Fonzie's jukebox

270 (unedited)

2011-08-07T23:34:00.000-07:00

There were many memorable things I wrote in the 269 previous installments from the jukebox. Some of them have been valuable to me, as I have revisited them more than once. Some were less than brilliant, and that's to be expected. Some are painful reminders that after 40 years life only gets harder.

There are times I have been way more personal than I care for in my writing, and facing a very uncertain future -- one I face with sorrow rather than enthusiasm -- I can't allow it to happen again.

I faced great personal challenges in my life without the benefit of a blog or journal, and I have overcome those challenges. One might think that detailing the personal struggles I face through a blog would be beneficial. I'm skeptical.

I will spend countless hours wondering how and why two people who made each other very happy in 2010 are destined to spend the rest of their lives not making each other happy. I could write about this topic for hours, but it wouldn't make a difference. The worst part is that I can't put into words what it is I'm feeling. I guess I could do it, but I wouldn't do it well.

I had finally filled a 38-year void in my life, only to find out I get it back, 10 fold, in 2011, and I'll never fully understand why.

Whether you believe in a god, karma, fate or something else, you start to lose faith in it when you find yourself four decades into a finite journey, yet still empty inside.

It would take me hours to list all my faults, and I'd miss several. There's nothing I'd enjoy more than growing as a person, and growing old with somebody to love.

Love conquers all, they say. They lie.

Janis and I loved each other, yet somehow that's not enough. If two people loving each other isn't enough, why am I going through the daily motions? I really don't know.

I will spend countless hours wondering why I'll never have the happiness I desire, but I won't write about it. I can't.

The jukebox is going silent. It will collect dust, at least for now, but I am determined to ensure it has played its last song.

I am pulling the plug.

Man down (unedited)

2011-08-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

It was an unusual day on the bikeways of Minneapolis.

I was bicycling with Margaret today. We were on a Minneapolis bike trail when I heard a thud behind me. A guy, older than me, hit the pavement. Hard.

I sensed he was trying to get past us as soon as possible, as he seemed to be right behind me. We were approaching a stoplight and had a green light, so we proceeded across the street. It seems that as the guy rode up the curb cut onto the trail he lost his balance somehow. Thud, he hit the pavement hard. I knew that sound the instant I heard it.

I stopped, grabbed my phone and walked toward him. Somebody behind him had stopped to check on him. I asked if he was hurt, he said he was, still lying on the ground. I called 911 to report a single-bicycle accident. As I called 911 the operator asked what kind of injuries he had. As I asked Margaret and the other guy I learned it wasn't a head or neck injury, but he indicated he had pain in his ribs. The guy was wearing a helmet, but riding shirtless. He scraped a few parts of his body and is going to have serious road rash on one shoulder.

The guy slowly sat up, then got onto one knee. He called somebody to report his accident. It took an ambulance about five minutes to get to the intersection where we were. The three paramedics in the ambulance didn't sense it was a serious injury as they took their time getting out of the ambulance and approaching us. At that point Margaret and I went on our way.

That wasn't my last 911 call of the day. Eighteen minutes after I called 911 to report the injury I was calling 911 again. Margaret and I had been back on our bikes less than 15 minutes when we approached a biker down on the trail. We didn't see him fall, but two people had stopped to check him out. The guy and his bike were still on the ground. After a quick inquiry regarding an injury I was calling 911 again.

A different ambulance crew arrived. This guy, who wasn't wearing a helmet, slowly got up. We had to convince him to sit down on a nearby bench and take it easy until an ambulance arrived. He was surprised to learn he crashed, as he didn't remember it. Margaret said he kept repeating the fact that he was surprised that he crashed.

When the ambulance arrived we departed yet again, thankfully not to be making a third 911 call for the day.

Join the club (unedited)

2011-08-04T22:28:00.000-07:00

I have two less co-workers today. Their life is better off because of it, even if that's hard to believe tonight when they go to bed.

My toxic weekly newspaper conglomerate tried to make its editorial staff feel better in January, announcing we would ramp up staffing after years of bleeding it to death. Some of that bleeding was unavoidable thanks to the slow death of the newspaper industry as we knew it. Plenty of that bleeding was self-inflicted.

We will never be as healthy as we were when I was hired more than a decade ago, but for the first time in years we were filling seats that had deliberately been left vacant. That grand announcement was made in January. Here's how we arrived at August 2011 in approximate chronological order:

• Our reorganization and seat filling meant that the trio responsible for layout of many weekly newspapers would be systematically eliminated. (I'm not sure any of us realized that at the time.) Saying there was a method to the madness is a bit generous, but we have managed to phase out the trio. The first to go was a design guru who had been with the company longer than I had. He has the luxury of not having to worry about his income as much as I do, so he could afford to walk away. He was given a management job for my group of papers, a job he didn't want, as it meant more responsibility, more office time and likely more hours in a given week than he typically worked. He quickly departed after being "promoted," opting for a part-time job closer to home. Like I said, he could afford it, his wife is a medical professional.

• The kid was hired as my new manager. He was about 7 or 8 years old when my co-worker Phil started his job with one of our newspaper holdings.

• The second member of the layout trio was booted less than three months ago. They decided that it was time to eliminate his job, but offered him the opportunity to go from full-time designer to a writing position that likely would have had him doing some layout work each week. He's another guy who has the luxury of not working full time, so he opted to stay at home with his kids while his wife brings home the bacon rather than take a job that was less accommodating to his childcare needs.

• A small staff, comprised of a few full-time employees and a few part-time employees, assembles a variety of papers relatively independent of the group I am a part of. They were told, rather insultingly, that their papers were in trouble, and that they'd have to work harder to keep their papers afloat. They were given a new weekly responsibility without the benefit of additional resources, as far as I can tell.

• One of the three full-time members of the aforementioned newspaper group took a job with Patch, the hyper-local online scam that is paying journalists more than advertising revenue can cover. She left less than two months ago.

• Last week one of the managers for my group walked away from his job, opting to go to work for his wife. (Marriage has never looked so good to me.)

• Today it was announced that we wouldn't be filling the two seats that have been vacated during the past two months. We were also told that two people were being kicked to the curb. One, the last remaining member of the design trio, wasn't a surprise. I knew it was only a matter of time before she was phased out, too. We also lost Phil, who has toiled for his small, fledgling group of papers longer than I have been with the company. His group was absorbed by our evil conglomerate several years ago, a conglomerate that punishes loyalty.

So it's 2010 all over again. We hired several people to fill vacant seats in 2011, and now we're just about back to where we started at the beginning of the year. The difference is that we have lost experienced, talented people and replaced them with young upstarts that mean well, but don't have the background and experience to give our organization the limited credibility it once had. It's a sad, sad world, and it pains me to be a part of it.

In the past I have been angry. Today I am despondent.

Exit strategy (unedited)

2011-08-02T23:24:00.000-07:00

Today the kid told us we weren't making enough sausage.

The kid is the editor for my newspaper group. He's a couple of years removed from college, so therefore he has a world of experience and should be managing a group of suburban newspapers. He knows how to do some of the technical crap that is part of his job, but there's no chance he was the best candidate for the job. So why was he hired? I'm certain that it's because he works cheap. We don't care about hiring experience at my half-assed newspaper group, all we care about is getting people cheap.

During a group meeting he said we were doing great work, but he needs more. He knows the crappy parameters of our jobs, and how difficult it is to produce quality work en mass, but he still insisted we need to make more sausage.

I have had mixed feelings about my job for a long time. It's a job where we can only value quantity. We may applaud quality, but we really don't encourage it, and certainly can't expect it.

It has bothered me for a while now, and the fact I'm working for a kid who is willing to sell his soul in his 20s in order to pad his resume and live high off the hog down the road doesn't make me feel any better about the fact I am compromising my skills by trying to juggle an ax, Samuri sword, hand gernade, flaming torch and porcupine at the same time.

I have given myself two months to chart prospective courses that will lead me elsewhere. I have several ideas I want to pursue, and I will pursue whichever one makes the most sense come Oct. 1. I may pursue the wrong one, but all I can do is choose the option that seems to be the best when decision day arrives.

Without a doubt, riding the roller coaster that has been my life the past 13 years is the wrong decision. I use to think that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. But I'm a gamblin' man, and if there's a chance that there's a brighter, happier future out there for me, I'll wager on the unknown.

The life I have now is a losing proposition, and that's a sure thing.

Pulling the plug? (unedited)

2011-08-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

There are times when I ponder whether or not to put my name to a blog, attach the blog to my Facebook profile and share my exhaustive observations with those who know me.

Then there are times I think I want to keep writing anonymously just for the mental exercise it gives me, spared from the comments and criticism about things I don't necessarily agree with, but write anyway.

I don't know when the end of this blog will come, but in the four years I have been writing, my life has been on a roller coaster, a roller coaster I recall vividly. I don't think I'm unique. I suspect most people would consider their lives to be roller coasters. Mine has been a dramatic roller coaster. And I'm ready to get off.

I plan to stop riding the roller coaster of life this year. I want to ride the Ferris wheel. And when I finally take my seat on the Ferris wheel, I will have written the last chapter of this book. More appropriately, the jukebox will have played its last tune.

I'm ready to pull the plug.

Ready, go (unedited)

2011-07-31T23:21:00.000-07:00

Short and simple: I have a monumental challenge ahead of me during the next two months. If I succeed in accomplishing my goals, I will find peace, and happiness, in my life. If I fail I can dust myself off and try again.

I use to have a defeatist attitude. I have mourned my lack of good fortune. I am blessed in many ways, and I have more than many people could ever hope for. I will not dwell on the negative. There's a light at the end of my tunnel. I'm not sure what that light is coming from, but I will find out, and I will reach it.

What a strange Journey

2011-07-29T22:23:00.000-07:00

I was never a big fan of Journey, but I did go to a Journey concert in 1987. I think it was 1987, my memory is far from flawless. I do know I was in high school and went to the concert with comp tickets from WLOL. That's another story -- a great one -- and one I rarely tell.

Journey had its share of hits in the 1980s, but traces its roots back to the 1970s. Since the late 1990s the band has soldiered on without the lead singer from its heyday, Steve Perry. Perry sang most, if not all, of the hits we know.

It's not clear to me whether Perry has voluntarily distanced himself from his biggest success or if the band dismissed him because he delayed their touring plans as a result of surgery he put off. Either way, the band replaced him... three times.

For several years after Perry departed Journey's lead singer was a guy named Steve Augeri. After about eight years he was replaced on a short-term basis, and for the past few years the band has been fronted by a Filipino guy who they found through a YouTube video of him performing Journey tunes. I don't know about Perry's first two replacements, but the Filipino guy is often touted as a Perry soundalike.

On Thursday night Journey was in St. Paul, performing with Foreigner and Night Ranger. (Foreigner has also been touring for years without the guy who sang all the hits, Lou Gramm. According to Wikipedia, the only original member these days is its lead guitarist.) Nine hours after the concert Journey was in New York, performing live on the Today Show plaza. Every Friday during the summer NBC's Today Show has a concert on its plaza. The performances vary greatly. Sometimes it's a big artist that is popular among today's youngsters, sometimes it's an established artist that isn't the biggest draw on the concert circuit. Journey has persevered without Perry, and their hits have become rock classics that have stood the test of time.

One of my friends made a comment on Facebook this morning about not knowing Journey has an Asian lead singer. I noted the irony that in the same 10-minute span Journey and its YouTube sensation were singing "Don't Stop Believin'" on NBC while Debbie Gibson and Tiffany were singing the same song during ABC's Good Morning America concert in Central Park.

Those comments generated a couple of discussions about the validity of Journey. A few people seem to think that Journey shouldn't exist without Perry singing lead vocals.

One comment: "Simply saying that a Journey song originally recorded by Steve Perry shouldn't be sung in concert by anyone other than Steve Perry."

Another comment: "Just don't bill them as Journey. Because without all the originals they arent."

The rules regarding bands are often fluid, and rarely is a case black and white. People identify most bands by the lead singer. A guitar player or drummer may stand out and be recognized as an intregal part of the band's sound, and success, but most bands live and die by the lead singer. AC/DC flourished with a replacement lead singer, Brian Johnson, who replaced original lead singer Bon Scott, who died. Van Halen succeeded with Sammy Hagar when David Lee Roth decided he was bigger than Van Halen. (Roth is often held up as the poster child of lead singer disease.)

Does the absence of the lead singer mean the band should be forced into retirement? In the case of Journey, the writing credits for Don't Stop Believin' belong to three people, one of them is Perry. The other two are still with the band to this day. Should the band be forced into exile if any one of the three no longer tours with the band? Since it's Perry that is the odd man out, should the rest of the band be forced to continue without performing any of the songs the band wrote simply because the lead singer of the original recording is no longer present? I don't think so.

As far as I know nobody forced my brother, my college friend, my former co-worker or anyone else to attend Thursday night's Journey concert, or to buy tickets to the concert. If people want to enjoy the music as performed by musicians who wrote it, why does that bother people? Should nobody be allowed to vote with their wallet because somebody else is singing the song we hear on the radio? Last I knew, people still have free will when it comes to spending their entertainment dollar.

More ridiculous, however, is the moronic suggestion that a band should no longer exist without all original members. If that was the case, Journey as we have known it wouldn't exist because Perry wasn't the first lead singer of the band. Beyond that, so many bands would cease to exist today if they were forced to rebrand themselves or abandon music they had written previously because the original drummer or bassist is no longer in the band.

People will always remember bands and music in their heyday, and I get that, but why is it that it bothers people that some form of the band exists for those who care more about the sum of the whole, rather than the individual parts?

With hope, all is lost (unedited)

2011-07-27T23:45:00.000-07:00

I've decided I'm going to come to an understanding as to why my life has turned to shit in the past year. And with that understanding, there will be peace and happiness.

I'm a pessimist, always have been. Yet there's more optimism inside of me than anyone would guess. Usually that optimism results in disappointment, at least in my life.

I'm not depressed, I'm rudderless. Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's probably not true, but without hope, I have nothing. I can't solve the world's problems, and I can't order a fresh, new and exciting life at amazon.com. I can either drift aimlessly or I can be one of those fools who goes on some ridiculous treasure hunt. The treasure I seek: inner peace.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I've been on that road too long. Good intentions are a waste of time. I'm tired, I'm always tired, and I have half-assed it through life far too long. I'm going to get rich or die trying. I'm never going to have much money, I'm not that guy. I have enough money to put a modest roof over my head. That's all I ask for. But I'm going to be rich.

It has taken me 40 years to finally understand what matters. It has taken me 40 years to sort out what I want, what I need and what I can accept.

Doug is going to get his wish. I can't hope for that, hope is for suckers. I have to make it happen.

December promise you gave unto me (unedited)

2011-07-25T23:35:00.001-07:00

Monica and I went to see Collective Soul at Lumberjack Days in Stillwater last Friday night.

Collective Soul emerged at the end of the hairband era and managed to adapt to carve a musical niche in the grunge era. They've probably been called a Pearl Jam imitator, as there are some similarities.

This was the third time I had been to a Collective Soul concert, all of them with Monica. I like several of their songs and their live performance is solid. Their concerts aren't visual spectaculars, but musically they enrich several of their songs, adding a little extra to excellent musicianship.

Monica insisted upon getting to the concert area early to ensure she'd be up close to the stage. And we were. We were about as close as you could get, and there were a couple thousand people gathered at the stage by the time the concert finally started.

The band played about 90 minutes, providing a thoroughly entertaining show. I paused several times to remember how fortunate I am, fortunate to have a friend who is there for me when I need a friend and values my friendship more than I value my life.

Sweating bullets all evening at an outdoor concert on a humid Friday night in Minnesota doesn't change the fact that I'm still drifting aimlessly through life. I found an ounce of peace with the fact I'm drifting aimlessly through life, but at the end of the night I still have to find a meaning and purpose to my daily existence.

We all hope that when faced with adversity we'll persevere. We all hope that we will overcome every obstacle life presents us with.

I made a December promise to myself. I pray that I have the dedication and inner fortitude to deliver on that promise.

It's time to let go (unedited)

2011-07-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's anger or sadness. I can't figure it out.

My ability to cope has been challenged lately, and I suppose I can argue that I'm winning, but I worry that there's no end in sight. The human body has limits -- physically, mentally and emotionally -- I'm nowhere close to my emotional limits, but the wear and tear isn't doing me any favors.

Some people break down when they are pushed to their limits, and for some it doesn't take much pushing to get there.

Some people recover quickly from setbacks in life, and rebound stronger than ever. Emotionally I am slow to recover. I've said it before, I'm less debilitated by personal disappointment than I was in years past, but that doesn't make the recovery process any quicker. Lately I have been having recurring bouts of sadness and anger, after going weeks without them. I never feel crippled by them, and somehow I'm emboldened by them, as if this is the last time I'm going to have suffer through such personal disappointment.

They say time heels all wounds. It probably does, but I don't have enough time left on this world for my latest wound to heel.

When I was driving north on the Fourth of July to spend the week with my friends at their lake place, the thought of making that drive, alone, for the next 10 years and sponging off the generosity of my friends just didn't hold much appeal to me.

On the night before I headed back to reality I was out on my buddy's boat, enjoying beers while he unsuccessfully fished for walleye. As I stared at the relatively calm water as we were returning to shore at sunset I couldn't help but think about how much Minnesotans value the ability to cruise around a lake in a motorized vessel. I stared at the water and thought about how many people would cherish a moment such as that, and how ungrateful I was for it.

Since my vacation I have found myself dwelling on one fact of life, my life is relatively meaningless, and will never be anything more than that. I have waited 40 years for a purpose to my life, and I don't have one. That's because there ain't one, and there isn't going to be. If you're the type who prays to a god you probably believe your god has a plan for your life. My god has a plan for the lives of almost everyone I know. Yet somehow I was left off the list when purposes were being assigned.

I am a friend to many, indispensable to no one. My life is meaningless. I am blessed to have as much as I do in the world, but all the blessings in the world don't change the fact there's no scar tissue left. I am no longer able to heal.

Sometimes people make a full recovery following surgery. Other times people are crippled for life, despite the best efforts of their medical team. Some people are as good as new after knee surgery. Others are slowed down, hobbled or crippled by their knee.

I want to believe that this wound will heal. I want to believe that the happiness I had in 2010 can be recaptured. I want to believe my life is not disposable. But I'm not much of a dreamer. I have collected enough evidence to know better. It's time to let go. I'm holding onto so little, but it's hard to let go. But it's time. It's time.

Stinktown 4, Colorado 3 (unedited)

2011-07-17T23:15:00.000-07:00

Chip was in Colorado today, watching his beloved Stinktown Brewers defeat the Colorado Rockies 4-3. It was two weeks after watching Stinktown lose to the Minnesota Twins here in God's Country. Chip came to the Twin Cities during Fourth of July weekend for a pair of Brewers games.

Chip has spent much of his vacation time the past several years traveling around the country, by himself, to see Major League Baseball games. Occasionally those games feature Stinktown, but not typically. Some years Chip goes to a game while traveling for work. Last year he was in Washington, D.C., the same weekend the Brewers were in Minnesota. I had tickets for a Twins/Brewers game that weekend, anticipating Chip would join me, but obviously that didn't happen. He was at Nationals Park at the exact same time I was watching the Twins and Brewers at Target Field. We often call each other when we're at a major league ballpark, and we had a brief phone conversation that day while watching our respective games.

Chip has been to a home game in every current major league city other than the Florida franchises, and I'm planning to attend games in those cities with him in 2012, when Miami opens its new stadium. In some cases Chip has been to home games at two different ballparks in several cities. I know he has been to home games at the old and new ballparks of the Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago White Sox, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies. I'm sure I'm forgetting a city or two. I think he's up to 36 or 37 different ballparks that he has visited. Had the planets aligned slightly differently, perhaps he could claim to have been to three different stadiums for Minnesota Twins home games as I have, but he didn't make it to a Minnesota Twins game until he was in college.

Chip also makes a point to visit and tour the state capitals of states he travels to. Given there are 50 states, I can promise he's not as close as to finishing that tour as he is to finishing the ballpark tour.

Chip had been to Coors Field in Colorado previously, but he wanted to finally put his free Frontier Airlines flight to use, and it has been many years since he visited Colorado. He says it's the second best ballpark in the country, so he determined it was worth it to make a second trip to Coors country.

He flew to Colorado on Saturday and will return Wednesday night. There's no business tie-in to his trip, it's all vacation, and it's all on his dime, sans the free flight from Frontier.

In April I went to Las Vegas for five days, by myself. It was pure luck that my trip coincided with the end of a one-week vacation my Halloween friends took, and Monica booked a pair of layovers in Vegas during my week there, so I wasn't on my own the entire week. But I was prepared to be, and I wouldn't have cared.

Chip and I are both in our 40s. (He's about 11 months older than I am.) He has done it far more than I have, but we both have taken vacations on our own. I was fortunate to be able to take several vacations with my ex-girlfriend during our time together. (They didn't happen because either of us is rich, but that's another story for another day.)

Once again I'm faced with either finding a trip both Chip and I are interested in taking or flying the friendly skies on my own. I have friends who might be willing to travel to Vegas with me, so there's a chance I might book a trip to Vegas someday without having to travel on my own. But reality is setting in, there's no romantic trip to Paris, Niagara Falls or the Mexican Riviera in my future.

For some people, that's the hand life has dealt them, and they're fine with it. I'm going to have a hard time playing my cards.

Casey Anthony, will you marry me? (unedited)

2011-07-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

I didn't follow the case of Casey Anthony closely. The story was more bizarre than typical parent-kills-child tales, but I'm still not sure why it deserved a national spotlight. If you had to justify missing persons and murder stories to a national audience, many times you'd fail to do so, I suspect. I guess what it comes down to is that we're all looking for a good story.

Late last night Anthony was released from prison, having served her time for lesser crimes she was convicted of. Protesters showed up at her late night prison release, protesters who think she should have been convicted of murdering her daughter. It seems that most people think she did. I don't think many people are arguing that she didn't, and her actions that followed the mysterious disappearance and death of her daughter make it hard to argue otherwise. But nonetheless a jury of her peers determined the prosecution didn't prove she did it, so she walks.

Anthony is reportedly concerned about her safety. Allegedly she has been the target of death threats.

Even if she didn't have any reason to fear for her safety, what the hell is she doing to do with her life now? She hasn't had a job for about five years, and is reportedly a high school drop out. In America we do forgive and somewhat forget as time goes on, but somehow I doubt Anthony is going to be able to have a successful career as anything other than a second-rate porn star. Allegedly there are offers for the rights to her story, so that would pay the bills for a while, but it's hard to imagine she'll ever be allowed the privilege of living and working as a normal member of society. She won't fade into the woodwork. She won't be forgotten in a year or two.

I don't feel sorry for her, even if she weren't guilty of killing her daughter.

So today's story about Anthony highlighted the extraordinary security that surrounded her release and her quick disappearance from the public eye. As they showed her getting into an SUV with her lawyer, I somehow found myself wondering about an odd question. How many marriage proposals did she receive while she was incarcerated?

In a country of more than 300 million people, it's not surprising that we have 200 million with a few screws lose. I've seen this story more than once, but the example that comes to mind instantly is that of the Menendez brothers. These guys were convicted of killing their wealthy parents in 1989 and are expected to spend the rest of their life in prison. And yet one of the brothers has been married twice since being incarcerated, the other once. Women who cannot spend time outside of prison with their husbands, or have conjugal visits with them at the prison, decided that a relationship with brothers who killed their parents was a good idea. That, my friends, is the textbook definition of mental illness.

And I'd bet Anthony was receiving fan mail in prison, as well, from guys whose 15 minutes of fame expired after their appearance on The Jerry Springer Show. There are guys a lot more demented than Anthony, so I can understand her appeal to them. But there are probably seemingly ordinary, average guys out there who have reached out to her, too. And I'll bet she received some sort of marriage proposal from more than one of them while she was incarcerated.

It's a weird world we live in, and thinking about the Menendez brothers, Anthony and her potential suitors makes me a bit uneasy about venturing out to the grocery store tonight. I might be shopping alongside the next Anthony, Menendez brother or future spouse of a convicted murderer. I'm borderline paranoid right now, which is dangerous. Paranoia is probably the first step down the aisle, of marriage to the next Casey Anthony.

Update: I should have known. I did one quick Google search and found this.

Thank God I don't live in Richmond (Minnesota or Virginia) (unedited)

2011-07-16T23:55:00.000-07:00

I made another cameo north of the Twin Cities, to the little, forgettable town of Richmond.

Richmond is your classic small town. It's not disconnected from the world, it's about 30 minutes from St. Cloud, the third largest city outside of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, (and the eighth largest city in the state.) Richmond has a tiny downtown district, a school district, a few recreational amenities and a summer festival. Every town has to have an annual drunk fest.

My college friends and their children live in Richmond. It has been a decent place to raise a family, it appears, and it's not as if they are trapped in their small town. They find their way to St. Cloud, the Twin Cities and out of state on a regular basis.

I visited them today, taking in the festival's parade and the mediocre fireworks show after dark. I've seen it before, it's nothing special, but it's an excuse to go to Richmond and visit my friends, who just returned home from a long vacation.

I was glad I made the trip. I don't find my way up to Richmond more than twice a year, and usually just once in any given calendar year. I see my friends and their kids at other times during the year, so I don't need to make a cameo six times per year. I'm sure if they lived 30 minutes away, instead of 90, I'd drop in for a visit far more often.

Some people like the quiet, less hectic life a small town typically provides. I can appreciate that, but I need the trappings of the asphalt jungle, and all the choices it affords. I have access to thousands of jobs within a short commute, should I decide I need to do something different with my life. I have dozens of entertainment choices within 30 minutes of my apartment, every night of the week. I have numerous grocery stores within 10 minutes of my apartment, not two within the 10-mile radius of my apartment.

Given it is easier than ever to stay connected to the world, life in Richmond probably seems less isolating than it did 20 years ago. I started my life in a small Indiana town, I have vague memories of that life. It wasn't terrible, especially since it was all that I knew. And after graduating from college I spent 2-1/2 years in a city similar to Alexandria. So I have enough experience in the small town and small city atmosphere to know life in the big city, or at least its suburbs, is the only place to be. At least for me.

It's too bad I'm having such a tough time enjoying this life.

Thank God I don't live in Alexandria (Minnesota or Virginia) (unedited)

2011-07-12T23:43:00.000-07:00

As I noted not so long ago, I made a cameo in Alexandria, Minn., while on vacation in small town, Minn.

I was born in a town somewhat like Alexandria. It was in Indiana, and I haven't lived there in 30 years. I have wondered many times what my life would be like had my parents never divorced and I never wound up in Minnesota. I'd love to know how radically different my life would have been in the Bizarro world.

I know people who grew up in Alexandria, I think. They still have ties to the area, but they have chosen the bright lights and big city instead of the incestuous life of Alexandria. Good choice.

Alexandria has its share of nice neighborhoods and lakeshore properties for the doctors and lawyers who work there. It's not the worst place to live, but knowing all the things a suburban area such as the Twin Cities has to offer, I can't stop wondering why anybody would choose the relative isolation of Alexandria.

I "met" several people last week, and most of them reminded me that I have no interest in living in their unspectacular city. Allow me to introduce a few of them to you. Please keep in mind that I'm making uneducated guesses about who they are. And even if I paint a depressing picture of them, they are likely happier than I am, and therefore that makes them better than me.

My favorite new friends from the Alexandria Beetles baseball game include:

• Announcer Guy. He's the guy providing much of the narration during the minor league baseball game. He has a great radio voice, so he's a natural behind the mic at a minor league baseball game, especially given the fact the job doesn't pay much. I'm pretty sure Announcer Guy works for a local radio station after his training at some prestigious school of broadcast. He's professional, no doubt about it, but he sounds like every textbook deejay in small town, America. That shit doesn't play well in a major market. Announcer Guy is either happy to have a steady job in the small market where he grew up or he is resigned to being a big fish in a small pond.

• Freckles. I mentioned her in my diatribe about attending a Beetles game. Despite the obscene freckle count on her face and arms, she was probably a cute enough girl in high school for some guy to violate. I'd love to see the guy who fathered her 13 children during the past five years. I'm not sure if breeding and living in Alexandria for the rest of her life was her greatest aspiration, but I'd bet her left arm she dreamed a bit bigger than that.

• Insurance Guy. My guess is that he either sells insurance or manages the sales staff at a local car dealership or radio station. I suppose there's a chance he's a doctor or lawyer, but he didn't seem the type. All I know is that his fancy green polo shirt and healthy gut made him hard to miss. I couldn't help but think I'm only 20 pounds away from being him, and that scared the shit out of me. Lest you think I'm painting a negative picture of Insurance Guy, guess again, muchacho. His fast track to success in his chosen field landed him a pretty nice trophy. I loved his wife's made-for-TV hair. Insurance Guy can get away with carrying an extra 50 pounds, but the trophy wife can't get away with that shit. She has to maintain a pre-pregnancy figure, and dress the part of a real housewife of Alexandria. Mission accomplished. By the time her kids are in high school she might be just old enough to no longer qualify for MILF certification. Oh well, nothing lasts forever.

• Sex Kitten. She appeared to be attending the game with her young, beloved son, and the father of her child. She liked to sell her young and adventurous persona, but appeared to have made a commitment to the family life. She doted upon the young boy and politely tolerated the older, slightly rotund stepdaughter. Sex Kitten didn't appear to be old enough to have given birth to the girl, so I could only assume that she was a child of one of dad's previous relationships.

• Toilet Paper Guy. This dufus appeared to be attending the game with his unsexy wife and a couple of kids. What little I saw of him led me to believe he was no prize. I was highly impressed by his game night attire, specifically a T-shirt depicting a roll of toilet paper with the caption "that's how I roll." Brilliant.

There were some cute teenage girls attending the game, and perhaps a college girl or two, as well as their male counterparts. But at no point did I mistakenly think I was attending a Mensa meeting.

I ran across a few other interesting characters during my travels around the Alexandria area, the most memorable being the fat guy who stopped at the gas station in Garfield. Garfield is one of the old rail towns outside of Alexandria, and served as my rest stop/turn around while bicycling one afternoon. This slob had an ill-fitting T-shirt that wasn't long enough to cover his gut, but that didn't seem to bother him. By pairing the T-shirt with cotton shorts and slipping on shoes he didn't have to tie he was set for an afternoon cameo at the epicenter of Garfield. I biked 21 miles to get to Garfield, only to have to watch fatty waddle into the convenience store. If there was ever a reminder that my life isn't all bad, tubby was it.

These people were no different than people I could meet in the Twin Cities. And, God forbid, if I lived in Alexandria I'm sure I'd enjoy sitting down to a beer with some of them. But spending a few hours in the bowels of Alexandria reminded me I have been fortunate to live in the Twin Cities for the past 14 years.

I am blessed, yet I am hard pressed to remember that on a daily basis. Shame on me.

Alexandria Beetles baseball: desperation entertainment (unedited)

2011-07-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

I like the idea of minor league baseball, but it's hard to get emotionally attached to a team.

My beloved Chicago White Sox won the world series in 2005. Less than six years later there are three players left from that 2005 team. That's the nature of baseball.

In the minor leagues the turnover is far greater. I'm sure there are players who spent several years on the same minor league team, but movement up and down the minor league system, or being traded from one team's minor league system to another, is the common scenario for baseball players trying to make it to the big leagues.

Most minor league baseball teams are affiliated with a major league team. If you play for the Great Falls Voyagers of Montana, your goal is to make it to the Chicago White Sox.

But there are several minor league teams not affiliated with a Major League Baseball franchise, and one of those teams is the Alexandria Beetles of Alexandria, Minn.

The Beetles play in the Northwoods League, a summer league composed of collegiate baseball players. Many aspiring Major League Baseball players are drafted out of high school, foregoing the collegiate experience. But college baseball is a viable avenue to a major league career, too, and college baseball players who are living the dream have few options during the summer if they want to maintain their college baseball eligibility. That's where the Northwoods League comes in.

You won't find the career minor league journeymen playing in the Northwoods League, it's a place for collegiate players to spend their summer playing competitive baseball without getting paid to do so. I'm sure the teams are allowed to arrange housing and other benefits for their players, but the players aren't paid.

Some minor league teams, typically the AAA affiliates of Major League teams (the highest level of minor league baseball) draw thousands of fans to games. The teams are typically located in cities of significant size, such as Buffalo, N.Y., Indianapolis, Ind., and Toledo, Ohio.

