I guess I’m closer to the 35W bridge than I thought. Last week, I was woken up by an odd low throbbing coming from somewhere, and as I moved towards wakefulness, I thought to myself, “Who is playing that much bass this early? And it doesn’t even have a rhythm!”

That bass is back tonight, and it suddenly hit me that it must be construction on the bridge. As the crow flies, I’m about a mile away, close enough for the vibrations to provide just that little bit of discomfort that you hardly realize is there (making you just the ever slightest bit nauseous).

At least they’re ahead of schedule, so this should pass quickly.

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Twin Cities Shyness & Social Anxiety Meetup Group, the support group for people who suffer from shyness or social anxiety, holds their next meeting on July 25 at an undisclosed location known only to members.

From the Meetup page:

Our primary goal is to provide a safe, supportive environment where members, like you, may share similar thoughts, emotions, experiences and resources.

Here, we provide monthly social outings (community events, restaurants, movies, museums, amusement parks, etc?). With these resources, we hope that you will be able to increase your comfort zone and expand your social network in a calm, comfortable, controlled environment.

I’m fascinated that the Web has enabled shy and socially anxious people to find each other and then HOLD EVENTS IN PUBLIC WHERE THEY MEET NEW PEOPLE.

I would like to give the Internet a high-five right now. Well done, series of tubes. Well done.

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I think this is awesome. I even sort of know one of the women on the list! I think that makes me pretty cool.

As you may remember, I’m related to a Minneapolis/St. Paul businesswoman, and quite proud of the fact (as long as she stays out of my internet). It hasn’t been until I went to college that I really fully understood that yes, there really is still a glass ceiling, even though women are often waaaaaay more competent than me(n). I’m no self-hating male or militant feminist, but it’s still important to showcase the achievements of women, especially in the dark corners of the Boys’ Clubs that read the MSP Business Journal and other stodgy male-ocracy trade rags.

(Note: the sarcastic smartass in me wants to tag this as “gossip and rumor” and “housekeeping” because it’s a post about women, but I won’t, because this is about giving da ladiez their props. And most people still get offended by those sorts of things. So I won’t.)

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Islands @ First Ave - 6.3.08

It’s the weekend I’m ready to rock and/or roll.

I didn’t buy any new music this week, but I did attempt to buy  The Roots latest Rising Down while at Borders, but they were out of stock.

What do you know about the pictured band, Islands?

I hear they are pretty good, but have yet to actually hear the music. I still lament the loss of The Unicorns.

What’s in your shuffle?

Photo originally uploaded on June 7, 2008
by Tim Carlson MPLS

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Beer and bikes?

Yes please.

I’ve been following the PedalPub story on my blog for awhile now and I’m pleased to say it’s finally a reality.

“The PedalPub concept came from Amsterdam, where passengers have always been able to drink on board (and that’s probably not the only thing they’re doing). But in Minnesota, the PedalPub ran into the state’s open-bottle law. ”

Thankfully, the DFL is an army of drunks (I kid) and Rep. Steve Simon from St. Louis Park (we all know how much drinking goes on in that city - Remember, I said I kid. ) drafted a bill to have the PedalPub grouped with limos and buses. Well that sweet bill became a law in May. I believe the term is puff, puff, pass the legislation.

I say let’s ride this 2000 pound peddle powered keg to glory!

Who’s in?

(Original Photo by Tom Wallace, Star Tribune )

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Someone who didn’t like the Red Bull Illume exhibit felt compelled to make a statement.

Photo courtesy of Corporate Babysitter.

Dialing that phone number — (612) 230-6400 — gets you to the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board.

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This is Why I Love Minneapolis: “New initiatives (for people smarter than me to spearhead)” Many related to getting around, which Leif does a lot of.

Minnesota Lynx: Photos on Facebook from the Lynk Up and Get Down 2009 season ticket renewal campaign shoot. All the players and Prowl decked out in ’70s high fashion.

Perfect Porridge: “Social Information Hoarder: MIMA’s Data Overload Panel and Helpful Links” This is Greg and others presenting to the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association.

Star Tribune: Data porn! (via s4xton)

About: “I-35 W Bridge: Before and After Exhibition Opens July 18″

Twin City Sidewalks: Sidewalk Closed Signs. Also see Bill’s new project, Twin Cities Streets for People, “where a team of Minnesota urbanists are going to try to keep tabs on what’s going on in the local urbanism scene.”

Eleventh Avenue South: Andy responds to criticism of his (perceived lack of) coverage of congressional candidates’ stand on GLBT issues (i.e., “Why don’t you light into Keith Ellison like you do Michele Bachmann?”).

Minnov8: Recapping PublicRadioCamp.

Minneapolis Issues Forum: “Minneapolis: getting power from our poop” … … … Heh.

See a baseball game played according to the rules from 1860 as part of the Minnesota’s sesquicentennial celebration. Saturday, 7/19, 11am, B.F. Nelson Park. (via NRP)

KFAI: Converting to digital and increasing power! (via Rhubarbarism)

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Jezebel casts current Hollywood folk as the Top 10 Female Product Advertising Icons. First on the list is Saint Paul-based Land O’Lakes. (Why is their corporate site so much uglier than their brand site?)

