Everyone these days has some sort of social network. I've seen radio station do quite well with the concept then pull it due to the costs. David Hasselhoff has HoffSpace. Teens and bands seem to congregate on MySpace so the next logical step was a place for ladies.
Not just any ladies, ladies who are more, um, open sexually. No, not whores, so to speak, but sluts. You know the type. Their skirt is too short, their tube top is too tight, they have completely skipped wearing a bra and they frequently stumble in to the office wearing exactly what they were wearing yesterday with their hair looking like a family of raccoons had taken up residence in it and she smells like a combination of cheap perfume, stale cigarette smoke and guilt. Yes, the Sluttus Americanus, or slut. The slut is no different than you or I. They have social networking needs too. They need to know which guy slips roofies in drinks. They need to share scantily clad photos of themselves. They need to network with fellow sluts to find out which guys say "But baby, it just feels better without a condom".
I proudly present you with the foundation for mysluts.com. After all, what is a website without a catchy logo that looks strangely like that of another website?
MinnPics needs your attention. Check out all the purty photos that are taken all over the great state of Minnesota.
Is it considered gluttony that I just ate half of a rotisserie chicken?
I don't consider myself a glutton but I do have a healthy appetite and I do love chicken. Chicken is one of those perfect foods. People love the wings (I don't). It tastes great baked, fried, grilled, smoked, roasted, stuffed or just about any way you can think of.
It tastes even better because is was a Gold 'n Plump chicken and it was on sale. Sort of.
Sure, I had to buy ten Knorr (formerly Lipton) rice and/or noodle pouches for a dollar each at Cub Foods but doing so saved me four bucks on that succulent little bird. Three and one-half pounds of Gold 'n Plump rotisserie cooked chicken plus ten Knorr rice and/or noodle pouches for thirteen dollars and change. It's one of those rare times I can brag about a deal at Cub Foods.
Hey, if you live in many "metro" areas of Minnesota, it's worth the trip to Cub Foods this week and it's damn tasty. I'm off to clean the bones on that little bird.
If you like even more things Minnesota, check out MinnPics. It's got tons of fresh photos just unearthed today!
Holding true to last year's summertheme of productswhichshouldn'thave been (and thankfully aren't) I present you with company logos which are just screaming for some creative tweaking.
I'm not the first to do this to logos because I've seen some rather crude rip-offs where foreign companies change one letter and call it good. Maybe these "companies" I've created actually exist. I didn't exactly do a ton of research and feel free to take this logo and the others I have performed my own little hatchet job on and build a damn empire. Go crazy, make millions. Just remember who gave you these killer ideas.
Think of the possibilities for BoobTube. Fully clothed, topless or somewhere in between. I'm thinking a special section on this user-created video website for chest-focused mud wrestling ladies. Now BoobTube doesn't have to be an "adult" website, in fact it would have a broader appeal as a fully clothed site. BoobTube is whatever you like it to be in the end and if I have offended anyone, meh.
Remember to check out MinnPics for the latest on happenings, sites and scenes from the most kick-ass photogs in Minnesota.
Furlough, it's a fancied-up word for unpaid time off. Before this year I'd only heard it used with military personnel. Maybe that makes me a member of the military. Okay, probably not. Whatever the case, my employer issued a memo about our mandatory week-long furloughs. Every employee, even managers, will be taking a week of unpaid time off. In the short run it saves money on staffing. It also, however, takes valuable revenue-generating folks off their beats and while their number obviously aren't that impressive lately, every dollar still goes toward that all-important bottom line.
I am glad that it's not just the "worker bees" taking this latest hit due to the circumstances around us but I also have to wonder how many more times this will happen this year and next year and the year after that? How long will it be until companies realize that most everyone is running negative numbers and that your employees are your most valuable resource? How long can even somewhat financially set "worker bees" take hits like this and continue to keep their heads above water. Do minimal cuts like these do more harm than good for the economy? Do they do more harm than good for the very companies making these hard, bottom-line decisions?
I'm happy to still have a job but I often wonder, even while trying to be optimistic as the stock markets begins to rebound and home sales start to improve, how long I will count myself among the ranks of the employed.