Most of the Northwoods teams are in Minnesota and Wisconsin, in cities that are of decent size, but far from spectacular in population. Toledo has about 287,000 residents. Alexandria has less than 12,000, and there aren't many neighboring cities of significant size to draw upon.

Allegedly the Beetles game I attended last week drew more than 1,000 spectators.

I have long wanted to see the charm a collegiate minor league game in Minnesota has to offer, but I've been unwilling to make the 60-90 minute drive to cities north and south of Minneapolis to attend a Northwoods game. But I made the 15-minute drive last week to see the Beetles while on vacation.

There's a definite small town feel at a Beetles game. The old city ballpark that hosts Beetles games has a nice grandstand behind home plate, but it seats a few hundred, not thousands. There are bleachers along the baselines, but there's no outfield seating, other than a few promotional seats that weren't in use last week.

The only minor league products I have witnessed are the St. Paul Saints and the defunct Duluth-Superior Dukes, both independent minor league teams. The Saints franchise has been around in its present form for nearly 20 years. They were drawing more than 6,000 spectators a night, every night, for years. In recent years they have had to work harder to keep people coming back, but that's another story.

The Beetles sell a similar experience as the Saints. There's a lot of entertainment added to the on-the-field product. The game is serious, but the atmosphere between innings is far less so. Humor and minor league antics are part of the total package. It's cute, but not a reason to keep coming back week after week. If you don't enjoy watching competitive baseball, you'll tire of attending Beetles games in a hurry.

I had wanted to attend a Beetles game two summers ago, but their schedule didn't mesh with my vacation plans. Ditto last year. But I finally made it in 2011, and I can't say I'm going back in 2012.

Half the battle in minor league baseball is putting asses in the seats. Minor league ballparks don't gouge patrons like their major league counterparts when it comes to concessions, so once you're in the ballpark, there's a chance you'll support the franchise with a hot dog, soda or beer purchase. For the Beetles, putting asses in the seats means giving away general admission tickets for weeknight games. I made the mistake of saving $6 or $8 by taking advantage of a free general admission ticket to a Wednesday night game.

Many people who attend minor league baseball do so for the social aspects of the experience, not so much for the action on the field. In Alexandria that means several well-meaning parents attend a game with their undisciplined children, because being a good parent means pretending you're creating a lifetime memory at the expense of people who have little tolerance for your filthy offspring.

I wound up sitting in front of some freakishly freckled woman with about 10 kids under the age of 6. I lost count how many times her disinterested children brushed up against my back because it was difficult stepping around the folded stroller behind me. At no point did Freckzilla appear to notice her spawn were infringing upon my personal space. I call that Alexandria hospitality.

I got up to get a beer before the game was half over, if for nothing else than to get away from the riff raff. When I returned my bench was infested with the little freaks. Freckles was surprised to see me return and sort of apologized for invading my space. I quickly pointed out there were plenty of good seats still available. That's because several people were already headed home before the game was half over. I knew I wasn't returning to my seat, Freckula made it less obvious I wanted nothing to do with her brand of white trash.

As for the action on the field, collegiate pitchers aren't under a minor league contract for a reason. If you're above average as a pitcher, it has to be tough to turn down a minor league contract, even if there's a college scholarship dangling in front of you. The pitching and game play isn't horrible, but it definitely lacks what Major League Baseball has. I saw home runs and defense, but I also saw a fair amount of lackluster play. Not sloppy, just lackluster. That makes it harder to appreciate the game in progress, especially when it quickly escalates to a lopsided contest. Final score: 13-4 in favor of the home team.

The ballpark was like nothing I had ever seen. If you know anything about baseball fields, you know the deepest part of the park is center field, and that the distance to left field is shorter than the distance to center field. Yet in Alexandria it was 350 feet to the left field foul poll, yet only 345 feet to center field. The odd dimensions included a 385-foot sign in left-center field. The dimensions from center field to the right field foul poll were in line with your typical ball field.

As I watched the game, studied the field dimensions and surveyed the crowd, I was thankful for my meaningless life in the Twin Cities, but more about that another day.

I was glad I spent three hours at the ballpark by myself, and thankful I'm not resigned to accepting a night at an Alexandria Beetles baseball game as summertime entertainment.

The whore is coming to Minnesota (unedited)

2011-06-28T23:36:00.000-07:00

Less than 24 hours from now that whore Bristol Palin will be signing copies of her new memoir at Mall of America.

As I said before, cash in for all you can, but don't expect people like me to have an ounce of respect for you. Palin, at 20 years old, has already danced as a celebrity, will be featured in a reality television show while "working" for some nonprofit and bunking with pseudo-celebrities in California and is currently signing copies of her book, explaining how she made a bad choice as a teenager, embarrassed the Republican party days after her crackpot mother was thrust into the national spotlight and wrangled with the dopey father of her child publicly. And morons will be buying copies of this important tell-all book and having her sign it, as if she's more important than your average crack whore on the streets of St. Paul.

We are done as a society.

And just for fun, the whore's mother is joining the whore at Mall of America to prove the apple didn't fall far from the tree. The Palin whores will both be singing books. But mom won't sign hers if you don't buy the teen slut's book, and the teen slut won't sign the book unless it is purchased on site. And morons will line up for hours for the privilege of lining the pockets of these whores, treating them like royalty instead of as the fame whores they are.

It's a sad, sad world.

Summer vacation, oh boy! (unedited)

2011-06-27T00:41:00.001-07:00

I'm turning the Fourth of July holiday into a vacation week. I'm going to visit and stay with friends at their summer place a couple of hours north of the Twin Cities.

I'll have a good time, I'll bike several hours while I'm there and I'll occasionally forget that my life is empty and meaningless.

Rick Warren wrote a book I have never read, a book about a "Purpose Driven Life." All I know is I don't have one, and I have tried not to care about that, but it bothers me. There are people who are dying that would give the world to to have a healthy future ahead of them. I'm relatively healthy and well, yet I wouldn't argue if the ghost of Peter Falk knocked on my door right now and told me my meter has expired.

Chip is coming to visit next weekend. We're going to two Twins/Brewers games during the Fourth of July weekend. Then I head north to the lake for five nights. I'm going to a minor league baseball game one night, weather permitting, I'm playing in a free poker tournament at a bar another night and I'm hoping to spend several hours on my bike. It's not the summer vacation I want, but it's better than nothing.

One summer when I was in high school I made a difficult choice about my future, a decision that became clear to me thanks to the many hours I spent on the seat of my Schwinn bicycle. I'm not sure if I will find the clarity I seek next week, but I'm desperate for a sign, any sign, that the past 40 years weren't in vain. I don't have the energy for another 18 years of bicycling.

I'm a liar

2011-06-26T03:26:00.001-07:00

I said I wasn't going to write about my meaningless, pointless life again this summer, but I lied.

I spent another Saturday night by myself. I had a rather worthless Saturday, actually, and although I have told myself several times this week that life is too short, and I can't afford to piss away my time, I have come up a bit short in the success department.

I spent about 90 minutes of my time Saturday night at the grocery store. I have professed my love of coupons and ridiculous coupon deals previously, and this week was an extraordinary week as I bought a lot of Diet Pepsi. It took a bit of effort on my part, but I bought multiple 12-packs of Diet Pepsi, and one 12-pack of Pepsi for Chip, who will be in town next weekend. Each and every one of them cost me less than 40 cents. That's right, 12 cans of soda for about three cents per can. I'm a genius.

As I was making the last of my Diet Pepsi purchases at 10:30 on Saturday night I was doing so at a grocery store in St. Louis Park. This grocery store is near a new, trendy commercial development. They call it The Shops at West End. There are several restaurants that double as hang outs for the beautiful people. Many of the restaurants appear to have the sacred outdoor seating that Minnesota rubes piss themselves for the privilege to sit at. I'm sure the drinks are uber-expensive, but that's not a problem for the beautiful people. God bless 'em. Somebody has to fund the service industry, and it's certainly not going to be me. All I can afford to do is buy cheap soda and submit liquor rebates so I can enjoy a few cocktails on the cheap in the confines of my apartment.

The West End has parking ramps for the beautiful people, and my grocery store is across the street from one of the trendy nightspots. Although signs claim parking in the grocery store lot is for customers only, it was obvious at 10:30 that rather than comb the ramps for an open parking space a few of the beautiful people chose to use the grocery store lot. I noticed a group congregating in the lot on the way to my car. It wasn't hard to deduce that this group was assembled for the purpose of a bachelorette party.

Although I had a limited view of the group from several yards away, I'm pretty sure I spotted the bachelorette. I'm guessing the woman in the tight, tiny dress with the stripper heels and a sash was the future Mrs. Somebody. Lucky guy, whoever he is. I didn't get a good look at her, but I saw enough to determine the future groom will have quite the trophy.

As I drove home with a car full of Diet Pepsi I thought a lot about the world I live in, and how there's no place for me in it. I found myself thinking back to 2007. In 2007 I watched a documentary called "The Bridge." It was intriguing, albeit a bit gimmicky and lacking in substance. I won't go into detail about it, but I will say that one of the people featured in it reminds me of me.

I remember talking about that similarity with Rush. I remember telling him there's not enough joy in my life, despite the fact my life is not particularly difficult or miserable. I also remember calling Rush from the pool of my Florida resort in late December 2007. I remember sitting there with my feet in the pool, telling him how warm and beautiful it was in southern Florida and how that was the joy in life that made it all worth while. And I wasn't kidding.

The problem, I have found, is that the moments of joy are few and far between. I'm not miserable most days, but the joy I find is temporary, and doesn't sustain me. This has been a recurring issue since I graduated from college, and there were times it crippled me. Nowadays I'm barely numb to it.

I spent a few hours Saturday night sorting though crap I have held onto for far too long and wondering why I was going through the motions of sorting it when I could literally dump entire boxes of crap into the Dumpster of my apartment building and not miss a thing, or be worse off without it. Sure, the Gilligan and Skipper figurines I came across warmed my heart slightly, but had I never seen them again, would I be worse off for it? Not a chance.

I sorted through worthless crap, wondering what to do with most of it and why I was bothering to waste my time sorting it. If I were moving to Utah this fall the exercise would have meaning and purpose, but I don't know where I'm going next, unfortunately.

Lately I find myself wishing I was moving to Utah. It seems like every sign in my life is pushing me toward starting a new life in Utah. There's just one little problem: I found out four months ago that I'm not good enough for my ex-girlfriend, who moved to Utah in early February. When she left I couldn't see myself leaving Minnesota. Now the idea of moving to Utah makes more sense than ever, except for the whole I'm not good enough thing.

The future is what you make it, they say. America is the land of opportunity, I'm told. That's all true, but there's only one thing I want at this point in my life, and when it comes my way is largely out of my hands. I'm trying to tip the scales in my favor, but all I can do is hope and pray, as I have been doing for most of my adult life. Some day my prayer will be answered. That's the only certainty I have in this world.

Sick and tired of being sick and tired (unedited)

2011-06-23T00:12:00.000-07:00

Something ain't right with me, and I don't know what it is.

Do I drink too much diet soda? Would drinking less soda magically solve my problems? I drink at least four cans a day. It may not have sugar in it, but whatever it does have probably isn't making me a healthier person.

Gluten-free products are growing in popularity, in part because of celiac disease, but also because some people find a gluten-free diet leads to better health. It seems as if every other product on the supermarket shelves contains gluten, and perhaps the American diet is filled with too much of a good thing. Is gluten responsible for the fact I feel lousy all the time?

Would I feel better if I lost weight? Is it just carrying 40 extra pounds that makes me feel so lousy all the time? Should I find some organ-damaging diet drug to lose weight? Or should I just live off of eggs, bacon, cheese and chicken. There are nutritional downsides to the Atkins diet, but cutting out potatoes, bread and other carbohydrates pays dividends, at least temporarily.

What if my daily discomfort has nothing to do with what I eat or drink? I doubt it, but it's possible? What if there's something internal that is affecting my daily life?

I'd love to know, but I'm not eager to begin an expensive battery of tests to try and determine if there's something I should eliminate from my diet. There's no question my diet could benefit from a few adjustments. I'm sure I'd feel better if I didn't cheat myself out of sleep most nights of the week.

I feel horrible, I look worn down and I'm less than energetic on a daily basis. I'm not sure what I have to do to improve my health, but I didn't have heart surgery five years ago to go through life feeling like a punching bag. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I'm not going to die with an empty tank. I have long said I'd be content to die at 58, while I might still have a few decent years left. I want to make sure there's still something left in my tank when my time is up. I don't want to be a shell of a human being.

When the ghost of Macho Man Randy Savage comes knocking at my door, telling me my time is up, I want to be slightly bitter about it. Today I wouldn't be, and that's not right.

People are idiots (unedited)

2011-06-22T00:42:00.000-07:00

I could easily start a new series of columns about the idiots and misfits I encounter in this world, but I'm not sure I'm in the mood to shoot fish in a barrel.

But I'm having a hard time forgetting the clown I passed while bicycling Sunday night. He was an older gent, older than me anyway. Not quite geriatric, but there's no chance he has more than 50 percent of his life ahead of him.

He sure looked the part of the serious bicyclist from my brief view of him prior to passing him on my 10-year-old bike. He had a long-sleeve yellow bike jersey. It was bright yellow, ensuring people could see him in broad daylight, and had the fancy pockets sewn into the back, providing a place to carry maps, cell phones, keys and anything else bicyclists like to carry in a pocket on their back. It wasn't a hot day, but it was warm, and slightly humid, so I'm not sure why the dude needed long sleeves. It looked a little silly to me.

But not as silly as his capri Spandex pants. Many bikers have some form of Spandex shorts, myself included. I wear traditional shorts, and I always were some sort of nylon short over them, because I look silly walking around in just Spandex shorts. Most men do. But to each their own, I guess. At least they're wearing shorts. I saw a guy inline skating years ago. His shorts of choice: old-fashioned mens briefs. I'm talking Fruit of the Loom. Perhaps not a crime against humanity, but somebody should have called the fashion police.

The bicycling dude opted for Spandex only on Sunday, and I guess his confusion about the weather dictated that he shouldn't wear traditional, above-the-knee shorts. He specifically needed pants that went below his knee. I saw two women sporting similar Spandex that day. One was running, the other was walking. The concept of below-the-knee Spandex is just as silly when women wear them, but it looks less ridiculous. Mr. Capri looked stupid.

But his insistence upon wearing a long-sleeved jersey and capri Spandex took a back seat to the most ridiculous aspect of his biking attire. The dude's helmet made me laugh the most.

His helmet wasn't some dorky, outdated model. It wasn't a ridiculous color either. Why did his helmet make me laugh? The grey fox insisted upon biking with his helmet strapped under his bike seat, displaying his flowing grey locks for all the world to see.

Not only did this guy look like a clown, he insisted upon making it known he was nothing more than an idiot.

My My My My My (unedited)

2011-06-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

I went to a Sunday night comedy show to see a local celebrity peform: Fancy Ray McCloney.

Fancy Ray is the textbook definition of a local celebrity. I'm not sure how his career has evolved, but he does standup comedy and local commercials, and has hosted a cable access show. He has parlayed his local fame and charisma into appearances on national TV. He was featured on Maury Povich's talk show, (which isn't anything to be proud of,) and has also appeared on one of the 12,000 syndicated courtroom shows people seem to love. I believe his case was aired on "Texas Justice." One of his earliest television appearances was not as Fancy Ray, but as Bruno El Diablo on the 1980s lip sync show "Puttin' on the Hits." (He is called "Skeebo," I think, by the host at the end of the clip.) Ray has posted a clip of his appearance on YouTube.

Ray is a Minnesota guy, evidently, but has parlayed his local fame into commercial gigs in markets around the country and even overseas. Clips of some of his commercials are also available on YouTube. Locally many of his commercials have been for adult-oriented businesses, or businesses that appeal to lower-income viewers. His commercials rarely appear outside of late night time slots.

Nationally he can claim he has appeared on "The Tonight Show," "America's Got Talent" and "Last Comic Standing." He hasn't, to the best of my knowledge, been a featured performer on any of those shows. He was featured in an on-the-street clip on The Tonight Show, as I recall, and I'm guessing his appearances on NBC's talent shows were for his auditions. I don't think he was a contestant on those shows, but perhaps I'm wrong. Had he been a contestant, I'm guessing he'd never let us forget it.

Although he has long worked as a standup comic, I've never known him to perform on a regular basis here in the Twin Cities. The first time I saw him was when I worked in Canada. He did a weekend of comedy shows in the middle of winter on the Minnesota border. It was rather entertaining. A few years later I saw one of his rare local shows in the Twin Cities. I bet that was 11 or 12 years ago. Sunday night I saw his schtick for the third time, spanning more than 15 years.

Part of his show is playing up his love of himself. He calls himself "the best looking man in comedy" and the "human chocolate orchid." He talks about how much he loves himself, making jokes about having candlelight dinners with himself, making love to himself and so on. It's kind of funny, but it's not comedy so much as it's schtick. It's a flamboyant guy who admits to being androgynous, talking about how much he loves himself. It's entertaining, but to a point. His act wouldn't work if he didn't do traditional comedy, which he does.

His show on Sunday night was outdoors. A lakeside bar/restaurant is hosting weekly shows all summer. They call it Beach Blanket Comedy. It's cheap, just $10, and allegedly comes with a $5 drink credit. Each week you can see a local comic headline the show. (Maybe some of them are touring comics, what do I know?)

Sunday's show started 30 minutes late, for no reason I'm aware of. Ray was hanging out at the outdoor bar and talking with anybody and everybody that crossed his path before the show ever started.

Eventually the show began. As is the case with most standup comedy, there's a host who introduces each comic and gets a chance to do three or five minutes of comedy at the beginning of the show. The dude they had hosting the show was painfully funny. He was so bad it was funny.

The opening comic was OK, the second guy started out strong but faded into mediocrity too soon. Ray finished up with a decent set. Despite that, I doubt I will see Ray perform again, and I'm not interested in going back to Bayview Park/Bayside Grill for another comedy show.

The show was held in an area they must use for outdoor weddings. It was fine for 90 minutes of comedy, but as it got dark, the lack of lighting on the stage was a bit annoying. By late August, when I'd consider going back to see another local guy I like, it will definitely be dark before the show ends. That was the least of the problems.

Add the terrible host, the late start and the mediocre warm-up acts into the mix and you have a weak comedy show. To make it worse: despite the fact this was the second Sunday of standup comedy at the venue, they were out of vouchers for a $5 drink credit. I was told to find somebody specific about getting my $5 credit. I didn't bother, all I wanted was a Diet Pepsi. And it's not as if the Sunday night comedy show is a big hit. People aren't lining up to see the show. They were already selling discount tickets to the show via Groupon. Yet somehow Bayview didn't have vouchers to hand out to its patrons? That's ridiculous, and unprofessional.

But the coup de grâce was something beyond Bayview's control. Some dude, his wife, children and parents -- or some dynamic similar to that -- sat in the front row. Middle-aged dude decided that he needed to interject himself into the show. He got ripped by one of the warmup guys, and he seemed to take it in stride, and enjoy it a bit, but he couldn't stop flapping his gums. The dude was damn annoying. Ray had an exchange with him, as well, but it wasn't as drawn out or painful. Nonetheless this chumbolone managed to annoy me as I sat through an unprofessionally conducted comedy show.

As I said, it's likely the last time I see Ray perform. Forget what a lousy job Bayside did, Ray just isn't as entertaining to me. Perhaps I'm getting old, but his fawning over himself and telling people how pretty he is just doesn't entertain me like it use to. There just wasn't enough real comedy in his show, and I wasn't as entertained. I wasn't bored. I laughed plenty, but I don't feel the need to see his act again.

Would I go see him again if you offered me free tickets and drinks? I suppose, as long as the show isn't at Bayside.

People #6

2011-06-15T23:38:00.000-07:00

Coworker E is not originally from this planet.

He has a wacky religious upbringing that probably didn't do him many favors as he has progressed through adult life. He has a weird sense of humor, a real lack of social grace and below average self awareness. He has no idea what a complete moron, clown, idiot and dufus he can be in the course of his daily life. And his symptoms are not erratic, they're part of his daily life.

He not the type of person you would immediately dislike, but he will rub you the wrong way. And his awkward laugh at the end of almost every sentence he utters will drive you insane.

He's tall, lanky, slightly awkward and eclectic, not exactly a dream come true for most women, or gay men, I would guess. He has friends and knows a lot of people, but I've never known him to have a girlfriend. That doesn't mean he hasn't had one in recent years, I've just had no indication of it.

They say there's somebody for everybody. That's probably true. I also think that some people are destined to be alone if they hold out for exactly what they're looking for. Life is about compromise, and for some our looks, personality and interests don't combine to form a dynamic, winning combination. Even if the most unattractive, dull, uninspired person has a perfect match out there, will s/he ever find that person? Probably not, especially if the unattractive, dull, uninspired person seeks perfection from another human being.

Coworker E may very well find someone who wants to share his or her life with him, but the odds are against it, and the odds get longer every day, especially knowing that he seems to prefer young, blonde women. If he holds out for a young, blonde hottie, he has no chance of ever getting married.

But life is full of surprises. One lightning strike, near-fatal car crash or health scare may shake his foundation to the core. He may reinvent himself in some way and become a hot commodity on the free agent market. Stranger things have happened.

If my competition was a world full of Coworker Es, perhaps I'd have a chance at long-term happiness.

But the world doesn't work that way.

People #5 (unedited)

2011-06-13T23:14:00.000-07:00

I have already introduced Holly, a former co-worker.

Today I received an email announcing her engagement to Roger.

Holly didn't get married until her 40s, as far as I know. (I'm guessing her marriage to Phil was her first, but I don't know that for a fact.) It's a bit surprising she didn't get married sooner. She seemed like the type. She'd have made a good trophy wife, I think. I don't say that to be disrespectful, even if it sounds that way. She isn't afraid to find her own way and have a career., but women like her usually attract successful men.

The end of her relationship with Frank was hard on her. She rebounded, however, and married Phil. I remember Oct. 7, 2005, very well. I was there.

Less than four years later she was moving to California, divorced from Phil and doing something I haven't the guts to do, starting over. She didn't randomly pick southern California, she had a few connections there. But nonetheless she moved away from home, and all the comforts of home. I'm not sure if she knew Roger before she moved, but the duo hooked up shortly after she arrived. And now they're planning a 2012 marriage.

I'm slightly conflicted about the fact that I went to Holly's wedding less than six years ago and now she's planning marriage No. 2 less than seven years later.

Despite that, I'm happy for her. We all make mistakes. We all hope for the best, but fail to produce results that match our expectation, sometimes as a result of our actions and decisions, sometimes through no fault of our own. I'm not sure who is to blame for Holly's failed marriage, but she has always been somebody I've thought deserves happiness. I hope she gets it right this time.

103, you say? (unedited)

2011-06-08T00:29:00.000-07:00

We hit 103 degrees today in God's Country.

It didn't last long, I'm told, but we hit 103F for a short time. For several hours, however, we hovered at 102.

Considering we were shoveling snow less than two months ago, that's hot. In Nevada it routinely tops 100F in the summer. When I was in Nevada last July it was hotter than 103. I went geocaching during our first morning in Laughlin and it was 100 by 9 a.m., and that's dang hot, even if it was dry heat.

We spent two nights in Vegas before spending one final day in Laughlin. It was about 116F that Wednesday afternoon. It may have been a dry heat, but it's still too hot to spend a lot of time outside.

Minnesota never gets that hot, but it's almost always humid when it's hot. I'd argue a 95-degree day in Minnesota is as bad, if not worse, than 115 in Nevada. Bottom line, neither is tolerable if you're not in the shade, or a swimming pool.

We rarely hit 100F in Minnesota. It has been almost five years since the last time we hit 100. There's not much difference between 100 and 103, but it has been more than two decades since we hit 103, if I understood the weather report. The last time we hit 103 in Minnesota the mercury climbed to 105 in 1988.

So how did I commemorate the 102F day we had in Minnesota? I went bicycling.

I learned several years ago, on a 99F Sunday afternoon, that I have limitations. I was bicycling three loops around a lake at the time, and each loop was about 8.25 miles. I thought I could do my usual three laps around the lake as the mercury climbed toward 100, but I realized I was kidding myself by the time I started my second lap. I finished two laps, but that was all I could do. I'm not sure I could have finished a third lap if my life depended upon it.

Given today's heat, and the fact I'm behind my usual bicycling pace for early June, I had no problem limiting my evening bike ride to 13 miles. No matter how hot or humid it gets during the day, I don't have much of a problem bicycling after 7 p.m., as the sun isn't overhead, so it isn't beating down upon me as I ride. I waited until close to 8 p.m. to start riding since I'd be on the road for less than 60 minutes.

The biggest challenge wasn't the heat, or the humidity. Although there's rarely dry heat in Minnesota, when it gets ridiculously hot, the humidity typically drops. It was rather humid on Monday and Tuesday morning, but the humidity decreased during the day on Tuesday. By Tuesday night I'd argue we had dry heat.

But it was windy this afternoon and evening. When it's hot, wind provides little comfort, but on rare days like Tuesday, it wasn't the worst thing to deal with, unless you were bicycling. It certainly made my final miles home more challenging than I cared for.

But I made it, and in a couple of days the high temperature is going to fall short of 70F. In my old age I don't need heat, I'd rather have a high temp of 65 than 85, so you won't hear me complain that it's not warm enough. Today reminded me of that.

Thank Jehovah it's June (unedited)

2011-06-06T01:08:00.000-07:00

I don't like using the symbolic turning of the calendar page as an excuse for making wholesale changes in my life, but the start of June seems to coincide with the end of a long, painful spring.

I never intended for my blog to be a vehicle for me to whine about how shitty life is. Unfortunately tales of woe have found their way into my blog during the four years I have been writing about the world around me.

I'm not excited about this summer, even if I have plans to look forward to. I'm not going to be a different person by Labor Day, but I won't be the same person, either. I wish I could be excited for my future, but that's just not possible. I guess the fact I am free to do what I want with my life is something to be thankful for, but I'm not going to forget the sadness that will shadow my life for years to come. As I noted previously, I'm coping quite well with disappointment. I have come to expect it in life. But that doesn't mean I won't be haunted by my sadness. I know myself well enough to know it's a cross I will bear for a long time to come, no matter what else happens in my life. I really wish I could treat people as disposable, I mean that sincerely, but we all have our faults, and caring about people is one of mine.

I'm not going to quit smoking, drinking and swearing with the turn of a calendar page. I'm not going to start exercising four hours a day, volunteering at the soup kitchen and studying for a master's degree simply because we've reached the unofficial start of summer. But during the past week I have made conscious choices to better my life in a few small ways. I'm not ready to slap myself on the back for my effort through five days of June, but I'm better off than I was five days ago, even if it's only psychological.

There's a light at the end of my tunnel, I can see it. More important, I believe in it. I know I will reach it. And this will be the last I'll write about my pointless, meaningless life this summer.

The summer of George? (unedited)

2011-05-31T23:42:00.001-07:00

The summer of George turned out to be a lost summer for George Costanza. I can't afford a lost summer.

I have a new manager at work. He's at least the fifth manager I have had in the past six years. he's young, confident in his abilities and rubs me the wrong way. He has no real managerial experience, and the little things he nitpicks about remind me, yet again, that my life is one big waste of time. My company is a joke, and after more than 13 years, the joke is on me. I have pissed away more than six years working for a despicable company, if not more. I know every day of my life since Dec. 9, 2004, has been pissed away.

I have spent most of 2011 wondering what I'm living for. The answer is nothing. I haven't been enamored with my job for years, but I don't know what else to do. I can't wait much longer for the answer to magically appear. My job is the most significant thing in my life, unfortunately, and it's killing me. It is literally killing me.

When my girlfriend left Minnesota in early February, I was doubtful that I would ever move to be with her. I don't know what I expected to happen, but packing up and leaving Minnesota didn't seem like the answer.

Almost immediately I started to realize that moving out of state wouldn't have been as ridiculous as I first thought. I started to envision a scenario that would have made a lot of sense for me personally. This all happened within two weeks of her leaving, but it was only after she left that I was informed she was ready to kick me to the curb months prior. I had outlived my usefulness, but she decided it was easier to kick me to the curb after she left.

I thought she was the one person who kind of understood me. She couldn't put an end to the slow, downward spiral my life was in, but by moving out of state she unwittingly gave me the incentive I needed to finally jump off the runaway train my life had become. The hiring of Mutton Chops, my new manager, should have been the last straw. My personality clash with Mutton Chops should be affirming my decision to leave Minnesota behind. I should be moving to Utah in September.

Instead I'm left to pick up the pieces of my life, before it's too late. I'm not sure I have the strength.

Somehow I have to find the inner strength to carry on, faced with a life that is devoid of meaning and purpose. I don't know how that is going to happen. This may very well end up being the summer of George.

Bradlee Dean is a whore (unedited)

2011-05-29T22:30:00.001-07:00

I first encountered the cult of Bradlee Dean several years ago.

I was introduced to his wacky organization while pumping gas in Plymouth. His "international" organization, You Can Run But You Cannot Hide, is religious, political and educational, I guess. It depends upon which shoe fits that day. At the time they were focused on promoting a drug-free message. Some dude volunteered to pump my gas and was happy to accept a donation for his anti-drug crusade. I quizzed him about his organization, thought it was a cute idea, gave him a buck and took a copy of his propaganda. I thought perhaps it would make an interesting feature story for my employer.

I'll get a few details wrong from here, but I don't care. I won't waste any more of my time perusing his ridiculous website.

Bradlee Dean, (that's his stage name) is the head honcho of YCRBYCH and a rock and roll washout. He didn't make it as a rock star, so he found God. Or something like that.

There's a great picture of him, looking every bit the part of a late 80s hairband drummer. He is the right age for the gig, too. Today he is in his 40s, I'm certain. (I found age info on his website years ago, which explained why he looked like an 80s hairband guy 15 years too late.) He would have been in his early 20s when hairband rock was all the rage on the Sunset Strip and hard rock radio.

Somehow he never hit the big time, but as I recall he claims that his own dabbling with drugs in his years of pursuing the dream provide the inspiration for his YCRBYCH program.

Today he has a band of like-minded folk who play hard rock. They call themselves Junkyard Prophet. (Or should that be Junkyard Profit?) I think their philosophy is that in order to reach kids, you have to speak their language. So by rockin' out, kids will understand what Bradlee means when he tells kids "say not to drugs."

The problem, I learned in the days that followed the gas station encounter, is that his well funded organization irritated a few school districts around the country, as their say no message was blurred by a bit of preaching about premarital sex and fidelity. I searched for info about his organization and found links to a few stories about public school districts who were surprised by the message being delivered by YCRBYCH. Girls were segregated from the boys, and the girls were basically told that they must remain pure for their husbands. And the message wasn't delivered in a clinical manner, it was presented with a bit of a biblical emphasis, as I recall.

YCRBYCH had corporate sponsors, I think, and as I recall the entourage traveled by fancy coach bus to preach its anti-drug message. Good gig if you can get it.

For years Bradlee's website has touted that Junkyard Prophet was the second best unsigned band in the nation, behind P.O.D. There's never any attribution to this claim, but somebody somewhere said it, so they cling to that to this day. I guess God frowns upon drug use, but not delusions of grandeur.

I hadn't seen or heard much about burnout Bradlee in recent years. His organization has had a booth hawking its merchandise at the Minnesota State Fair for at least a few years running, ironically right outside the building where I work. I don't stop to peruse the merchandise.

Recently Bradlee made the news here in Minnesota. He now calls himself a pastor, although I can't find any information about his alleged church. He weaseled his way into the Minnesota House of Representatives under the guise of being a pastor. He showed up, hair longer than ever, it appears, and pulled into a ponytail. Wearing a track suit, he led a prayer, video of which is online. He took a shot at Obama at the conclusion of his prayer to "Father God." One problem with that, his prayer wasn't supposed to be political. That angered Democrats and embarrassed Republicans.

So that got me started looking into the burnout's recent endeavors. As it turns out, he's a big defender of the Constitution, and he fears that it's being forgotten in the schools of America, particularly the "one nation, under God" part. I'm not sure what he is arguing for exactly, but we aren't God fearing enough in schools or our lives, it seems.

He has also been hosting a weekly chat session on a local AM radio station. I learned that he recently got the boot from his host station. This occurred before the prayer session, evidently, because he mocked African Americans. (That's what God wants, right?)

He has also been less than kind to homosexuals in the past. And shockingly he has a big supporter in wacky Michele Bachmann. What's not to like about this guy?

