2008 February : Slarty's World

Archive for February, 2008

Ryan Shaw

February 29th 2008 Posted at Music
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I heard a song today on Sirius that I really liked the sound of. I would love to see this guy perform live. Let me know what you think!

Bus Tales Dot Com

February 29th 2008 Posted at General
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I have been reading a website called Bus Tales(www.Bustales.com). It is site that is sort of an open forum for people to share stories that they have witnessed while riding buses in the Twin Cities.

There was post today called “I’m going to talk about money.” Make sure to follow the more link because the ending is the best part.

I missed the express bus and needed to hop on the ’slow boat’ 4 heading north into downtown. Around 36th street a woman got on – probably in her 50th, looking a little ragged – and sat in the front row next to a professional looking man.

After one street, she stood up, turned to face the bus riders, and announced to everyone, “Ok, today I am going to talk about money…

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Best Donuts In The City

February 29th 2008 Posted at Food and Drink
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I have not tried every donut, so this is a bit of a stretch, but the best donuts in the city are the chocolate donuts at A Baker’s Wife’s Pastry Shop. Almost weekly, I wake up early and drive over to pick up 2 donuts. One for me and one for my wife.

A Baker’s Wife’s Pastry Shop
4200 28th Ave. S., Minneapolis; (612) 729-6898
Hours: 6:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; 6:30 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Sunday

I met the crazy owner’s old boss on a plane once, what a hoot. Different story for a different time.

The Big Payday in the Land of Taxes

February 26th 2008 Posted at General
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Yesterday, the Minnesota House and Senate overroad Tim Pawlenty’s Veto of the transportation bill. The transportation bill is a $6.6 billion spending package aimed to improve roads, bridges, trains, and buses. It is also another fallout from the 35W collapse. It is almost cliché these days, a big tragedy occurs and then once the dust settles there is a line of people with their hands out. It is the big lottery; the government is one of those people with their hands out. I would love if the government said something like, “Wow, the 35W bridge collapse really opened our eyes to our failing infrastructure. Because of this we have decided to divert $6 billion from airport subsidies and ethanol subsidies to pay for a fix up project.” Instead, it is always about expansion.

Summary of taxes

8.5 cent per gallon gas increase (3.5 cents will go away when we pay off the bonds)
0.25 % sales tax increase in the metro (with no referendum needed)
Removes the license tab tax cap in the 2nd and 3rd year of new car ownership
Add $20 to motor vehicle purchases as an excise tax
Increase fees relating to renting a car

What prompted me to write about it, though, was a quote from this Star and Tribune article. The quote basically says that the vetos have been overridden only 14 times in the last 80 or so years and that 12 of them were overrides of Jesse Ventura’s vetoes. To put salt in the wound, they increased the gas tab tax, which was one of Jesse’s pet projects. Here is the quote in its entirety:

A report by the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota showed that, over the past 70 years, only two governors have made as many vetoes as Pawlenty’s 37. And since 1939, only 14 of 447 gubernatorial vetoes have been overridden, with 12 overrides coming against Independence Party Gov. Jesse Ventura, who had almost no party members in the Legislature.

Here’s to another ten years of construction delays while heading to the lake. What progress.

Civil Disobedience: The Musical

February 24th 2008 Posted at General, Smokes
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Out of the loop! That is what you get for traveling to big cities rather than small cities. Slarty’s roving rural Minnesota correspondent told me of an important protest movement happening in small town bars across the state. Mark Benjamin, a non-smoking attorney, has organized an unorganized movement to circumvent the state’s no smoking laws.

I am not sure if he came up with the idea or not, but it appears so. He wrote an article on February 8th for the Star Tribune proposing that the bar owners exploit an exemption in the no smoking laws that allow smoking in theatrical productions. Now a few bars have dubbed their patrons as actors and the entire bar a stage – thus allowing their “actors” to smoke. Brilliant. I am sure that this loophole will be closed at relatively soon, but might as well make hay while the sun shines.

For the most part, it is nice to drink in a smoke free environment. But I also really miss going to Café Havana for a cigar smoke with Father and his crew. As with most issues, I can see both sides of this coin. That being said, I don’t get the feeling that people are radically pissed off at these bars for bending the rules. If anything, people have a “way to go” sort of attitude. If there is such a non-, or even encouraging, response to someone subverting the ban, perhaps there should not be a ban? If people seem to think that these theatrical productions are a cute and creative way to smoke in public, maybe smoking in public is not that bad of a thing.

This could be extended to the medicinal marijuana laws in California. There is an episode of Entourage on HBO, where Drama and Turtle connive to get a membership to a medicinal marijuana clinic. Drama gets a prescription from his doctor for pot because of his neck pain (or something as trite). They treated the subject very lightly and it made it seem like in California, it is extremely easy to get a prescription, and that it is not frowned upon or disdained. If it is that easy to get a pot-permitting piece of paper, should we just legalize the stuff and get rid of the stupid process? I bet it would save a ton of dough and might make everyone a little less uptight.

People get worked up over the stupidest stuff.

The Happy Gnome and Bell’s Brews

February 18th 2008 Posted at Food and Drink, Slarty Wisdom
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If you get one thing out of reading this too long post it is this: St. Patrick’s Day is on Saturday, March 15th this year not Monday, March 17th. Praise be to God.

A blog that I have been enjoying recently is MN Beer. It has clued me into a number of cool happenings in the local beer world (such cask night at the Bulldog NE on Wednesdays). Through this blog I have become aware of a pub in St. Paul called The Happy Gnome. They have a huge beer list and even host beer dinners. All good things, fer schur.

I went there the day before Valentine’s Day for the Bell’s Big Ale Night. I was excited to go, because the thought of trying 8 different beers for $10 seems like a no-brainer. Not to mention visiting the beer drinking paradise known as The Happy Gnome. I was not impressed. We tried 8 different Bell’s specialty ales and did not find one that we wanted to drink a full pint of. At the end of the night, I had to have a Gin and Tonic, just to clear my palate. Here is a list of the types we tried:

Of these, the Batch 8000 was the most palatable. A few of the stouts had such a strong coffee flavor that they might have ruined my taster for the rest of the night. And the “beer” called Hopslam was so hoppy that I felt like I was fellating a copper pipe. When I got back to a computer, I looked at the Bell’s website and found that the beers we tasted were all very limited run. In fact, some of them should not even be available now, so they were just putting on this shindig to get rid of unwanted beer.

The highlight of the evening was when we left, there was a guy asking people for money. One of the fella’s that was outside when I was leaving told this beggerman to go bug the busty woman outside smoking. Real class shit.

My mind is not made up on The Happy Gnome. A great name and a great variety of beer is awfully tempting. I can’t comment on the food, the waitress never gave me a menu. A few more quirky things from their website is that they are having their 1st Annual Firkin Festival, which, until I looked it up I thought was one of those lawn gnomes, on March 16th, the day after St. Patrick ’s Day. Did you know that it is on the 15th of March, not the 17th this year?!? I guess the Catholic Church changed it this year to prevent drunk parishioners on Holy Monday. Lastly, The Sweet Colleens are playing at the Gnome on the 15th. Because of these things, I will reserve judgment on the joint.

(Do you like the bottom line?)