The survey ranked airports on six factors including check-in and baggage claim facilities and food offerings. MSP received a score of 647 on a 1,000-point scale, the lowest among the 60 airports studied.

I have been to a few airports (as I’m sure many of you have as well) but I don’t know that I’ve had that bad an experience at MSP. A D minus? Maybe I’ve just been conditioned to a horrible customer experience, considering this is my home airport.

Do you hate our airport as much as J.D. (Jerk Dummies) Power and Associates?

And, speaking of air travel, I am off to Europe for the next two and a half weeks. I shall return to my blog-reading public refreshed and with pictures.

The 5-foot-7, walking urine vial is being unveiled today as the mascot of HealthPartners’ new website and advertising campaign.

But, in case you didn’t think it could be funny, check out the promotional video. Even the ad guys at HealthPartners realize the brilliant idiocy of a pee cup costume, and that somehow makes it even funnier to me.

Then have I got something for you!

Gov. Tim Pawlenty and legislative leaders announced a comprehensive budget deal Sunday afternoon. The plan erases a nearly $1 billion budget deficit, provides tax relief to homeowners and veterans, and borrows for several projects. Lawmakers will waste no time passing the plan because it’s the final day for the Legislature to act.

Perhaps it was needlessly dramatic and childish. Perhaps it took too long and the legislature could have gotten some other important/interesting things done with the time spent on this deal (although, actually, perhaps not). But you know what? I don’t really care at this point. I’m just thrilled there won’t be a special session. Which, actually, feels pretty special to me.

Basically, I don’t think I can read MinnPost any more.

You see, last weekend I was doing some late-night reading about the election on MinnPost, and the side-bar banner ad caught my eye. “Gee, the woman in this ad vaguely resembles my mother.”

Do you know why?

Because it WAS my mother.

It was really weird. I had known she was featured in print ads for the U’s Management of Technology program years ago, thought it was pretty neat, and moved on. Then I saw this ad on Saturday and it freaked me the fuck out.

But that’s not all. I read MinnPost (as well as many other news sources) for my jerb every day, and three times this week I’ve seen her there, staring back at me, telling me to clean my room from the fucking internet.

So, I’m sorry MinnPost. Your intrepid, exciting format of grassroots, community-based professional freelance journalism was genius (and a sustainable nonprofit business model!). But it has all been undone by putting my mom’s face all over your articles.

The most conspicuous and confusing thing about all of it? All the Red Sox fans.

I went to school in Boston and came into my full interest in/appreciation of baseball while watching the 2004 ALCS/World Series (I’d liked it before, but this got me hooked), so the fact that I wore my Boston cap and my Twins jersey to the game last night was excusable. For me. (Plus I wanted to be a smartass, and I think I succeeded rather well.)

But, watching the series on TV, it sounded like the crowd was split 50/50 in who they were rooting for. I didn’t think too much of it, until I was at the game last night and fully half of the people I saw with team paraphernalia were sporting Sox gear.

And it’s wasn’t just this series that has been bringing out the Minnesota chapter of Red Sox Nation. Every game I go to, the team hat I see most often, after Twins caps and any other Minnesota sports team, is for Boston.

Is this something you’ve noticed? I can’t imagine that it’s simply because they won it all last year. Or even remnants from the 2004 happiness. But, I can’t think of any other explanation, so maybe it is.

So, you’d imagine I’d flip my shit when I saw this:

In an effort to rid its playgrounds and beaches of cigarette butts and secondhand smoke, Ramsey County is considering making many of its recreation areas tobacco-free zones.

But… no. I am having a really hard time getting my blood worked up about keeping cigarettes away from places where children play. I know in the depths of my political soul that it should not be the government doing this–that people should have the good sense not to smoke at a playground. But the plain truth is most people don’t.

And this placates me even more:

Tobacco use would still be allowed on Ramsey County golf courses and at picnic shelters.

Golf really isn’t golf without a cigar. And who of us has left a picnic satisfied without eating a cigarette or two.

Maybe you can come up with a good point to help piss me off about this?

While this may not seem like anything newsworthy, it actually kind of is. (In fact, MinnPost did two stories on it. Two!) Fully half of the delegates from three of the four Twin Cities districts (the fourth, fifth, and sixth) will be going to St. Paul wearing Ron Paul tshirts. The state party isn’t happy about this. In fact, in an email sent to some supporters, the state GOP said:

“You should also be aware that, unlike your service as a State or local delegate, your influence on the process is considerably limited. The other primary states will, by convention time, have determined the Presidential nominee. The platform process is divided and the opportunity to participate in even a piece of it is limited. After the convention, the platform is generally ignored. For this reason, the role of National Delegate is generally seen as a ‘reward’ for long and faithful service to the Party, rather than as a ‘representative’ to a deliberative body or a ‘learning opportunity’ for newcomers.”

In other words, a pat on the head for being able to do so darn well. Now sit down and shut up while the grownups discuss business.

This really makes me want to poke my head into the X come September when the convention rolls into town. Because I think it may look something like this.

But, I don’t know. Are you a member of the Ron Paul Revolution here in the Twin Cities? Or are you a lock-step GOP member? Give us some insight on what the hell is going on here.

First, they’re in the process of trying to raise the legal high school drop out age from 16 to 18. Now, I don’t have any statistics in front of me about how effective the law is in deterring dropouts, but it seems to me that any of the following would work better:

1) Funding after school programs
2) Smaller class sizes
3) Smaller school sizes
4) Better funded/expanded curriculum choices
5) Performances measures not based on standardized tests
6) Hotter, looser teachers

So yes. Let’s ignore the difficult root causes and make the symptom illegal. Up next: it’s illegal to get talk about condoms. That’ll get those teens to stop doin’ it.

Yep. The legislature is hearing about why talking about sex in school is how kids get clued into the fact that boy part fits into girl part quite nicely (I’m turned on just by that phrasing alone!). So, no talking about condoms or STDs or how, if God didn’t want women to masturbate, why do they have an orgasm button? Again, if we outlaw the symptom, the problem will fix itself.

The award for Best Quote Ever on abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education goes to Rick Olseen:

The back-and-forth exasperated one proponent, who told Prichard to get his “head out of the sand” and realize people aren’t getting married until they’re in their 30s these days.

“I wish you would come at this with a little bit of reality,” said Sen. Rick Olseen, DFL-Harris. “If you don’t want people to have sex until they’re 35 or 40, just say so.”

Also, I’m sure by “sand” he meant “ass”

Now I (and you!) have a second chance: the Daily Show is coming to the Twin Cities for the RNC in September. However:

In St. Paul, The show will be at the McNally Smith College of Music’s History Theatre, with 600 seating capacity, near the Xcel Center.

That’s right. 600 seats. So, it’s not likely you’ll be able to get in sexual-favor-free. And, if you do happen to get tickets, this is not something I’m above.

I’m really not sure how to feel about this. Can I borrow your moral compass?