As if his preaching on the radio isn't bad enough, he now has a video that promotes his crusade to clean up the public school system, (the system that let him down). "My War" is not only available for purchase, he paid to have it broadcast weekly for several weeks running on our local CW affiliate. He see himself as a Marvel Comics superhero, according to his introduction. I watched a bit of it. He has all of our nation's problems pegged, or so he thinks. It's slightly entertaining, but I couldn't watch an hour of this burnout.

Good news, his hypocrisy is catching up with him. Bad news, for every media outlet or corporation that distances itself from him, another one sees an opportunity. He has been featured on cable news outlets, he claims, and that wouldn't surprise me. Cable news thrives off of extremists such as Bradlee. Having recently been booted from sending his lackeys out to Minnesota Wal-Mart stores and losing his local radio home, he'll probably get more national attention for his war. And there's a chance an FM talk station will pick him up.

Bradlee's operation is well financed, somehow. His websites are slick, his "war" video is professionally produced and his organization can afford a lot of operational expenses. He must be making big cash on the sale of those Junkyard Prophet CDs.

He's not dealing drugs or stealing credit cards to finance his lifestyle, as best I know, but I can't help but feel this guy and his disciples are criminals, too. But they're stealing time and money in the name of Father God, so I guess that makes it OK.

Wonewoc, we hardly knew ya (unedited)

2011-05-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

The 22nd annual camping trip ended today. For the third time in its 22 years, it wasn't held at our private campsite outside Wausau, Wis.

Our private campsite is on undeveloped land, and it's a 0.2 mile walk over uneven ground to get from the gravel road to our campsite tucked in the trees. Usually the ground is dry by Memorial Day weekends. Five years ago it wasn't. Our campsite was dry, but it was rather wet walking to and from the campsite. That's not the end of the world, but it's not a good thing when my buddies are towing their kids with them. We ended up at the nearby county park that weekend and were lucky to get a campsite there.

Given the avalanche of snow the Midwest had this past winter, and the fact it has rained plenty this spring, it was a sure bet that the water was worse than ever. We decided we had to go elsewhere.

We spent a few hours last week deciding where to go. Online searches gave us ideas, but nothing jumped out at us as the answer we were waiting for. On Friday morning it looked like we were going to try our luck camping in a Minnesota state forest. State forests have campsites, but few amenities. Given our campsite in Wausau has zero amenities, a primitive campground in a state forest is not a big deal.

But then Doug offered the winning solution Friday morning. On Thursday night his wife found free camping, including firewood, in small town, Wisconsin. It sounded like the perfect solution. Instead of driving three hours into Wisconsin to camp in the Wausau area, we'd go to something called Wonewoc, a one-time rail stop in central Wisconsin.

Doug and I arrived mid-afternoon and missed our turn. We quickly determined our directions didn't match where we were going, so I called the number on our print out. My call went to village hall.

I think my call was answered by the city administrator. He explained what I was looking for, and noted that it had rained during the past two days, so the area we were headed to may be flooded. He noted, however, that there was another place to camp, Wonewoc Legion Park, a few blocks away.

We inspected the accommodations at site 1 and decided it was less than ideal. It's a great place to camp if you're a do-it-yourself biker or somebody traveling by car across the country and looking for free places to pitch a tent each night. There was enough dry land to meet our needs at site 1, but little more than that. There was free firewood and a fire pit, and an old park nearby, but our campsite was along the Wisconsin 400 State Trail. The aggregate trail wasn't a high traffic trail, but it was less than appealing. Great place to set up for the night if you bike with your tent and gear on your fork and frame, but not ideal for weekend camping recreationalists. We started to think we made a bad decision.

Our next stop was Legion Park. It has a city pool, a picnic shelter, a large grass field that was cleared in anticipation of a softball diamond that was never built and a small area for camping. It had an obvious place to park an RV, but if it is designed for more than one group to camp, I'm surprised.

Legion Park looked like the place to be, but we decided to check one last option. We needed groceries for the weekend, so we had to find a grocery store (Wonewoc has a small one with a nice guy who runs it. And he has a lot of stuff, but his store is more like a convenience store than a supermarket. If you live in Wonewoc, you don't do your major grocery shopping there.) As we backtracked in search of a grocery store we decided to backtrack further and check out a campground we passed. We worked our way back to Tunnel Trail Campground, named in honor of the tunnels the bike trail passes through. (The bike trail, like many others, is an old railroad bed, and the trains that ran up and down this line indeed passed through these tunnels.)

The campground had some adjoining spots open for tent camping, but most of the campground was full. There were plenty of camper trailers around, and that seemed to be what they catered to. There were a handful of tent sites, but we would have needed two of them for our four tents, and after checking them out we decided it wasn't worth it. Each site was $35 a night, meaning it was $140 for our two nights there. The money wasn't an issue, but what were we getting for our money? Two nice grassy spots together, yes, but small sites that left little room for the kids to play. There was a small volleyball area and a playground on the property, but this wasn't worth $140. There was a small mini-golf course that looked like fun, and it was cheap to play, but again, not worth $140 for access to. There was a swimming pool (heated, I think),) but in typical Memorial Day fashion the weather is less than outstanding. We weren't too interested in swimming even if the pool was warm. (I'm pretty sure the kids didn't have swimsuits.) We decided that Tunnel Trail Campground wasn't for us. We headed back to Wonewoc.

We set up in Wonewoc on a nice flat area that in a previous life had been the grassy space between horseshoe pits. A great space for four tents. Not long after we set up we had a visitor. It was Lee, the city administrator.

During our chat we learned about the history of the park and a few tidbits about small town, Wisconsin. I followed Lee over to the high school's outdoor environmental studies area so he could show me where the nature trail was. He told me more about the town's history, the Baraboo River and the bike trail. We were fortunate Lee stopped in to check on the park Friday night, as we likely never would have found the trail on our own Saturday.

German Bear and cubs arrived after dusk. We were all relatively tired and went to bed by midnight, I think.

I woke up at 6 a.m. Saturday to tinkle. I had to tinkle like an elephant. Too many beers before going to bed. It was light out already, and the kids were all up, milling about. I was convinced I'd never fall back to sleep, but I gave it a go. Sure enough, I snoozed without a problem. The next time I woke up it was to the sound of a police officer talking with the dads. It seems the kids were bored and decided to test if the old, dirty pay phone at the pool was working. It was. They decided to test it by dialing 911. Obviously the local officer on duty was dispatched to the park after this occurred. He found the kids and asked them if they had dialed the phone. They admitted to it. So he then talked to the dads, explaining what had happened. End of story. I rolled over and fell back to sleep.

Usually when I'm camping it gets too hot to sleep in the tent once the sun rises and starts heating the air inside my tent. That wasn't a problem on Saturday. It turned out to be a pleasant day, but it wasn't very warm Saturday morning. I slept almost until noon.

We headed out to the nature trail shortly after noon and walked around for a short while. The trail takes you near a cliff known as Third Castle, which has a cave in it. Unfortunately the cave is on private property, and on the opposite side of the river, making it inaccessible. I knew this, but the kids thought they'd be able to go inside the cave, evidently.

I wanted to do more walking, but the kids were easily bored by the nature trails, so we headed into town and had late lunch at a local pizzeria. The restaurant did a nice job, and they treated the kids well.

We returned to Legion Park and found a group was assembling on the field for a night of camping. It was a group of five, I think, all adults. They were quiet, unlike Doug, who insists upon singing, poorly, to his favorite rap and rock songs of yesteryear.

I went with Doug and the two boys to the top of a small cliff near our campsite. The boys thought it was a lot of fun to throw sticks into the trees from atop the cliff. I sat down and drank beer.

Eventually they headed back down to our campsite, I sat alone for a while, thinking back to my 2010 camping trip and how worthless my life had become since that time. During that camping trip my girlfriend told me she loved me. I don't know why she was compelled to lie to me that weekend, but there I was a year later, realizing I have nothing to live for, and instead of being sad about it, I was indifferent to it.

I wound up taking a nap before sunset, despite the fact I slept for most of a 12-hour period. I got up at dusk and sat around drinking beer with Doug until 2:45 a.m.

I had to tinkle within an hour of going to bed, which was annoying, but otherwise I slept until 8 a.m.

I got up to tinkle again and German Bear was milling about. I didn't think much of it, but shortly after I climbed back into my tent he started taking his down. He seemed to be a bit eager to pack up, but again I didn't think much of it.

Everybody decided to walk into town to go to the bakery. I stayed behind and eventually got up and started slowly packing my things up. It had started to sprinkle a bit, and I hoped we'd be packed up before a serious rainfall. (We had light showers on Friday night, too, but otherwise avoided significant rain, something we wouldn't have avoided had we stayed in Minnesota.)

The group came back after having breakfast at the family restaurant. (The bakery was closed.) German Bear had all his stuff packed up, so he quickly hit the road. Doug and I finished our packing and took off within an hour.

Wonewoc won't replace Wausau as our camping destination, but for a town we gambled upon for a weekend of camping, we did well.

Egos run amok (unedited)

2011-05-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

I know, they're doing their jobs, allegedly.

I have had it with storm coverage by local television stations. On Sunday a significant storm blew through the Minneapolis area. It killed one person and did major damage in a lower-income Minneapolis neighborhood. There's a need to alert and inform Twin Cities residents via local television during such storms, but to say local stations go overboard would earn you the Understatement of the Year Award.

Somehow storms are now called events. The media covers events, so therefore every storm now deserves storm coverage.

The problem with the coverage is that it requires improvisational skills many TV broadcasters don't have. And since it's "breaking news," they beautiful people are improvising with limited information. it's painful to watch.

Why do stations insist upon event overkill? Same reason every other media outlet exists, to make money. I've said it before, public service is a nice talking point in a sales pitch, and it's a good excuse to be in business, but in the end print and broadcast media outlets exist to make money for somebody. Nobody invests millions of dollars to break even at the end of the year.

The meteorologists and anchors who babble endlessly, sometimes for hours, on live TV should be ashamed of themselves. At minimum they should be embarrassed by the pompous display they put on during such events. But being a talking head requires a degree of arrogance, and I'd bet most of the windbags think they're doing us all a really big favor.

I don't mind that they cut in, but I don't need two hours of live video showing me downed trees and roofs blown off houses. I've seen it a million times. Showing me a city bus stopped on a main road through the neighborhood because a tree fell down in front of it, and then eventually behind it, doesn't fascinate me. Show the bus on top of the roof of a two-story apartment building, then you'll be showing me something worth the time.

The maps and scrolling updates suffice most of the time, but meteorologists have to get in front of the camera and lecture me about the storm, using their fancy graphics and magical powers to show me how much rain fell at every intersection in a 90-mile radius and exactly what time rain will fall 30 miles east of where it's raining at the moment.

The whole charade is counter-intuitive. If the weather is that bad in my suburb, I shouldn't be sitting there watching TV, I should be cowering under a table or praying in my bathroom. And do I really need a TV genius to tell me it's raining in my city when the windows of my apartment are shaking from the wind and being pelted by liquid bullets?

So who are they putting on a show for? Themselves.

Breaking in with details for a few minutes, that's warranted. Conducting interviews with an Average Joe trying to describe the sound of the storm when it hit a neighborhood, not necessary. Even worse than the tired footage of downed trees and decapitated houses, the live telephone interview of somebody at the scene.

Unfortunately for the viewing public the live event coverage isn't going away. "Chief" meteorologists and anchors drop what they're doing to run to the station and provide their valuable insight. It's despicable.

My favorite moments from the 15-20 minutes of coverage I watched:
• Little Weather Boy was showing uploaded photos and videos from the storm on his station's Facebook page. I swear they pointed a camera at a computer monitor and he clicked through photos on Facebook.
• Ian Douglas (or is he Paul Leonard) made sure to have his shirt and tie on for Sunday's event coverage. I ran across him on Saturday afternoon, when a minor event also prompted live coverage. Ian was wearing some ugly, untucked shirt. He looked hilarious taking himself so seriously in that shirt.
• One of the channel 5 bimbos described what we were watching after the storm, through the miracle of live television. As people were cutting up fallen trees with chainsaws, she remarked how you could see standing water from the storm underneath the trees. Wow, rain puddled during a storm!

One person died during Minnesota's event on Sunday. Another guy died working to clear trees. People were hurt. Many homes were significantly damaged. Our state was overshadowed by the devastating tornadoes of Missouri, but this was still a major storm by our standards, and worthy of the time and attention it is getting after it is all over. But once again a storm proved it can't compete with an unnatural disaster: the TV broadcasting ego.

When it's over, is it really over? (unedited)

2011-05-15T00:26:00.000-07:00

It wasn't exactly a revelation, but I woke up one morning not so long ago and realized that what I've known for years is true. My life is empty and meaningless.

I don't hate my life, but I don't love it. I'm busier than I was 10 or 15 years ago, but my life isn't any more fulfilling or satisfying. It's less so, and it's harder to go through the motions the older I get.

I never wanted children of my own, but parenting is a disease many American adults seem to be afflicted with. Raising children and working tirelessly to provide for them seems to drive plenty of people. I'm selfish, I have no interest in wiping a crying baby's butt.

And I'm not too concerned with my legacy. I don't need people talking about me when I die. I don't need a scholarship fund in my honor. Sure, I'd like to be remembered as the guy who cured cancer, but that's not going to happen. And I'm fine with that.

Years ago I realized that the one thing that would seem to inspire me, make my life worth living, is living it for somebody else. Knowing I was the most important person in somebody else's life seemed like the one thing that would make my life meaningful. But I've failed to achieve that. So now I wonder what I'm living for. The answer: nothing.

This doesn't make me sad. It doesn't make me happy, but I'm not having a tough time getting out of bed. Well, no more so than usual.

Are there people who go through life without a sense of purpose, yet have no problem with that. Are there people who don't care that their life is a series of motions? I think so. But I'm not one of those people.

After 40 years I'm done hoping, praying, wishing and waiting for a purpose. I'm one of those people who has none. I use to worry about the future. Now I don't have to.

All I wanted was a free buffet (unedited)

2011-05-10T23:44:00.000-07:00

Allegedly the price of gas is going to stop rising, so say the pretty pretty TV people.

Yesterday I could have filled my tank for $3.82/gallon. But I had a 7-cent discount coupon for the gas station, so that made my gas $3.75/gallon. Today gas was pretty much $3.99/gallon everywhere I passed this afternoon and evening. Those gas price forecasts did note that the price may spike a bit yet before a true drop in the cost per gallon. The pretty pretty TV people were right.

So with gas going for $4/gallon, the last thing I need to be doing is driving an extra 30 miles to go to a casino. I didn't. I took my bike to a guy who does tune up work out of his home, and for half the price of a bike shop tune up. He hopes to open his own bike shop eventually. For now, without the overhead costs associated with a bike shop, he does tune up work cheap, and I reap the benefit.

I normally have my bike tuned up by May, but it was a lousy April, so I haven't missed many decent bicycling opportunities. By this time next week I'll be working out the rust in my knees and back.

After dropping off my bike this evening I went to a casino, Mistake Lake as some of us like to call it, about a mile from where the bike guy lives. I don't make many cameos at the casino any more, even though I live closer to it than I ever have. I use to go more often when I lived another 10 or 20 minutes away, but I have lost my appetite for it. (I do play poker at the poker room occasionally, so I haven't gone cold turkey here in Minnesota.) I like to gamble in Vegas, but I learned several years ago that the highs aren't as high as the lows are low, so I don't go to the casino very often here in Minnesota. Besides, online porn is cheaper.

I arrived at the casino about 8:30 p.m, still plenty of time to partake in the modestly priced weeknight buffet. I should have ruled it out immediately, as I tend to find that the end-of-night buffet offerings are getting long in the tooth, unless you are lucky. I don't expect the food to be 6 hours old, but it was a rather slow night at the casino, so I doubt there was a lot of fresh food at 8:30.

I was surprised by how little atmosphere and action there was in the casino. I'm not the only one scared off by $4 gas, I guess.

Instead of going to the buffet for dinner and trying to win back the cost of my meal, I sat down at a blackjack table and thought I'd play for 20 minutes, win $25 and then go eat. (The buffet would have cost me less than $15.) I won my first two hands, then lost two. I then went up $15, only to lose it. I couldn't hit a nice run of cards early, and I stuck to my conservative $5 wagers, so I had to win four or five more hands then I lost.

It didn't take long before I was in the hole, and no matter what I did, I couldn't catch a streak of winning hands. Sure I'd win a few hands in a short burst, but every time I'd win $20 or $25 in short order it was after I dropped $30 or $40 over a slow losing streak.

For every lucky hand I won, I lost three or four to bad luck. Maybe it was an average night, but I sure seemed to lose with 20 more often than I should have. Players get lucky and draw to 21 occasionally, but the dealer seemed to do so far more often than I did.

I hate when I am dealt a pair of aces. You can split them and draw one card on each ace, but that's it. If you don't draw a face card, you're stuck with whatever you have, unless it is another ace. At Mistake Lake they let you split aces up to four times. I drew a new ace on my split aces twice, so I had four hands on the table, and I drew one face card on the four aces. Naturally I lost on the other three hands. It was that kind of night.

I also had lousy luck on double down hands. If I doubled down on a 10 or 11, I'd almost never draw a face card. If I doubled on a soft 15 or 16, I wouldn't draw a 4 or 5, I'd draw a face card or some other worthless card, then need the dealer to bust because I didn't have a potential winning hand. Rarely did the dealer bust. I openly laughed at my misfortune a few times. It was just that kind of night.

I started with $100 in chips, and at one point I was down to $10. Despite that I stayed alive, and finally started catching a few breaks. I remember looking at my chip stack on a few occasions and noting it was at $85. I had caught a few breaks, hit an occasional double down and bumped up my bet to $7.50 or $10 when the cards were running favorable. I remember twice looking at my bet and realizing if I won the hand I'd be back to even or up a couple of bucks. Each time I had that break even opportunity, I'd lose. I just couldn't get back to even.

And before long my stack slowly whittled back down. I was so frustrated and angry at myself for sitting at a table that had managed to suck the life out of me for three hours that I finally got up, hating myself for having such lousy luck and not getting up when I was close to even. I could have tried to win that last $20 at another table. Instead I walked away with $27.50 in chips.

A dude sitting at my table when I left was destined for the same painful realization I was. The guy bought in for $20, and despite making some unwise decisions, such as splitting cards in situations where most players wouldn't, or doubling down at times when most players would stand, he was having decent luck. He'd bet $5 most often, but occasionally he'd bump his bet up to $15 or $20, and sometimes play two hands at a time. He bet $20 on a hand after the dealer had a blackjack, doubled down on the hand and won $40. At one point he turned his $20 into $120. But slightly unorthodox play will eventually catch up to you. When I left he had about $40 in chips, thanks to chasing a win with two or three consecutive big bets that didn't pan out. Unless he pulled more money out of his wallet, I'm convinced he walked away a $20 loser rather than a $100 winner.

Before giving up for good I decided to try my luck at a different table. I started by betting $5 on the first hand of a new shoe and got blackjack. From there I continued to win. I bumped my bet up to $7.50 and kept winning. I made $10 bets and won a few of those, too. There were four of us on the table and the other guys were making bigger wagers than me most of the time, and they were winning, too. They weren't winning as consistently as I was, but the dealer was busting quite a bit. I don't think I lost more than three hands. I may have pushed once or twice, but I had a few blackjacks during this shoe, and kept raking the chips in. In a matter of minutes I turned $27.50 into $100. There were still several hands left in the shoe, so I decided I'd better gamble a few bucks and see if my luck continued.

It did. I kept raking in $7.50 or $10 a hand for another four or five hands, and by the time the end of the shoe came I had more than $160 in chips. For that 10 minutes I was nearly unbeatable. Had I known I was in for that kind of luck, I'd have won $1,000, but I have found that you can have incredible luck for half of a shoe, and as soon as you think you're unbeatable, something changes and you can't win a hand. So I avoided the temptation to start betting $20 or $25 a hand, as I didn't want to leave the casino in the hole, and I didn't want to stick around another hour trying to break even. So I remained conservative and kept winning.

I decided to make a $6 bet on the first hand of the next shoe, to see if my luck continued. If I had won, I would have continued playing to see if I could turn that $6 into another $50 or more, but I lost the first hand, so I cashed out. I finished $57 ahead for the night.

It was midnight, too late for the buffet, and I was more than ready to go home. I spent less than four hours playing blackjack, and have no complaints about my per-hour winnings, but I could have lived without the emotional roller coaster and the prospect of dumping $100 that I didn't need to burn.

If only I had remembered why I went there in the first place, I could have had that free buffet and been home three hours sooner.

Bristol Palin is a whore (unedited)

2011-05-09T23:20:00.000-07:00

I'm not exactly breaking news when I tell you that Bristol Palin is a whore. A media whore, for sure. Beyond that, I can't say.

I don't know what's more pathetic, that Bristol and her fascinating life are going to be chronicled via a new show on a cable network I've never heard of, or that I read the Yahoo! blurb about it today.

The 20-year-old media whore is going to work for some sort of charitable operation in California and hobnob for the TV cameras with her celebrity pals she made through her participation in "Dancing with the Stars." A woman whose only accomplishments are getting pregnant and parlaying her mother's celebrity status into an appearance on a televised dancing competition is now fascinating enough to have a video crew follow her around, allegedly. It's not surprising, and considering how low cable television sinks to attract the Jerry Springer sector of society, why not profile a fraudulent teenager who is now telling teenagers "do as I say, not as I did."

You can't blame Bristol for cashing in as a media whore. Like mother, like daughter.

The mother-daughter media whores irritate me, but I can't blame them. I'd cash in if somebody gave me an opportunity to do so. Why govern Alaska when Fox News and mindless Republicans will throw money at you? Why go to college, get an education and work for a living when television networks will finance your alleged plastic surgery?

If you gave me a shot at Bristol, I'd take it. Riding the Palin gravy train beats working for a living, and if she kicked me to the curb I could cash in a la Levi Johnston. If that guy plays his cards right, he'll never have to live paycheck to paycheck, either.

I loathe the Palins, but if it wasn't for that moron John McCain, I'd have no idea who those whores are. Thanks for plucking a media whore from obscurity, John. You should be locked up for committing a crime against humanity.

Does Joe Mauer have a child, or is he secretly gay? (unedited)

2011-05-06T01:16:00.000-07:00

If I had to bet $100, I'd bet that Joe Mauer is not gay.

As noted previously, Joe Mauer is most likely just a guy who likes his privacy, but even if people claim they don't care whether or not he is gay, they do. And if he is gay, it matters to a segment of society.

That being said, Joe did nothing to diffuse my theory that he might be gay. Here in Minnesota we have a local talk show called Twin Cities Live. It's about what you expect from a local talk show, lots of lame segments, the occasional celebrity in town to promote a book or movie and a cast of local celebrities who don't deserve the title of celebrity.

A few weeks ago TCL featured a segment on our boy Mauer filming another one of his fraudulent commercials for a local line of dairy products. (I doubt that his family has been loyal to this brand of dairy products for the past 100 years, but I'm a skeptic, what do you want?)

The wacky out-and-about reporter they subject us to periodically was granted the royal privilege of behind-the-scenes access to this fascinating world of television commercial production. During an interview of Baby Jesus and his mother, who appears in the dairy company endorsements, the TCL imp asked Mauer if he has a girlfriend. After hemming and hawing for a moment he said he is seeing someone.

He didn't answer yes. That may simply be because he doesn't consider this "someone" to be a girlfriend at this point. If you date somebody several times, it doesn't mean you've entered a committed relationship. During the baseball season I doubt Mauer has a lot of free time for dating, so perhaps he recently started dating a woman but hasn't had time to cultivate a relationship. Therefore he can't say he has a girlfriend, since he doesn't.

But the skeptic in me can't help but wonder if Mauer is playing the pronoun game. Instead of acknowledging that he has a girlfriend, he pauses long enough to admit he's seeing someone and leaves it as that, because that someone is a man. It's possible.

I hadn't thought a lot about this until last night, when my friend, a woman in her 20s who has long been infatuated with Mauer, told me that he has a child. I was quite surprised to hear this, so I asked her what her information source was. It turns out that she read about an alleged 1-year-old daughter, and fiance, on Mauer's Wikipedia page the previous week, and had printed out the page as evidence. She showed it to me, and I have a copy of it.

The information about this 1-year-old daughter and child has since been scrubbed from the Wikipedia page. My friend was unaware of how easy it is to post anything about anyone on a Wikipedia page. For a woman in her 20s, it's mildly impressive how detached she is from the Internet. She has a Facebook page and logs into it, but she's not nearly as Internet dependent as most people in their 20s. It's nice to see.

The Wikipedia reference to a fiance and child suggested that the woman was an on-again, off-again girlfriend who is now Mauer's fiance. It also named her and suggested she is a former Edina High School basketball star. (Edina is a Minneapolis suburb, and a wealthy one at that.) I searched for her name several times and several ways, and I am of the conclusion that the posting of this information is the work of a prankster. Never mind the fact it would be mildly remarkable if Mauer is able to keep the birth of a daughter a secret from the world for more than a year. The only other reference I could find to the alleged fiance and child was a variant of the info in the printout. Some website archived Mauer info from Wikipedia that showed similar information, although it had a different birth date for the child.

I won't say it is impossible for Mauer to have a child and keep it a secret from most of the population, but given that parenting children out of wedlock is practically celebrated in the NBA, the social stigma of having a child and not being married is long gone, and therefore makes for an illogical secret. If it's true, it whitewashes Mauer's squeaky clean image, but big deal. All that does is make him more human, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I'm convinced the reference was either a prank or the wishful thinking of a delusional stalker who wants to be the mother of his child. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps he is the father of a 1-year-old daughter. That would make me wrong twice.

But until I'm proven wrong, there's a chance I'm right. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Saturday night fever (unedited)

2011-04-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

"It's a Saturday night, and I'm looking for some party action. I don't care about getting laid, I want some quick and easy satisfaction." -- The Donnas, "Rock 'n' Roll Machine"

Two weeks ago I went to see a band other than L.A. Guns. I went to see Cinderella. I have seen Cinderella twice during the past decade, as part of the Poison summer tour. Monica is a big Poison fan, and I enjoy their music, even if I'm not a huge fan, so I've been to a few Poison concerts with her over the years. A couple of times Cinderella was part of that summer tour, and I found their performance to be better than Poison. So finally, after all these years, I saw Cinderella headline a club show here in Minnesota. They played at the crappy Medina Entertainment Center, which can pack more than 1,000 people in its upstairs ballroom. It's a huge room, but not a great concert venue when the place is full. But I decided that this would be the year I finally see them headline a show. They don't tour as much as Poison, so seeing them headline a show is an opportunity that doesn't come around very often.

They put on a good show, playing all the requisite hits from their heyday, and continue to put forth a quality live product. This band isn't held in the same regard as Bon Jovi or Motley Crue, but they are an exceptional live band that isn't as cheesy as Poison or Warrant. They didn't hurt themselves by playing a marathon set, but what the did do, they did well.

I bought the ticket when it went on sale a couple of months ago, so I was committed to the show. As it turns out, that was the same night as the annual fundraising dinner for my sister's workshop. My sister is mentally retarded, (a term that is politically incorrect, evidently,) and the workshop program where she spends her days has an annual fundraising dinner. I went to it with my mother a couple of years ago. My mom tries to go every year to support my sister's workshop, and she doesn't want to go by herself, so she buys two tickets. I could have attended both the dinner and concert, I just didn't want to run around that much. Instead my mom took one of her friends to the dinner, I'm sure.

My Halloween friends were also having a party that Saturday night. I wasn't heartbroken to miss the party, but I would have been there had there been nothing else going on.

And to top it off, the day of the concert I received a Facebook message mentioning there was going to be a poker game that night in Minneapolis.

I had four different things I could have spent my Saturday night doing. When it rains, it pours. I also knew that I'd end up with little to do the following weekends, and I was right.

The following Saturday was the night before Easter. Unlike Christmas, the world doesn't come to a halt on Easter eve, but not to my surprise, there was nothing going on, at least nothing that I was invited to.

And last night was no different. I spent my Saturday night at home, doing nothing memorable. I might as well get use to it.

They say there are five stages of grief. I'm not sure if I believe it. I'm still grieving the fact that I was duped by my ex-girlfriend and tossed aside like a sack of garbage.

I didn't have much of a denial state, if any. And although acceptance is the final stage, I accepted the unexpected kick to the curb almost immediately. There's really no bargaining involved in my grief. I haven't tried to get the ex-girlfriend to reconsider kicking me to the curb.

The only things I've dealt with are anger and depression. I'm angry that I was little more than a rebound boyfriend to her. She may not have considered me to be merely a rebound boyfriend at the time, but subconsciously she knew I was just a crutch until she was ready to move on with her life. Hard not to be angry.

The depression is a result of knowing that even though I'm a less than perfect person, I cared more for her than I cared for myself, and in the end I was disposable. There's a part of me that was always prepared for that day to come, but I fooled myself into believing this time it would be different. I'm an idiot, and I'll be spending several Saturday nights hating my life during the next several months. That's depressing.

When I have been tossed aside so freely and easily in the past, it has crippled me. I guess I'm a stronger person in my old age. I don't feel crippled. I'm angry and depressed, but it isn't crippling me. Perhaps that's because in the past I didn't see any options to a lifetime of loneliness. I had nothing to hope for.

Today I find myself right back where I was two years ago. I had hope I didn't have in my late 20s and early 30s, and thankfully I still have it now. I no longer have to fear a lifetime of loneliness, and I have to cling to that in the months to come. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, and I am optimistic I will reach it.

Just when you thought you'd seen it all (unedited)

2011-04-29T00:07:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week it was announced that Friendster is purging much of its user-submitted content as part of a rebranding of its site.

I'm not sure how many people know the name Friendster, but everyone knows Facebook. Friendster was Facebook before Myspace was Facebook. I had a Friendster account many years ago, thanks to my friend Monica. She's a social butterfly, and social networking is an ideal platform for her flights of fancy. She invited me to join Friendster, so I did. I don't know of any other friend who had a Friendster account, but I thought the idea of a social network was intriguing. I rarely dabbled with the fresh, new and exciting concept, but I was there, at the forefront.

Flash forward a few years, Myspace takes the world by storm. I eventually climb aboard the bandwagon, and use the fancy new social network a bit, but find that I hate, absolutely hate, how ridiculously it is run. I disliked Myspace so much that I deleted my account.

When I did that, I'm not sure if I had heard of Facebook, but eventually I reluctantly joined what would become the most successful social network of all time, expecting to hate it as much as I hated Myspace. I joined it as a means to stay in touch with the Halloween friends I made working at a local haunted attraction in 2007. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it, and now I log in 75 times a day.

There are online stories about how Friendster beat Myspace and Facebook to the social network party, yet shot itself in the foot. It's a fascinating read. (Friendster somehow evolved into the social network of choice in Asia, so all is not lost.)

In some cases being first to the Internet with a concept means you'll come out on top, but not always. Friendster may not have been the first major social network, but if had a significant presence long -- by Internet standards -- before Facebook.

The creators of Hot or Not, a website where you rate the attractiveness of people who submit their pictures to the site, were pioneers of the concept, although not the first, according to Wikipedia. When Hot or Not blew up, there were imitators, (the one I used most often was hotnessrating.com, defunct for many years now,) and the concept is replicated to this day by dating websites and other online destinations. But many of the early imitators are long gone, yet the owners of Hot or Not outlasted their imitators -- and outlasted the initial buzz that made them a trendy online destination for a few weeks -- before selling out a few years ago.

The creators of the website were brilliant in parlaying their 15 minutes of fame into something lucrative. They added the "meet me" feature, which allowed users to peruse photos by geographic region and contact the subjects of photos who consented to receiving e-mail from their admirers. The admirers paid a nominal fee for the privilege of sending a private message. I spent a few bucks making contact with a few local users, and ended up dating a woman through the site. This happened despite the fact that I have never been a big fan of the online dating concept, for several reasons. But that's another blog for another time.

I have perused a few online dating sites, and I know people who have had memberships at eHarmony and Match. I've never had a membership to any dating site that has a monthly fee, and I'm not about to start. (I have wasted my time with the best free dating site I know of, Plenty of Fish.)

On Sunday night as I was driving home I heard a commercial on the radio for a site I had never heard of: Cougar Life. Cougar Life claims to have more than 1 million users, and it must be doing something right if there's a radio ad campaign. The commercial sounded like a parody ad you'd see on Saturday Night Live. I couldn't resist perusing it when I got home, and my findings left me less than impressed.