I was never a fan of the '80s. Technically speaking, I grew up in the '90s, I was born in the '70s but spent the entire decade of the 1980s in elementary school and napping. I used to love naps.
Whatever the case, I wasn't really "in to" music in the '80s and I missed out on some truly awesome stuff. The Replacements had their hey-day during the 1980s and that was the best decade for music right here in the Twin Cities. Sure the '90s brought about the killer radio stations like KJ104 and Rev 105 that exposed the lucky ones to much of the '80s and early-'90s music but the great bands I missed out on still live today thanks to the internet.
You'd have to hate all things music to not like this '80s gem, "Anything, Anything", from Dramarama. Truly one-hit wonders by every definition but this is one of those tunes that laid the foundation for alot of bands. Check it out and share your thoughts.
Floods are ravaging the Red River Valley on the border of Minnesota and North Dakota. Check out MinnPics to see what people are doing to save their cities.
All because I saw a dead skunk on the way home last week and I don't have time to elaborate on it so talk it over amongst yourselves. I want a definitive answer by Monday.
Have you scoped out MinnPics lately? Really? You haven't? You should. It, like the rest of Minnesota, will be taking on hues of Spring in the coming weeks.
If you like food (and let's face it, we all need food) and like something that at least appears healthy, check out the deal I found at Target.
Select varieties of Quaker granola bars (chewy, etc.) are on sale for a mere $2.00 per 10 pk. box. If you buy five boxes (and ten bucks for fifty healthy snacks is a relative bargain these days) you get a $5.00 Target gift card at the register for future use.
Thanks to that bargain, I now have 50 tasty Quaker chewy granola bars in my cupboard that I may or may not share with my old lady. And I essentially paid a dime a piece. Not a bad deal. Thanks Target for having sale prices that nearly beat your house brands (the Market Pantry granola bars were $1.84/box).
On Monday I grilled. On our perfect 67 degree Monday, I grilled. The last time my gas grill saw the light of day was late October. Since that time it had been stored away in front of the lawnmower and next to the smoker in the utility shed attached to the garage. It's been a long 4 1/2 months. It seemed longer but after buying a huge family size package of ground beef (what size family needs 6 lbs.?) and knowing that Monday's weather was going to be the kind of early spring warmth that gives teenage boys erections in anticipation of swimsuit season, I saved one pound of ground chuck for the upcoming glorious Monday afternoon.
After speeding home, my nipples tingling in anticipation of the grand event, I pulled the grill from the garage and put it in its proper place on the patio and lit that bad boy.
Welcome to flavor country. These 1/2 lb. beauties that look like a Wendy's burger on steroids borrowed from Barry Bonds were nothing short of delicious. Grilled hamburgers, one of the many summertime treats I've missed. Welcome back spring, welcome back!
Spring is just around the corner for MinnPics as well. Check back frequently to see the seasons change in Minnesota.
The only story I clicked on the local bankrupt newspaper website happened to be about the husband of a woman I used to work with. I had never met her husband but she often told tales of his job as a grave digger. She had some hippie-esque qualities and I knew that her husband was Irish. Upon seeing his photo and quickly reading through the story of the southern Minnesota Leprechaun-looking guy whose job is making the final resting place for dozens of rural Minnesotans in my old neck of the woods each year I felt a connection.
Tom Donnelly digs graves in the countryside between Austin and Albert Lea in and near towns like Clarks Grove, Blooming Prairie and Hayward. I could go on with listing the small towns where he digs graves in the blazing sun or numbing cold. This is the sort of personal storytelling that newspapers need. It's not a happy-clappy type of story but it focuses on a rather unique job and connects that job to a unique person and it's timely based on today being St. Patrick's Day.
Check out MinnPics and see what local St. Patrick's Day festivities looked like through the lens.
With all the news about firings, layroof and shutdowns in the business world, it's hard to crack a smile on some days. Sure, the stock market has been on an upwards trend for a week straight but even a prolonged upward climb will take weeks, even months, to translate to actual improvement.
