every film critic you read tells you that it is. You will care, but you won't care.

You're not wrong, and neither is the rest of the world. But you need to accept that those two things aren't really connected.

Amen, Brother Chuck.

Rating the Summer Blockbusters

The official first day of summer is a couple weeks away, but the summer movie season is in full swing. It'll be tough to follow up last year, when there was week after week of huge franchise blockbusters released (Spiderman, Shrek, Pirates of the Carribean, Fantastic Four, Harry Potter, Transformers) combined with not one, but two pictures involving Seth Rogen. Those are some big ticket sellers right there. While this season doesn't have as much depth as last, there are still some films I'm pretty excited to see.

Here's what I've already seen, in order of least impressive to most impressive:

Prince Caspian - An overwhelming "meh" on this film. I saw this movie at midnight on a Thursday evening, so maybe that clouded my judgement. As a book adaptation, it was great. Spot on. They covered pretty much everything. But as a movie, it lacked two key ingredients: writing and acting.

It's probably difficult when writing up an adaptation. You want to stay true to book as much as possible. The problem is the book didn't have much for dialogue. CS Lewis told his story with vast descriptions of what was going on. This puts the screenwriters in charge of having to create interesting dialogue without fabricating too much. They unfortunately didn't do that well.

What made it worse was the four kids they have playing the parts of Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy all are terrible. Maybe not terrible, since I've never seen them in anything else. But all of their lines seem awkward and unnatural. The lone bright spot amongst these characters is Trumpkin the dwarf, played by Peter Dinklage. You may remember as the little children's book author who runs across the table and attacks Will Ferrel in Elf.

If you've read the books or just like seeing medieval battle movies, then go see it. If you don't fit any of the aforementioned criteria, than wait until it's on DVD or cable.


Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - What can I say? It's an Indiana Jones movie. If you like the old ones, you'll like this one. If you don't like the old ones, then you might still like this one. My favorite thing they did with this was keep the time lines parallel. With the Chronicles of Narnia, the two worlds they jump between operate at different speeds. While only a year has passed in their real world, over a thousand years have passed in Narnia.

Not so much here. In our real world, it's been about twenty years since The Last Crusade was released. That's also about the same time that has elapsed in the movie world of Indiana Jones. The last movie back in '89 had Indy dealing with the rise of evil Nazis before WWII in the '30s. Now it's 2008 here and 1957 in Indy-world, where the new enemies are the Soviets and nuclear weapons.

The only thing I was disappointed with is the excessive use of CGI animation. I wished they would have done more live action stunts and blew up real props with real explosives. I understand it's probably cheaper and safer to use CGI, but doing some more things the old fashioned way would have helped capture the feel of the original movies. Instead, I felt like I was just watching another installment of "The Mummy,"(they are releasing another sequel to that later this summer).


Iron Man - Wow. Now that's how you do a good superhero movie: get some A-list actors, write enough witty banter without being too cheesy, and don't waste three quarters of the movie explaining the damn origin of how the hero came to be (they only waste about half the movie this time). In all honesty, I could have skipped the two movies above and just watched this movie three times. It was that damn good. SEE IT!


What I am looking forward to seeing:

The Incredible Hulk - I know it wasn't very popular, but I liked the movie done by Ang Lee a few years ago. I have to agree that this one looks like it's even better. It has a new cast, director, and storyline. At the end of the trailer, you can even hear a brief clip of the original theme music from the TV series.

Get Smart - I don't remember Anne Hathaway being this incredibly good looking in The Princess Diaries. Then again, I've never seen The Princess Diaries. Maybe I should have. Damn.

Wall-E - My girlfriend is all excited about this one, so why not?

Hellboy II: The Golden Army - I never read the comics, but I enjoyed the first one. So again, why not?

The Dark Knight - Yes. Yesssssss. YESSSSSSSSSSS!

Pineapple Express - Seth Rogen + stoner comedy = Box office gold.

Not much else to get excited about this summer: the aforementioned Mummy sequel, some comedy with Will Ferrel and John C. Reilly, a Ben Stiller comedy, and an animated remake of the Chris Farley classic, Beverly Hills Ninja.

Construction Junction, What's Your Function?

UPDATE!
I was having problems formatting the pictures in this post, and then they just stopped showing and came up with those little red X's. Here's a link to a Photobucket album instead. The good news is I've included more photos in this album, so go ahead and take another look.

*****

I made some trips around town with my camera recently and thought I would share some construction pics. The first one was taken of the 35W bridge construction from the pedestrian bridge that connects the U of M East and West Banks. You can't really see too much, but I didn't feel like biking over the 10th Ave bridge (the one blocking the view). It was taken about a month ago, so progress has moved along considerably since then. These guys are working around the clock and are on track to be 3 months ahead of schedule. The last report I read had a September 15th opening date.

