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We asked; they listened.,
originally uploaded by Lexinatrix.

Remember how when the 394 toll road came into effect and the traffic flowed freely on the busy eastbound side, but came to a grinding halt on the lighter westbound side?

After numerous driver complaints, MNDOT decided last week to open the westbound toll lane from 5AM to 2PM and the eastbound toll lane from 1PM to 5AM to lighten the load.

So, here’s a shot of my commute westbound this morning, as it should appear: free-flowing.

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Lucky’s Garage,
originally uploaded by Lexinatrix.

The new name in custom motorcycles in Minneapolis is Lucky’s Garage. Lucky’s started out on Washington Ave, and now has this location in S. Minneapolis near Whiskey Junction/The Cabooze/The Joint and spitting distance from the Triple Rock Social Club.

The owner of Lucky’s used to work with the owner of the EasyRiders franchise, which stood just across the street from this Lucky’s location. They had an ugly falling out a couple years ago, and thus Lucky’s was born with the excellent business model of realizing a personal vendetta and putting EasyRiders out of business.

Lucky’s landed the lucrative Bourget Bike Works contract, which set them apart from the relatively uninspired American Iron Horse deal that EasyRiders had.

Recently, the EasyRiders parent company decided to dump all their franchises, and return to their roots of magazine publishing. EasyRiders was clearly struggling to maintain its foothold without the EasyRiders name and backing as well as facing fierce competition from Lucky’s.

Yesterday I cruised by and saw the empty garage of EasyRiders, and the semi trucks loading up the goods. It was a little sad — and end of an era of sorts — and Lucky’s just didn’t have the same feel. Well, the one obvious similarity was that I was ignored just as much in Lucky’s as I was at EasyRiders. I’ve come to expect that as a female biker, but it would be nice to be surprised once in awhile.

Misplaced Music is a local internet radio station w/ some cool live programming, local and other good music. They have something almost every day of the week.

I am not, cannot, and will not be a good resource for what’s going on around town on a daily basis. So if you want a good spot to get the scoop on what’s going down and what everybody’s talking about, I strongly recommend you check out MNSpeak.com. It’s run by Rex Sorgatz of Fimoculous and Chuck Olsen of Blogumentary.

In Rex’s own words:

It’s a few things, yet it’s also something very simple: a one-site stop for Twin Cities conversations about culture, media, politics, and entertainment. MNspeak.com’s primary function is to answer these two questions:

1) What are people in the Twin Cities talking about today?

2) What is going on around town tonight?

There’s lots to see at MNSpeak, so polk around a bit. There are daily posts, blog-style (and if you’re not so much into the regular visiting and/or RSS feeds, there’s an email newsletter). There’s the daily calendar. There’s a local blog and media aggregator. And snark. I likes the snark.

Is anyone else really excited about “Little Shop of Horrors”? It is coming soon to our very own city and I, for one, can’t wait to see it. The role of Semore has always been one of my dream roles. I also really ejoyed the movie directed by Frank Oz. It was funny and well done. Sorry, got off track.

So who wants to go with me? I haven’t found anyone who was as excited as I was about it. The dates are as follows:

July 19th through the 24th
Tickets are $63 and less

Sounds pricy, I know. But consider the fact that they have to animate and move around a huge plant puppet from city to city. I wanna pay just to see that :)

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Storm Front,
originally uploaded by Lexinatrix.

I took this photo with my cameraphone while I was on 394 heading west yesterday afternoon. The rain came sweeping in and drenched everything for the rest of the afternoon.

Today it’s 80^o and sunny. Further proof that if you don’t like the Twin Cities weather, just wait and it will change.

Just got back from Grand Old Day. Fun, as always. Crowded, as always. Lots of eye candy, as always. I know a lot of people steer clear of it because of the crowds, but I think it’s a fun, casual event, with no major goal other than to get people out of their houses and spending time in the great, or rather Grand outdoors.

I biked over to St. Paul, stopping at the Quatrefoil Library to return a book, so I biked down Macalester Avenue to get to Grand. That’s where the Teen Battle of the Bands stage was set up. I got there in time to hear a band called Luminus, who were actually really good. As I approached, I couldn’t tell what the stage was, and to me it sounded like some good hard rock ’70s band. Turns out it was some curly moptops who were born in the REALLY late ’80s. But they were really good.

After they finished, I went the rest of the way along Grand over to Dixies to see Har Mar Superstar. He was good, although the sound wasn’t that great, and it started raining pretty hard during the concert. Good thing we didn’t pay the five bucks to get wristbands, as there would’ve been no shelter from the rain there. I’ll have to see him some other time.

I walked downtown today and on the way, I wandered through Stevens Square Park, where I could see a bunch of tents from the distance. Wondering what was going on practically right in my neighbourhood, I stopped by and found a little community art festival! Red Hot Art started four years ago, apparently, and it’s going strong. The art appears to be a lot more community based then some of the other art fairs around town, like the Edina Art Fair, and even the Uptown Art Fair. It’s a lot more like a miniature version of the Powderhorn Park Art Fair, but even more locally defined. If you get a chance, check it out. It runs tonight until 7, and tomorrow until five.

Great. I found a flier in my door this morning from the Minneapolis Police stating the a LEVEL III SEX OFFENDER will be residing in my neighborhood. I didn’t think much of it until I read: “Level 3 Offenders are most likely of all risk groups to re-offend”. So, I did a little research and found out that MN has a list of Level Three Predatory Offenders who they have no idea where they reside. Interesting.

Also, this would probably be an appropriate time to point out Saint Pauls “weekly john list”- also known as the Prostitution Arrest Photos. Where, exactly, in the east side does all of this go down? They used to call it ‘Frogtown’ but I guess somebody complained.

There’s a grey Metro Transit bus driving around Minneapolis. It’s completely grey, including the windows, and the bike rack on front. No advertising. No markings. I’m sure it’s part of a two-step advertising campaign, kind of like the billboards that said “Ugly kids” with a picture of some funny looking kids on it and then a week or so later, it turned out to be an advertisement for KDWB DJs.

It looks weird, though, to see this matte grey bus driving around. There’s just something….odd about it. Gives me the willies.