The company explains: “Because the regions of Minnesota and Wisconsin were the legendary land of Hiawatha and Minnehaha, the idea of an Indian maiden took form.” This is a whitewashed way of describing how they hijacked the image of indigenous people to sell dairy products, but whatever. The first painting was done in 1928; it was “modernized” in 1939 to look the way it does now. As a kid, I honestly thought that this was my mom until I realized it was Cher.

Their suggested celebrity casting for the Land O’Lakes indian maiden? Q’orianka Kilcher who once played Pocahontas in a movie.

(Does anyone else think “spread with sweet cream” sounds a little dirty?)

(via my old-school blog friend Chaz)

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Executive summary: It was a good start.

There were snacks, mingling, a Q&A with Jason DeRusha and Eric Black, the WCCO Local Ad Network commercial, and then prizes.

Good Stuff:

• I actually met people that live here and blog here that I had never met or even heard of before. New people! So nice job to WCCO for reaching waaaay out (and to the intern who was probably responsible for combing lists of blogs and finding contact info). When I say I loved this part I mean I LURVED this part.
• We had time to mingle. Just hang around and talk to people.
• They gave us the keys to the Twitter account and trusted us to use them for good, not for evil. Participants’ thoughts can be found at @WCCObloginar.
• Decent turn out. There were probably about 30 people there, not including all the ‘CCO staffers. They sent out about 400 emails, got about 50 RSVPs, expected about 10 people to actually show up, had about 30 attendees, and there were folks there that hadn’t gotten an email but had seen it here or on MNspeak. Not bad.

Needs Improvement:

• The Q&A topic focused on bloggers/citizen journalists/professional journalists doing social media/online vs print/etc. This was news to some, old hat for some, and just plain boring for some.
• Related to the previous point, since they are apparently drawing a diverse audience, I’d like to see an effort to appeal to other niches of bloggers. I’d hate to lose the interest of people that showed up last night who aren’t hanging out in the citizen journalist (and loose relations) corner of the web.
• Man alive, Jason is chatty. On the flip, he very eloquently articulates his experience with and opinion on these matters.

Punctuated by this event and last weekend’s Public Radio Camp, it’s abundantly clear that MPR and WCCO are head and shoulders above the other MSM joints in town on finding ways to interact with their online-savvy audience. I really appreciate WCCO’s willingness to give this a go. The format and topics and lots of things about it are going to continue to evolve.

Random thought I had: I might consume tv news if they video podcasted individual segments like sports, top news, investigative, etc. I could do four minutes a day.

I was very proud to have four Metbloggers in the house. Greg, Jason, David and I were all there and I finally got to actually meet David.

And a huge thank you to all who came up to me to say hi. I was especially pleased to have talked to Amy Rea of Knit Think and Flyover Land, Angelique of Saucy Dame Delux, Lisa of Corporate Babysitter, and Terry Yzaguirre of MPLS Mirror.

Other posts on the event: [Alie] [Jeremy] [mnspeak] [Eric Black] [mnblue] [Internet Marketing Blog] [mspmag]

If you’ve got a write up and I missed it, drop it in the comments, please!

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Intermedia Arts always has some amazing artwork on the side of their building at W 28th St and Lyndale Ave S.

Originally uploaded by Chuckumentary.

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Does reading a tweet count as an Overheard?

nothing like seeing Sex and the City with the housewives of White Bear Lake sitting to you thinking they should star the movie.

Would it be different if they were Edina Screamers?

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Vikings deny tampering with Favre “The Packers claim Favre had “inappropriate dialogue” with Minnesota offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell.”

Currently there are 150+ comments on the Star Tribune’s website, but not a single one addresses what I’m wondering. Just how inappropriate could this dialogue have been?

If these “inappropriate” conversations did indeed happen at all I picture them going something like this;

It’s late and Darrell Bevell is feeling a little saucey so he gives his old buddy Favre a call “So Brett, what are you wearing?” to which Brett replies “You know, just my Superbowl ring…” Then Bevell would breathily reply with some inappropriate innuendo laced sweet nothings about scoring (touchdowns) and maybe winning one of those rings for the Vikings.

Ofcourse, I probably just have an inappropriate imagination.

What kind of ridiculous things do you imagine they may have talked about? And just how exactly does one tamper with a person? Though, now that I’ve given the tamper thing some thought, I’m fairly certain Favre’s safety seal has long been broken.

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Ja.

Originally uploaded by emoeby.

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First Minnesota outlaws smoking in private businesses, then text messaging in private vehicles — heck, legislation was even proposed to ban walking down alleys.

After watching this video — featuring the handiwork of a couple treacherous rocks in Uptown — I propose we create legislation to ban the possession and use of rocks (in the name of public safety).

A rock ban is really the only way the government can truly protect us all. These rocks must be stopped.

Remember, people don’t hurt cars. Rocks do.

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I’m sure there’s some kind of style guide reasoning behind “Twin Citians” but it just sounds mealy-mouthed. “Twin Citizens” has more chutzpah. Twin Citizen would totally kick Twin Citian’s ass in a fight.

But that’s just me. What do you say? How do you refer to your hometown peeps to your friends from out of town?

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