The next nine photos are of the new Gophers football stadium. These were taken on the same day as the bridge photo, so they are a bit outdated. If you check the webcams here and here, you'll see the brick work is well underway, there's more precast seating bowl pieces installed, and the steel frame is almost complete. In fact, all steelwork is scheduled to be complete in June. They said that by the fall, all of the brick work and windows will be installed and the interior of the stadium will be inclosed. In other words, it will really start looking like a functioning football stadium this fall; minus the field turf, scoreboard, lights, and the seats. But those are just minor details.

The last few pictures were taken at the Twins ballpark site about ten days ago. You can see the structure really starting to take shape in right field, and the plaza is nearly complete. I could go on and on about this ballpark, but I'd only be plagiarizing everything I read over at TwinsBallpark2010.com. I highly recommend checking it out.

Click on the pictures for full size photos.

More NBA Draft stuff

-So maybe I was a little hard on Jim Souhan in my earlier post, as I just found another piece that he wrote about the NBA Draft lottery. This column is pretty good and tries to give hope to all of the perpetually gloomy and whiny Timberwolves fans.

- Chad Ford has updated his mock draft and has the Wolves taking OJ Mayo. He also mentions Brook Lopez and Danilo Gallinari as other potential candidates.

I'm not a big fan of the Lopez pick, simply because players like him come along almost every year. If there's still the need, we can pick a big center with limited athletic ability next year.

The Gallinari pick intrigue's me though, mostly because I don't know anything about international players. I'll eat up any evaluation from these scouts because I've never seen him play.

- The Fanhouse mentions that Kevin McHale may be high on UCLA center Kevin Love. I'm not sure how I feel about this pick because as the article mentions, his game duplicates Al Jefferson's. This would require some creative coaching to get the most out of these two players when they are on the floor together.

Food! Glorious food!

There's a story from MinnPost last week that talks about the food that will be served in the new Twins ballpark. Delaware North, the company contracted to run the concession stands, states they want to seek out local food favorites to serve alongside the traditional hot dogs and peanuts. The article brings up suggestions such as Jucy Lucys from Matt's Bar, walleye sandwiches from Tavern on Grand, Sweet Martha's Cookies, Kramarczuk's sausage, Dixie's barbecue, and Punch Neopolitan Pizza.

I thought I'd give my take on the ideas above before offering a few more of my own.

Jucy Lucys - Yes, yes, yes! Why wouldn't you want this at the new ballpark? I still can't believe this item is considered uniquely Minnesotan. Why haven't people in other cities and regions figured out that stuffing melted cheese inside a burger is fucking delicious? Maybe they have and I just don't know it yet.

Walleye Sandwiches - If you want an item that represents our state, than it doesn't get better than deep frying, grilling, or blackening our official state fish before slapping it on a bun.

Sweet Martha's Cookies - Amazing idea. People could order them up in the plastic buckets like they do at the fair, only these buckets would have the Twins logo and design on it. You'd get a little souvenir and a whole lot of cookies to take home.

Kramarczuk's sausage - This is an interesting suggestion. I've never eaten at this place, but I've driven by it plenty of times. They are an Eastern European deli and bakery. I would think this would be a cool idea to have a specialty stand in the ballpark that has their unique flavored sausages. However, I'm guessing one of the local meat packaging giants like Hormel or Schweigart will continue to provide the dogs for the majority of the stands.

Dixie's barbecue - This one is debatable. While it is a local restaurant, they specialize in a food item that isn't really correlated with our region. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be served at the ballpark, though. There's already a Famous Dave's stand in the Metrodome. This is where the debate comes with multiple local barbecue joints in the area (Dixie's, Famous Dave's, Rudolph's, and Market BBQ). If they do serve barbecue in the new ballpark, I hope they offer more items than just pulled pork sandwiches. How about some brisket or ribs?

Punch Pizza - Another debatable idea, mostly again because of other established local chains in the area: Pizza Luce and Davanni's. Whoever is selected to be the pizza vendor, I only have one suggestion/demand: serve it by the slice! There's only one thing I truly hate that is pizza related, and that is personal pan pizzas.

Davanni's is the vendor in the Xcel Energy Center, and they serve it both ways. However, you can only get it by the slice on the elitist, gated community they call "Club Level." The sports fans in this fine state need to rise up and demand that fans of all socio-economic backgrounds are able to purchase a delicious slice of pizza and not be forced to eat those personal pan pizzas that are the size of a bagel and may be laced with soylent green (trust me, I used to work there and make those very pizzas).


Here are some other items that I think are essential to rounding out the menu:

Cheese curds - Another thing that I'm finding out from watching cable food shows like Bizarre Foods and Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives is that this is another uniquely Midwestern food. Why hasn't the rest of the country figured out that deep frying battered chunks of cheese is the greatest idea this country has had since abolishing slavery.