It's easy to fall into a funk. We know that the bad news never seems to end because it's alla round us. But what if we, as a society, began to focus on the positives and simply think positively. We ourselves are all at least partially to blame for this complete economic clusterfuck. Millions of Americans looked to make a quick buck in real estate because it had been climbing at unheard of paces for many years. What those same people failed to realize is that it was just one huge bubble. We spent wildly for the last decade or more, forgetting lessons learned in the 80s and 90s. Even those who invested did so expecting double digit returns every year. When the market corrected, investors reacted wildly. Many pulled money from companies they had invested in and expected those huge returns from leaving those companies extremely strapped for capital.
I don't pretend to know anything about the economy but an interesting topic was on the news last week. It boiled down to the power of positive thinking. Yeah, nothing gets better without action but thinking positively surely can't hurt anything, can it?
So maybe it's time to look again at your bullet-riddled 401(k) and take a percentage of what's left, move that cash from those ultra safe investments such as bonds and put it back into actual companies that show some positive potential. If enough people start doing this and have some faith (along with the belief that the billions of so-called stimulus/recovery money will be properly used) there could very well be jobs being created by year's end. If we focus on the good while not ignoring the bad, a lasting economic recovery may be here sooner than we expected.
It's all about cautious optimism.
I'm optimistic, too, that with spring just around the corner, MinnPics will experience a true rebirth full of vibrant, colorful photographs from across the great state of Minnesota.
With my body-wracking cold lessening, I decided that cooking was for suckers and ventured out to Arby's this weekend. I know how to treat myself to a tasty delight and the coupon for a free, much-touted Arby's Roastburger seemed to be calling my name.
The combinatiuon promised true deliciousness. Tasty, thin-sliced roast beef, bacon and hamburger fixings all on a tasty bun far different from those that a standard roast beef sandwich usually comes on.
However, much like My Network TV, the Arby's Roastburger failed to live up to its self-created hype. Oh sure, it had some shredded lettuce and a tomato slice on it but the roast beef which is normally juicy and tender seemed to be greasy. Yes, greasy just like the commercials had promised is wouldn't be because it's ROAST beef. Not fried, roast(ed). Then there was the bacon. Two seriously shriveled strips of bacon fit for that tiny farmer on those Burger King micro-mini breakfast sandwich commercials but so small that I barely noticed they were perched atop my free sandwich.
There could be a number of reasons for this subpar sandwich. Maybe the 16 year old assembling my free sandwich was new to the Arby's game. Maybe they knew my sandwich was free and made it both sloppily and hastily because, well, it was free. Or maybe I've hit that age when even fast food that presents itself as classy and even not fast food is not fit for my oh-so sophisticated pallette.
My dreams have been becoming increasingly bizarre. Just the other night I had a dream in which I had a falling out with a friend who said to everyone but me that I had said some very hurtful things. In typical fashion, I confronted this person and simply stated that if you have a problem with me, say it directly to me because that's how things get taken care of. If the root of the supposed problem isn't aware of the supposed problem, a resolution to the supposed problem isn't exactly easy. It's the whole avoiding confrontation thing but I digress.
I can't remember the last time I had a vivid dream but this one seemed extremely real. It seemed so real, in fact, that I screamed in my dream. That part of the dream seemed so real to me that I woke up around 4 AM convinced that I had actually screamed in my sleep. I'm not talking about a muttered mumble but a full-out anger-filled scream because, sadly, it's what I do.
I even considered askign my old lady if I had screamed in the middle of the night. It bothered me so much. It wasn't so much about the dream any more but whether or not I had actually screamed aloud. I figured if I had actually screamed my old lady would have definitely let me know about it, endlessly prodded me about the scream and then proceeded to mock me endlessly about how crazy I'm becoming.
But she said nothing so I said nothing. It just makes life easier that way.
MinnPics is where the last shreds of my sanity are used. Awesome photos from all over Minnesota from people who are surely more sane than me.
As promised a few days back, new(ish) photos of The Youngling. Face and feet. Of course she is currently losing hair (trying to keep up with dad) but I've been reassured that the hair will grow back as soon as the growth of her head slows some.
And while I've been busy, I haven't been too busy to update MinnPics whose archives grew massively today. Check out the wealth of fantastic new photos.