I found one decent ad on the site, and thought that the woman was worth contacting. In order to contact her, however, I had to either buy a one-month membership for $40 or sign up for a three-month membership, billed in monthly installments of $30. I am not poor, and I'd have no qualms about spending $40 for dinner or drinks, but I'm not going to gamble $40 on the come, especially given my belief that the woman has been inundated with responses. Unless I stand out, I won't even get a response for my $40. Good luck to you, Susan, I will not enter the derby.

For a few years now radio stations have been promoting half off gift certificates to local businesses through their websites, if you're one of the first 100 to log in and complete a purchase when they go on sale. I've purchased several of those deals.

Then along comes Groupon. Just when you think you've seen it all, somebody comes along with a new concept for marketing retail discounts.

Earlier this week, completely by chance, I stumbled across a tweet for a new dating concept. The concept combines online dating and Groupon. Each day InboxCupid sends a personal ad to its membership, and the idea originated here in the Minneapolis area. Just when I thought I had seen it all...

I have no doubt the concept will be nationwide before long -- it has started with ads for singles in the Minneapolis market only -- or that there will be imitators putting their own spin on the concept. I like some aspects of the concept, but question others.

How it works: Singles can submit their photo and bio to the site for free. The bio will be sent to InboxCupid subscribers via a daily email, and will also be posted at the website. I'm guessing that your window of opportunity to contact the single of the day is limited to a finite period of time. To contact the featured single of the day you send a private message. To do that you purchase the privilege. It's just $1 to send a message. You can buy five message tokens for $4, and unlimited access during a one-month period for $10. Unless the site is going to build a more traditional database of singles, or you're desperate enough to send messages to everyone who is delivered to your inbox, the $10 monthly access rate seems unnecessary.

I really like the idea that you can establish contact with somebody for the low price of $1. Had Cougar Life offered a one-shot access fee of $10 or less, I probably would have paid it and sent Susan a message. Seeing nobody else worth my time, $40 was a bitter pill to swallow.

InboxCupid left me with a few unanswered questions. How do they know that the picture and profile submitted are legitimate? Do they have a way to verify the authenticity of the submitted material? Conversely, how do I know the ads are legitimate?

Given that dating websites have been known to fabricate profiles and responses in order to tempt users into paying for access to the site, how can I know that InboxCupid won't fabricate an ad to generate revenue?

I have no reason to suspect the site will engage in any fraudulent activity, but I'm naturally skeptical when it comes to online dating. I guess if the concept takes off, user interest will negate any need for the proprietors of the site to jeopardize their credibility.

I will assume every ad I see on the site is legitimate. If I deem a woman to be worth responding to then I'm sure she will get truckloads of responses. When that's the case, there's a good chance she'll never get around to responding to me. That's why I think the $1 access fee to send a private message makes a lot of sense. Most people will be willing to gamble a buck, I suspect, if they like what they see. And if they strike out, it's just $1 to try again. (I might argue that they priced the cost of sending a message too low.)

Would I consider submitting my profile or responding to an ad? No.

Many people use online dating sites to shop for a mate, and I'm not opposed to it, but I'm not crazy about the idea, either. Given that I'm no prize, I don't need a lack or responses to my InboxCupid ad to lower my self-esteem.

I suppose there's a small chance I'll spend a buck or two to respond to the daily email if I find an ad I deem to be highly intriguing. But I have little expectation I'll stand out from the crowd. I stick out like a sore thumb in a crowd, but that's another story.

People #4 (unedited)

2011-04-27T22:09:00.000-07:00

Coworker D is quite a character, and it will be interesting to see how her life turns out.

She's young, early 20s, and a bit wacky. I don't know much about her life, but I have been told she has had some legal troubles related to underage drinking.

When I first connected to her via Facebook, her profile suggested she was going to school at some post-secondary institution. She didn't strike me as the type to go to college and study, but that's just me being a jerk. I'm not sure where she's at with her studies.

I do know several months ago, or perhaps a year or more ago, she became engaged. At the age of 21 or 22 she was engaged. It happens, and sometimes people who get engaged that early in life have met their soul mate. But I'm increasingly convinced we don't really know who we are until our later 20s or 30s, if then. So I am skeptical of people who get married at a young age. Never mind the fact my grandparents were 18 and 19 when they got married and remained married for 57 years until my grandmother died. It's a different world we live in.

So Coworker D has been engaged for a while, but that ended recently. According to the one reference I glimpsed on Facebook, he ended their relationship. I have no insight into their relationship, but I was intrigued by the fact that Coworker D's engagement ended. On the one hand she's a super cute girl who is easy to get along with, for the most part. On the other hand she's a bit wacky, and seems like she could be more than a handful to deal with on a regular basis.

Perhaps Coworker D proves, yet again, that beauty is only skin deep. I hope I find out some day that she's as beautiful on the inside.

People #3 (unedited)

2011-04-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

Coworker C is a guy I've wondered about.

When I first got to know him, he had a girlfriend who also worked at our haunted attraction. Within months after I first met the happy couple they split up, and she eventually moved out of state. For the past three years Coworker C has dated a few people, to the best of my understanding, but hasn't had a long-term relationship. At least I don't think so. I don't keep up with the social statuses and gossip of my Halloween coworkers, so I'm often out of the loop most of the year.

I started learning this past year that Coworker C had a girlfriend. This was confirmed during the Halloween season. They became engaged around New Year's Eve and were married in Vegas weeks later. It's his first marriage, I am certain. She has children, but I don't know much more about her background.

Coworker C went to college for some sort of computer design degree, and now works as a laborer. He couldn't find work in his field of study and wound up working in a warehouse. He also has a passion for photography, but it's nothing more than a hobby, as best as I can tell. Making a buck as a photographer is tougher than ever thanks to the availability and ease of digital photography. The skills of a photographer who knows what he is doing are priceless, but most people are willing to settle for less than expertise since cameras and film are cheap in the digital age.

In the past year his father died. His parents live in the south, so he didn't see his parents very often in recent years.

His life probably didn't work out as he planned several years ago, but now he's happily married. I asked one of my Halloween coworkers what she thought of a seemingly sudden wedding. She thinks that the fast-tracked relationship and marriage was in response to the death of his father.

Whatever be the reason for his marriage, relationships don't need to drag on for five years and culminate in a big, elaborate wedding. Perhaps Coworker C and his wife happened to be what each other were looking for, and they recognized it immediately.

Maybe their Vegas wedding was the culmination of a two-year relationship, and I didn't realize it has been going on that long. Perhaps it wasn't as sudden as it seems.

Personally I'm a bit skeptical about the long-term viability of the marriage, but that's in part because I'm skeptical any marriage will stand the test of time. Conversely I think that two people who are committed to each other and committed to making things work will find a way to do so, if their intentions are pure when they make their commitment to each other. I hope for the latter, obviously, and wish them the best of luck.

People #2 (unedited)

2011-04-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

Three Halloween coworkers have been on my mind lately.

I work at a local Halloween attraction each year and have known all of these people for four or five years.

Coworker B is the one I have known the longest. We worked in the same maze during my first year. I have long been a fan of her work.

She's younger than I would have guessed. I'm not sure how old I thought she was when we first met, but I know I thought she was a little older than it turns out she was.

In the past year she moved out of state, got engaged to her boyfriend and is about to move back to Minnesota, months before her wedding here. I have no idea where she met her fiance, where he's from or why they lived in Colorado. I have never met her fiance, but from pictures I have seen on Facebook and the few things I have gleaned from them, they seem like kindred spirits.

Coworker B is a performing artist, which is a vague way of saying that besides her Halloween work, she's a regular in the Renaissance festival scene. She makes her own costumes, has a unicorn costume she dons periodically, according to her pictures, owns snakes she performs with occasionally and does some sort of dance or performance involving fire.

I was infatuated with her five years ago, but that has worn off over time for a combination of reasons.

Even though we're not close friends, I'm invited to her wedding this summer. It sounds like it will be a non-traditional, casual ceremony, and I know a bunch of the Halloween gang is invited as well. This will be the first test of my October 2008 resolution to never attend another wedding. I haven't been invited to one in more than two years, and this is the first one I have to turn down if I stand by my resolution to never go to another wedding.

I wasn't surprised when Coworker B announced via Facebook several months ago that she is engaged, although the way she spoke of it sounded like she was less than ecstatic about it. But maybe that was just shock. Maybe the proposal came out of the blue. Nonetheless the planning and discussion of the wedding began.

And then, a few weeks ago, her relationship status changed from "engaged" to "it's complicated." About 24 hours later her status changed to "single." Several people offered comments of support, and Coworker B started posting rather pessimistic, depressed status updates. All of this happened after announcements that the happy couple was moving to Minnesota and buying a house. And within a week, her relationship status was back to engaged and plans continue for this summer's wedding, as well as the impending move back to Minnesota.

I'm not sure why Coworker B needed to air her relationship issues for hundreds to see via Facebook, but she did.

I think it's clear I don't know her well, but from everything I know, my gut instinct is that the odds are against eternal happiness for Coworker B and her fiance. Considering the divorce rate in this country, I'm not exactly betting against the odds, and I have no reason to root against them. I just have a bad feeling based upon what little I know about their relationship.

Will they be together five years from now? Stranger things have happened.

If it kills me, I'll find time this weekend to write about Coworker C and Coworker D, whose lives have taken two different paths in 2011.

Vegas adventure (perpetually under edit)

2011-04-13T00:42:00.000-07:00

Written in the early morning hours of April 10:

A week ago at this time I was dreading everything I had left to do before departing for a five-day vacation in Vegas. And as usual, it was my fault.

I spent several hours playing poker here in Minnesota on Saturday, April 2. My friend Rush wanted to play poker, and somehow going by himself is not an option, I guess. We were supposed to go the weekend before, but he was sick, and despite my pending trip to Vegas, he figured we should still go. I consented.

Neither of us won playing on the low-roller table at the card room. In Rush’s final hand, a dude had pocket fives. Rush had an ace. Board flopped an ace and at least one over card to a five. Joe bet, guy called. This continued each street. And of course on the river the guy caught a five, winning the pot because he wasn’t going to give in with a lousy pocket pair. That was the kind of day we had.

I was up until 5 a.m. packing and preparing for my trip. I slept for about four hours before stumbling out of bed Sunday morning, running to the office and finishing as much as I could in preparation for my absence. That’s the kind of dedication to excellence I have. Of course I should have finished all of that on Saturday, but I’m the idiot.

Sunday meant no shower for me since, for the third time in a week, a rolling blackout left me without hot water. That’s one of the many drawbacks of living in a low rent district. I left plenty of messages for building maintenance and management that afternoon. It’s bad enough I live alone yet am subject to scalding hot water when another apartment decides to flush a toilet, but at least I should have access to the hot water when I want. Or am I crazy?

I didn’t have time to get a haircut on Sunday, (which of course should have happened on Saturday,) and I was annoyed by this. I wasn’t about to pay $50 the privilege of a haircut at a casino property, so I wasn’t sure if and when the haircut would happen. Turns out they have a place in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport that provides the service for a reasonable fee. I was checked in 2-1/2 hours before departure since Rush was dropping me off and had to do so early Sunday afternoon. After a sandwich at the airport it was time to board the plane.

I flew Delta for the first time in a long time. I bought several of those “free” drink vouchers online prior to my trip. (Turns out they were free, but that’s another story.) I ordered two drinks during the first service run by the flight attendants, and when I offered two coupons for it, the male flight attendant told me to save them for the next one. I was confused by what he meant, but it soon became clear that I was a cute guy, as he gave me two drinks free.

I ordered another drink a while later, and gave a different flight attendant my coupon, which he accepted.

I ordered one last drink, and the original dude again told me to save my coupon for the next one. So I had four drinks and ended up using only one coupon. I took that as a good sign for my upcoming week at the blackjack tables.

After arriving in Vegas I took the shuttle bus to Orleans, an off-strip casino. The driver drove that rig like it was a Ford Mustang. I was his last stop in a series of six, and the dude made excellent time between each one. I was worried somebody would get hit as we pulled out of each casino.

Check in at Orleans was instant after 10 p.m., and since I was still in limbo regarding Tuesday night, I inquired about the cost to extend my stay. I had the two weeknight comp offer, and adding Tuesday night cost me $37 total. It was hard to argue with that.

I grabbed a 16-ounce aluminum bottle of Bud Light for $3.50 and headed up to my room.

The room, overlooking the hotel entrance, was on the sixth floor. Not much to see, but I care little about that. As advertised, the room is spacious and well maintained. It was my first stay at Orleans, and almost certainly won’t be my last.

I was looking forward to checking in and finally taking a hot shower, but despite the fact it was 12:30 a.m. back home and I was on four hours of sleep, the lure of blackjack was too great. I found favorable table conditions in the blackjack pits and played for a few hours, slowly building up a $100 profit. By 2 a.m. Las Vegas time I was dead tired. It was 4 a.m. back home, time for bed. But I was also hungry, which wasn’t a surprise given I had been drinking on the plane and at the blackjack table.

I went to the food court and ordered a Fuddrucker’s burger, noticing a skinny blond woman dragging a small child through the food court at 2:15 a.m., a site that pisses me off. I am probably way off, but my assumption is that this young woman got pregnant by mistake and now her young child is paying for the fact mom has yet to grow up. Seeing people drag kids around Vegas in the wee hours of the morning always irritates me.

Day 1 (Monday)

I woke up early, surprised to learn I had left a light on in the bathroom. I was sure I had turned off all lights before I went to bed. I soon discovered what I didn’t notice on Sunday night, the shower window. The window is opposite of the shower head, which I missed on Sunday night.

My shower window gave me a glimpse of Excalibur and Luxor, if I angled my view slightly.

I had lunch at the Orleans buffet. I had a $10 food comp as part of my deal, and lunch was less than that. The buffet isn’t spectacular, but it’s OK. I found enough to make me happy, especially given the price. It was rather busy on a Monday afternoon.

My friends Mike and Misty, along with their son, were spending a week in Vegas. They got a great airfare deal for booking a Tuesday to Tuesday trip and had a mini-suite comped at Palace Station. Since they had their son, they had to find things to do outside of the casino, and had a rental car. They wanted to check out the Pinball Hall of Fame and waited until their last day to go, so I could go with them. But first they were going to go to the Ethel M chocolate factory. Since I hadn’t been there, I agreed to go with them to that, too. They picked me up at 2:30 p.m. and we were off to the chocolates.

I was quite underwhelmed by Ethel M. The short tour you get of the factory has little to offer if they’re not actively producing product, which they weren’t when we were there, and the cactus garden outside the factory was cute, but nothing worth going out of your way for. I was also unimpressed with the one piece of chocolate sample they offered.

The Pinball Hall of Fame turned out to be a bit of a buzzkill. I quickly scoured the location of my favorite pinball machine, Tee’d Off, and didn’t see it. I scoured the rest of the building and couldn’t find it. I asked the volunteer on duty and she had no idea what became of it. But Tim, the guru of the museum, was due in, I was told. After he showed up I asked him about it, and he noted that it’s at Riviera, along with other machines. This was a nice consolation prize, but I’d rather have the machine where it belongs.

I spent less than $5 during my two hours at the museum. I spent a little time talking with Mike and Misty about some of the machines, and took a few pictures along the way. I always feel like I’m stealing when I’m at the museum.

We went to dinner at Ellis Island. I had long wanted to try it, and Monday was the day. My friends were also open to trying the steak dinner special. We had to wait an hour for our table, but we spent some of that time getting the kid a Big Gulp next door at 7-11. We haven’t had 7-11 in Minnesota for many years, yet somehow the kid knew of the Big Gulp, and wanted one, so we got him one while we waited.

I signed up for the EI players card and ran $10 through a poker machine to earn my $20 in free play at a later date before we headed back to Palace Station.

I signed up for the PS players card, too, and got $3 in free slot play! (In theory you could win up to $500.) We all played blackjack together for a while as the kid watched TV upstairs in the room. I broke even, my friends crapped out. At that point we went upstairs before Mike drove me back to Orleans.

At Orleans I played blackjack for a few hours. Nobody was winning at my table, and I was in the hole all night. Only one guy made money, a dude who sat down, bet big and won all but one hand. In 10 minutes he raked in $500 and quickly left. Another guy at our table noted he didn’t tip the dealer. Lord knows none of us were, as we weren’t winning. I finished the night even, having played until 4 a.m.

Day 2 (Tuesday)

I was cleaned up and on the shuttle to Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall at10:30 a.m. as I was meeting my friend Monica, a flight attendant who worked her schedule to have layovers in Vegas during my stay. We went to Caesar’s Palace so she attempt to have her iPhone fixed at the Apple store. After 30 minutes the geniuses there couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. It works, but it has a glitch when it comes to recalling her contacts.

Having no definitive itinerary, we decided to take in a couple of afternoon shows. We went to Mac King and Nathan Burton.

Two “free” tickets to Mac King cost $27 or so. The $10 “one drink minimum” and other fees make the tickets $13.50 each. I paid the extra $5/ticket for a seat close to the stage, so I paid $37 for the two tickets.

The first time I was in Vegas, January 1997, I saw King at the Maxim. Monica swears I was with her when she saw him many years ago. I’ll take her word for it.

King puts on a good show, and is well worth the money. (The bartenders slinging the cocktails sure didn’t act as if they worked for tips.) Some of his tricks were reminiscent of what he did years ago. I remember his opening rope trick and his new variation of the hidden $20 bill, but others were different. I know I haven’t seen his tent trick.

We had lunch at the Harrah's buffet thanks to a two-for-one offer and then headed to Flamingo for the 4 p.m. Nathan Burton show.

We got our Burton tickets before heading over to Caesar’s Palace. If you want free tickets to the show, you have to get them days in advance, which for most people probably doesn’t work. It was a Tuesday and I think we were told the earliest free tickets available were Saturday, but we could get $10 tickets for Tuesday’s show. So we decided to do that.

Burton does big stage illusions and was on the first season of America’s Got Talent. (I didn’t know this, not that it mattered.) He does good illusions, but if you’ve ever seen one of those secrets of magic exposed shows on Fox, you can figure out what is happening in many of Burton’s tricks, but it is impressive how quickly and flawlessly they perform them.

I was surprised by the size of the crowd this show draws. We were initially seated in the back of the main floor, but got moved to a table closer to the stage. I didn’t order one of their $14 cocktails. Seriously, they think the privilege of a cocktail at the show is worth $14.

The show is OK, and I didn’t mind paying $20 for our tickets, but I’d go to King before I’d go to Burton again. Burton is personable, and they build him up with the pre-show video clips from America’s Got Talent, plus clips of some David Blaine type stunt he did in Vegas, but I was underwhelmed.

Burton's show is sloppy. He has some cool tricks, but his showgirls/dancers must be working for peanuts, and the choreography is lackluster. The girls aren’t anorexic thin, which is refreshing to see, but they’re not the best talent Vegas has to offer.

The worst part of his show is that they have some dude -- who is apparently connected to another show elsewhere -- come out and do about 20 minutes of comedy. He’s not telling jokes, he’s pulling dudes out of the audience, having them wear masks and participate in a silly stunt. It goes on forever and it’s not that funny. Worst part of the show.

They also had a dude come out and do balancing stunts for about 5 minutes. These were impressive although his costume was ridiculous.

After Burton we redeemed my Groupons for admission to the wax museum. Some of those wax figures are amazing, others aren’t the best replica of the celebrity. I don’t know how you put a value on an experience, but I wouldn’t go back if I had to pay full price. For $12 I’d argue it’s worth the price of admission. For some reason the museum includes a short haunted house with a couple of live actors in it. Not sure why that’s part of the admission, but it’s weak.

We took a cab back to the Westin, where Monica stays. She needed a siesta before flying out on a red eye. I walked back to Bill’s to catch my shuttle bus.

As I was waiting for the shuttle I saw a guy coming toward me from across the street (Bally’s) wearing a maroon polo shirt with a gold M on it. I assumed this was a guy from Minnesota, as this was obviously a Minnesota Gophers shirt. As the guy got closer to me I realized it was Judd, a former city council member who I covered for a few years at my newspaper job. I see him at the Minnesota State Fair most years, as we both work out there each year. And I knew he traveled to Vegas occasionally, but I don’t talk to him regularly as he moved out of my coverage area a few years before I changed beats. Nonetheless we crossed paths randomly on a Tuesday night in Vegas. We talked for about 30 minutes before he headed off to grab dinner. Small world.

Back at Orleans I played blackjack for more than four hours, again struggling to get out of the hole. On a double deck table we went more than four shoes without the dealer busting once. It was ridiculous. And it may have been five or six shoes, we didn’t immediately notice the trend, but we all sat dumbfounded as it continued.

A couple of morons sat at our table and proved they didn’t know how to play, burning through $100 buy-ins in short order. I cashed out even, again.

Day 3 (Wednesday)

I slept in a bit before cleaning up and heading out. I had three American Casino Guide match plays for Orleans, and I had one left to play on Wednesday morning. I went downstairs and sat down at a Super Fun 21 table for a few minutes. I’d never play one of those tables for an extended session, but for a few minutes I decided to play alongside a woman in hopes of scoring a quick $25.

I was up two chips after bouncing up and down and decided I’d either win $30 or nothing. I lost my hand, going 0-for-3 on the match plays.

Off to the Riviera, where my room was free for two nights. My cab driver asked me why I was staying at Orleans, then he asked me why I was moving over to Riviera. He also asked what I had to do to get a comped room at Orleans. It was rather weird questioning, I thought. I didn’t mind answering, but he was an odd dude.

Check in at Riviera was ridiculously slow. They had no more than a couple of people doing check in. There were tons of machines for self-check in, but they weren’t in use, for whatever reason. Really dumb.

I waited about 50 minutes to check in, and was told that since I was comped, I was considered a casino guest, and could have been checked in immediately by using the casino guest line. Live and learn.

I hadn’t eaten since lunch Tuesday, so after checking into my room I went next door to Peppermill. I ate at the counter since I was flying solo. I forgot how much I love this place, and remembered what a pervert I am. Cute waitresses, especially Crystal. My pastrami burger was huge. I could barely eat it all. I love that place, and I may never eat there again. (Do they have a kid’s menu? I need to order off of that.)

I spent my afternoon at Slots-A-Fun and Circus Circus. Man, the heyday of Slots-A-Fun is long gone. I sat down at a $3 blackjack table and was reminded why playing low-roller blackjack is so wrong. After dropping $20 and listening to some moron next to me make baseball analogies and not taking his hits, I walked. There use to be a buzz of activity in that joint years ago, now it’s like a morgue. They do, however, have tables you can use to play beer pong. That’s what it has come to, trying to attract beer pong players. How the mighty have fallen.

I dropped $30 on blackjack at Circus Circus. Not feeling it, I moved over to Let It Ride. I dropped $60 on that table, watching a guy next to me draw a set twice in 30 minutes. The first time the board paired, so he won $155 on his $5 bets. The next time he drew the fourth card on the final community card, winning $750. Obviously not my lucky day. (I never saw him tip the dealer.)

I cleaned up and took the bus down the strip, heading back to Westin. Monica had a short layover on Wednesday night.

We went to Ellis Island for dinner. I had the steak dinner again. I don’t expect a lot for an $8 dinner, and after two steaks, I’m not dazzled. Not a bad piece of meat, just nothing special. I might order off the menu next time.

Back at Westin Monica converted her $10 in free slot play into $10 cash, gave it to me along with a $10 match play for the tables. She wanted me to win her a fortune. I wanted to win her $50. Before heading to the bus I foolishly sat down to play solo at a blackjack table. I bought in with $35. I managed to lose Monica’s $10 and match play on a hand, as well as my $25. A fitting end to an unlucky day of gambling.

I stepped inside Bill’s before heading to the bus stop. Kids were sure having fun at the karaoke/dance party going on at the stage. I’m too old to enjoy such frivolity. Maybe I’m just a 40-year-old curmudgeon.

I took the bus down to Sahara. Given it was after midnight I couldn’t redeem my $25 match play. It was rather dead in the casino. I was there on a Wednesday night in January 2007 and the casino had action. The place didn’t look like it was ready to collapse, but the men’s room stunk like fermenting urine.

I left without gambling, took the bus back to Riviera and went to bed, not liking the table conditions at Riviera.

Day 4 (Thursday)

Thursday was my day to sleep in, watch TV and contemplate life for a while. I opened the curtains so I could get a glimpse of Stratosphere from my bed. My room had a nice view of the casino roof and Circus Circus, but again, I didn’t care. The room was in decent shape. Not as nice as Orleans, but not as bad as I feared.

By the way, remember how I mentioned that the Pinball Hall of Fame had machines at Riviera? They had a bunch of them, and there were several old video games, too. They had about 10 classic pins of the 1960s and ‘70s, as well as another of my favorites, Cue Ball Wizard. One problem, Tee’d Off wasn’t working. The machine I love the most -- and would have dumped a bunch of money into -- wasn’t working. I was crushed. Had it been working, I’m sure my stay at Riviera would have included several sessions playing that machine.

I’m not sure how the arrangement between the Riviera and Pinball HOF works, but there’s no reference to the HOF at Riviera. There should be some sort of ad for the place.

The games are near the food court, which was always dead whenever I passed by. I know a weekday in early April is not the best barometer of how well the casino is doing overall, but I have to wonder how many of the businesses within it are surviving.

There’s also little sign of poker action at Riviera. Both Wednesday and Thursday afternoon I saw a dealer sitting at a table, waiting for players to sit down. When your casino doesn’t have any poker action, you’re in trouble.

It was a super windy Thursday in Vegas, and I took the bus back to Sahara. I had two of those crappy $1 hot dogs, saw a couple of dudes attempting a six-pound burrito in the middle of the afternoon and claimed my casino guide match play, hoping to cash in quickly by getting $25 ahead. I made my lone concession to playing a single deck 6:5 blackjack table because my only other $5 options were jumbo shoes. I sat in the hole for quite a while. I finally got a nice run during a brief heads-up session against the dealer. By the time I was up $25 I played the match play and proceeded to lose. That made me 0-for-5 on match plays. I was there far two long and finally departed with a consolation prize of two $1 chips.

By the way, the Sahara poker room, which I remember having been rather lively in the past, had no action on Thursday afternoon. One dealer was sitting there, waiting for table action. They might as well shut the poker room down at this point.

I took the bus downtown and headed straight to Main Street Station for the dinner buffet. On my way I was walking toward a guy hawking some sort of bracelet. He asked me if I had seen one of them before. I looked at it as I walked past him and said “I don’t think so.” He replied, “come here then.” I didn’t stop to waste his time and lecture him about being insulting in trying to hawk his goods. I wasn’t in the mood. That mood would come later that night.

It was steak and scampi night at the buffet. The steak had too much fat, but the shrimp was good. Overall it’s a good buffet, but I’m less of a buffet guy in my old age. I tend to eat too much mediocre food when I go to a buffet. I ate too much at MSS, but it was decent overall. I liked it better than the Orleans buffet.

I wandered throught the California and decided to sit down at a double deck table. Everybody there seemed to know Lynn, who was playing at the table. Before long her cousin Allison sat down. Allison was quite a bundle of energy. She had just arrived from Arizona, and after a few cocktails she was loud and a bit reckeless. She bought in with $100 and hit some nice payouts early. I think she pocketed several green chips before leaving the table. Her mom stopped by our table, as did another relative. I asked if it was a family reunion, and Allison said it’s always a family reunion in Vegas. I walked away three bucks ahead.

I then went to Fitzgeralds to play my favorite table game, Spanish 21. Nobody was playing, which irritated me, but I sat down and bought chips, hoping somebody else would sit down. I chatted with the dealer, a 23-year-old kid who has been dealing for a year. He’ll remain nameless. Nice kid.

Soon a woman named Cheryl sat down at the table. She was new to blackjack and it was her first time in Vegas. She had the most generic, basic strategy card I had ever seen. She didn’t have the strategy grid because she had trouble reading it, she told me.

I helped explain what she wanted to do, when and why as we played. We both lost a bunch of hands initially, but eventually things turned in our favor.

I won my only triple double down play, a $40 hand where I ended with 18. The dealer had a four showing. He turned up a 3. Then drew a 2. Any face card means he makes 19 and I lose $40. Instead he turns up a small card and then busts out, giving me the win. I think I was up as high as $130 on the table, playing mostly $5 hands.

Another woman, Sandy, joined us eventually, and she knew what she was doing, helping remind Cheryl when she should and shouldn’t hit. It was getting to be 1 a.m. and I was ready to call it a night. Cheryl had wanted to leave when she got $100 ahead, but decided to keep going for a while since she was doing well. She decided to leave the same time I did. I played the last hand of the shoe and bet for the dealer, hoping he’d win one more tip from me. We lost, and I finished $96 ahead.

I had kept my chips in $25 stacks all night, and had several pink $2.50 chips accumulated. I turned in $175 in chips, which was a bit confusing to count since I had about $30 in pink. The kid threw a $5 chip back to me and I figured I miscounted one stack. He counted it up as $150, and I thought that seemed off. So I asked to have it recounted. The pit prick came over and said it was $150. I still disagreed. I pointed out that one of the stacks in the $100 line didn’t seem right. There appeared to be an extra $20 stack. I questioned if I was seeing this correctly and he told the kid to push my chips back, as Cheryl was stacking up her chips. He told me to recount it and they’d cash in Cheryl. She cleared $225. I didn’t realize she had been doing that well. I was happy for her. I told her Spanish 21 is not the best table to be learning the game at since it has the bonus payouts and auto payouts, but she learned the basic strategey nonetheless.

I turned in $175 in chips, and this time they counted it correct. I told the kid I know mistakes happen and it’s no big deal, but I pointed out to him and the pit prick that they both had it wrong. The prick took offense to the idea he could have been wrong, pointing to the cage and telling me to leave. I told him to learn to do his job and get it right. He made a comment about me not being able to count. I just mocked his inability to do his job. I’m pretty sure he knew they both blew it when he insisted my chips be pushed back and recounted by me. I didn’t realize that was what he was doing at the time, but that’s my theory.

I suppose I didn’t have to be slightly obnoxious about the fact they got it wrong, but initially I simply pointed it out. The prick could have apologized, even if he thought he had been right all along, and defused the situation, but the monkey in a suit decided he needed to look flawless, no matter what it took.

On my way out the door I walked by the pit, waved to him and told him to learn how to do his job.

A quick bus ride back to Riviera found decent action in the party pit. The Riv’s party pit offer 7:5 blackjack and other bad rules, such as doubling only on 10 and 11. I had two free nights at Riviera and the casino never saw a dime of my action.

Day 5 (Friday)

I tried to get rolling as quickly as possible, but that’s easier said than done. I was in bed sometime after 2 a.m., but getting up before 9 a.m. was tough. I cleaned up, packed up, bought a couple of souvenirs and checked out.

As I was waiting to check out a dude in line told me, with no hint or irony, that he had a wild night last night, and did well last night playing blackjack in the party pit. He told me he more than doubled the $20 he started with.

From Riviera I took the bus to Tropicana and transferred to the 201, headed back to the Pinball HOF.

I played for a couple of hours, spending about $10, before heading back for my final night downtown.

On my way downtown I stopped at Harrah’s to look for a specific souvenir I didn’t find. I stopped in at O’Sheas as I proceeded down the strip. It was a busy Friday on the strip, and O’Sheas was like a frat party. O’sheas had beer pong, too. I also saw the new dice football game in play. I wasn’t about to learn the rules and join in the action. After watching it for a minute I headed back out to the bus.

It took forever to get downtown, but when I did I headed to Las Vegas Club, signed up for a player’s card and attempted to win cash playing solo blackjack. I won a couple of chips, bet my $10 match play and lost the hand, naturally. Make it 0-for-6.

I left and went to Benny’s Bullpen at Binion’s for a burger and beer with my $20 Groupon. I ordered an appetizer, but should have saved my credit for another beer. I had too much food and was too full for a second beer at the end of the meal.

I went back to Vegas Club, sat down with another guy at the most liberal blackjack table in the world, or whatever they call it. It has special rules, which you pay for via even money payouts on non-suited blackjacks. We raked in a few chips and I pulled out my second match play. I finally hit one. I cashed out for $50. Final tally on match plays, 1-for-7.

Among the tipsters working Friday night was a guy who had a pretty good Pee-wee Herman impersonation. He invited two girls to take a picture with him, and one girl joined him while the other took the picture. He mentioned tips are appreciated, but they stiffed him. They were under 21, I think. Perhaps they didn’t realize why the hucksters were out there.