And I want fresh battered cheese curds like they have at the State Fair. None of those pre-made cheese curds that you just pull out of the freezer and drop in the deep fryer.

Pronto Pups - Staying with the State Fair foods theme, I want to see some corn dogs at the park. I don't know why they're not serving them at the Metrodome already. It's delicious and convenient. You have your dog served on a stick with ketchup and mustard already slathered on with a paintbrush. What could be better?

Local beers - At pro sports venues, almost every concession stand cashier is equipped with a beer tap next to them that typically pours American style lagers. I would like to see a Grain Belt Premium and Pabst Blue Ribbon tap for every Budweiser and Miller Lite.

On top of that, I would like to see a couple beer stands in the park that only have local brews on tap. No food or sodas would be sold at this stand; just beer in the bottle and on tap. This would be similar to the Harbor Bar stand in the Xcel Energy Center. Sure, I don't mind them selling the standard imports and micros like Corona, Guinness, Sam Adams, and Heineken, but I only want to see them in the bottle. Save the tap space for all of the varieties of Summit, Schell's, Leinie's, and Surly.


Those are my additions to the suggestion box. If anybody else has ideas or input, I'd love to hear it. I guess now the question is how many of these items and local companies will be selected to sell their products in the new ballpark, and how big will their role be? Will they supply their own staff to operate these stands? Will they just supply the items and the brand names? Will they be available in multiple stands throughout the ballpark, or only in single specialty stands? I can't wait to find out. Don't disappoint me, Delaware North.

#3? Dang.

The NBA Draft lottery was held last night, and the Wolves ended up with the 3rd pick. For those unfamiliar, the draft lottery puts the top three draft picks up for grabs amongst the NBA teams who did not make it to the playoffs. The teams with the worst records supposedly have more ping pong balls in the lottery, giving them a greater chance of winning the top pick. However, the team with the worst record only has a 25% chance of winning; meaning they also have a 75% chance of "losing" the lottery. After those first three picks are determined by drawing, the remaining order is determined by win-loss record.

Since the NBA has a letter opening ceremony instead of actually drawing the ping pong balls on live TV, people have accused the NBA of fixing the lottery to get star players on big market teams. This year is no different as Timberwolves fans are whining that it was fixed to send the top two players to Chicago and Miami. Only having a 1.7% chance to win, Chicago made a big jump to take the first spot, but Miami actually had the worst record in the league and fell a spot to #2. On top of that, Miami is one of the worst sports cities in America when it comes to attendance (and look who's at the bottom of this list)(oh, and read point #13 on this one).

If these conspiracies were actually true, how would you explain Portland and Seattle getting the top two spots last year? They play in small markets, and the Sonics are actually about to move to Oklahoma City; a veritable hub of media exposure. Or what about the 1992 draft that Wolves fans continually agonize over? The top two picks were sent to two other small market cities: Orlando and Charlotte. We need to relax here. The NBA is not out to get the Timberwolves.

So what do the Wolves do with this pick? Jim Souhan thinks they should trade down.

Begin mini-rant:

And this is why it sucks reading the Star Tribune columnists. Don't get me wrong, I do think they have good writers on staff, but there's not enough of them. In order to provide balanced coverage of all of the major stories and sports franchises in the area, they assign columnists to cover areas they don't have much knowledge or interest in. Jim Souhan and Pat Reusse do great pieces on the Vikings and Twins, but their columns covering the Wolves, Wild, and Gophers sound like they were pieced together from the obnoxius user comments section on the paper's website. It's like they write those asinine columns to spite their editor who's forcing them to meet their quota of Wolves, Wild, and Gophers coverage.

OK, mini-rant against the Star Tribune is over. On to why I don't agree with his idea (except for the part about using this pick to help unload Marco Jaric's bad contract, and he also believes that the Wolves should draft Beasely if he happens to fall down to #3):

Trading down is a wise move for the NFL draft. Football is played with 22 starters on offense and defense, along with all sorts of situational players that are subbed in on certain plays. It's good to build up your team's depth through the draft by acquiring as many picks as you can. If the player you originally wanted is no longer on the board and the next guy on your list of needs isn't projected to be picked that high, you can trade your high pick with another team looking to move up for multiple lower picks.

This doesn't work as well for the NBA, though. There are less players on that see the court and one elite player can have a huge impact on the team. You still need depth, but the Wolves already have a roster full of guys who are not superstar material. These are the ones that need to be molded and developed into solid role/bench players. Adding multiple lower picks would only add to this pool. What the Wolves need is another elite player to take them to another level.

Now the usual consensus in most NBA drafts is that there are one or two players projected to be instant superstars. After those top couple picks are gone, it's a crapshoot. There are lots of guys who are drafted for their all around athleticism and potential; not on their overall basketball skill. This draft is no exception. There is Derrick Rose, Michael Beaseley, and everybody else.