I came to this not-so-brilliant realization last Thursday before I fell asleep shortly after 9 PM while watching Twister on TBS. The tornado movie is a highly underserved cinema genre. We've had dozens of movies about vampires (the recent Twilight movie comes to mind) and movies about storms in general such as the rather shitty The Day after Tomorrow and one from the 90s about a shit-ton of rain but in 15-plus years we haven't had another tornado movie.
Oh, sure, Sci-Fi had the less-than-brilliant Atmoic Twister starring Zak from Saved by the Bell. I don't even need to explain the ridiculous premise for that flick. It sucked because it seemed to unfold in real time and anyone from Canada to Texas knows that tornados do not take two hours to strike. You may have twenty minutes but nobody knows for sure if it wil or won't strike the area's nuclear power plant. The whole movie was flawed but because it was winter in Minnesota and it was Sunday, I sat through the whole damn thing a couple weekends ago. Rather than change the channel, I had to watch. I felt compelled to see how truly terrible Atomic Twister was going to be and you know what, I wasn't let down. It was truly an abortion on the small screen. But it set the wheels in motion for my realization that we need more tornado movies. Whether they be absurd, comical, dramatic or pornographic in nature it's a weather phenomenon who's time has come.
Minnesota's storm season is just around the corner and MinnPics had cool storm photos last year and there will be new ones this year too!
Outside of witnessing what can only be termed as a poop fountain on Monday evening, there isn't a whole lot to report on the growth, development and heppenings on the youngling. She hasn't done a repeat performance of the roll but hasn't begun sprouting teeth either.
She did, however, have a grand case of armpit funk which we discovered while wrangling her into the pajamas. That smell could best be described as being closest to either ball sweat or a rotting corpse.
My parents, aka grandma and grandpa sornie visited last weekend and grandma seems awful nervous about holding the youngling. Grandpa, on the other hand, will hold her for an hour at a time and made more weird faces and sounds at her than I've witnessed in my entire lifetime.
And yes I'll get some photos posted soon. Either here or at MinnPics which needs a break from winter photography.
Being that Lazy Lightning featured the Rosemount/Apple Valley/No-Man's-Land-south-of-Eagan-and-east-of-Burnsville version of a Sun Newspapers video report (which is better than this one), I thought I'd unearth one from the other side of the metro. This version from E.P. shows an unblinking journalist who has no business being in front of a camera. I'm sure he's a very capable print journalist but that doesn't always translate to other mediums. Relax and have some fun with it and I'll check things out again in a couple months.
At least Sun News is keeping their video short but some personality and blinking rather than staring would help. In short, the length of the video is great and if some personality (a la StribTV) was interjected you might garner some additional views.
Ahh, much better.
Now that I've criticized a local media outlet, check out MinnPics and feel free to constructively criticize its format but heap praise on the photos because the photographers behind them are fabulous.
I've never been a beer connoiseur. I've always just drank whatever domestic piss was put in front of me. I'm not fancy nor choosy. I let my tastebuds and my wallet fight it out and decide who will win this battle.
In recent years, though, my tastebuds have been more adventurous. Sure, I still favor domestic brews but I've gotten away from the mass produced dreck that is heavily advertised during football games and NASCAR races. That stuff is fine if you plan on getting shitfaced in your garage while you tune up the lawnmower but a more sophisticated beer swilling lush demands a more sophisticated brew.
Last summer marked my full-on foray into beer experimentation. After our February trip to Hawaii and sampling more beer than I though one island could produce at the Kona Brewing Company, I knew that the discovery of beer was my destiny.
I already had a strong foothold in the Minnesota beer category with the Schell's brewery in New Ulm after a tour and sampling there the previous year so I began buying the brews that sounded best. I snapped up random six-packs of Schell's and Leinenkugel's through the summer months and quickly realized that having enough time each day to relax with merely one bottle of beer was tough. This experiment fizzled out by early September.
Now, though, I am reinvigorated and bored to death with winter. Sure, I am running on less sleep, doing more and have even less free time but that makes the desire for one bottle of beer each day consumed on my patio even more important. I've studied up on the local brews reviewed over the past year and my first sample which I will strategically start around my birthday in late April will be Lakemaid beer. It's described (basically) as light and refreshing and I'm all about supporting all things local - especially when it comes to beer.
The big question is where to find good Minnesota/local brews in the suburbs. What are some faves I should try?