I saw signs with trick questions on them, testing your intelligence. I stopped to read them and was approached by a dude who asked me what I thought the answers were. Upon answering the first question wrong I realized they were trick questions. He continued to ask me for answers and then segued into his relgious pitch. He asked me if I thought I was a good person and I told him no, without a hint of sarcasm. I explained to him that I consider myself a lousy human being, and that didn’t seem to bother him, he just continued with his pitch about Jesus, heaven, hell, etc. I told him I’d likely die before him, (I think he’s older than I am,) and that didn’t seem to concern him, either.

I didn’t mind that this guy was quoting the bible and quizzing me, but it seemed like it would never end. I finally decided to cut him off and tell him I was on my way back to my hotel room to brush my teeth and use the toilet. He thanked me for listening, gave me a card of propaganda and let me be.

I then went to Fitzgeralds to play Spanish 21. There was a player already there, so I got in on the action immediately. A couple of morons from California sat down and proved they don’t know a thing about startegy. Our dealer was super slow, and the card shuffler was broke, so she had to hand shuffle after each shoe. I left $39 down.

With an hour to go I opted to try my luck at El Cortez, walking past the future home of Insert Coins. I played single-deck blackjack and had little luck. Nobody at our table seemed to have luck either. I dropped $60 there.

I had a red-eye flight home Friday night, so I headed to Riviera to grab my bags and a cab. There was some atmosphere in the Riv, but it was weak. I think the Riv is the next to go. My theory: the implosion of Stardust and the loss of Westward Ho has killed the action on the north end. People who want low-roller action will always go downtown or off strip. Just as Sahara struggled to keep people coming in, so has Riviera. If Sahara can’t win by catering to the rednecks of the NASCAR world, Riviera’s days are numbered. Stratosphere seems to be aggressive in marketing itself, and has an attraction that nobody else offers. Riviera offers nothing special in an unspectacular location. Free rooms are the only way they’re going to get me to stay there again, and that might not be enough. If I had to make a choice, I’d stay at Orleans before I’d stay at Riviera, despite the perceived disadvantage of being off the strip.

I got to the airport too early and had to kill time waiting for the flight home. I snoozed on the plane, which typically isn’t easy for me to do, so that made the red-eye flight relatively painless. Too bad I had to wait an hour for Rush to pick me up at the airport.

It was my 17th trip to Vegas, as best as I can recall. I doubt it will be my last, but I’m not the same 26-year-old guy I was when I first when in January 1997 and my lust for Vegas is not the same, for many reasons. I hope the next time I go it will be with Rush, who hasn’t been to Vegas in more than a decade, and wants to play in a few poker tournaments. Here’s hoping!

People #1

2011-04-03T02:16:00.001-07:00

I have been looking at people in a very different way lately. I've been scrutinizing them, actually.

I've been analyzing their relationship situation to see if I can understand why it is the way it is. I am sure this is a direct result of the sobering reminder I received in February that I'm not that spectacular of a human being and I'm destined to live out the rest of my days as a slightly bitter recluse. Keep in mind I'm fine with that. We can only play the cards life deals us.

Nonetheless I can't help but wonder why. Why is Person A married? Why isn't Person B?

It's a new game I'm going to play for a few weeks, or more. I'm looking forward to it.

Today I'll start with Coworker A. She's quiet. Really quiet, and seemingly devoid of personality. She is sort of cute, but she has a "lights are on but nobody is home" look in her eyes. I'm not sure if gangly is the best word to describe her, but that's the closest word I can think of. My guess is that she is in her mid 20s.

I have seen her smile, but she seems so detached most of the time. One of my theories is that she had a highly sheltered upbringing. But maybe she's just quiet. I can't figure it out.

I imagine her to be a boring sexual partner. I really struggle to imagine her having wild, freaky tendencies in bed. She seems so awkward just walking around the office that it's hard to imagine her as a sexual gymnast.

If she has any hobbies, I can't tell you what they are. It would be interesting to spend a "typical" weekend in her world.

So why is Coworker A the first victim of my cruel speculation? We recently learned she is engaged.

Despite the fact she seems so devoid of personality and is physically awkward in ways that are hard to describe, she makes somebody very happy. Somebody (I'm guessing it's a guy) thinks he wants his life to revolve around another person who appears to have the personality of a beached dolphin. Is this guy her male counterpart, or is she librarian Barbara Gordon by day and Batgirl by night? I would love to know.

By the way, the announcement that she is engaged came from a coworker who brought it up, not by Coworker A. Although I had a sense that Coworker A had a significant other, I didn't know for sure. It wouldn't have surprised me at all if it turned out that she was single.

Bottom line: she is getting married and I'm borderline dumbfounded by it.

Good luck to them. I hope it works out. Being devoid of personality around the office isn't a crime, and I am sure Coworker A deserves a lifetime of happiness more than I do.

Factually speaking #8

2011-03-28T21:47:00.001-07:00

1. Several months ago I thought it would be interesting to get feedback from somebody, anybody, regarding my writing.

2. I had no interest, however, in sharing my blog with my friends or family, so I created a Twitter account as a means to promote the jukebox.

3. I learned that Twitter is a waste of time for 99 percent of us.

4. I no longer care about trying to generate an audience for this blog.

5. I don't care about a lot of things these days. Many of the things I use to care about no longer matter to me.

Happy new year

2011-03-21T01:40:00.000-07:00

It was one month ago today, four weeks exactly, that I learned it was 2009 all over again.

And that's a good thing. It really is, but first a little context.

My former girlfriend, somebody I spent more than a year with, proved to me what I've known for years. Two weeks after moving out of state, she told me I was disposable. She gave me variations of the "it's not you, it's me" routine, but that's her way of being nice. She knew for months she could do better, much better, and after sending me plenty of signals, she finally pulled the trigger after I forced her hand, two weeks after the last night we spent together here in Minnesota. There was talk of a long-distance relationship, and thoughts on my part of trying to make that happen, but it turns out that either she was kidding or I was kidding myself.

It hurts, a lot, to realize that many Saturday nights in 2011 are going to end up like this past weekend, alone and forgettable, just like March 2009.

The world is a wacky place. A "friend" I have known for more than 10 years, but haven't seen in nearly seven -- despite the fact she lives in nearby St. Paul -- once quizzed me as to why I spend stretches of my life single. The best explanation I could give in one sentence, I'm not a good catch.

That's the great irony of life. My friend Michelle is several years younger than me, has four children through more than one father, has never had a career and couldn't make it through life without the help and assistance of others, including her mother, who is retired and probably never dreamed her golden years would be spent supporting her children and grandchildren. Michelle is intelligent, personable and cute. I can't tell you anything about her various boyfriends and/or fathers of her children, so perhaps they are more dysfunctional than she is, but all I know is that a relationship with Michelle is anything but a walk in the park. Yet she pretty much always has a boyfriend. I'll never understand it.

As I said, the world is a wacky place. Guys fall all over themselves to become one of Michelle's ex-boyfriends, and somebody like me who has a modest career and no children is destined to end the journey through life alone. I knew this two years ago, and four weeks ago today the point was reinforced to me.

I'm not happy about where my life is in 2011, but this is not a pity party. I don't feel sorry for myself, and neither should anyone else. Life isn't fair, I tell that to people periodically, usually during a discussion pertaining to the content of my weekly newspaper. Some people will always have somebody to share life with. Not just anybody. Somebody. I won't.

As I said, I knew this two years ago, and after the past few months, it was proven to me.

I had a personal goal for 2009, a goal I should have achieved despite the fact my life was sidetracked with a relationship. The only reason that goal wasn't achieved was because I lack the focus and drive to see many things through. Not this time.

I thought my former girlfriend's moving out of state was going to be the catalyst for me finally reaching that 2009 goal, for a very different reason than the one that inspired it. But I didn't get a chance to test the theory that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Instead I got 2009 back.

My 2009 goal is tied to a very important decision I made regarding my life, a decision some would question. Most would, actually. But with age comes wisdom, and I'm wise enough to know what I've believed to be true for many years is, in fact, true.

It's an exciting time to be alive, it's 2009, and things are going to be fine.

Meet market (unedited)

2011-02-27T00:35:00.000-08:00

We all know Valentine’s Day is a marketing scam designed to sell flowers, candy, greeting cards, wine and fancy steak dinners to our consumer-driven society.

Besides the obvious beneficiaries of VD, many other businesses and organizations capitalize on the mid-winter homage to the orgasm. Valentine’s Day celebrates sex, and if you’re in the business of marketing sex, what better time to tout your goods.

When I refer to the business of marketing sex, I’m including about dating services. The altruistic purpose of a dating service, be it the nationally renowned dating scam Great Expectations or one of our locally owned and operated purveyors of sexual encounters such as Quikdatz -- one of the early purveyors of speed dating here in the metro and one of the few still in business -- is to help people find sex. Forget love, marriage and all that crap, dating services are in the sex trade. Customers may say they're looking to meet new people, or are looking to meet their sole mate, but they're being dishonest. They're looking for a hot piece of ass. If they get more than that, that's icing on the cake.

So it goes without saying that sex marketers pounce on VD as an opportunity to sell their service. It's too easy. People who aren't having sex, and aren't trapped in a miserable marriage, hate VD. They want nothing to do with VD because they're not getting sex and VD reminds them of the fact they're not having sex.

I didn't think I wasn't in the market for sex in the days leading up to VD -- turns out I was misinformed, but that's another story for another time -- yet I went to a meet market on Feb. 10.

I went to Date for Life, a well orchestrated fundraising event for the Children's Cancer Research Fund.

Why? By chance I found out a week earlier that my good friend Monica, the flight attendant, was attending with a few folks from her social circle. That's the first I heard of this fundraising gala in downtown Minneapolis.

By attending I learned that the event is in memory of a young woman who spent her high school years battling cancer and died because of cancer as a young adult. That was a few years ago, and this event is in her memory. God bless her and her family. They deserve better. I don't know them personally, but I know myself, so I know they deserve a better hand than life has dealt them. I'm proof of that, but I digress.

The event was quite high class. There was a silent auction with several nice items up for bid, a great spread of hors d'œuvres and several beautiful people up for bid. I have no idea how the meat of the meet market wound up on the auction block, but this was definately an event for the beautiful people. The meat was composed of attractive, successful people. There weren't any McDonald's managers or factory workers up for bids. Among the men were a doctor, a chef, sales geniuses and personal trainers, including a dude who seems rather pleased to be known for being one of the sausages competing for one woman on ABC's "The Bachelor." (He should be ashamed of himself, but that's America, and why the rest of the world hates us, we objectify such morons.)

The women included at least one yoga instructor, behavior therapist, personal trainer and teacher.

The format of the auction was rather odd. They introduced every piece of meat on stage and then turned them loose for an hour. Each piece of meat had a promoter, a friend or family member who helped work the crowd for an hour or more, shilling for his or her piece of meat and recording bids received on for the meat. Those pieces of meat with the highest bids at the end of the mingling session were brought up on stage in an effort to drum up final bids.

I discussed this strategy with Monica's group. We couldn't decide what made more sense: Do you bring up those with the highest bids to try to push the price even higher since those were the most desirable pieces of meat? Or do you bring up those on the bottom of the totem poll, to give those with a budget a chance to bid on second-rate meat since the prime cuts were priced out of their league?

We decided that if you try to bring up the big losers of the night, you'll brand them with a scarlet letter, and who wants to see that at a charity event? We concluded the best idea was to pre-select a cross-section of meat so that there's something for everyone at the end of the night.

Despite the fact the upper echelon had bids of $700 or more, most garnered at least one more bid. I think the big winner of the night was the kindergarten teacher. She was 25 or so, and had a respectable $700 bid by the end of the night. She made the cut, so they brought her up on stage. She worked the crowd like Hulk Hogan in his prime as the auctioneer egged eager males into bidding for her. I think she finished with a winning bid of $1,600, and I think that was the biggest buy of the night.

Monica was turned onto the event by a member of her social circle, as one of the bachelors seemed to be a perfect match for her, at least on paper. She sensed the bidding would be higher for him than she could justify spending, and she was right. But after meeting him that night, she wasn't sold on the idea that he was her perfect match. Nonetheless she enjoyed her night, even though we all abanonded her. A local musical genius was performing after the bidding, and Monica is a fan, so she hung around to enjoy his musical stylings.

Even if I had known I was in the market to bid on one of the pieces of meat, I am neither beautiful nor affluent enough to be granted membership in that social circle. But I enjoyed my evening as an uninvited guest at the party.

And I'm grateful that I was blissfully unaware I was among those who should hate VD. I was mistakenly under the impression I could celebrate VD this year.

I'm not a Nye's guy (unedited)

2011-02-12T00:08:00.001-08:00

Anybody who knows the Minneapolis bar scene knows about Nye's.

I get the quirky appeal of it, but I don't get why it's a destination. Nye's is an old restaurant with an old bar. It's bar is separated from the main restaurant by swinging doors, and it's your small, old school bar. There's a long bar with stools along one wall, booths along the other wall and barely enough room for a woman with a walker to pass between them if nobody is sitting at the bar. As soon as the booths and bar stools are full, it's a tough proposition to pass from the front entrance on Hennepin Avenue to the swinging doors leading into the restaurant.

On weekends, at least, the bar area is a madhouse, with people packing the place to pay premium prices for drinks and listen to the sounds of a geriatric polka band. I get the appeal of polka music when you drink, I just don't get the appeal of an expensive, tiny, cramped bar. Yet it draws the young, beautiful people and the old timers who wish they were still among the young and beautiful, or regret the fact they were never young and beautiful but want to get a whiff of the beautiful people.

The restaurant is expansive, slightly upscale and as dated as the layout of the bar. You can sit around a geriatric piano player and sing along to your favorite piano hits if you're not dining in the restaurant. Another small bar nearby provides seats for carousers who aren't fascinated by a near comatose accordian player on the other side of the wall.

I made a 60-minute cameo at Nye's earlier tonight because Monica took her mother there for a belated birthday dinner. I joined them after dinner, in part because I don't get to visit with Monica's mom very often, and I wanted to finally give Monica her belated birthday present.

Nye's is an upscale place that never kept up with the times, choosing instead to open its arms to everyone who lusts for a nostalgic nod to yesteryear at today's upscale prices.

And I don't get it.

Hellraisers ball (unedited)

2011-01-29T02:00:00.000-08:00

I can't control my gypsy soul.

As the preeminent BulletBoys blogger, you'd think I'd be blogging about the life and times of many mostly forgotten hair bands.

Truth of the matter, I follow the comings and goings of several bands, but I don't go out of my way to see that many of them that do come to town. I'm a fan of Tesla to this day, but I haven't been to one of their concerts in a few years. They draw decent in comparison to some of their hair band brethren, and make a much better living than the BulletBoys, without a doubt.

Thursday night I drove from the Twin Cities to the unspectacular city of Mankato, Minn., for an L.A. Guns concert. I have written about the BulletBoys several times, but the band I've seen live more than any other is L.A. Guns.

I'll spare the L.A. Guns history lesson, and references to their catalog. If you don't know who I'm talking about, you don't care. All you need to know is that using an A to D scale of success during the hair band era, Bon Jovi and Motley Crue are among the A level acts. Tesla is a B level act. L.A. Guns is a C.

The band finds its way to Minnesota annually, sometimes several times in a year, which is ironic since the dudes really do live in the Los Angeles area to this day. Their management and booking is by a St. Paul-based company, which is a lot of the reason why they play gigs in the midwest as often as they do.

I don't have any insider knowledge, but from what I have gleaned over the years is that L.A. Guns flies into an area for a weekend of shows and then heads back to California after two or three nights of gigs. The band doesn't have the support of a major label any more, there's no tour bus traveling across the country. Compared to their late 1980s early 1990s heyday, it's quite a step down. Fans treat them like rock stars, and they have it better than most musicians ever will, but the bloom is off the rose at this point.

My guess is that they draw enough to get paid a few thousand dollars, give or take, per gig. Who pays for their flight back and forth? Who pays for the hotel rooms where they crash each night? Who pays to drive them between cities each night during their weekend jaunt? I assume that's covered by their management, who must get a cut of the fee L.A. Guns collects from each venue.

Since there's no tour bus or cross country tour, I'm also guessing that much of the equipment from night to night is provided by their management. There's no way these guys are taking more than a few guitars with them for three nights of concerts in Minnesota and Iowa.

There's much I don't know, but what I do know is that I still enjoy most of their songs two decades after I they were major label darlings. The irony is that I never got to see the band when they were drawing sellout crowds at huge clubs across the country or opening for bands like AC/DC. After years of touring without the original lead singer, the band reunited in 1999. I finally got to see them live on a Friday night in St. Paul, and for no cover charge. I don't know how that happened, but it did. There was a nice crowd at that unspectacular club. They sold more than a million copies of their second CD, so they still had fans.

And they continue to draw a few hundred people to a show in the Twin Cities. On a Thursday night in Mankato, the crowd was probably 200. It was $10 at the door, $7 in advance. I have no idea how much the bar has to pay to book the band on a Thursday night, but I'd love to see accounting for their night.

Since L.A. Guns performs in the Twin Cities regularly -- perhaps more often than they perform in California at this point -- I can count on seeing them live at least once a year. I once saw them three times in less than three months here in the Twin Cities.

But I had to miss their last show here in the Twin Cities, on Oct. 29, 2010. And it had been more than a year since they last played at a club here in the Twin Cities, so I decided to make a Thursday night road trip to Mankato, as long as the weather wasn't too lousy to drive. It was 75 minutes one way, so it was an easy round trip, especially since I timed my arrival to fall less then 30 minutes before L.A. Guns took the stage. The round trip, including a 14-song set by the band, was barely more than four hours.

That's a minor time commitment, although working for a living makes a Thursday night road trip less than ideal. But I don't have children to worry about or a time clock to punch at a set time every morning, (a blessing and curse of working in the media.) I have a less than glamourous life, I may make less than glamourous choices on a Thursday night in Minnesota, but I have the freedom and ability to hit the road and go hear a band I have enjoyed for two decades. A lot of people can't do that.

Would my life seem empty and meaningless today if I hadn't went to Mankato last night? No. And unlike hardcore music fans, it's not as if I was suffering symptoms of withdrawal from having missed the October show here in the Twin Cities. I simply had a chance to see a band I still enjoy, and I took advantage of it. '

It was a nice luxury to have, and one life doesn't afford me nearly often enough.

Factually speaking #7 (unedited)

2011-01-27T00:07:00.000-08:00

1. I enjoy having a blog, and I'd enjoy feedback on a few topics I write about, but I'm not going to beg for feedback, or attach my name to this blog. That means few people will ever read anything I write.

2. There are billions of blogs, yet I rarely find one that keeps me coming back. And like all good things, many of them come to an end, either by design or by happenstance.

3. Twitter is an incredible waste of time and I keep reading reports that back that up. It's not without value, but 99 percent of it is worthless noise.

4. The Internet has given us so much more than most of us ever imagined, but most people don't realize how much it takes away from us.

5. I understand the theory behind price points, but smaller candy bars make me sad.

Remembering the infamous (unedited)

2011-01-09T22:47:00.000-08:00

I was reminded of a college classmate earlier this evening. I hadn't thought about her in a few years.

This classmate was a year ahead of me, as I recall, lived in my co-ed dorm and was studying journalism. We sat next to each other in a writing class and discussed a class project in her dorm room one night. Cute girl, as I recall.

She was from central Wisconsin and, as I'd be reminded over and over, was a dairy princess. I think she won a local pageant and was representing the dairy industry in some way. She didn't seem to talk up her status as a dairy princess, but the media couldn't let go of it.

Her name was Lori Esker, and she was convicted of murder in 1990, less than a year after she killed her ex-boyfriend's girlfriend. The story garnered plenty of attention in parts of Wisconsin, as well as some national attention, including the TV news show A Current Affair.

Lori has long since forgotten the awkward, socially inept boy that she sat next to in journalism class, but I haven't forgotten her.

Michael Faulkner doesn't remember me either, I'm sure. Mike was rather peculiar. I'd heard stories about a traumatic childhood, and if they're true, it might explain his horrible personal hygiene, his lack of social grace and his bizarre behavior. He may have been a bit bizarre, but he had an eye for the ladies, evidently. Allegedly he was reprimanded more than once for creeping out cute girls in the dorms. He didn't do anything criminal, as far as I know, he just didn't know how to keep his distance, and this troubled young, fragrant women.

I am 99 percent sure he was the same guy I read about in 1998. A guy named Michael Faulkner was arrested for violating a restraining order. He had been stalking late 1980s pop sensation Debbie Gibson, and violated a restraining order.

Everything I read about the stalker indicated it was the same guy I knew from college. Eventually I remembered something obscure about my guy that convinces me he was indeed Debbie's stalker. My guy did a weekly shift on the campus radio station, just like me. I remember he used a somewhat obscure Debbie Gibson song as background music for his show one semester. Yep, it was a filler tune off her debut CD, and I knew the tune because I had the CD, as dorky as that makes me. (I probably still own the disc to this day.)

That last nugget of info convinced me that Debbie's stalker was my guy from college.

It makes me wonder what other types of criminals I shared the campus sidewalks with.

Factually speaking #6 (unedited)

2011-01-01T01:23:00.000-08:00

1. At 6 p.m. New Year's Eve 2009 I was flying into New Orleans for my first visit to the Big Easy.

2. I cannot remember what I did to ring in the new year two years ago, and it is bothering me. I had trouble remembering it last year, too.

3. I doubt you could convince me it's a good idea to hang out at Times Square for six hours prior to the new year. I want no part of that action.

4. I celebrated the passing of 2010 at my buddy's house. It wasn't a party, it was just a few of us hanging out, watching TV. That was good enough for me.

5. If I'm ever going to join the masses in Las Vegas on New Year's Eve, I'd better do it soon.

6. Watching Dick Clark ring in the new year is painful.

7. Donny and Marie couldn't land a better gig for New Year's Eve 2010 than performing at Mystic Lake Casino in Minnesota.

8. At 8:30 a.m. Jan. 1, 2011, more than 1,000 people are expected to jump into a hole cut into the ice of Lake Minnetonka, west of Minneapolis. I've done it five times. I'm done with that.

Happy holidays? (unedited)

2010-12-23T17:19:00.000-08:00

I'm not a big fan of the holiday shopping crowds, but there's something I dislike even more during the holiday season, an empty mall.

For the second consecutive season I made a cameo at Knollwood Mall in the days before Christmas. It's in the Twin Cities suburb of St. Louis Park, and it's home to the most bizarre mall around.

The good folks at deadmalls.com have a page dedicated to Knollwood, even though the mall ain't dead yet. What I learned from the contributions at the site is that Knollwood was once a normal mall, with anchor stores, a four-screen movie theater and a thriving food court. It was big enough to have a McDonald's in the food court, evidently, and McDonald's doesn't open franchises on a whim, so there had to be good traffic in this mall once upon a time.

I have driven by this mall for more than a decade. It doesn't look like a mall, it looks like a glorified strip mall, but indeed, it is a mall.

Except that over the years a portion of the mall has been walled off to create stand alone stores that have no connection to other stores nearby.

There's still one major anchor store at one end of what's left of the mall. There's a Kohl's department store that indeed opens into a mall. I was never there back in the days of the food court and movie theater, but I've seen it worse than it is today. Although it's not as bad off as it once was, it's still empty.

There are chain stores in the mall, independent businesses and a few atypical mall businesses. There's a swim school in a portion of the mall, which means there's a swimming pool in the mall, and there's an Army recruiting office. There's also a decent size furniture store in the mall, which is surprising because you don't typically see furniture stores in malls.

Despite numerous businesses in the mall, there are signs that it isn't what it use to be. There are empty storefronts in the mall, which is not highly unusual in a mall, but there are several at Knollwood, and it's most obvious where there use to be lower level stores. There are escalators in the mall that go to a lower level, but there's a barricade in front of them. It's hard to tell how many storefronts are down there, but it doesn't seem to be many. Nonetheless, it's quite clear that several retail spaces have been abandoned.

Knollwood has tried to adapt to changing times. Reading the deadmalls.com anecdotes, however, suggests its demise is a result of its own missteps.

Despite it all, you'd think Knollwood would draw a fair amount of shoppers during the holiday season, right? You'd be wrong.

Once again Knollwood has opened its hallways to crafts and merchandise vendors during the holidays. There are numerous vendors selling all sorts of things, from handmade goods to clothing, Beanie Babies to cheap jewelry. There are a couple dozen people hawking goods, and they're not confined to a tiny kiosk, they have big tables and displays for their goods. Despite it all, it's still eerily quiet in that mall.

What I can't figure out is how these people find it worth their time to spend hours a day at the mall for what has to be a small return. I don't care if the mall gives the space away to these vendors, if they're standing around doing nothing a few nights before Christmas, they're not making enough money to make it worth their trouble. I must be wrong, they have plenty of retail vagabonds filling the hallways again this year.

You'd think a quiet mall would be a blessing during the holiday season. But you'd be wrong. It's creepy.

What If?

2010-12-15T23:35:00.000-08:00

I was a comic book collector for about a decade, spanning my teenage years and most of college. Many of the books I collected were from Marvel Comics, home of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Hulk, Iron Man and the Fantastic Four, to name a few.

One of the titles I'd buy occasionally was a book called "What If...?" Many issues featured a story that imagined how the Marvel universe would be different if a character had made a different choice, or the outcome of an event had turned out different than it had in the original story.

In 1998 Gwyneth Paltrow starred in "Sliding Doors," a film that followed Paltrow's character through two parallel stories. The difference between the two stories was based upon whether or not her character made it through the train doors as they were sliding closed. I saw it once many years ago, and it was entertaining. I don't remember it being spectacular, as it was rather predictable, but there wasn't anything wrong with it. It's not regarded as a cinematic classic, but few movies achieve that status. I should watch it again some day.

I often enjoy movies and stories about alternate realities, time travel or parallel worlds. It should come as no surprise that I'm a huge fan of the "Back to the Future" trilogy.

Most of us probably play the "what if" game with our own lives. We often wonder how our lives would be different if we did or didn't do something.

The one event I think about most often only affected my life indirectly, but it changed Roast Beef's life dramatically.

Roast Beef is a college friend who I haven't seen much in the past 10 years. I've referenced him occasionally in this blog, but it has been nearly two years since the last time I did so. Eleven years ago half the stories I told seemed to have a Roast Beef reference.

Here's the short version of my sliding door, all dates are approximate:

In the first months of 2000 I organized a small group gathering at the Mall of America comedy club on a Sunday night. I had a bunch of comp tickets for off nights at the club, and Sunday was considered one of those off nights. I organized the trip to see a comedy duo that used hypnosis as the premise of their act. I had been to one of their shows, gratis, the previous year, and it was entertaining. So going back to see them the next year seemed like a good idea.

The duo worked two consecutive weekends during their visit to Minnesota, and in 2000 I organized the trip for their final Sunday night show. That turned out to be a mistake. What I didn't realize was that the final show of their two-week stay was their "erotic show," and the erotic show was considered a special event, making the comp tickets worthless. My group decided we didn't want to pay $10 or $12 a head, whatever the cover charge was, and instead went to the nearby bars for a drink.

We started in the sports bar, playing darts, then went to a beach-themed dance bar for another drink. We ended up at a table next to two blonde women. As members of our group departed, Beef and I were the last guys sitting.

I got up to go to the restroom, and as I came back to our table Beef was chatting it up with the blonde women next to us. I wasn't the least bit surprised. He has always been a smooth operator.

The women were from the Detroit area. They were sisters, Dorothy and Peg, chaperoning a group of teens, Dorothy's daughter and her friends. Her daughter had turned 16, I think, and a shopping trip at Mall of America was her present. It was their last night in Minnesota and the sisters decided to leave the girls back at the hotel and visit the mall bars that night.

The younger sister, Peg, was separated from her husband, as I'd eventually learn. We ended up chatting with these sisters for quite a while, and I didn't worry too much about impressing two women from Michigan, two women who were older than us, married, with children, and living in Michigan.

I don't remember if I knew it that night, but Roast Beef got an e-mail address from one of the sisters. Through e-mail correspondence he began communicating with them. Now here's where I speed up the story. Again, dates are approximate.

In May 2000 Beef flew Peg to Minnesota for a weekend visit. I stopped hearing from him on a regular basis that summer, and when he didn't return my e-mail asking for his new home address, he didn't get an invite to my 30th birthday party in September. In October he was packing a U-Haul truck with his belongings and moving to Michigan, quitting a job he wasn't thrilled with and selling a new townhouse he moved into in April.

I talked to him periodically by phone, and he always talked about how things were going to work out for him and Peg. It was never a question of if, but how.

End of summer 2001 Beef and Peg got married in Indiana. They had a small, civil service in some small town. About a year later they held a formal ceremony here in Minnesota. Chip and I were both groomsmen.

Beef attempted to find a new career in Michigan, but struggled to do so. Their debts mounted and Beef got desperate. In his early 30s he enlisted in the Army.

But the day he was to leave for basic training his plans unraveled. The government claimed there was a discrepancy in his documentation. They claimed they didn't know he had four stepchildren that he wanted covered under his insurance benefits. He never ended up serving his country.

He had been working part-time at a hospital prior to his planned enlistment, and after the Army fell through, he wound up with a decent full-time gig at the hospital. But that didn't last long. He opted to take a job in Iraq, as a government contractor working for Halliburton, He left in early 2005, I think.

His first trip home from Iraq was during the Fourth of July holiday. Chip and I had visited him in Michigan a couple of times, and I had wanted to do so that summer, but I couldn't work it out. My last visit was in late 2004, as it would turn out.

Not long after Beef's summer break Peg decided she didn't want to be married to a guy who was working 12 hours a day, or more, seven days a week. He was expecting to net six figures during a year in Iraq, wiping away their debt and putting their family on solid ground. Peg changed her mind about Beef, allegedly. I never spoke to her once I learned of their separation, and I've only heard the story through Beef's filter. I've never pressed him about the details, and I've always sensed there were meaningful details he never shared with me.

So Beef, slightly devastated, made peace with his future. He negotiated a divorce agreement with Peg, assuming their collective debt and leaving a lot of his non-personal possessions with Peg. He decided to continue working in Iraq to eliminate the debt and build up a nice bankroll for his future. He spent more than four years working on a military base in the desert.

And during those years he met a woman from Washington, a woman who took a similar job as his and wound up working at the same base. I talked to Beef by phone in December 2007. He was planning to marry her in February 2008, on a beach in Hawaii. And he did.

But by the end of the summer he had the marriage annulled, while still working in Iraq. He decided that he had made a mistake. (Gee, do you think?)

He has finally left Iraq and is now living in Boston, allegedly. I haven't seen him since August 2008, and when he does make a cameo in Minnesota, I'm pretty much an afterthought.

I've heard from him a couple of times the past four months. He was in town at the end of this past summer, but I wasn't able to get together with him. He recently rejoined Facebook, but his profile is quite vague about his life.

Beef and I spent a lot of time together during our post-college years. and I've only scratched the surface of his life's story. He was engaged during 1994-95, but called it off. A few years later he lived with a girlfriend who tried to stick him with some of her debt. Another girlfriend moved into his townhouse after about five or six months of dating, and was a bit devastated when he ended their relationship in 1999.

What did you do on Christmas Eve 1999? Late that night I went over to the apartment where Roast Beef was temporarily living and played Nintendo with Beef and his younger brother until 4 a.m.

His family wasn't particularly close knit, and after getting together for dinner on the 24th, it was every sibling and parent for himself or herself on Christmas day. The two brothers spent Christmas day watching television and playing video games at the apartment. I was a part of that until 4 a.m. that morning, and then again Christmas night.

Little did I know how substantially Beef's life was to change in 2000. One of my best friends would soon be leaving Minnesota and on his way to being a footnote in my life 10 years later.

Peg may be wondering to this day how her life would be different had she and Dorothy opted to stay at the hotel that Sunday night instead of visit the Mall of America bars.

Beef may be wondering how his life would be different had our group decided to pay the cover charge and see the comedy hypnotists that night.

I, to this day, wonder how my life would have been different had Beef's life been different. Beef's life is my sliding door. How would our lives have been different had I not tried to organize what was supposed to be a free night of comedy at the Mall of America?

Blizzard of the century (unedited)

2010-12-11T23:52:00.000-08:00

Combine the snow of the past 24 hours, and the cleanup afterward, and you have the making of a storm we'll be talking about here in Minnesota for decades.

In my adult life, there's one blizzard we keep going back to when we talk about the worst of the worst, the Halloween blizzard of 1991.

I was a college student in 1991. It was my fourth year in school, I had barely turned 21 and I was living off campus for the first time after three years in a dorm.