The thing that makes it interesting is the ever-increasing buzz surrounding OJ Mayo, a shooting guard from USC. He didn't blow anybody away with his stats last year, but not every college player does. They often play within coaches systems that don't rely on some of the isolation play that the NBA uses. There's even a current rumor that was cited in Souhan's column and elsewhere saying that the Miami Heat might take Mayo if the Chicago Bulls take Derrick Rose.

That scenario would put Michael Beasely right in the Timberwolves' laps. We already have a star power forward in Al Jefferson who can score at will in the low post. Beasely has more of an outside game (38% from 3-point land) that would work well playing alongside Al. The only thing I wonder is how he'll develop as an NBA defender? This could be the difference between drafting a Rasheed Wallace or an Antoine Walker (who we already have on our roster). The experiment of playing both Beasely and Jefferson together may not work out, but these would be valuable trade assets in a few years if they still continue to develop as individuals.

If the conventional wisdom of the past few months holds up and the top two picks are Rose and Beasely, then the Wolves should select Mayo. He doesn't fill a "need" position like a center or point guard would, but he is clearly a very talented player and appears to be the best available at this point. We already passed up on Brandon Roy two years ago because we had drafted Rashad McCants the year before; and we all know how that worked out.

Haters, STFU!

After last year's series between the Suns and Spurs, there were tons of media members and their flocks of sheepish fans hollering that San Antonio won because of the "unfair" suspensions of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw for game five. For those unfamiliar, the NBA dishes out automatic one-game suspensions to players who leave the bench area during an on-court fight. Incidents like this have happened in the past and have cost teams' advancement into the playoffs. Still, every once and awhile, an incident like this occurs again, and the media, fans, and penalized players all act as if they never knew of this rule.

The funny thing is that Phoenix almost won last year's game 5 without Stoudemire and Diaw. This just gives sportswriters and armchair fans more reason to complain. This was an intense series between two established teams. Some people feel that the suspensions ruined it, even though it still went 6 games. In fact, there are some that strongly feel the Suns were going to win this best of seven series, even though they still managed to lose 3 games in that series when their roster was at full strength.

Well this year, the Suns and Spurs just happened to be matched up in the first round. To make things more interesting, this was a different Suns team that now included Shaquille O'Neal. Much like last year's series, it got off to a great start. The first game went into double overtime, which the Spurs eventually won. But then San Antonio won the next two games easily, putting the Suns on the brink of elimination. Phoenix took game 4 to avoid the shame of being swept, but proceeded to lose game 5 to end the series.

There's no excuses this year. Fans and sports writers just need to accept that the Spurs are a damn good basketball team and the Suns are not. Sure, Phoenix is the sexier team. They play a fast tempo and score lots of points. They got highly skilled point guard who dishes out tons of assists, and we all know how white people love assists. They also have an athletic big man who can dominate the paint. But they cannot match the Spurs' defense, and as the old cliche goes: defense wins championships.

And if you're wondering why I care so much about this, it's because I'm a big Spurs fan. No, I'm not a "front-runner." I started watching this team during the days of David Robinson, Dennis Rodman, Sean Elliot, Avery Johnson, and Vinny Del Negro (which is Spanish for Vinny of the Black).

Why the Spurs? I grew up in North Dakota and really had no geographical allegiance to any pro basketball team. I started really watching pro basketball around the age of 12. This was the time that Michael Jordan was in his first retirement. The first few NBA Finals I really watched were the Rockets-Knicks and Rockets-Magic back in the mid-nineties. Because I was pretty tall and played center on my basketball team, I became a big fan of all the great centers playing at that time. David Robinson was my favorite and who I identified with the most. He didn't have the fancy footwork of Hakeem Olajuwan or the freakish size of Shaq and Patrick Ewing. But he was athletic, ran the floor well on fast breaks, and blocked shots. This is what I took pride in doing well, too.

And so my allegiance to David and the Spurs began. It only grew with the addition of another great center/power forward, Tim Duncan. While I have adopted a new geographical allegiance with the Minnesota Timberwolves, I'll still be cheering for the Spurs when they are not playing my current home team.

Overflowing with Optimism

Despite the presence of a first round draft pick this weekend, people around here have been pretty damn giddy about the Vikings lately. Most of this has to do with the trade for Kansas City's Jared Allen last week. The Vikings aquired the NFL's sack leader of 2007 for a first rounder, two third rounders, and an exchange of sixth round picks. Combined with the indestructible "Williams Wall," the addition of Allen looks to make the Vikings defensive line the most feared in all of the NFL. And as all armchair fans will preach: a good defense starts up front. With increased pash rush coming from the line, the defense won't need to blitz as much. This will allow the linebackers and secondary to concentrate more on coverage and pass defense; an area where the Vikings struggled last year.

