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Reshelving 1984 - Borders,
originally uploaded by Jay B.

This morning MPR did a piece on the Ministry of Reshelving, which is relocating copies of George Orwell’s 1984 to non-fiction sections in bookstores.

Photos, tactics as well as bookmarks and reshelving signs are all available on the Flickr group for the Ministry of Reshelving.

Anyone interested in forming a local cell of the Ministry of Reshelving?

This Saturday (August 20th)
Doors at midnight
At the Southern Theater
Admission: $5
All ages

I’ve only been to Balls once before. I don’t remember a whole lot about it, but I remember liking it. I particularly enjoyed Ari Hoptman, who is on tap for this very special show (although I think he’s pretty much always there).

Plus it’s just fun to say.

“What are you doing tonight?”
“Going to Balls.”

(via)

There’s a way cool event going on at Bell Auditorium at the U of M this Saturday. MN Film Arts is hosting Bike-In at the Bell, a film and music festival celebrating bicycling. It’s from 7 to dusk on the U of M campus and in case of rain, it’ll take place inside.

Bike on!

Minneapolis Elections: find your precinct, whos running etc.

I googled the mayors race:
dflers.org
mndaily.com
strib.com
daily kos
mndemsexposed.com

I was just notified this evening that in Minneapolis’ system of government, the mayor isn’t all that powerful. . . where we should really do our research is in our city council candidates. Is this true? I have no idea. . . but I’ll try to be a responsible voter and find out.

I went to see The Skeleton Key last night. It was a pretty decent movie. The more unfortunate thing was the theater I attended the movie in.

The Marcus Oakdale cinema is now on my list of worst movie theaters ever. They have just built this “Ultra Screen” at their theater. It is large, but no bigger than the large theater in the Carmike Cinemas. The thing that really got me about it was they were charging 50 cents more PER TICKET to see a show on the ultra screen. How frickin’ ridiculous is that? It only gets better from there. I went up to the conssesions counter to buy a soda. They were having a heck of a time getting some credit cards to work. The guy in front of me was telling the girl behind the counter to keep running it. It wasn’t working. After about four or five tries, he gave up and walked away, sanse pop. I ordered my beverage. This is the response I got. “Can I use the cup from that guy? It had the same pop in it…” I said yes because I had waited in line for awhile just to get my soda. It wasn’t turned upside down on the counter or anything. “Good,” she says “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it.” “How about throw it away!!” I raised my voice at her. She didn’t get it. I took my pop and walked into the theater. Nice place, smelled like new. REALLY smelled like new. Almost too much like new. We took our seats and immediately wanted to leave. The seats were high backed stadium style seats, but the backs were VERY stiff. They didn’t recline right. So you really had to push on them to get them to recline or be forced to sit in a posture freak position. I scrunched down and wedged my legs behind the vacant seat in fron of me and tried to get comfy. Once the movie started, I was a bit more happy. The picture and sound were quite good. Too bad the rest of the experience soured me into ever coming back to the theater.

DON’T go to this theater. I can recommend others that are close by that are much better. You know they are just trying to recoup some of there loss at building the theater. Why can’t businesses just wait until they can afford something to build it? I hate corporations sometimes…

List of Minneapolis wifi spots. Are their better lists out there?

I like to support local businesses when I can, but one of them has just been blacklisted.

Fin, Fur, and Feather in Robbinsdale won’t be getting any of my money anytime soon. I was drawn to them by their vast array of parrots and bird supplies, as we just adopted a lovebird, and it’s nice to visit the big parrots occasionally. Today I happened to venture farther into the store, and I was absolutely shocked.
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Or rather, the Cirque is coming. A new billboard went up on the 6th St side of Block E this week, advertising the arrival of Corteo, Cirque du Soleil’s new traveling show. Normally, I dislike billboards of any kind, but this one is pretty cool, with its handdrawn art, of a very minimalist style. Just from the face of it, you wouldn’t think the show is all that exciting, with some doodles of tumblers, an acrobat and a juggler. But since it’s Cirque du Soleil, it’s gonna be an incredible show. I’ve only seen them on video, having not paid to go see any of the other tours they’ve done here. I also haven’t seen any of their fixed shows in Orlando or Las Vegas. I think this year will be the year that I’ll splurge and experience it live.

Of course, maybe I just have the Fringe Festival going through my blood right now, and I’m all excited for anything live. Still today and tomorrow left for the Fringe. The schedule is at their website, and you can still fit in and least 6 or 7 shows before the weekend is over.

So, I’m reading along to JasonT’s Lessons in Bicycling. As usual, I gloss over the Google ads, but this time I did a double-take:

Fishy what? Sometimes the ads are amusing, but that’s just nasty.

Okay, time for the next lesson. Is everybody ready? Good.

In Loring Park, there are several paved paths. The ones nearest the ponds are the walking paths. The ones farther away from the ponds, with the green dashes painted on them are the BICYCLE PATHS! Please do not walk slowly in them, particularly not two abreast. And if you do, please do not get pissed off when bicycles speed past you, the rider directing an off-colour epithet at your person.

Last night, biking through Loring Park, on the bike path, three sets of people were having a pleasant stroll on that path. Not on the walking path, a mere 10 yards away. And a couple of them looked rather old, frail, and a little slow-moving. May I suggest that walking on the bike path is really not that much different than walking on the street? It’s not that bad around the lakes in Uptown, but for some reason, Loring is a different story. I’m not sure why.