I did a lot of running during much of my college career. I ran laps around campus, and when I moved off campus, I sometimes ran to campus in order to run the same laps I had run in previous years. I went running early Halloween night in 1991, and I remember gingerly traveling down the snow-packed sidewalks, thinking back to Halloween 1990. During my Halloween 1991 run, there were few people out and about early that evening, snow was coming down, and it was a tough walk anywhere across campus.

The previous Halloween was much different. I went running early that evening, and it was rather mild for late October. People were in costume, roaming across campus in every direction. It was quite a site.

It snowed continuously Halloween night, as best as I recall, and I think I went to the bar that night. I vaguely remember walking back from the bars that Thursday night and marveling at the fact we had several inches of snow on Halloween.

It continued to snow overnight and there was plenty of accumulation during the day on Friday. I think the snow turned to freezing rain for a while. I swear I hiked to campus for my first class at 11 a.m. with an umbrella, that was covered with a layer of ice pellets by the time I got there. It never occurred to me that the storm was so bad many classes would be canceled that day. All three of mine were, I learned.

I don't remember much more about the storm. I walked to my job at the local hospital that Friday afternoon, which I'm sure was tough, but I must have made it, as I remember getting a ride home that night from a couple of high school girls I worked with. They were more than happy to give me a ride home, as they wanted me to buy malt liquor for them.

So I don't remember a lot about that blizzard, but the storm is historic. The Twin Cities received somewhere in the vicinity of 20 inches of snow, with reports claiming areas received two feet of snow. The fact I remember details from that storm are a testament to how significant it was.

Today the Twin Cities received 16-20 inches of snow, according to reports I heard today.

Weather terrorists pimped the storm as having the potential to match the Halloween blizzard, and they were right. Usually their terrorism oversells the end result, but not this time. We were clobbered all day Saturday. It started snowing late Friday night and kept coming down all day Saturday. It stopped by Saturday evening, but the winds picked up when the snow ended, not that it mattered. Snow had already drifted to heights easily topping two feet by the time the snow stopped falling from the sky.

The snow came on a Saturday, which kept many of us off the roads this morning. As the day progressed, things got worse, not better. Major retail centers announced they were closing early, which is no small concession given it was a Saturday two weeks before Christmas.

By Saturday afternoon the public busses were pulled off the streets because too many of them were getting stuck on city streets. Many plows were pulled off the streets as well since they couldn't keep up and visibility was poor. By that point the airport was shut down, to nobody's surprise.

Highways in the rural outstate areas are close every winter due to blizzard conditions. Those closures usually aren't that close to the Twin Cities, but on Saturday evening the interstate was closed for approximately 150 miles, beginning at the western Wisconsin border and heading east. That border is 45 minutes from my apartment. That's about as close as I've been to an interstate shutdown in this state, although technically it is in a neighboring state.

The timing of the storm is about as good as you can ask for in Minnesota. It started late on a Friday night, ended by Saturday evening and will allow for a day to dig out before we all go back to work on Monday. The dig out will take a couple of days to complete, and it will be subzero on Monday morning, but we'll be able to go back to life as we knew it last week, but with snowbanks that are waist high, or higher.

This storm wasn't the most crippling, thanks to its timing, but I am confident it is one we will remember for years to come.

Hard to believe winter is almost over.

Factually speaking #5

2010-12-07T23:20:00.000-08:00

1. I am not rich by commonly accepted definitions, but I am thankful for what I have, and thankful that my life isn't any harder than it is.

2. I am my own worst enemy.

3. I do not own any gold jewelry, coins or lamé.

4. I am interviewing an owner of a "we buy your gold" business on Wednesday.

5. I have never purchased anything from a pawn shop, to the best of my recollection. Perhaps I did once and just don't remember doing it.

6. Pawn shops are perfect examples of what is wrong with society.

7. I own very little that a pawn shop would pay me $5 or more for.

8. I collected comic books in the 1980s, baseball cards too. It was better than spending my money on cigarettes, but almost all of my comics and cards are worthless to me, and worthless to most others, too.

9. Growing up my favorite baseball player was Carlton Fisk.

I still hate karaoke (unedited)

2010-12-01T23:12:00.000-08:00

When something is fresh, new and exciting, people want in on it.

That's why karaoke was such a big deal when it burst on the American bar scene in the early 1990s. Everybody who ever wanted to sing in a band now had a chance to perform for a crowd of disinterested alcoholics, and you didn't even have to know the lyrics to do so!

For reasons I can't figure out, the fad didn't die. It's not the rage it once was, but bars continue to cater to singers who just never caught a break, as well as singers who have no business in front of a microphone.

Years ago I was visiting a buddy in the city where I worked for 2-1/2 years during the mid-1990s. We went to one of the better local watering holes one night, only to find it was karaoke night. This city was lacking for entertainment options most of the year, unless you lived for hunting, fishing and snowmobiling, so its inevitable that dozens of people filed through the bar that night, karaoke or not. (This brings to mind a whole other blog I have to be sure and get to in the near future. Memo to self: icebox Internet.)

Surveying the crowd that night, one thing became crystal clear, people don't really enjoy karaoke unless it's a member of their group performing, good or bad.

When somebody is belting out a tune, it's hard to have a conversation with anybody else in the bar, so whatever song the forlorn songstress is crooning inevitably dominates the room. As I surveyed tables throughout the bar, you'd think you were looking at prisoners sitting in their cells, waiting for the march down death row to the electric chair. Only those sitting at the table where Donny or Marie hailed from seemed to enjoy the song. It didn't matter if the singing was spectacular or painful, it was their friend or relative singing, that made it enjoyable.

That was one depressing scene.

Fast forward 10 years or more and I'm heading out to a Twin Cities restaurant on a Wednesday night. This restaurant has the token bar area, and on Wednesday nights the establishment favors the poor saps who mysteriously find their way into the bar with a night of karaoke. So why was I there?

I have worked at a haunted attraction for the past five Halloween seasons, and several of my co-workers from said establishment find their way to this bar for karaoke on Wednesday nights. Despite my distaste for karaoke, I bit the bullet for a night in order to get together with a handful of these folks. Since my girlfriend has abandoned me for nearly two weeks in order to travel west of the central time zone, I decided I should reward my loneliness and tempt my suicidal tendencies by enduring two-plus hours of karaoke.

The ringleader of the weekly gathering is a woman who use to live walking distance from this bar, and enjoys putting on a show for the crowd on a weekly basis. I don't know if she ever tried out for American Idol, but I would bet your left arm the thought has crossed her mind more than a dozen times.

I'm not sure if Sheila sings Evanescence songs because she kind of looks like lead singer Amy Lee or if she kind of looks like Amy Lee because she sings Evanescence songs. Either way I sense the crowd is favored to a couple of such tunes every single Wednesday night. Lucky me, I got to hear "Bring Me to Life" twice tonight. It's not a bad song, I'm just not into it, and Sheila represents the karaoke divas of the world. She can sing, and when she does, she overpowers the room. I don't know why that so easily irritates me, but it does. Sometimes you can tune out somebody you don't want to listen to, to a limited extent, but the Sheilas of the world are vocal gymnasts, and when they step up to the microphone, you're going to notice the vocal equivalent of the uneven parallel bars, you don't have a choice.

Did I want to kill myself when Sheila was singing? No, and given she is somebody I know, I actually appreciated it slightly. But I don't get hot or bothered when people sing songs I'm not interested in, and when their performance doubles as a Star Search audition, I'm less than excited, because they're never singing a song I really dig.

Besides Sheila there were several others who sang during my tenure at the bar, although the bar was rather empty. I was told this was an anomaly. One dude sang a couple of songs after I arrived, and he was horrid. Was he Bob Dylan's illegitimate child?

Another dude, he was a poor man's Marvin Gaye. The dude could carry the tunes without being overbearing. I appreciated his efforts.

A couple members of my group sang, with varying degrees of success. If they weren't part of my group, I would have been totally disinterested, however, and not impressed.

Despite all the things I dislike about karaoke, I have to admit I was entertained a few times tonight. Several members of my group did a competent job of singing "Bohemian Rhapsody," and Sheila did an impromptu duet of "Summer Nights'" with a guy who seemed to favor the 70s lounge tunes when it was his turn on the mic. Those were more fun than I expected. Another duet featuring two other members of my group was better than I expected, too. At the moment, the song escapes me.

No, nobody asked me to gouge my eyes out or set my hair on fire, it wasn't really that painful of an experience. And I vowed to return some Wednesday night this winter if Sheila agreed to sing a song I requested. (She either claims not to know pop songs from the 80s or says she only knows the chorus. She's too much of a diva to attempt to sing a song if she doesn't know the lyrics and melody by heart, evidently.)

I guess you could say I softened slightly when it comes to karaoke, I still contend karaoke is the entertainment of the criminally insane.

Factually speaking #4 (unedited)

2010-12-01T01:25:00.000-08:00

I have a lot on my mind, but it is late and I'm not ready to begin a 30-minute writing exercise, so for now, facts will have to suffice.

1. If I could do it all over again, knowing what I know now, I'd be tempted to do it. I'm pondered this question quite often and wondered what that says about me. I think it makes me a lousy person.

2. I went to see one movie during the Thanksgiving weekend, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It was the weekly retro flick at a nearby theater. I had seen it once in my life. I enjoyed it. I am certain I'll take in another retro flick this winter.

3. I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on the big screen, by myself, at the budget theater, four months after it was released. I thought it was lame.

4. There is talk of a fifth Indiana Jones movie. I hope it happens, even if the last movie disappointed me.

5. I was born in Indiana.

6. I have never lived in Illinois, but my favorite sports teams are based in Chicago.

7. I'm not determined to live in Minnesota for the rest of my life, but I don't foresee moving any time soon.

On the Patch (unedited)

2010-11-23T22:53:00.000-08:00

Oh joy, the savior of community journalism has arrived here in the Twin Cities. We now have Patch! “Hyper local” media will never be the same.

What’s Patch? It’s the parent name of a billion local websites being rolled out across the United States by AOL. You remember AOL, don’t you? AOL was the way we connected to the Internet 10 years ago. Nobody dials up AOL from a home phone any more, so AOL quickly became a footnote in Internet evolution.

But not so fast, AOL somehow determined the best way to make a name for itself 10 years later is to fund thousands of city-specific websites. Basically the Patch websites are local media outlets. There’s no television station or newspaper, just a website to host Patch’s hyper local journalism.

Don't be fooled into thinking Patch has reinvented the wheel. It hasn't. Patch is doing the same thing newspapers, radio stations, magazines and television stations have been doing for centuries, they’re simply delivering their product via the Internet.

Hyper local is a fancy was of saying community journalism. It sounds impressive and cutting edge, but it’s just another way of saying we don’t cover the state, nation or world, we cover your city, just as a newspaper does.

In an era when newspapers and broadcast outlets are stretched thin and hemorrhaging advertising revenue, it’s hard to imagine a truckload of community news sites are going to be financially viable. Newspapers have been giving away their news content for years via the Internet, and earning a fraction of the advertising revenue they use to because of it.

People don’t read want ads when they want to buy a car or a house, they go online to shop. Newspapers have tried to capture that web traffic through their websites, but they were a little late to the party, a variety of online destinations have already filled the online niches.

And I can’t say that I blame the realtors and car dealers of the world for nearly abandoning traditional media. Why spend money on an expensive ad in a Sunday newspaper (and believe me, it’s expensive) when you can dump that money into an up-to-the-minute website with your current inventory? Once Internet access went from being a luxury to a necessity in American homes, newspapers quickly found their delivery model – dead trees – out of favor.

I have no idea how Patch intends to turn a profit. They plan to hire dozens of journalists to chronicle happenings in every community they stake a claim to. And they're paying decent wages for people who are basically newspaper reporters who pimp their content via Twitter and Facebook. Each reporter is issued equipment for the job, (a laptop, digital camera and police scanner are among the goodies you're issued, I think.) And there's a freelance budget to help pay for high school sports stories and other content the one-man show in each community cannot produce. Add in the cost of management for each region, and a sales staff to sell ads for each site, and there's a lot of overhead for a business that isn't selling a product, memberships or subscriptions.

It's fascinating to watch Patch try to convince people they want to spend their free time reading community news through the Internet. I'm skeptical, I doubt Patch will succeed. But nobody has tried to set up a nationwide community news network as ambitious as Patch. Perhaps they're breaking ground, just as eBay, Netflix and MySpace did.

But if I was betting $1,000 on whether or not Patch will succeed, I'd bet against it.

Factually speaking #3

2010-11-22T22:25:00.000-08:00

I have yet to turn on my heat this winter, in part because I have to have building maintenance come every year and fire up the old furnace for the start of winter. If I didn't pay for heat, I'd be much more liberal with the heat if I wasn't paying the bill. With that bonus fact in hand, here's today's list:

1. I have been too tired/lazy to write about things on my mind during the past week. Perhaps I'll find that proposition more appealing when my girlfriend goes on vacation.

2. My girlfriend leaves on Tuesday for 12 or 13 days. She's going home for Thanksgiving, and further west after celebrating the birth of the turkey.

3. I'm drinking a Lakefront Klisch beer as I write this.

4. I have toured 12 or 13 breweries, small and large, during my lifetime.

5. I have toured three macro breweries, Miller in Stinktown, Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis and Coors in Golden, Colo.

6. I have toured the Summit Brewery in St. Paul 5 or 6 times.

7. My favorite Summit Beer is the Oktoberfest seasonal.

8. I miss October.

Factually speaking #2

2010-11-17T00:47:00.000-08:00

Five fast facts since it's late and I'm tired:

1. I wrote a blog about Megabus in 2007. I have no idea how many people have read it, but last I looked, this site linked to my blog entry. (My link is the top "story" on the list.) I liked the headline he/she/it/they wrote for it.

2. For years I have wanted to take Amtrak from Minneapolis to Stinktown. One day I finally will.

3. The last time I visited Stinktown was March, 2008. I'd like to go the weekend of Dec. 3-5, but I'm not sure if that will happen.

4. For years I have heard about this cool Stinktown bar/restaurant called the Safe House, but I have yet to visit it.

5. My buddy Chip lives in Stinktown, and during the past week he spent $287.50 for a one-year eHarmony membership. I'll be blogging about online dating in the future. You've been warned.

Factually speaking (unedited)

2010-11-13T22:55:00.000-08:00

I decided that I needed to do something, anything, to make blogging slightly more meaningful at this point in my life. I've had my "super secret" blog for more than three years. Instead of just killing it, starting a second blog or finding a job that doesn't bankrupt my soul, I decided to quasi-promote my anonymous blog for five months or so, primarily through a simple Twitter account. I'm not interested in turning my blog into some lucrative destination that will pay bills, I'm not smart enough to do that. I simply wanted to see if there's an audience for my bitter sarcasm and fairly obvious observations. Even if the Twitter universe has no interest in seeing what I have to say, it's fun following random people and commenting on their fairly obvious observations. Most of them don't care, but maybe that will change, too.

With all that being said, I figure I need to do a few new things with my blog. When inspiration hits, I can spend a lot of time writing about why the BulletBoys shouldn't exist, questioning if Joe Mauer is gay or chronicling a Facebook debate. But part of building an audience is giving that audience a reason to come back regularly. Some nights, however, I'm less than inspired, and ranting at length about how Bob Barker is a fraud seems like too much work. Therefore, after two long paragraphs, I present a new, recurring feature: factually speaking.

The premise: I present a list of facts, according to me, probably with a sentence or two of commentary tacked on for good measure. If I say it's a fact that Zsa Zsa Gabor is alive, and then she dies a week later, you can't hold that against me. Some of my facts will be opinions in disguise, and therefore subject to change, naturally. But they'll be factual at the time of my writing. ("Amy Sedaris is hot" would be one example.)

Without further ado:

1. My uncle died on Friday morning, shortly after 4 a.m. CST. He came home to die on Wednesday, as I understand, and less than 48 hours later his pain and suffering ended.

2. I turned 40 recently, and my co-workers had no clue. I don't hide my age, any more, but I don't bring it up, either.

3. It snowed in parts of Minnesota today, and my city received several inches of snow. I have come to hate winter exponentially with each passing year. If the economy wasn't horrid, I'd get a job dealing cards in Las Vegas. I'm white and can speak English proficiently, I'd have been an easy hire five years ago.

4. I'm already tired of self-important clowns who can't miss a text or can't turn their phone off for two hours in the movie theater. If I find them annoying now, what will life be like in 10 years?

5. I was in New Orleans last New Year's Eve. This Dec. 31 won't be nearly as exciting.

6. I have jumped in Lake Minnetonka at least five times on New Year's Day. Lake Minnetonka is in the west suburbs of Minneapolis. They cut a hole in the ice for the annual event. I have little interest in doing it a sixth time.

7. I spent New Year's Eve, 2007-08 in southern Florida. Midnight was rather anti-climatic.

8. I love the "Back to the Future" movies. My favorite of the three is part II.

9. Four or five years ago I spent New Year's Eve babysitting my nephew, who turned 15 years old on Saturday. We watched the Back to the Future trilogy that night.

10. I never promised my "factually speaking" lists would comprise 10 items.

Serenity now!

2010-11-11T22:37:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting at home, typing on a laptop computer I don't own, and for a fraction of a second, I am at peace.

I have had a lackluster week at the office, attempting to churn out something that passes for journalism. Or as I like to call it these days, hyper-local content. Somehow community journalism doesn't sound so impressive when your medium is the internet, I'm learning from the web geniuses out there. You need a fancy name for your paperless words, evidently.

Ooooooooh, hyper local. Sounds impressive! (/sarcasm)

My lackluster week just got a lot worse. I made a cameo at the office this evening and learned that committing a cardinal computer sin is going to make my life a living hell for the next week or two. The sin: I turned my computer off on Wednesday.

Normally I leave ye olde computer on, opting for a restart every few days. In need of a fresh start at the end of the day Wednesday, I turned the old girl off instead of restarting her. Big mistake.

Now I can't get it to fire up, and I smell another dead hard drive in the office. I say another because I went through a similar crisis last winter. Does it sound like I'm cursed? It gets better.

The first time I fried the office hard drive, it was less than 48 hours after my home computer crashed and burned. Suffice it to say I'm not touching the rehabbed home computer for a few days if I can help it. Thank Jehovah for the office laptop.

As I fumbled, mightily, to access my e-mail and create files on another office computer earlier tonight, it dawned upon me that yes, without a computer, my life is devoid of meaning. We can't produce newspapers without computers, and as soon as there's a glitch in the system, all hell breaks loose. And without a computer, how am I going to keep abreast of the pointless activities of so many via Facebook and Twitter?

I'm not the first genius to come to this realization, but the fact we're so tied to these machines makes me wonder how anything got done without them 30 years ago.

Computers have made life faster and easier in many ways, but they've brought us a lot more work because of that, and they've handicapped us to the point of no return when the day comes that they stage their rebellion and collectively blow up in our faces. Every last one of them will go "poof" and anarchy will reign!

Facing such a future, perhaps I should have pulled a Cosmo Kramer and beat the daylights out of every last computer in that office. But no, I opted for serenity now.

I'll save the Insanity for later.

Here's to your health

2010-11-10T20:55:00.000-08:00

On an unrelated note, I'm going to make an effort to ramp up my blogging this winter. It's the only way I'll survive another one here in Minnesota. I'm also going to pimp my efforts via Twitter. (I hope I don't regret this.)

Then spring will come, I'll tire of blogging and decide what comes next. This all assumes I still have my sanity, which I wouldn't bet upon.

As I start a new chapter in blogging, I start it on a depressing note. My uncle has come home from the hospital, and things aren't looking good.

My uncle was diagnosed with some form of rare cancer. My mother explained it to me, but I don't remember the details. And they don't matter, ultimately.

My uncle ran a marathon this summer, went to a doctor days later because he wasn't feeling well and wound up diagnosed with his rare form of cancer. His diagnosis came after the cancer was already spreading, and he spent weeks receiving treatment in Rochester, home of the Mayo Clinic. He is now back home, under hospice care, because further chemotherapy isn't going to do a lot for him, according to my mother.

The man ran a marathon in June, and now he has cancer, and is in rough shape. I have no idea what happens next, or when, and I'm afraid to ask. All I know is that his daughter's wedding was scrapped in favor of a small, private ceremony with the immediate families, down in Rochester. She had to give up her elaborate wedding plans just to ensure her father could be a part of her wedding day. Weddings are overblown, but it's unfortunate such a joyful occasion had to be compromised. You take what you can get, I guess, and be thankful for what you have.

I've long considered myself fortunate when it comes to life and death. Both of my grandmothers died during my adult life, but neither one lingered in poor health for months or years. Each grandmother had her share of health issues during her senior years, but their deaths, albeit unexpected, weren't so painful for me. It was harder knowing my cousin's young life was snuffed out due to cancer. That cousin was one of my uncle's two daughters. Now his surviving daughter and my aunt are watching a similar scenario play out again, and this time at a far more rapid pace.

We all know life is short, that you have to make the most of every day. Sometimes I wonder if that's possible.

As I said, I've been rather lucky for the first 40 years of my life. I've been far less affected by death than most people who spend four decades on Earth.

The hardest thing for me in pondering my uncle's death is wondering if I have made the most of my life. I don't regret that I'm not married and raising a family. But I do question what I should be doing with my life instead of working at a lackluster weekly newspaper chain. What could I be doing that would make me happy? And if not me, then everybody else who deals with me. What should I be doing with my 168 hours per week?

We all wonder what the meaning of life is, what the purpose of our life is. I'm running out of time to figure out my answer. If nothing else, I can be thankful for one more night of good health.

It takes all kinds (unedited)

2010-11-06T17:51:00.000-07:00

Take horror movie fans, mix in a dose of art enthusiasts, toy collectors and would-be filmmakers, then and add a dash of metalheads and porn stars. Collectively you have a day at Crypticon.

Crypticon is the convention for those who love the creepy, gory and scary movies churned out by Hollywood and independent filmmakers around the country, and probably the world. It's Minnesota's annual foray into the horror movie fandom and is marking its fifth year this weekend.

There are similar conventions around the country throughout the year, but Minnesota didn't have one quite like this until 2006, I learned today. We have Star Trek gatherings a few times a year, evidently, as well as a science fiction/fantasy gathering in the summer. But Crypticon appears to be the preeminent gathering for those who treat horror film stars like they're the Backstreet Boys circa 1999.

I've been to the big comic books shows here in the Twin Cities many times, and there are a few similarities, but Crypticon is something very different.

Crypticon offers a variety of entertainment throughout the day. There are starts and creators of horror films past and present who attend, and several of them speak during panel presentation. Most of the celebrities and creators in attendance aren't household names, but they've been in films many of us have heard of, even if we're not horror film aficionados. Today I met the guy who plays Dr. Satan in "House of 1000 Corpses," Walter Phelan, who oddly doesn't have his own wikipedia page. I also met Dee Wallace, best known to us as the mom in "E.T."

Wallace has been in a slew of horror films, before and after E.T., but hasn't been in anything nearly as successful, or done anything nearly as prominent. Nonetheless she has kept busy in film and television for more than three decades, and somehow finds it worth her time to appear at a few of these conventions each year.

I can't swear to it, but from the sounds of it, the celebrities and creators are flown to Minneapolis for the convention and provided accommodations during their stay. They make some sort of appearance during the convention and spend the rest of the time hawking merchandise, primarily photos, that they autograph. I was surprised that a standard color picture of Phelan, autographed, was $20. If you brought something of your own to have autographed, he still received $20. Pictures with the celebrities seemed to be free.

In addition to the celebrities and creators, there were several merchandise vendors hawking T-shirts, DVDs, toys and all sorts of random things. One woman I met was hawking custom-made handbags with spooky themes and designs. They were nice bags, but at $65 they seemed a bit expensive. She had a great shtick, however, she was dressed as a zombie and would often play the part. She was there with her fiance who was selling "zombie" caricatures. It was a cool idea, one I hadn't seen done before.

Besides merchandise vendors there were booths hawking independent horror films, some that you could buy on DVD, some you couldn't. One table was handing out DVDs of the movie trailer, although it wasn't clear to me when or how the movie was going to be available. Perhaps my DVD will tell me more.

Another table was for a group of Minnesota filmmakers who are shopping their finished movie, filmed here in the Twin Cities. They have screened it a few times thus far and are hoping to sell it to a studio for either distribution or as the premise for a major motion picture production.

One of their screenings was during Crypticon, which shows horror films throughout the weekend.

That's not enough for you? On Friday and Saturday night of the three-day convention they have live music. I'm guessing they're all metal bands, but I couldn't say for sure. One of the bands, Mushroomhead, signed posters and all that for about 30 minutes Saturday afternoon. They're one of these bands that wears masks on stage. I'm guessing their stage show has a theatrical horror element to it. Just a hunch. They're been around a long time, but are still considered an underground band, I guess. They were the headliner for Saturday night's music lineup, I suspect.

It's the weekend after Halloween, so there are plenty of people walking around in some sort of costume at Crypticon. Several people hawking merchandise weren't dressed for a Monday at the office, and that's to help draw attention and sell their wares, no doubt.

I saw a few women waking around that could just as easily have been attending a porn convention. One of my favorites was the amazon woman dressed as a DD Freddy Krueger. Some of the women I'd see walking around were there selling something, I'd eventually learn, when I'd see them behind a table and notice their "vendor" wristband. But some women were there purely to put on a show for the masses.

There were dudes who dressed the part, too, and on Saturday night there was a costume contest. I didn't stick around to see that, but I'm sure there was quite a show.

It was quite a spectacle, and there were dozens of people in attendance. I don't know how many people will attend during the weekend, but it's not a cheap proposition. A one-day pass for Saturday was $30, and that didn't include Saturday night's music. If you wanted to attend the live music, that would cost you more. There were individual tickets for each day, as well as for the live music, and a weekend pass that made the most sense if you want to make a weekend of it. And apparently some people do. I didn't see proof of it, but I know people decorate their hotel rooms at the convention in a theme, and I think there's a contest for that, too.

Like I said, it didn't come cheap to be there, and most of the goods and services in the convention weren't cheap either, although three of us pooled our money together and bought a two DVD set for $15. I figure seeing two low-budget horror movies for $5 was no different than renting a couple of old horror flicks at Blockbuster.

The horror crowd is not my scene, and if I wasn't being comped to visit today, I wouldn't have spent $30 to be there, I'm pretty sure. But it was fun, and if I happen to find my way back again some day, I'll definitely enjoy it, without a doubt.

"You scream like a girl!" (unedited)

2010-11-04T22:46:00.000-07:00

In September 2006 I made what seemed to me like a bold decision at the time, I decided to go to work at a new haunted attraction here in the Twin Cities.

It wasn't the first time I made such a decision. Years earlier I had applied, and been hired, by Spooky World, a one-stop shop for haunted fun and games, the first of its kind in the Twin Cities. That model is now the norm in the haunt industry, it seems, at least here in the Twin Cities.

But for a couple of key reasons I decided working at Spooky World wasn't the right fit for me, so I declined the job.

Years later I finally took the plunge, I decided to wear a costume and attempt to scare people. I was pretty good at it.

Some people are physically scary. Some people, not so much. Some people make weird, terrifying sounds or grunts. Some people have a great gift of gab when it comes to interacting with guests. I found ways to look scary and intimidating, scare people with sudden moves at unexpected times and dish out a variety of creepy and/or sarcastic comments.

What started as a four-weekend challenge to experience something I've long thought would be a lot of fun turned out to be a five-season job. I've blogged extensively about those experiences elsewhere. But not this year.

I knew at the beginning of the season, a season that now extends over seven weekends, it was most likely my last. There is a laundry list of reasons, and I won't go over them all tonight. All I know is that every weekend I was tempted to walk out, or retire abruptly at the end of the night. But I hung on through the season, opting to retire one day ahead of my last scheduled day in order to attend a pair of Halloween parties. I'm glad I did.

By the end of the Halloween season, we've all worked a lot of long hours on multiple Friday and Saturday nights, and are ready to be done working in our haunted maze for a while. That's no exception this season, but for me and possibly several others, we're not interested in going back.

Yes, a part of me will miss being a part of something that I've been with during its first five seasons, but I'm pretty sure I won't miss it that much, not when my memories of the 2010 season are all the things I hated about this year instead of all the things I loved.

Perhaps I stayed one season too long. But if I had left before this season, I'd probably have missed the experience, and wondered what I'm missing out on. At least I know I've hit the wall, and therefore won't regret my retirement.

I wish most of life's decisions were as clear as this one was.

Taste-less

2010-11-02T23:02:00.000-07:00

It's official, Taste of Minnesota is dead.

The food festival that has been a Fourth of July tradition for nearly three decades has been pronounced dead by its ownership. This is the fifth time I have written about the festival. You can backtrack through my writings by following this link to the previous chapter.

When I first wrote about the new-look festival I had no idea that the geniuses running it were on the fast track to kill it. But now the obit has been written. The ownership group has unpaid bills from the 2010 festival, has lost its right to use St. Paul's Harriet Island in 2011 and has announced it will not be able to sustain the festival or pay off its debt. People are disappointed and/or angry. As I noted before, I haven't been to the festival in many years. If it does go away, I couldn't care less. But the attempt by the ownership group to repurpose the festival has been interesting to watch.

When I read an obit story on the Star Tribune's website, I read a few of the comments readers made in response. I try not to read the comments, because reader comments are generally petty and/or ridiculous. But sometimes the temptation is too great.

One person suggested the reason that the festival changed into a music showcase with expensive food, and an admission charge, is that the festival was failing to break even under its previous ownership, and the new ownership group that took over prior to the 2009 festival was saving the festival from bankruptcy.

Perhaps so, but I have yet to read anything suggesting that to be true. If the ownership group was trying to save the festival, it would have been in its best interest to say so at some point. But I never heard an explanation of why the festival needed to change its emphasis, and charge a gate admission in doing so.

I'm skeptical the festival was in danger of financial ruin. I'm inclined to believe the festival owners saw an investment opportunity and tried to convert a marginally successful festival into something more profitable, but failed.

Whatever be the case, the festival is dead. St. Paul had already revoked the festival's claim to Harriet Island for next year's Fourth of July holiday, so perhaps the writing was on the wall.

But I am expecting some enterprising group to create a new, eerily similar festival at Harriet Island next summer. St. Paul is entertaining proposals for use of its riverside park, and it sounds as if there's interest.

So the festival is dead, but from its ashes we may see a new festival in 2011.

I'd say it's too bad that the baby had to be thrown out with the bath water, but perhaps in doing so Minnesota will end up with an event that will peak my interest enough to show up. Stranger things have happened.

State fair (ch. 2): On the inside somebody is getting rich (unedited)

2010-10-09T23:54:00.000-07:00

The Minnesota State Fair is its own little economy. The laws of supply and demand don't work the same way as they do in downtown Minneapolis.

The state fair is a perplexing, mysterious operation that most people probably don't think twice about. Who owns the land? Where does all the revenue go each year? Who runs it?

Each year the fair draws more than 1.6 million people, some years close to 1.8 million. That total is a bit mysterious, as it includes just about everyone on the grounds that day. I work at the fair nine or 10 days per year, and each day I have to have my own admission ticket. That's how it is just about everywhere. My bosses sleep in an RV each night on the north end of the fairgrounds, and each day they need a ticket to go to work.

The price of a ticket varies, but we'll assume the fair draws 1.6 million and every one of those people buy the ticket for $9, the per-fair price. The fair would generate $14.4 million from those tickets.

Now add it all the revenue the fair gets from every vendor who hawks jewelry or Shamm-Wow. My bosses are one of hundreds of businesses that set up shot at the fair every year, paying plenty for the privilege to do so. They pay rent for their space in a crappy, hot building, but that doesn't include utility or trash service. They are charged an additional fee for how much electricity they require for the 12-day run. And they pay some sort of separate fee for garbage service, even though they generate very little trash. I'm sure there are other fees I'm unaware of.

Besides all the vendors hawking merchandise, there are tons of food booths at the fair. I have no idea how the economics of the food booths work, but I do know that the state fair gets a cut of food sales from many, if not all, of the food vendors. You want the privilege of selling hot dogs to the prisoners of the fair? You'd better be ready to pony up pennies from every dollar you take in. If you don't like it, somebody else will gladly replace you, I'm sure.

Yes, there are many costs associated with running a 12-day fair. There are hundreds of employees working each day, picking up garbage, offering directions to food booths and selling those $11 tickets to the unwashed masses on a Saturday morning. There are also plenty of police officers available each day, and they don't come cheap, I can assure you.