I've never seen such unrestrained optimism from Minnesota football fans and media. I feel I need to balance some of the optimism with a little glass-half-empty perspective. The factor that you can't control, and therefore don't weigh in to your Super Bowl speculation, is injuries. You have a league of full grown, 300 pound men smacking the piss out of each other for up to 20 weeks. If Allen or one of the Williams tackles gets injured, do the Vikings have the depth to cover that loss? The Vikings are also relying on young quarterbacking and recieving crews this season. The natural assumption is that they will all improve after another year of experience, but that's just an assumption. After all, did you track Troy Williamson's improvement through the past few years?

What I would be looking forward to after last weekend's draft and big trade acquisition if I owned a stake in the Vikings franchise is replica jersey sales. Here's a look at what I consider big names that the team should market:

Adrian Peterson - This is obvious. Rookie of the Year. League leading running back who puts up insane stats and rattles of jaw-dropping plays. Not only is he the face of the franchise, he also is widely recognized as one of the NFL's best new players. This will help in both local and national sales of his jersey.

Jared Allen - Not only is this guy the reigning NFL sack leader and an all-around engaging personality, but he also proudly wears the number 69. In fact, he even opened up a sports bar back in Kansas City that prominently displays the sexually suggestive number. This should be a big seller for the white male segment of Viking fans who can identify with another big white guy who wears a cowboy hat and has multiple DUI's.

John David Booty - The X-factor in jersey sales. If this guy ever becomes the starting quarteback, then they will sell through the roof. I think this will be a big hit amongst the female segment of Vikings fans. Just how the number 69 is bound to appeal to a bunch of immature, giggling guys; the name Booty printed on the back of a jersey would seem to appeal to immature, giggling ladies.

The "Whiskey Tastes Better..." Book Club

Being an unemployed schmuck, I have a lot of free time on my hands. I decided to keep my mind sharp by reading books instead of just random nonsense on the internet. I even got myself a library card. Here's the tabs on what I've been reading in the past couple of months.

Gangsters and Goodfellas by Henry Hill - This is basically an autobiography by the guy who was the main character in the movie Goodfellas, which is odd because the movie was based on a book called Wiseguy, written by Nicholas Peliggi who got most of his information from Henry Hill. So you got a movie and two different books that all tell the same story(I assume, since I have yet to read Wiseguy).

Anyhow, the entire first half of the book was a recount of everything I saw in the movie. It was still pretty interesting and gave a lot more information. It was well written, too. Everytime I started reading it, I felt like I was listening to Ray Liota narrate the entire thing.

The second half tells the story from where the movie left off. It details his life on the run in the witness protection program and talks about his struggles with his wife, family, girlfriends, and drug dependency. He also talks a lot about food and it makes me want to cook more. This guy loved to cook and later published his own cookbook.


American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis - Another book I picked up due to seeing the movie first. After reading this, I have a lot more respect for the people who made this movie. I mean, I respected them already and loved the movie, but it blew my mind after reading the book and seeing how well they adapted it to the screen. Most people get upset when they see a favorite book made into a movie because they fear it's going to suck like most movies do. But this was done so well.

The book can get a bit boring at times because just like in the movie, the lead character obsessively describes every material good in full detail. Sometimes it was nothing but full pages of descriptions of everybody's suits, ties, shirts, pants, shoes, jewelry, fragrences, and hair products. I know it's supposed to show Patrick Bateman's inhuman nature by caring more about what clothes people are wearing rather than caring about the actual person themselves, but it gets a little dry and repetitive after a while.

The pages of gory detail of how he tortures and mutilates some of his victims are a lot more interesting. It is very graphic, though. I found myself unable to put the book down once I started reading those chapters, but then felt a little sick to my stomach afterwards.


Heart of a Soldier by James B. Stewart - This book was lent to me by my roommate. Over a few beers one night, he started raving about it and billed it as a true story about a guy who "predicted 9/11." Immediately I thought this was asinine and I told him so, but he kept insisting that I just have to read it. So I eventually did. My motivation was to read it, thoroughly criticize the book, and call my roommate a dumbass for believing that nonsense.

Well, it turns out to be not that bad of a book. His "9/11 prediction" wasn't exactly how he hyped it. I was expecting the book to be about some whacko who is making this claim just so he can sell some books. It was actually about two soldiers, one American and one British, who meet and become instant friends. Their pursuit of adventure leads them both to military officer training and serving in Vietnam. Their lives get more interesting after the army, as one of them converts to Islam and voluntarily goes to Afghanistan just have the opportunity to fight against the Soviet Union.

Now about the "9/11 prediction", one of the guys in the book is given an assignment in his military officer training class to start World War III. He comes up with the idea to crash a cargo plane packed with explosives into the capitol building during the president's State of the Union address, effectively wiping out all of our nation's elected leaders. They also draw up similar scenarios to prepare for when one of them heads up a security team working in the World Trade Center. Not exactly a prediction, but more of speculation.


Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer - This book keeps with the current trend you may see of me reading books that are now made into movies. I have yet to see this film, though. It is rare that I actually read a book before going to see the film adaptation of the story.

Anyhow, I really enjoyed this book. Even though I feel I'm too smart(or too lazy) to be such a strong idealist, I still found the story somewhat inspiring. I'll probably never go to such extremes as to give up all of my possessions and vanish from mainstream society, but this book lets me know that I can. Much like Fight Club (another book/movie), this story has an anti-materialism theme. It makes me feel a sense of relief that if things don't work out the way I want it, I can just drive my car out west until I have to abandon it, light all of my cash on fire, and hitchhike to Alaska. Actually, I would try hitchhiking down south to Central America where it's a bit warmer. There also might be monkeys down there, which would be much more pleasant to encounter instead of giant grizzly bears up north.

*****

Currently reading: Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University by James J. Duderstadt

I like the idea of hockey

As mentioned in an earlier post, I enjoy reading the blog entitled Stuff White People Like. I find lots of eerie parallels with the items on their list and my own life. The one that inspired this post today was item #80: The Idea of Soccer. Except in my case, it would be hockey instead of soccer. I still think soccer is pretty lame and not even a trip overseas will change my mind. But let me explain why I like the idea of hockey and not just hockey by itself.

I grew up in rural North Dakota. We had a little outdoor skating rink in the winter, but no indoor facilities to play year round. As a kid, I'd goof around and play some pond hockey with friends after school in the winter. But we never had any official games, coaching, or suitable equipment. Even if we did have all of that, we would never have had enough kids to form a team.

In small schools, you barely have enough athletes to put together a solid basketball and wrestling team during the same season. These two sports dominate the winter in North Dakota small towns. If they started a hockey program at these schools, all three sports would see a decline in quality players. So I never was exposed to playing organized hockey. I played baseball, basketball, and football; three sports which I now watch and follow with an obsession today.

Not to say there's no hockey in North Dakota. There is. But it's only played at the larger Class A schools that we don't compete with in sports. And of course, there's UND college hockey. But I never really watched it on television because I didn't really know or understand the sport. The closest I got to watching hockey back then was when I'd play Blades of Steel on Nintendo (and later, Stanley Cup for the Super Nintendo).

These are the reasons why I never really liked hockey. Now on to how I grew to like the idea of hockey.

It started with my move to college in Minnesota, the self-proclaimed State of Hockey. I got a job working down at the Xcel Energy Center where the Minnesota Wild played. I started to see the loyal following that this sport has in the Twin Cities and feel the excitement.

This excitement was compounded when the Gophers won the NCAA championship in men's hockey my freshmen year. I watched the game, but mostly I was just chatting with friends while the TV was on and only looking at the screen when I would hear the foghorn blast after a goal was scored. After they won, my friend Elliot and I took to the streets of Dinkytown. We celebrated by singing the Rouser multiple times that night with drunken students while we constantly ran to avoid clouds of tear gas that the police were shooting at us. We finally found a good place to hang out and watch the chaos unfold while a female friend of ours would sneak into a frat house and bring us out drinks. This night ensured the idea of hockey would forever be held in the highest regard in my mind.

In the following years I would start to recognize Friday and Saturday nights in the winter as hockey nights. If I was hanging out with friends at my apartment, the TV was always on in the background with the Gophers game. I even check scores, standings, and schedules just so I can sprinkle "The Wild won last night," or "The Gophers got a big series with St. Cloud State this weekend" into my conversations. It makes me feel superior when I talk to my friends back at home who went to NDSU and didn't have a college hockey team. I even went as far to consider buying a U of M hockey jersey, and I still might do it.

Yet I really don't like hockey as much as the idea of it. I don't know if I'll ever really follow a hockey team the way I religiously read every news tidbit about basketball, football, and baseball teams. I can sit down and watch an entire game, but at the end not be able to give any type of insightful analysis of what I just saw. But I still like the idea of hockey, and maybe someday it will click with me. Until then, my biggest hope is that we win another championship with the Wild or Gophers so I can watch another riot.

So It Begins...

Last week, new plans for a football stadium to be built in Los Angeles were released. Coincidentally, the model prominently displays the color purple in the stadium seats. Before reading too much into that, know that the guy who is building it, billionaire Ed Roski, Jr., is also a part owner of the Lakers and Kings, both whom feature the color purple in their logos and uniforms.

