The latest issue of Texas Monthly has an interview with the former owner of the Vikings, Red McCombs. Since most of you don’t read Texas Monthly and it’s not available online, I’ll pass on the bizarre highlights.
On Randy Moss: “Randy Moss was a pure delight. Frankly if I had ten Randy Mosses, I’d love it… He’s a down-to-earth, solid, caring person. I loved having Randy Moss every season.”
On selling the Vikes: “I inherited an onerous stadium lease, and I couldn’t create any traction to get a new stadium done.”
On being a co-owner of Clear Channel and why people hate the evil company: “Because we’re so much better than everybody else in that business. And most of the criticism comes from our competitors, not our customers… We wake up every day and turn on a microphone that talks to about half the people in the United States.”

In the course of my usual stumbling around the internet this evening, I came across an interesting site: Opentopia.com. It’s a site that seems to compile live camera feeds from around the world. (Don’t worry, everything I’ve seen on it is safe for work!).

You can search for local cams, most of them are cameras on college campuses. I found two that were somewhat interesting.

One is a live camera from Duluth, showing the lift bridge. The other is a live camera from the St. Paul Curling Club. I’ve been watching this one for a few minutes now, I don’t really understand the “sport” of Curling, A heavy rock and brooms on ice??? Maybe I’ll grab a few beers and watch this instead of the Vikings next Sunday. I’ll probably feel better afterwards!

Back in school, the promise of free food would guarantee a showing of students at an event, even if they weren’t actually interested in the event itself. Seems the trend these days for grownups is to combine your activity with beer.

From The Current:

The Current, The Citizens League, and The Onion are presenting another Policy and a Pint, this time at the Varsity Theater in Dinkytown on Monday, October 24. Our topic is “Community and Catastrophe: Building the Best While Preparing for the Worst” and our guests are Greater Twin Cities United Way President and CEO Lauren Segal and Al Bataglia, Minnesota’s Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Steve Seel will host and moderate the conversation. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., and the program starts at 6:30.

From The Citizens League:

We saw what happens when disaster preparation and response fails — but how should it really work? In addition, what is government responsible for in this equation? How about the voluntary sector, businesses, and citizens? What can you do, and what can communities like the Twin Cities do to prepare and respond in a way that ensures maximum safety, service and dignity for all of our citizens. Join leadership from Greater Twin Cities United Way for an interactive and relevant conversation on what disaster preparedness and recovery means for us.

Tickets are $10 and include appetizers.

This is the first I’ve heard of Policy and a Pint, but apparently not the first time one of these events has occurred. Anybody been to one?

I completely forgot to post something about the St. Paul Art Crawl last week until it was too late.

For those of you who don’t venture into the East Metro too often, it’s an open tour of all 160 artist studios and galleries in the Lowertown/Downtown area. Lots of stairs but some unbelievable artwork coming from this part of town, plus it’s fun to see the lofts where the artists live. My favorites this tour included Kara Hendershot, DeAnne Parks and Teresa Cox. Next St. Paul Art Crawl is April 21st & 22nd, 2006.

Nate’s entry about art house films reminded me that I’ve been crazy busy lately, and haven’t had any time for moviegoing. I get emailed with what’s playing at the Riverview and at Oak Street, but I never seem to get there.

So, what’s worth seeing, since I’m short on time?

Being a graduate of Bethel University, a conservative Evangelical school, I am always interested to see how the school is perceived by the outside and how the secular world is seen from the inside. Lavender Magazine published an anonymous letter from a current Bethel student who is gay. It’ll be interesting to see what type of controversy this will stir up at a school where it’s against the rules to be gay (although I knew several gay students when I went there). The controversy most likely would come from the students, who are typically far more conservative than the professors and some of the administration.

I got a ticket today! No, not a speeding ticket. (I always get out of those.) No, not a parking ticket. (I’ve learned my lesson about those at work.) It was a ticket for having expired tabs! Doh! Except wait! I mailed my check for those over a month ago! In fact! Yes! It was August 24th to be exact. What’s the date today? October 17th? And I still haven’t received my tabs????!!! Something is rotten in the state of Minnesota.
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I went to see Mirrormask tonight with JasonT. What an amazing movie. It was truly one of the most visually arresting movies I have seen in a long time. So much imagination went into that and it was a blessing to see. I only wish it wasn’t playing at the Lagoon.
I am not opposed to “art house” films. As a matter of fact, I wish I went to see more of them. I catch the random film here and there when it plays at Southdale, but I have a hard time seeing one in the theaters that currently play these types of films in the TC. There are only a few theaters that take the time to play cinema that is a little of the main stream. Most of them are not very good. In fact, the Lagoon is one of my least favorite theaters in the TC. I haven’t had a really great experience there. Something always seems wrong with the movie. First off, the seats are not very comfortable. The sound is never very good. Case and point, the movie tonight was hard to hear the dialog in whenever music was playing. They had blown their speakers and I guess have decided to not do anything about it. Also, the picture quality is often far from crystal clear.
Why would you charge more than most other theaters and expect people to pay for it when your theater is crap? Hopefully, not all is lost. There is plans for a brand new building to be built housing a completely redesigned Lagoon Theater. It would have state of the art sound, picture, and finally have stadium seating. I can’t wait!! I can finally know that my movie going experience is going to be a pleasant one. Here’s to hoping…

Paul posted the other day about playing the lottery and the super-huge-mega jackpot right now. I don’t do it often, but when the jackpot has risen to these heights before, I’ve bought myself tickets. It’s for a serious cause, though.
I was driving past the Baltimore Aquarium with my fiancee (we’re getting married in Pennsylvania) and I asked her, “can we get married in one of the fish tanks in the Baltimore Aquarium?”
“No,” she said.
“Why not?”
“It’d be expensive,” she said.
“Can we get married in one of the tanks if I win the lottery?”
“Yes, but not in one of the shark tanks.”
And so, I’m not playing the lottery for some off chance or fleeting hope. I seriously want to get married in a huge underwater tank with scuba tuxedos and everything. Is that too much to ask?
By the way, I lost over the weekend.

I’ve been seeing someone new lately, who just moved to the TC from North Dakota. He has a car, so he’s been driving over to my place, and he drove us down to Bloomington to a party last night as well. However, he doesn’t really know how to get pretty much any place else. What with being so familiar with the city myself, and with most of my friends living here for so long, it’s odd telling someone to meet me in Uptown and they have no idea how to get there.

I’m something of a cartophile (if that’s a word–just looked it up, I guess it is, a lover of maps), so on my recent trip to Europe, for each city I was in, I made sure to get a map. I loved looking at them and was the navigator just about wherever we went. I think I’m going to have to take the new guy on a tour of Minneapolis, driving from his place to several destinations, so he knows the major landmarks. That, or Mapquest is going to become one his most visited websites.