There are the costs of full-time, year-round employees, building maintenance and marketing, just to name a few other costs. It can't come cheap to run a massive 12-day event, but the organization is well funded, without question.

Does the state fair turn an annual profit? It's hard to look at all the money flowing through the gates every year and determine it doesn't. Yet there's a nonprofit foundation that claims money is needed for capital and program improvements. Sounds like a scam to me.

And on top of the tens of millions of dollars the fair takes in every year, there are a variety of events, big and small, taking place at the fairgrounds throughout the year. Hard to believe there's a financial need for program improvements.

I can't answer many of the questions I ask, but if you take a look at the big picture, you have to wonder what the hell is going on inside the prison walls.

After Taste

2010-09-23T00:33:00.000-07:00

Surprise, surprise, the Taste of Minnesota ownership group owes money to the city of St. Paul for use of Harriet Island, and has other unpaid bills as a result of their failed effort to convert the Taste of Minnesota to a music festival.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, read this.

I have no idea who owned the Minnesota food festival prior to Andy's group taking it over a couple of years ago, but if it survived for more than two decades, they must have been doing something right.

The unpaid bill for leasing St. Paul park space could result in the festival losing its claim to Harriet Island. That wouldn't be a bad thing, but I'm not sure where they'd move it, assuming they'd try to keep it going.

Here's an idea, why not the Minnesota State Fair grounds?

The fairgrounds have plenty of space for vendors, a decent amount of parking and a perfect facility for big time musical acts. The grounds are too large, actually, and not ideal for a food festival, but I think you could make it work without too much difficulty.

I have often wondered why the grandstand at the fairgrounds isn't used for more summer concerts. We've been told the Twin Cities lacks an amphitheater for summer concerts, so why not the grandstand? But I digress.

The future of Taste of Minnesota is in question. Some people think it's done after its failed 2010 experiment. I won't go that far, but if it does return next year, it will be dramatically different than the 2010 version, which left a bad taste in most everybody's mouth.

State fair (ch. 1): From the outside, looking in (unedited)

2010-09-07T23:10:00.000-07:00

I worked 79 hours at the Minnesota State Fair this past season, that's about nine hours less than usual.

Add to that a few hours I spent before or after work (mostly after) and I spent about 84 hours within the voluntary prison known as the state fair. Many business owners and some of their employees spend at least half of their day on the fairgrounds, each and every day for 12 days, so my 84 hours seems paltry, by comparison, but it's more than enough for me. I don't love the fair, but that fat payday at the end of the 12-day run keeps me coming back each year.

I'll examine life on the inside in the coming days, but for now I want to commemorate my life on the outside of the fair this year. Yes, there's a life outside the fair, even if the world, or at least Minnesota, centers upon our great Minnesota get together at the end of the summer.

There are hundreds of busses that run every single day to and from the fairgrounds, from points all around the Twin Cities. Some service parking lots near the fairgrounds -- you drive close to the fair, park and then get on a free bus for the final few miles to the entrance. Others service the fairgrounds from afar. You pay $5 for a round-trip ticket from an outlying suburb and ride to and from the fair. I order roundtrip tickets in advance of the fair, at the discounted rate of $4 per ride, and jump on the Eden Prairie limousines to and from the fair. I rarely have to wait more than 10 minutes from the time I get on an Eden Prairie limousine until the time it departs. It takes 35 minutes, on average, to make the trip from point A to B. Some days it takes barely 30 minutes to make the one-way trip. Other times it takes 40 minutes. Many factors influence the commute.

The busses pick up and drop off at three places outside the fairgrounds, as far as I can tell. My bus stop is on the south side of the fairgrounds. Many days I see dudes hawking bottled water along the perimeter of my bus stop. They have coolers on wagons and bottles in hand. I see some of the same dudes at 11:30 a.m. as I do at 9:15 p.m., and they all appear to be wearing ID badges that show they have peddlers licenses.

You frequently hear calls of "ice cold water" from these vendors. A few of them have catchy pitch phrases, such as "if you have a buck, you're in luck," or "if your throat is dry, I'm your guy." Bottom line, they're trying to sell you ice cold water for $1.

This year's fair started out rather hot and humid, so there was plenty of water to be sold outside the gates of the fair. By the latter half of the fair the weather turned windy and cool, and ice cold water wasn't such a hot commodity. Some mornings I didn't see anyone hawking ice cold water, and thanks to evening rain on Labor Day there was nobody hawking water outside the fairgrounds on my way home that night.

Besides the water guys, and an occasional water gal, there are sometimes people hawking light-up toys and glow-in-the-dark novelties at the end of the night when I head out the gate for my limousine.

But the real action is on the west side of the fairgrounds. The main gate for the fairgrounds is along Snelling Avenue, and plenty of busses drop people off across the street from it. On top of it, there is plenty of on-street parking in the neighborhood to the west, and plenty of people willing to sell a parking space on their lawn or in their driveway.

I made my way outside the Snelling entrance more than once during the fair, and during some of my breaks I would peek through the fence along the entrance to see what the crowd was like at the admission and ticket gates.

There was a guy on the corner across the street holding up a sign with his parking rate for a spot feet from the fairgrounds. I saw him selling his space as high as $30. I'm sure his rate depended upon the time of day and how busy the fair would be on that particular day.

The oddest thing about the Snelling Avenue area is that there are dozens of vendors outside of the fair. There are mobile food trailers hawking state fair staples such as mini-donuts and deep-fried cheese curds, as well as several merchandise vendors selling cheap sunglasses, gangsta wear and DVDs. These are all set up in the front yards of homes near the fair, one after another for a couple of blocks up Snelling Avenue, as well as a few along the parkway directly across the street from the main entrance. Somebody even rents a yard so that they can set up their window or aluminum siding display. Whatever it is that they sell, they attempt to tantalize you with a drawing to win free windows or siding. Nobody ever wins that stuff, I am sure, they just want to call you later when you don't win and offer to sell you new windows or siding at a great state fair discount.

Occasionally I have seen companies handing out free product along the sidewalks. One year I received a can of energy drink. This past summer there were people trying to promote and educate fairgoers about Islam, evidently. Good luck with that. If I'm on my way to the fair to stuff my face with corn dogs, french fries and deep-fried candy bars, chances are I'm not interested in your Islamic preaching.

I saw a few guys hawking water in their portable coolers outside the main entrance. These guys, however, were much more ambitious. The same 12-ounce bottles of water were being hawked at two for $1. Competition must be fierce along Snelling. The guys outside my bus lot must be in collusion.

I spent more time outside the Snelling gate this year than I did in previous years, to be sure. I had a brilliant idea.

Like my bus passes, the state fair sells admission tickets at a discount rate prior to the fair. (You can buy state fair coupon books and ride tickets at a discount as well.) Adult admission is $9 on the slow days, $11 the rest of the time. Seniors and kids can get in for less on several days, too. So the advance admission tickets don't save you any money on a special day, but they save you $2 on the days admission is $11.

Plenty of people buy an advance ticket, but many more don't bother, or don't know if they're going to the fair until the mood strikes on a sunny Saturday morning. When that happens you can wait several minutes to buy your ticket before proceeding to the admission gate.

A few years ago they were selling those advance admission tickets for $8 and charging $11 at the gate. I went outside the Snelling gate to unload a couple of extra tickets my boss had purchased and wasn't going to use. (All state fair employees are required to have a daily admission ticket. Most employers pay for them, as does my boss. That means my boss spends $90 most years to pay for my daily admission to the fair.)

I noticed a few people hawking tickets that day, and they had plenty of them to sell, evidently. I quickly realized why. They were scalping, so to speak. They bought $8 tickets, were selling them for $10 each and profiting $2 per ticket. Buyers were saving a buck on their ticket and didn't have to wait in line that day. It was brilliant.

The very next year the pre-sale price increased to $9. Other than avoiding lengthy ticket lines on a busy day, there's no incentive to buy tickets from a random dude for $11. And if you're selling the tickets, you don't want to have to make $9 change for every clown who buys a ticket with a $20 bill, so selling them for $10 is a practical matter.

Needless to say there doesn't seem to be many scalpers tying up hundreds of dollars in tickets just to make a buck off each ticket they sell on a busy Saturday.

And that's where I come in.

I raise $300 every year for the MS Society of Minnesota through my participation in the annual 150-mile bike ride. I hate asking people to give me money simply for participating, and since $300 isn't a huge burden, I try to find fundraising projects to make money. If I win concert tickets, DVDs or other items from a local contest and don't plan to keep the prize for myself, I sell it as a fundraising effort for my bike ride. I've done a variety of things to make money for the MS Society over the years. That's another blog for another time.

I sold an autographed poster signed by the cast of Glee last December, and made $55 for it. I was lucky to win it, and surprised I could sell it for that much without authenticity. The Glee cast had made a Mall of America appearance in the summer of 2009, and I won the poster from the mall's movie theater, but I couldn't prove those autographs were legitimate.

I also won concert tickets for a Bret Michaels concert a week before this year's bike ride. I was able to sell those tickets for $60. That turned out to be a fiasco, but I sold them.

I estimated that my fundraising was $60 short of the $300 minimum as the state fair approached. (Never mind that the bike ride was in June, I'm always finishing my fundraising at the end of the summer.) So I pulled $540 out of my savings and bought 60 state fair admission tickets. Upon selling them I'd recoup my $540 and the remaining $60 in fundraising I needed.

I waited until day 3 of the fair, the first Saturday, to hawk my tickets. I went to the parkway outside the Snelling gate where busses unloaded anxious fairgoers by the dozens. I arrived there about 40 minutes before I started work that day. It was a hot, humid day. There were plenty of people coming to the fair, but it didn't have that chaotic Saturday feel to it. I held up my tickets, announced I had $10 tickets, and sold a few. Plenty of people didn't need tickets, they were smart and pre-purchased theirs. But plenty of people still needed a ticket.

Yet my $10 tickets were moving rather slow.

I wasn't that far from the corner, and it was easy to see there were lines across the street, yet many people passed me by. Some people had kids, and my tickets weren't a bargain if you had to buy two or more kids tickets along with two adult tickets, but takers weren't as easy to come by as I expected.

There are police at the intersection, controlling the streetlights and directing traffic. There are other people working outside the gate as well. Employed by whom I do not know, but they're working. I can't even figure out what they do, other than watch people get on and off busses.

One of those dudes came up to me, after noticing that I was hawking tickets, and told me that the police don't take kindly to soliciting on the parkway. You can stand on the curbs and sidewalks, but not on the parkway, allegedly. He said I could stand next to them on the corner and they wouldn't care, but they didn't want solicitors on the grass where people were walking to and from the busses.

I thanked him for the tip, said I only had a handful to unload and continued about my business. I moved to the backside of a big pine tree, screening me from the view of the traffic cops, and watchful for anybody who didn't like what I was up to. I went to the curb to try and hawk my tickets across the street from people walking down the sidewalk, with no luck. For my first 30 minutes of effort I sold 19 of my 60 tickets. Discouraged, I went to work realizing my work was going to be far more challenging than I imagined.

I thought about trying my luck again on Sunday, but I was too slow getting going, and didn't have time to hawk before work. I told myself I needed to go outside of the gates during my work day once or twice while on break and sell four or six tickets, as if I was selling them for my boss. No big deal, a quick sale a couple of times a day and problems solved. I tried that once, but I balked once I got to the parkway. There weren't big crowds streaming to the gates, and I figured I'd have to really draw attention to myself in order to make a sale. I wasn't crazy about doing that.

So the following Saturday rolls around, it's day 10 of the fair and I have 41 tickets to unload, 35 to break even and six for profit. I considered standing with my water guys near my bus depot, but determined I couldn't pull the trigger. I've seen huge lines at the ticket windows across the street, and there were plenty of people lining up on that cool, sunny Saturday, but I couldn't pull the trigger. I didn't care if I got harassed by a cop for selling tickets, but I figured I was asking for more trouble if I was doing it anywhere that might be considered state fair property. If that wasn't an issue, I could have stood at the back of a group of ticket booths nearby and sold tickets in record time. The lines at that set of booths were always ridiculous on busy days. But to do so, I would have had to stand on fair property, and I didn't want to try that.

I opted to stake out a spot under a Snelling Avenue bridge on Como Avenue. People trickled to the fair from that area, but not by the dozens. Within a minute or two I realized that spot would never produce meaningful ticket sales.

So faced with $350 in investment, I realized I had to find a spot near the Snelling entrance where I could avoid detection and go to work. I walked up there, crossed the street, scoped out the scene and set myself up behind that same pine tree, hoping to avoid detection. I made it look like I had five tickets, even though I was holding two sheets of five, and held up my tickets. With little immediate interest in the tickets I was holding, I pulled out the line I knew I needed to use in order to move product. "$10 tickets, no waiting."

The lines were healthy at the Snelling ticket booths on this Saturday, and even though people didn't immediately realize it, many of them knew $10 was a deal and that there was probably a wait for admission tickets across the street. I found it much easier to move tickets, thankfully.

A couple of people asked why I was selling tickets for only $10. I lied and said my boss always buys extra advance tickets each year, and that I unload what we don't need during the final weekend. I said more than once that when I finished selling the tickets in my hand, I was done and could go to work for nine hours.

A couple of times during my Saturday sales people asked me if the tickets were fake. These tickets were individually numbered, with extensive lettering on both sides and a colorful watermark. I told people that if I could fake tickets like these, I'd spend my time selling something worth more than $10.

I wasn't the only one selling tickets outside the Snelling gate, I noticed. A peddler on a corner a block away from Snelling was selling admission tickets for $11, the same price as at the ticket booth. His tickets, however, included free water. I suspect he was a licensed peddler, as he wasn't nearly as discreet as I was about hawking tickets. I'm not sure how well a free 12-ounce water enticed people to pay him $11 rather than pay the same amount at the gate, but you know he paid less than a quarter for one bottle of water, so his profit per ticket sale was $1.75. His tickets were probably an easier sell on the really hot days -- the first weekend of the fair.

A couple came up to me during the first Saturday I was selling tickets and tried to pay me $10 total. They gave me $10 for two tickets and I clarified it was $10 each. They claimed I said $5. At no point did I mention $5 in connection with my tickets. They opted to wait in line and pay $11 for their tickets. Brilliant.

One guy noticed I was hawking tickets and walked by me on that first Saturday. A minute later he found his way back to me, having seen how long the line was for tickets across the street.

In response to the $10 asking price question, I did tell one person on the first Saturday I was selling the tickets to raise money for my MS Society bike ride. The woman was impressed, shook my hand and thanked me for my effort.

With the remaining 41 tickets sold in less time than the first 19 sold, I was done with my scheme. I made $59 for my effort and had 45 minutes to spare. Why didn't I make $60? A woman came back to me when she realized on the second Saturday that lines were long, but didn't have much cash on her. (There are cash machines all over the fairgrounds.) She had a $10 bill and a bunch of singles. She counted out her singles and realized there were only nine. She realized she could only buy one from me, but I took the $19, gave her two tickets and said "Merry Christmas."

As it turns out, a little bonus fundraising in the days prior to the fair left me $40 short of the $300 goal. So I had $19 to spare. I could have donated it to the MS Society, but decided that since I wasn't hawking the tickets specifically as a charity sale, I was justified in pocketing $19 for my state fair spending. I don't spend a lot of money at the fair, but I spent more than I have during the past three years, so I could use the extra $19. Besides, I pay the annual registration fee for the bike ride, a separate fee from the fundraising, out of my own pocket every year. Let's just say that the $19 I didn't donate to the MS Society is going back to the organization in the form of my 2011 registration fee.

And if that $19 wasn't enough to make my day, I found $16 on the ground a half-hour later. Details on that will have to wait until I go inside the fair.

Ice cold water $1 (unedited state fair prologue)

2010-09-04T23:12:00.001-07:00

Thanks to a family get together, I have just one last day of work at the Great Minnesota Get Together.

I'm about to finish my fourth year hawking jewelry at the Minnesota State Fair, and I still have little appreciation for the annual end-of-summer ritual.

It makes little sense to me. Thousands of people, some days more than 200,000, pay about $10 per person to enter into a mafia-like environment where they overpay for the most unhealthy food on the planet, among other wastes of time.

I sell jewelry each year, jewelry you can't find in abundant supply locally throughout the year. People covet such jewelry, so the owners of my booth make money. It's a tough business, and they're not getting rich beyond their wildest dreams, but they make a buck or two, and people who purchase from us generally walk away pleased with their transaction.

But now more than ever there's nothing at the state fair that you can't buy any day of the year. Yet some people are convinced they need to buy it at the state fair, after overpaying for a low-alcohol, high-price version of beer. (Don't get me started about Minnesota's 3.2-percent alcohol laws.)

People are herded like cattle into the state fairgrounds, charged more than the free market rate for food and beverages because they've voluntarily agreed to imprison themselves, spend hours looking at things they wouldn't pay a dime for if they had the opportunity to do so outside the fairgrounds and constantly fall all over each other to do so.

And people think America is a great country. Come to the Minnesota State Fair and you'll see we're a bunch of idiots.

Further examination of this phenomena is coming in excruciating detail in the weeks ahead.

Legends of pinball, vol. 3 (unedited)

2010-08-30T22:06:00.000-07:00

Some people collect comic books, others collect vintage Coca-Cola merchandise.

If it can be collected, there's probably somebody out there collecting it. Pinball machines may take up a decent amount of space in a basement game room, but there have been plenty of people who have purchased an old machine or two throughout the history of pinball and played it over and over in their home.

With pinball on the decline in the 21st century, and fewer outlets for a line of machines, there are plenty of machines from the past two decades and beyond that are in need of a home, and plenty of collectors willing to welcome them into their home.

On behalf of home collectors everywhere, I nominate Brian as your legends of pinball representative.

Why Brian? He has the luxury of warehousing more than two dozen machines in his basement, or so I have been told. His is not the largest private collection of machines in Minnesota, that goes to a guy named Jason, who has more than twice as many machines and is internationally known for his collection.

Brian is my chosen representative because he has spearheaded a great public relations campaign for the game of pinball, a campaign that has required countless hours of effort and energy, and probably isn't earning him any significant money. Brian is the brains behind Pinball on a Stick, a pinball-only game room at the Minnesota State Fair.

For the second consecutive summer Brian has organized a room of about 30 machines, all well maintained and available to play for no more than 50 cents per game. Most of the machines are from his collection, but several other local pinball collectors contribute their time or loan a machine to the 12-day arcade at Minnesota's big, ridiculous state fair.

From what I know, most home collectors want to share their love of pinball and foster an appreciation, as well as support, for a dying art form. They stop short of opening their homes to the public, and understandably so, but Brian has gone to extraordinary measures to share his love of an endangered entertainment species with the unwashed masses at the Minnesota State Fair.

I have never met him, and as I noted, he couldn't do it alone, but in honor of all those who purchase and maintain pinball machines for future generations to appreciate in some way, shape or form, Brian is hereby crowned a legend.

Information about his state fair game room is available online: Pinball on a Stick

The great Minnesota sweat together (unedited)

2010-08-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

John Hines, a longtime radio personality in the Twin Cities, used to refer to Minnesota's state fair as the great Minnesota sweat together. That's about right.

People flock to the fair, crowd streets, retail buildings, dining areas and everywhere else, for reasons I still can't comprehend. I am working at a retail booth in one of those sticky, nasty retail buildings for the fourth consecutive year. It's no picnic. Screaming at teenage girls within the confines of a haunted maze is much more entertaining, but you take what you can get.

A few things have changed near and around my booth.

The Canadians who use to set up a big display of fancy, expensive dishes are no longer present. I think they were husband and wife, and they had fancy table settings they'd sell. You didn't carry the dishes home with you, you merely ordered them at the fair. My boss tells me they were very expensive, and only slightly fancier than you could buy retail. I wondered how much they could make setting up shop at the fair for 12 days. I guess not enough, unless they moved to a new location and none of us have figured it out.

The new guy last year, selling fancy scenic inserts for the underside of your hot tub cover, is gone. You'd buy a sunset scene or something like that and slap it on the underside of your cover. When the cover was turned back off the tub, it was supposed to look like you're sitting on the beach with the sun setting over the ocean. They didn't seem very busy last year, so I doubt they've returned.

In their place is a guy with a harem of young chicks hawking genuine Austrian crystal jewelry. He has a couple of young chicks who like to wear short shorts when they work. Their legs aren't going to be insured by Lloyd's of London, but they're not hideous.

I don't know much about jewelry, but his jewelry -- a lot of pendants, evidently -- is all the same price, $17.95 for each piece. And if you buy two, you get one free, so you can get three pieces at $12 each. I don't know anything about Austrian crystal, but it can't be worth much if a dude can sell jewelry made from it for $12 per piece. That or he's lying about how genuine the crystal is. I wonder how many pieces he has to sell per day to make money during the 12-day fair. The fair would provide an intriguing economics study, if only I could find a textbook covering the subject.

It appears the lovely girls selling the fancy hair extensions and other hair services are gone, at least from our building. They were always entertaining to see.

Thus far we've been reasonably busy during the first two days of the fair. I did notice one change in shopping patterns this year, the crowds gathered around the Shamm-Wow booth aren't as big.

The Shamm-Wow guys in our building have been piggybacking on the name a guy named Vince has popularized on television. My guys have been there for several years, but two years ago they started calling their product Sham-Wow, noting it's as seen on TV. I seem to recall they used Vince's exact product name two years ago.

That changed last year as they added a second M to the name. Vince must have made a stink about using his name, which I would presume is trademarked.

The shammy guys did a brisk business three years ago, and it sure seemed to grow two years ago, thanks to Vince's presence on television. Last year's demand remained rather high.

This summer, however, the crowds seem to be down. I'm guessing that thanks to Vince, and the presence of his ShamWow in every Walgreens in America -- as well as other retail locations, I'm sure -- the market is over-saturated. It was a nice run, but like everything else, when you're hawking a hot product you'll soon find competitors stealing your thunder.

There may be fewer buyers, but there still appears to be plenty of rubes who feel the need, inexplicably, to vocally acknowledge Shamm-Wow when they see the booth, usually for the benefit of whomever is married, related or joined at the hip to the rube.

Shamm-Wow somehow continues to elicit a celebrity-like awe among rubes at the state fair. Today I saw a couple of people getting their picture with the local pitch man at the booth, and somebody else was shooting video of pitch guy in action.

I don't know who those people were, but if you look up "life, empty and meaningless" in the dictionary, you'll see them pictured.

200 (unedited)

2010-08-26T22:23:00.000-07:00

We love our round numbers, except when it comes to marathon running (26.2 miles), ounces in a gallon (128) and cases of beer (24). Why not 25 cans in a case, or just 20? (Yes, soda companies are selling 20-packs and then pricing them like cases... what a bargain, I never noticed I'm getting less for that sale price of $4.99.)

Blogger.com keeps track of your entry total when you log into your main page. I noticed last week that I was going to pen blog entry 200. But rather than commemorate the insignificant milestone, I wrote what I intended to, another blog about a legend of pinball. Before penning chapter 3, I'll briefly reflect on the history of this blog, now that entry 200 is complete. I'm too tired to intelligently write legends chapter 3 tonight.

I started this blog in response to a blog I was reading religiously, a blog written by my good friend D Cup. I started the blog in the spring of 2007. Not long after that D Cup had to delete his blog, an unfortunate concession he had to make due to his employment with Associated Press. Such is life.

In the first year I blogged a lot, often noting about trivial topics of conversation among me, Rush and Chip, three baseball enthusiasts. I often wrote about Chip's delusions regarding his favorite baseball team, the Stinktown Brewers of Milwaukee. I also blogged about my bicycle efforts now and again. In retrospect it's mildly interesting for me to go back and read about some of the weekends I put forth a lot of effort, but within a year I was bored with penning stories about three-way phone conversations and weekend bicycle totals.

Thanks to being displaced due to fire, I didn't have home computer access for several months. I blogged occasionally from the local library, and perhaps the office once or twice, but my frequency diminished.

I have created a few blog stunts during the past three years. I blogged seven nights in a row, reflecting on my life as I saw it at that time, with no editing other than a simple spell check.

I attempted to blog 40 nights in a row, and made it more than half way before I finally blew it. I think I managed 36 blog entries in 40 nights.

One weekend I attempted to write several entries -- short, long, meaningful or insignificant -- and found the end result was a bit lackluster.

I've occasionally posted things I have written in response to other blogs, and I copied and pasted interesting comments exchanged via Facebook, with my own commentary in response.

I've started to write multi-entry series, such as three blogs pondering if Minnesota Twins poster child Joe Mauer is gay, and why people care. It took me four entries earlier this year to write about my squeaker convention. And soon I'll pen my third chapter in the legends of pinball series.

I am the most prolific BulletBoys blogger in the universe, I have to be. I didn't set out to claim the title, but I've found myself revisiting previous BulletBoys blog entries thanks in part to unexpected comments those blogs have generated. I wish that happened more often.

Too often I've written introspective blogs. I don't set out to do that, it just happens. I guess it's a form of therapy. Knowing almost nobody reads my blogs, and the few friends I have shared the blog with no longer seem to read it, it's probably easier to do.

Although blogger says I have written 200 blog entries, one remains unfinished nearly three years later, so you could argue I haven't written 200.

Occasionally I have written blog entries that I don't wholly agree with, or I've pretended to be more opinionated on a subject than I really am. It's easy to do when your name is not attached to your blog. That's the same rationale I have used to post comments on random blogs I check out now and again. I post blog comments elsewhere occasionally simply to stir other pots.

So here I am, 200 entries later. I'd like to think I put more effort into my blog posts, and that comes at the expense of quantity. I'm still conflicted about how much I'd like to promote my effort, and whether I'd prefer to write an anonymous blog or put my name to a blog for all my Facebook acquaintances.

Blogs are a dime a million, and I'm not convinced mine is worth an entire dime, but I'm glad this blog has occupied my time the past few years. Perhaps there will be a blog entry 400. If so, I'll try to commemorate it, and how my blog has evolved since today.

Legends of pinball, vol. 2 (unedited)

2010-08-17T21:50:00.000-07:00

There are a few places in the Twin Cities that have a decent selection of pinball machines. One of them is run by Lloyd.

Lloyd's business, SS Billiards, is a fixture in Hopkins, Minn. It has been in the same generic little strip mall for nearly four decades. From what I've learned, Lloyd's family has long been in the arcade business, and Lloyd took over SS many years ago.

Lloyd survives in an era when most arcades can't for a few simple reasons.

One, he has no employees. He's there all day, every day, running the business. The guy doesn't take a day off, with the exception of a few holidays during the year. It's not demanding work most of the time, but it demands a lot of his time in order to make a buck or two at the end of the month.

Two, he has pool tables. Video games were huge in the early 1980s, but many arcades closed by the late 1980s, as home video game systems were already taking a bite out of the coin-operated industry, and this was long before today's highly sophisticated games were even imagined. There are still video games being manufactured for arcades, but arcades aren't the same. There are fewer of them, and nobody wants to play a game of Pac-Man for 15 minutes. Now you sit in a race car or on a motorcycle and race against five other people simultaneously. Or you're trying to hit the green with a 9 iron or shoot a buck. There are still video game experiences you can't replicate in the home, but there are plenty of home video game experiences you can't get at an arcade. In the 1980s, video games trumped anything you could play at home. The improvements and affordability of sophisticated game systems killed the video game industry.

The point of all that is that Lloyd has always had pool tables. Many people own pool tables, but plenty more don't, and those who like to play pool can play all sorts of video versions of it, but none of them replace the real thing. SS doesn't have pool leagues, just a few tables and hourly rates, but billiards is a game that has survived evolutions in entertainment, and likely provided a consistent source of customers for Lloyd.

Three, he has been committed to pinball. There was a time when SS had Foosball tables, and there are a couple of video machines inside his building at this moment, but Lloyd has long been committed to providing an outlet for pinball. Pinball enjoyed a resurgence in the early 1990s, but has again fallen on hard times. The machines are more complex than their predecessors, and video simulations will never replicate the experience of guiding a silver ball up ramps and at targets. The economy is making it tough on the pinball industry -- only one manufacturer remains -- but it's a pastime that lacks a viable substitute in your home. (More about this forthcoming in vol. 3.)

Pinball is quickly becoming an old man's game. Sure, young kids who enjoy video games are likely to be fascinated by the sophisticated game play of the new Iron Man pinball machine that came out this spring, but with fewer outlets for pinball, what are the odds an 8-year-old child is ever going to see an Iron Man machine? Unless they happen to have one at Chuck E. Cheese's or Dave & Buster's (I have no idea if either of those businesses have pinball machines), a kid is never going to even know Iron Man pinball exists. As Tim, the proprietor of the pinball museum likes to say, his patrons are primarily old farts.

The lack of machines and outlets for today's youth is bad news for a business like Lloyd's, but despite the odds against a business that isn't going to collect much more than a few dollars per hour from the pockets of each customer that walks through the door, he's keeping a dying industry alive in 2010.

No surprise, information about SS Billiards is available online.

Legends of pinball, vol. 1

2010-08-15T21:51:00.000-07:00

There aren't many people I know of that I can call a legend of pinball, but there are a few I am familiar with for one reason or another. One of them is Tim, the proprietor of the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas.

I'm not sure when I first learned of Tim's pinball museum, but it was sometime before January 2007.

I read about the museum somewhere and instantly became fascinated with a working pinball arcade that features machines from the past and present. I visited the museum for barely an hour in January 2007, and loved it. The museum looked like little more than a strip mall arcade. And that's really all it was. It was a jam packed arcade with dozens of pinball machines spanning several decades and a couple dozen video games from the 1980s.

I didn't get a chance to visit the museum again until November 2009. It was during that first week of November that the museum moved to a new, larger location. The new location promises space for up to 400 machines. I've been there twice in the past five months, and it's still a work in progress. The museum is still not filled to capacity with working machines.

It will take time, but there's no doubt the museum will eventually be filled to capacity, mostly with vintage pinball machines.

The museum is Tim's pet project. If I recall correctly, Tim made pretty good money in the arcade business back in the 1980s. He sold out while there was something left of his business at the end of the '80s and retired at a relatively young age. He moved to Las Vegas, taking with him hundreds of old pinball machines that he had collected and kept.

In Nevada he started hosting a game night in some sort of outbuilding he had for warehousing his pinball machines. When his game nights outgrew the outbuilding, a working museum was the next logical step.

The museum is operated as a nonprofit entity. Being nonprofit doesn't mean people working for the organization can't draw a salary, but I've never had any indication Tim cashes a paycheck for the many hours he works each month keeping the museum operational. The museum is not run like an arcade. There are no tokens, there is no concession stand, you won't win any prizes by trading in tickets won on a Deal or No Deal video game.

Even if Tim does cut himself a salary, it can't be much, because at 25 cents to $1 per game, the museum can't generate a ton of cash in any given month after paying the rent and utility costs. Yet the museum periodically donates profits to charity.

Tim is often at the museum, repairing one of the many machines in his inventory. He has a little of everything to choose from, from classic electromechanical machines to the latest solid state offerings. Nowadays there's just one pinball manufacturer: Stern. I can't promise every Stern machine of the past 10 years is at the museum, but it sure seems like it.

There are plenty of pinball machines from the 1950s and 1960s at the museum, most of which have rather generic themes. In the 21st century pinball machines have to be based on something people are familiar with, such as television shows or movies. There are machines based upon Family Guy, 24, Wheel of Fortune and World Poker Tour. Movies represented via pinball include the Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises. And there are other machines based on commercial entities, such as the NBA, NASCAR, Monopoly and even Big Buck Hunter, one of the few successful arcade cabinets of the 21st century.

In the old days pinball themes revolved around simplistic ideas, such as bowling, carnivals, billiards or card games. And you will find plenty of those rather simplistic games at the museum.

There are several unique pinball machines to be found at the museum. There's a classic game that has rotating cars on an oval race track inside the backbox. The backbox is the top of the machine that typically displays scores, and as you hit targets on the machine's playfield, it advances the cars on the track.

There's a modern machine that has a vertical playfield in the backbox. There's also a machine that features head-to-head competition where players stand at either end of the machine, similar in fashion to playing air hockey.

One of my favorite machines at the museum, one you won't find anywhere else, is Pinball Circus, a prototype developed in the late 1980s. It was a pinball game designed inside a cabinet similar in size and shape to a Donkey Kong or Pac-Man machine. It was pinball's answer to the arcade game, but it was shelved instead of being produced for the arcade industry. Despite that, it's available for play at the museum for a buck a game.