But the obvious thought is that this will put pressure on the state of Minnesota to figure out their stadium situation soon. I assume this stadium is pretty much a done deal since it's privately funded and there won't be the hassle of going to the California state legislature for public money. The Vikings are also fixing to be out of the Metrodome by 2011. They'll either be playing in the Gophers' TCF Bank Stadium while a new Vikings stadium is being built in downtown Minneapolis, or they will be playing in a different city and state.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out for a number of reasons.

First, I am anxious to see what team will actually be relocating to Los Angeles. The article mentioned not only the Vikings, but the Chargers, Jaguars, and Saints as other potential suitors. All of these teams are located in smaller media markets with less than desirable stadiums. If the Vikings do leave the Twin Cities, it does not necessarily mark the end of NFL in our state. The Twin Cities area is the 15th largest television media market in the United States. San Diego is the 27th largest. Jacksonville is 49. New Orleans is 53. If the teams in these cities can't get new stadiums built, then they'll keep looking to relocate. The Twin Cites would now be the largest market without an NFL team, making it the most attractive option.

The second thing that I'm interested in seeing is how Vikings owner Zygi Wilf uses this to his advantage. Being located in the 2nd largest TV market would be attractive, but ultimately you can build a state-of-the-art new stadium anywhere in this country and it will sell out every Sunday. I think he'll use the new stadium in LA as leverage to pressure the state into funding a new stadium here in Minneapolis. If it works, then great. We'll be seeing a new football venue here. If not, then I wonder if he actually will make the move or if it was just a bluff. Or maybe another team will make the move to LA and destroy his leverage while he's still lobbying for a new stadium here.

Last, I wonder if Edward P. Roski, Jr.'s new stadium will signal the end of publicly financed sports venues. Will cities all over America collectively show some backbone and now point to Los Angeles when team owners are asking for public money to fund stadiums? I hope this is the case. While I love pro sports and going to games in shiny new ballparks, arenas, and stadiums; I still feel like there should be a better way of getting these places funded privately.

As it stands, the total cost of the proposed Vikings stadium is about $1 billion total. Zygi Wilf is opposed to the idea of a retractable roof, but the Metropolitan Sports Commission wants it because it will enable them to use the stadium for more than just football and bring events such as the Final Four or Superbowl back to Minnesota. The cost of the retractable roof is about $250 million, or a quarter of the total stadium cost. In a perfect world, the Metropolitan Sports Commission would fund the cost of the roof with public money, and Zygi would pay for the rest of the stadium.

I guess we'll see what happens. Like I said, it will be interesting.

Blogroll!

I've added a couple new links to my "Stuff I Like to Read" and I figured I'd go ahead and give my two faithful readers a rundown of what all of this nonsense is. Here we go!

AOL Fanhouse - This is pretty much where reading sports blogs began for me. Actually, I take that back. I started reading a blog by Dan Shanoff, who used to have a daily column called "The Daily Quickie" over at ESPN.com's Page 2. "The Daily Quickie" was a fun read because he just gave a quick line or two about every major sports story of the day. His blog gives him more freedom to expand on his thoughts, and I eventually became too irritated about some of his asinine opinions.

The good that came out of this is that he would link to a bunch of other blogs, including the AOL Fanhouse. The Fanhouse is a giant conglomerate of bloggers that cover just about every major sport. I don't even go to ESPN for sports news anymore, because these guys are on top of every major sport story and more.

Common Sense Has A Voice - This a leftist political blog written by my friend Josh "Swany" Swanson. He's a small town North Dakota guy like myself. He did work for the Ed Schultz talk radio show and is now in law school at Creighton. As you can imagine from a law student, he does pretty good research on the stuff he writes about and provides good insight. That doesn't stop him from posting the occassional fiery tirade every now and then.

Every Day Should Be Saturday - This blog is probably the most popular college football blog out there. This guy does more than just regurgitate the news. He adds a lot of different things to make his blog more about entertaining the readers. Notable, recurring posts include USC head coach Pete Carroll's Facebook page updates and Mustache Wednesdays.

EDSBS is also notorious for keeping track of what they call "The Fulmer Cup". This is a scored, offseason "competition" to see which football program can rack up the most points for players getting in trouble with the law. Currently, Missouri holds the lead.

Gopher Gold - This blog is run by the three reporters at the Star Tribune who cover Gopher sports. Unfortunately, Chip Scoggins and Myron Medcalf, the two guys who cover football and men's basketball, rarely post updates. When they do, it's usually just a preview of the article that is running in tomorrow's paper.

Roman Augustoviz, however, does an excellent job of covering men's hockey and often posts about wrestling, women's hockey, women's basketball, and other non-major sports at the U. If you want good, in-depth reporting on any of these sports, Roman is your guy. He updates constantly, too, with a new post almost every day.

Gopher Illustrated - This is the Rivals.com affiliate for Gopher sports. It mostly covers mostly recruiting and a lot of their articles and info require a subscription to access. I am one of those nerds who has a subscription. The guys running the site provide daily updates from recruits all across the country, and this isn't even their day job. It's a pretty interesting process to follow.

Idealism Never Goes Out of Fashion - One of the new links, this is a personal blog written by my friend Becca, who is currently studying in New Zealand. Her rants and muses vary in topic, ranging from party planning to the complexities of online shopping outside of the United States. Regardless of the topic, her posts are often quite detailed and written exactly how she speaks, which is sometimes hard to do well.

I'm o.k., I'm all write - This is another personal blog written by another personal friend, Elliot. Elliot and I were roommates one fateful semester at the U. We had some pretty good times, which included watching downloaded Simpsons episodes, drinking cheap vodka, and playing Star Wars: Dark Forces simultaneously on both the computer and Playstation. All good things must come to an end, and the gooder these things are, the quicker they end. That semester lead to me being put on probation due to poor grades and Elliot being suspended due to poor grades. These were dark times, my friends.

The sun came up the next day, though, and we're both doing fine. He's now happily married and back in school with on new focus on his passion of writing. His updates have been slower lately, but when he does post, he also has a good portion of devout readers for a personal blog. They usually have entertaining comments to keep checking during down times.

MinnPost - Another new link, this is an independent newspaper here in Minneapolis. The columnists seem to be pretty entertaining and insightful, but the thing I like most about this site is an article called "The Daily Glean". Similar to "The Daily Quickie" I mentioned earlier, this is a quick rundown of all the major local news stories of the day. It's almost like reading the transcript from a local news TV broadcast, except it contains links to the original stories so you can get more detail.

Paging Jim Shikenjanski - An oddly titled Gopher sports blog that mainly focuses on basketball (Jim Shikenjanski was a former Gopher basketball player; as to my knowledge, I don't believe Jim Shikenjanski is the author of this blog). This guy gives pretty solid analysis on basketball, but his posts on football are of the average talk radio blowhard variety. He's going to be ending his blog and starting up his own Gopher sports news site soon, so this should be pretty exciting.

Randball - Very entertaining sports blog and quite surprising for being affiliated with the Star-Tribune. Michael Rand just seems to spit out all of his thoughts straight through his fingers and onto the keyboard of his computer. This just seems the way that blogs should be written. Just un-edited thoughts spewed everywhere with no need to make anything look pretty.

Stuff White People Like - I never really understood "redneck humor" a la Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy. Sure, I grew up in a small rural town with people who may fit some of these jokes, but ultimately these comedians were simply making fun of white people who were poor and uneducated. It just came off as mean more than anything.

Along comes this humor blog to finally stick it to the upper-middle class white people. It's pretty damn amusing, and I find myself reading posts thinking either a) It's funny because it perfectly describes me, b) It's funny because it perfectly describes people I know, or c) It's funny because I was briefly offended and said, "Well, not all white people like that particular item," before realizing that that's what a stereotype is.

Sunday Morning Quarterback - While a lot of sports blogs just regurgitate news and try to add a funny quip or picture to compliment the story, this guy actually does some pretty hardcore statistical analysis. And it's pretty good, too. I've tried to run some of these stats to try and prove something else and then e-mail it to him, but he covers just about every base.

The Wizard of Odds - If you want every little tidbit of college football news from around the country, this is the place to go. This guy doesn't write a lot of original content, but he scours just about every major newspaper website for any article or column that's related to college football. I like to start my day off with this one.

TNABACG - The title of this blog used to be "The National Anthem Before a Cubs Game", but is now simply TNABACG with the appropriate tagline "Minnesota sports, poorly acronymed". The writer, Jon, used to be a columnist for the Minnesota Daily. His blog covers just about any Minnesota sports related news and is updated about three times a day.

I was once given a shout out on that blog because I shared an interesting article with him in the comments section. Unfortunately, I was to lazy to sign in with my blogger account and just gave the simple, mostly annonymous moniker, "Chris".

Curses! This could have drawn hundreds of new readers to my blog. Oh, well. I don't want to get too big too soon.

Twins Ballpark 2010 - The writer started this blog shortly after legislation was passed to fund the new Twins ballpark. He has posted on numerous subjects and relentlessly followed the process of getting this stadium designed and built. He showed up to public meetings and sent lots of feedback to Twins officials from himself and his readers. He came up with the idea of transplanting a flagpole from a local VFW in Richfield to the new stadium. What's the significance? That flagpole was originally the flagpole at the old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington before that venue was demolished to make way for the Mall of America. He communicated his idea to the right people and they liked it.

There haven't been too many updates recently, because not a whole lot is happening except for the actual construction. But if you find this sort of stuff interesting, I recommend going back and reading his first post and continue on to learn about the entire process. It's good reading.

*****

If you have ever wondered what kind of nonsense my brain is absorbing on a daily basis, that was it. I hope you find it enlightening.