The new location still has video games of the 1980s, as well as a few odd coin-operated devices of yesteryear that don't fall under the umbrella of pinball or video game. It's quite a collection Tim has assembled and maintained, and there are plenty more where they came from, which I find amazing.

The museum doesn't have tour guides or informational kiosks, but some of the machines have cards with tidbits and trivia about them. Others have that fancy code you can scan with your fancy phone. Doing so will call up information about the machine via your wireless device, a device that was once impressive simply for being able to complete phone calls without a cord.

I spent more than two hours at the museum last month, with three machines occupying most of my time. I spent less than $10 during my time there, which is almost a crime. I should be paying a lot more than that for entertainment in Vegas, entertainment I can't get anywhere else in the world. (Other than some DVD that has been produced, there isn't any merchandise you can buy to support the museum. It definitely needs something to sell as a souvenir.)

Tim was recently interviewed for a podcast, and during it he noted he had recently been treated for a health issue. He's fine, and back to work, but it reminded me that without Tim, there is no museum. If Tim dies tomorrow, is there anyone who will put hours of effort into maintaining pinball machines on an ongoing basis, for no pay? I've said this more than once: if Tim had to pay his bills and make a living operating the museum, he wouldn't. If he couldn't afford to donate his time, the museum wouldn't exist.

The Pinball Hall of Fame is the one thing on my must-do list every time I go to Vegas, and I hope it's something I am able to enjoy for decades to come.

There is plenty of information about the museum online, including two different pages on Facebook, an unofficial blog that hasn't been updated in two months, a brief Wikipedia page and two websites dedicated to the museum. The one that seems to be most official is this one: http://www.pinballmuseum.org/

No. 10 (unedited)

2010-08-09T23:16:00.000-07:00

I'm getting old.

It's getting harder to convince myself with each passing year that I want to bicycle 100 miles in a day. But on Saturday, Aug. 6, I did it for the 10th time. This year's century ride was the Tour de Tonka, a one-day ride started in 2006.

This was my fourth Tour de Tonka, and it was the first time the tour offered a 100-mile route. If I wasn't going to bicycle 100 miles, my next option was 65 miles. That's a lot in any given day, and a feat I've accomplished twice this summer, on consecutive days in June during the MS150. I'm not exactly pushing myself when it comes to distance rides this summer.

I didn't pre-register for TdT because there was a chance I was going to go out of town for the weekend. Once I realized I wasn't going anywhere this past weekend I started watching the weather forecast. If it was rainy on Saturday, I wasn't going to bother to show up.

The last obstacle to participating in the ride was getting up on a Saturday morning in time to make the 7:30 a.m. shotgun start.

Despite a forecast of passing showers during the day, I got up in time to venture five miles to the starting line.

It was cloudy, and appeared that rain was imminent at the start of the 100-mile ride. I still wasn't convinced I wanted to bike the 100-mile route, but I also knew the odds of me biking a century this year were slim if I didn't do it during TdT.

It started raining by the first rest stop, 15 miles into the ride. The 15-mile mark is also the split for the 65- and 100-mile routes, so if I was going to wimp out, I had to do it then and there. I couldn't pull the trigger. Despite the fact I knew I'd get soaked, I pushed ahead with the 100-mile route, bypassing the first rest stop completely.

I took my first break at rest stop 2, in Delano. It was 30 miles into the ride. It was raining, I was soaked, but it was time to refill my water bottles and enjoy snacks. I was worried the rain was increasing and would force me to wait it out at the rest stop, but any perceived or real increase in precipitation didn't last long.

The remainder of the ride consisted of segments less than 20 miles. I bypassed the first rest stop, but I stopped at the next three, which were 16-19 miles apart.

By the time I hit rest stop 3 my hands were like prunes from being so wet. I noticed two things in the final minutes before that stop. The wind had definitely picked up, and the skies were clearing to the west.

It wasn't long before the sun was shining upon me as I embarked on the second half of the route. The wind was a bit challenging, but it was coming from the south, and the route had plenty of easterly and northerly segments to offset the challenge posted by southerly segments.

The forecast was for a hot afternoon, and the weather terrorists didn't lie. It hit the upper 80s by late afternoon. I wasn't a lobster, but my arms did burn slightly. I would have preferred the rainy weather for the rest of the day.

The final 25-30 miles featured more rolling hills, making the route a bit more challenging. The final rest stop was about 12 miles from the finish, although the route map said it was 14. I struggled to pedal up a few hills, but none were too tough for me to tackle.

My average speed was 14.8 mph. On an ideal day I'm not sure how much better it would have been, but there's no question the rain and then heat slowed me down a bit.

I finished about eight hours after the start of the ride, which is about average for me, including breaks, on a century ride. Unfortunately my bike computer said I was at 97.6 miles at the finish line, and being obsessive about reaching 100 miles, I biked a final 2.4 miles when I got home.

This is the seventh consecutive year I've biked a century. Part of the reason I attempt to complete one each year is to prove that I still can. Physically it's a challenge. I don't treat my body like a temple. I don't worry about analyzing my carbohydrate, electrolyte and dolomite intake to ensure maximum performance on the road each day. I don't spend thousands of dollars on fancy bicycling gear and Spandex.

But more than the physical challenge each year, a century is a mental challenge. I'm not programmed to feed off of the adrenaline rush from extreme feats of endurance. I was never worried I couldn't finish the TdT, I had a hard time convincing myself I wanted to. It's a hurdle I will always struggle to clear.

Sugar, Leather & The Nail (unedited)

2010-07-31T01:44:00.000-07:00

For the first time in 15 years I saw Dangerous Toys in concert.

To see a Dangerous Toys concert in the 21st century requires a major commitment, disposable income or really good luck.

The band was a minor success during the hairband era. They weren't Tesla, they weren't Queensryche, they weren't Poison and they weren't Warrant. They were unglamorous, unsophisticated rockers from Austin, Texas. Sure, they had a few songs you'd file under slow/sappy, but not in the "Every Rose has its Thorn" or "I Saw Red" style that Poison and Warrant, respectively, made famous.

Dangerous Toys were loud, obnoxious, unapologetic and disassociated...disassociated with the trappings of the Sunset Strip. That's why they didn't come off like the acid washed rockers so many hair bands were. They were genuine southern rockers from Texas.

They had a couple of major label successes, but the bloom was off the rose by the time disc two hit the streets. They continued into the 1990s, working with smaller labels and playing to the few rock fans who hadn't bought into the mystique of Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails. All of those bands made some great music, but they lacked what some of their hair band predecessors had. I'll never understand why, but somehow the thousands of rock fans across the United States that loved hard rock seemed to disappear. They quit enjoying music they had loved, or they traded it in to appease their more sophisticated Foo Fighters sensibility. That's sarcasm, but it's also true.

By the late 1990s there wasn't really a Dangerous Toys any more. The band didn't break up, the guys just started doing different things at a time when the demand for Dangerous Toys had dropped off significantly.

I can't say how many times Dangerous Toys found its way to Minneapolis back in the day, but I know I saw them play a couple of times circa 1995. My guess is that the first show was in the summer of '94. My hunch is that the next show was in the fall of 1995.

Jason McMaster, the lead singer of the band, spoke about both of those shows on Friday night. He doubted any of us in the room were at that 1995 show when he polled the audience, but chances are that there were a couple handfuls of us who had indeed reconvened 15 years later to see Dangerous Toys at Pickle Park in 2010.

McMaster has gone on to front a variety of bands during the past 15 years, performing periodically in Texas and occasionally elsewhere. Even though Dangerous Toys never disbanded, there was no talk of new music or much else since that last, ill-fated attempt at writing new material in 1995. (The fourth and final CD was a bit of a departure from the loud, raucous Texas rock and roll we had grown to love. Honestly, I don't think it would have mattered what they recorded, there weren't enough fans that cared enough one way or another.)

In recent years there has been an occasional reunion show in Austin and a few shows in Japan, where aging American rockers (and pro wrestlers) always seem to do well. There have been a few festival appearances along the way, as well, but opportunities to see guys who sold 1 million copies of their debut CD are few and far between in the 21st century.

That's what made Friday night all the more curious.

A few months ago I was at the oddly-named Pickle Park in Fridley, Minn., to see another D-level hair band, Trixter. (I rate bands by success, and I'd say both Trixter and Dangerous Toys never graduated from D level, which isn't anything to be embarrassed about, D level means you succeeded at a level far higher than 99.5 percent of aspiring rock bands back in the day.) Trixter has been doing the occasional reunion show during the past few years, and inexplicably they ended up doing a show May 1 at Pickle Park. It was that night at Pickle Park that I learned of another upcoming show, a rare performance by Dangerous Toys. (Why Minneapolis is blessed with such concerts, instead of Chicago or Los Angeles, I'll never know.)

After 15 years, and few concerts during their absence, Dangerous Toys were returning to Minneapolis.

How fortunate were we here in Minnesota? Dangerous Toys appear to be playing two shows this summer, neither as part of a rock festival. They were booked in Minneapolis on Friday night, Kansas City on Saturday night. There's nothing else on their schedule, and I doubt there's another Dangerous Toys concert anywhere in the United States in the near future. Somehow we were the benefactors of a very rare opportunity.

Dangerous Toys may never command a grand audience again, but for the few hundred that attended Friday night, it was as if it was 1994 all over again.

The band played music from its first three albums, and plenty from that debut, of course. McMaster can still hit the high notes, and still wail like an injured cat. The sound was a bit off during the first few songs, but I find that's typical of most club shows I attend. McMaster's banter between songs wasn't anything special. He preached a little, bitched a little and reminisced a lot. He never mentioned his other bands or why Dangerous Toys hasn't been anywhere near Minnesota for 15 years. He did, however, suggest the band will be back next year. I'll believe it when I see it, but I'm all for it.

McMaster looks a lot like he did 15 years ago, remarkably so. I wouldn't be surprised if he came out after the show to sign CDs and other memorabilia. (I didn't hang around to find out.) He has done that in the past. He has always been very accessible to the fans, I know this firsthand from the 1990s. Before the days of e-mail I wrote a letter to him, and got a personal response. He may not have been receiving thousands of letters a week, but the fact he responded personally to a fan was impressive to me.

The crowd was decent, I thought. Better than the BulletBoys more than a year ago, and better than Trixter three months ago, but nothing overwhelming.

Two notes:

• One of the opening acts was a band called Beatallica, a fusion of the Beatles and Metallica. It was not good. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't nearly as clever or entertaining as you would hope.

• I have no doubt about the authenticity of the comment regarding the July 21 BulletBoys concert that reportedly drew approximately 25 people. I received a comment from a guy named Seastorm. How do I know it was a guy? Through dumb luck I stumbled upon his MySpace profile, and it turns out that he works for a local promotions company that was affiliated with the BulletBoys show last month. I still have no idea how he found my blog, but now I know his comment about the attendance was legit. I can't verify that he attended the Dangerous Toys concert, but that same dumb luck suggested that he planned to. I bet he can answer my questions about the local concert business. I'd love to have the opportunity to ask.

10 years of Facebook (unedited)

2010-07-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

While watching co-workers/acquaintances question/debate the merits of a financial appeal via Facebook, I vowed to track the evolution of my relationships with 10 people during the next 10 years. Here were the rules I set three months ago, when I dreamed up this idea:

In the coming weeks I'll detail my experiences with Facebook and attempt to track 20 people I'm connected to via Facebook. Every spring I will compare and contrast my Facebook experiences and the acquaintances I have made, assuming:
A. blogger.com doesn't crash and burn, taking my blog postings with it
B. Facebook doesn't become as passe as Myspace
C I live another 10 years
D. I don't get so lazy I stop blogging

I thought I wanted to track 20 people, but I changed my mind. I'm already getting lazy. Instead I will track 10 people, nine chosen by me, one at random, sort of. I won't track people I'm related to or close friends I've known for a long time. Here's the list, the first nine are alphabetical by first name. The random person is in position 10.

1. Anne: Chip's co-worker in Stinktown. We met once, in 2007, and it was a short meeting. She was dating another of Chip's co-workers at the time. Not sure why we connected via Facebook, other than she had to have initiated it. I almost never send friend requests. She is divorced, no children, in her mid 30s and no longer dating the co-worker. We trade occasional online quips.

2. Caleb: A former manager at the Halloween attraction I have worked at during the past four years, we cross paths a few times per year at group get togethers. He left the amusement park that operates the haunted attraction this year, so I won't see him this fall. He is in his late 20s, never married, no children and owns a home. He has political sensibilities and studied environmental issues in college. Despite his age, he isn't an internet junkie. He rarely posts updates or information on Facebook.

3. Chris: A newspaper colleague who is leaving my prestigious company at the end of the week, for a better gig at a small Florida newspaper. He digs journalism, use to work in construction and seems to like the "new media" facets of journalism. (I hate the term new media. It's bullshit.) Despite his love of new media, he doesn't seem to be a regular via Facebook. I predict I will see him again after he leaves for Florida, but maybe just once. He and his longtime girlfriend have a daughter.

4. Erin: my girlfriend's former neighbor, the two are friends. As I recall, they knew each other prior to being neighbors, so that's how they wound up living in the same duplex. Erin is a waitress/bartender, has career aspirations in the medical profession, is going to school to achieve those, is in her late 20s and never married, to the best of my knowledge. If she has children, that's news to me, too. I use to see her periodically, but that ain't happening now. She doesn't seem to be Facebooking as much these days.

5. Heidi: She was a colleague at the newspaper, in ad sales. I've written about her in this blog, most notably about her divorce during the past year. She has family in Minnesota, but lives in Los Angeles now. She's in her 40s and has no children. I was the lone editorial person on the big charter boat cruise she had five or so years ago to celebrate that 40th birthday. Man, time flies.

6. Natalie: I couldn't resist picking somebody I know through my old newspaper beat. She's a busy person, a bit of a socialite, married and a parent of three. She turns 40 in September. Her Facebook postings chronicle a busy, colorful life, and I wouldn't expect that to change in the next decade.

7. Rachel: She will represent my years at the bingo hall. She has worked there for several years, is in her mid 20s, is easy to get along with and liked by everybody. She has worked in banking in the past and took classes for nursing, but she's still not sure where her career path will lead her. She doesn't use Facebook a lot, so I may not be privy to many details of her life unless I continue to return to the bingo hall in the winters. Never married, no kids.

8. Scott: He's a young kid who loves photography, joined me at the haunted house last year, seemed to flake out on the job at the end of the season and is now pursuing some sort of photo/video career. In the meantime he's celebrating a new job he landed today, with Staples. He's quite young to be developing his own visual arts business, but if he's good enough at the craft, why not build his own business instead of working for someone else. Not sure if I'll be crossing paths with him again. Safe bet that he has never been married and has no children -- he's 21 years old -- but I can't guarantee it.

9. Taylor: He rose from the ranks of "actor" like me to become a manager at the haunted attraction. It's a demanding job that isn't nearly as much fun as screaming at teenage girls, but it probably pays better and you get to spend a lot of the night socializing when you're not putting out a metaphorical fire. He is in his late 20s, has never been married and has no children. He works in a warehouse, which is a bit disappointing, because he went to school for computer design or something like that and isn't using his degree for a paycheck, obviously. Perhaps he's happy with that, I don't know. He also loves photography and had or has a small photography business. I think he and an ex-girlfriend started a business. I'm not sure if he pursues gigs now. He has ties to Minnesota, but is not tied to Minnesota, it seems. He has a girlfriend at the moment, so maybe he is tied to Minnesota.

10. Larry: After my Facebook method randomly chose my niece and my cousin, it chose Larry, a classmate who I don't think I've seen since my high school days. If I saw him at the 10-year high school reunion, I don't remember it. If I saw him at the Catholic school five years later, I don't remember it. I didn't go to the 20-year reunion in 2008 and doubt I'm going to any further reunions. I'm bored with them. Larry recently got married. I'm not sure if it's his first marriage or not, but it appears both he and his wife have children from previous relationships. We were friends back in our school days, but not great friends, and he turned 40 earlier this year. I don't know what he does for a living.

There they are, my Facebook 10. There were a few interesting people that I would have liked to include, but 10 is enough.

Next summer I'll try to revisit the 10 of them and determine what has changed in their lives.

BulletBoys firing blanks?

2010-07-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought I had written my last blog about the Bulletboys (this one) I find myself writing about flamboyant Marq Torien again.

That's because my previous BulletBoys blog entry was the benefactor of a comment. (I need to blog about the BulletBoys more often, that's the only topic that seems to generate traffic to this otherwise anonymous/unknown blog.)

As I noted about a 2009 BulletBoys blog comment, I have no idea if a comment is legitimate, but I assume it is. Who's going to search out a blog with almost zero web traffic and then post a fake comment on it, especially when the topic is the BulletBoys? As I have said before, even I am not that bored.

The comment I received this past week was a report about the recent BulletBoys concert here in the Twin Cities. I have no idea how the writer found my blog, but nonetheless s/he did, and here's her/his comment:

I went to the show in Burnsville this last week. Unfortunately, there were only about 25 people there. Based on his comments, Marq seemed annoyed at the low turnout (understandably). This was confirmed when they called it a night after I think only 5 songs.

Shortest concert of my life, but still a good show. Given that they were playing to essentially nobody (Primetime is a huge room for only 25 people), I give them an A for energy and showmanship.

- Seastorm

When I saw the BulletBoys in early 2009 it was on a Friday night, and it was winter. If there's a blizzard that night, nobody is going to drive five miles to see the show. There was no blizzard that night, and my crowd estimate was about 200.

It's summer, so weather is not a problem, but a weeknight show might be, especially for those who have any sort of normal job. If you're a band in huge demand and/or appeal to a young demographic, you will draw a crowd. The 2010 Bulletboys on a Wednesday night, likely not a hot ticket in any city.

I have no idea how well the Burnsville show was promoted. I assume there was an ad in the weekly alternative publication, that's where all the bars offering live music advertise. Beyond that there was probably little more that the bar could do. The local rock station barely acknowledges 80s rock acts that aren't Motley Crue or Metallica, so there wasn't going to be any radio station promotion for the show.

Ad or no ad, the bar certainly didn't seem to be trying very hard to promote the show online. The bar has a website, but it did little as far as promotion for a national act. (I have no idea what was being charged to get in, and the website wasn't helping me.) If I was some 20-something dude who stumbled across the website one night and saw the list of live shows, I'd look at it and say "who the hell are the BulletBoys?" There was nothing to tell you the band hails from the 80s, or that its lead singer had a few videos on MTV back in the day.

According to Seastorm, there was a crowd of 25. I'm not surprised.

I've wondered, how much do 80s bands get paid to play in Minneapolis? Specifically those who are playing to a few hundred hardcore fans who aren't paying much to see the show.

As I've noted in the past, an 80s band with a minor fan base will draw a few hundred in the Twin Cities, and I'll usually pay $10 to $15 at the door. That's what I would have paid to see these bands playing at a club in the early 1990s, and probably more. In the hair band heyday, bands would sell out a club, probably at $20 a ticket.

The fraudulent Bret Michaels is getting $30 a ticket for most of his 59-minute solo shows these days, but people think he's a hot commodity, for reasons unbeknown to me. He's the exception to the rule, his ticket prices are actually going up in the 21st century, and it has nothing to do with the quality of his shows or material.

I e-mailed the alternative weekly newspaper a year or two ago, suggesting a story about how bands such as L.A. Guns, BulletBoys, Firehouse and Faster Pussycat make money when they come to Minneapolis. (I'm sure those details are closely guarded industry secrets, even if 99.5 percent of the Twin Cities couldn't care less about one detail.) Such bands will draw a few hundred fans under the right circumstances, but the venue isn't charging much for a ticket, and I can guarantee venues are providing several comps during those shows. I can't help but wonder who is making money, and how much.

Do the bands get a flat rate, leaving it up to the venue to fill the bar in order to make money? Do the bands get paid strictly by a cut of the door?

If it's the latter, then it would make sense why the BulletBoys would be pissed that the bar was nearly empty and opt not to play for 60 minutes, although they'd risk alienating what fans they have left.

Nobody wants to play for an empty house, even if their paycheck is guaranteed. When it comes to national acts, that's what I have always assumed, they get a guaranteed paycheck. If that was the case Wednesday then it makes no sense why Marq and his faux BulletBoys would quit after five songs if they had a guaranteed paycheck, as I'd expect there's some clause in the contract promising a minimum number of minutes on stage.

Regardless of the financial arrangement, if I had paid even $10 to see the band, and they quit after five songs, I'd be pissed. I have thrown away a lot more than $10 in my lifetime, but if I'm making a conscious decision to show up and spend money to see a show, and that's all I get, there's no chance you'll get another dime out of me ever again. All the showmanship and energy in the world is worth nothing to me if a band plays only five songs at a club concert they're headlining.

I had already determined I wasn't going to pay to see the BulletBoys again. But if somebody had wanted to provide me a free "ticket" to the show last week, I would have went, by myself, purchased a couple of drinks and given Marq a shot at redeeming himself for the last show I went to. Had I driven 25 minutes to see a five-song performance for free, I'd have been pissed. Even if you would have offered me free drinks and free admission, yet all I got was five songs, I'd have been pissed.

If Seastorm's report is true, then it's unquestionably time to hang it up, Marq.

All that glitters (unedited)

2010-07-09T22:44:00.001-07:00

Another copy and paste blog entry, this one in response to Vegas Rex's post about being Vegas burn out.

I don't know a lot about Rex, but I do know he has lived in Vegas for a few years, and blogs almost daily. Most of his blog entries are about life in Vegas, but occasionally he branches out. He shoots photos, offers opinions, gathers a bit of Vegas information or history and presents it all in a blog that's not going to endear him to the visitors/convention bureau.

His blog recently migrated to a different gambling-oriented website, but it's the same old Rex. The man is quite entertaining.

I cobbled together a stream of consciousness response, and of course hate to see it lost forever amongst the many blog entries and comments Rex will accumulate for his new host. You can read Rex's blog entry and the many comments it generated right here. My response is also copied below.

Last fall I spent six nights in Vegas, by myself. I loved it, it was an escape after working another season at my Minnesota haunted house. The airfare was cheap, the off-strip time share was cheap. It worked out pretty well, although I didn't get picked for Let's Make a Deal, dammit.

I'm hearing airfare is up this year. Perhaps so, but rooms are ridiculously cheap. I spent a few hours at the Orleans last fall and they keep offering me two free weeknights. That's not great, but I didn't spend much money there, or many hours. I spent as much time watching minor league hockey as I did at the blackjack table, mostly because I had no luck whatsoever when I sat down.

I'm going to make my first ever summer appearance in Vegas next week. My girlfriend scored us another free trip to Laughlin, and we're renting a car and spending two nights in Vegas. She also got us two free nights at Sam's Town. Again, not great, but she got those mostly for staying there on business last fall.

In preparation for my trip, and three days of decadence (buffets and booze) that I will indulge in, I've been hitting the bike extra ambitiously every night during the two-week run up to departure. During the past 12 days I have biked 11 of them, and with the exception of one tough 28-mile night, I've been logging 30 miles per night.

I once thought I wanted to live in Vegas. I have no use for winter. I tolerate it, I've put up with plenty of subzero days. I lived in Canada for a few winters, the coldest day I experienced was -40F. No wind chill, just cold. I use to run a lot back then. I'd run 3 miles after work that week, when it was -15 to -20F each night.

But I melt quickly under the heat. I wear wristbands when I bicycle because I'm old school, and I sweat a lot. We don't get dry heat here in Minnesota. If it's hot, it's humid. I can wring a puddle out of my wristbands after a 30-mile ride on a hot day in Minnesota.

I often wait until two hours before sunset to begin biking. Perhaps I'd do better in the waning daylight hours of Vegas than I think. I don't love summer, I'd be fine with it never getting much past 70 degrees in the summer, as long as we got a long fall. The only good thing about summer in Minnesota, besides the fact there area a billion outdoor things going on to compensate for the 6 months its too cold and/or wet to enjoy outdoor activities, is that the sun sets just after 9 p.m. at the start of summer. When sunset creeps back below 8 p.m. at the end of summer, I'm not a happy man.

Next Monday and Tuesday night I'll be in Vegas, not to mention Laughlin on Sunday and Wednesday night, where it's always a few degrees hotter. I'm going to feel what it's like, for the first time ever, to inhale a steady diet of 105-degree weather.

In Minnesota we spend our winter running from our heated cars to heated buildings. Some of us go nuts for skiing, snowmobiling, ice fishing or other activities. There's something to be said for enduring a steady diet of subzero temperatures, but I no longer need the street cred.

I've heard it said that summer in the south is like winter in Minnesota. You run from air conditioned cars to air conditioned buildings. I haven't experienced the latter, but I won't give up 9 p.m. sunsets in the summer for crisp January days where the sun sets before 5 p.m.

I have no idea what you do for a living besides blogging, Rex, and it's unclear where you come from, since you've referenced living a few different places. But if you're like me, you need to reap the benefits from summer, not hibernate for three months. That's what winter is for.

Good luck wherever you go. I may never leave Minnesota, but if I do, next week should convince me that Vegas ain't my destination.

Here's hoping they have good air conditioning at the Pinball Hall of Fame. I'll be pumping quarters into those machines for 3 or 4 hours next Monday evening.

Distaste in Minnesota

2010-07-07T22:34:00.000-07:00

The people have spoken. The fresh, new and exciting Taste of Minnesota failed.

This blog entry follows up chapter two of my Taste of Minnesota observations, found here.

Today I read that the "festival" lost money. The face of the ownership group, Andy, put an unsurprising spin on it. He was very satisfied with the progress made in turning the event into a festival. The concerts were amazing, he said. I kept hearing how amazing it was to have national acts playing outdoors at Harriet Island. I didn't see the concerts, so I can't speak to how amazing they were, but somehow I doubt people were amazed by 62-year-old Sammy Hagar singing that he can't drive 55 for the millionth time in his life. I know Counting Crows have managed to maintain a following, but could a 2010 rendition of "Mr. Jones" be that amazing, even on the Fourth of July?

Other positive rhetoric I read was that the riff-raff indeed stayed away, there were zero, or one, arrests during the event, depending upon what you read. Yeah, that's definitely good news, but somehow I doubt that will pay the bills.

I have no idea how much money the event lost, but Andy promises to revisit his business plan and tweak the 2011 festival.

I'm not surprised the festival failed to make Andy rich. I predicted it would get the cold shoulder. It didn't take a genius to figure that out, either.

But it seems that it's not the "improved" festival that caused the drop in attendance. No, not that. It was the weather. To succeed the festival needed perfect weather, evidently, which is foolish to bank upon if you're holding an outdoor event in almost any city in this country.

The attendance is being reported at 64,000 over the four days, down from 80,000 a year ago. The Friday and Sunday attendance figures were estimated at 20,000, the Saturday and Monday figures at 12,000.

I wouldn't doubt weather was a factor. It has been quite humid, and relatively hot, for the past several days. Anyone who thought it was a good idea to be hanging out at the festival on Saturday afternoon, overpaying for food, was nuts. Would attendance have jumped to 20,000 on Saturday had the weather been perfect? Would thousands more have flocked to see the Red Rocker, Sammy Hagar, sing "Mas Tequila?"

Monday night's concert featured Offspring and 311. I would have expected that show to draw a larger, younger crowd. It rained a few times during the day on Monday, and that was being blamed for only 12,000 parading through the gate that day. I'm sure rain was a factor. How much of one we can only speculate.

So I'll give the festival the benefit of the doubt. Weather put a dent in the overall attendance. But how many patrons did the festival need in order to break even?

Honestly, I'm impressed the festival drew 64,000 this year if last year's total with the mandatory $10 food ticket purchase at the gate drew 80,000. I may have underestimated Andy's ability to turn an outdoor food fair into a music festival bearing the same name.

From what I have read, it sounds like the gate admissions were absorbed by the cost of the talent. That being the case, Andy and company needed a major source of revenue to cover all their other costs. That source was the food vendors.

Not to my surprise I learned that the festival takes a cut of food sales. It's unclear if the cut is the same from every vendor, who had to pay to be there, or if it fluctuates. But it was clear from one article I read that one proprietor had to give the festival a 20-percent cut of its sales. That's why the festival has that inconvenient ticket policy. Vendors have to turn in their tickets for reimbursement, and they get less than the value of the ticket in return.

Let's say that the tickets are valued at $1 each. A vendor collects eight of them for a plate of food, that's $8 the customer paid for the food. The vendor then gets $6.40 from the festival in exchange for the tickets he collected.

The local restaurant cited in the article said that after paying its fee to be there and charging more for its food than it charges in its Minneapolis restaurant, it barely made enough money to pay its employees for four days at the festival. You've got a real problem there, Andy.

As I noted previously, expanding food choices at an event where you're now charging people a significant cover charge is a fool's formula for success. I bet a lot of vendors walked away very unhappy that they wasted their holiday weekend at the festival.

So revenue from those vendors had to pay for all the portable toilets, festival employees and marketing costs of the event. (Those marketing costs included a prominent local public relations firm, whose primary mouthpiece was running around all weekend talking up the festival on any local TV station that would have her. (I'm sure she doesn't come cheap.) She kept telling everyone how "phenomenal" the entertainment was this year. Somebody get her a dictionary, or at least a thesaurus.)

End result: Andy and company lost money. I'm not surprised.

This was their second year as owners of the festival. Andy and company bought an established event and decided to mold it to fit their vision of an outdoor festival, presumably one that is better than what they bought. What Andy has failed to explain is what was broken in the first place.

A bad taste in Minnesota? (unedited)

2010-07-06T22:53:00.000-07:00

It's over, the holiday celebration known as Taste of Minnesota.

I haven't been to this "festival" since the early 1990s, as best as I can recall. Given its location in St. Paul, I've been less than interested in visiting it. Given it now charges a significant gate admission for access to the precious festival, I'm even less interested. Sound familiar? Perhaps you remember reading this.

Despite my lack of interest in attending, I've been highly interested in how the new and improved festival would be received this year. I know the festival dates back more than two decades. And I know it use to be free to attend. Last year they started forcing those attending to buy $10 worth of food tickets at the gate, thereby keeping the riff raff out of the festival grounds.

I don't know who owned the event, or how it was run in the past, but for the past couple of years it has had new ownership. One of the owners has been the face of media interviews in recent days. His argument for charging $20 to $30 per person for admission to the festival has been multi-faceted.

There's no such thing as a free lunch, he said in one interview. The festival has tried to shift from being a "fair" to a festival, he said. In the past the festival had amusement park rides as well as music stages. The emphasis on the past couple of years has definitely been on main stage entertainment. This year's four day festival, July 2-5, featured headliners each night that would have commanded $20 a ticket at a local venue, if not more.

Here's my look at the pros and cons of the fresh, new and exciting Taste of Minnesota.

Pros:
• Admission charge discourages riff raff from hanging out at the festival, and there was more room to roam for those who attended.
• Food vendors, the reason the Taste was created, were increased this year, and many local restaurants offering unique foods participated.
• Big name acts performed each night, creating a legitimate music outlet that parallels Milwaukee's much bigger, better produced Summerfest. It's a good time to be booking big shows in Minnesota if acts are appearing in Milwaukee around the same time.
• A variety of entertainment was planned throughout each day.

Cons:
• Tickets were $20 before 4 p.m., $30 after. If you don't value the daily entertainment, or aren't a fan of main stage entertainment each night, the cover charge is highly discouraging, considering food and beverages don't come cheap by all accounts.
• In order to buy an overpriced beer you had to pay another $3 for a wristband that granted you permission.
• Vendors accept coupons only in exchange for their product. This is not new, and proves to be problematic because beers, for example, cost more than $5 each, but tickets had to be pushed in $5 increments.
• The nightly fireworks display that capped off each night was reduced to one night, Independence Day.

You could argue there are as many pros as cons, at least according to my list. But when you weigh the factors, the 2010 Taste was a failure.

From what I could tell via media reports, those who deemed the Taste worth the price of admission were delighted with it. The lines weren't long for food, it wasn't crowded, and the main stage entertainment was a good deal. A couple of weeks ago the Star Tribune newspaper looked at what the cost of each day's entertainment would be if you paid to see each act. The flaw with the logic is that even if you're getting more than $100 worth of entertainment in a day, you're not going to take it all in, and chances are plenty of it had little appeal to you, if any, were you to be asked to pay for it.

Let's look at the final night of the festival. The main stage acts included 311 and Offspring, two bands that made it big in the 1990s. I'm not a big fan of either, but if I my friend invited me to join her at the concert, and it was free, I might indulge her, but probably not. If I'm not highly motivated to see live music from bands I'm not a fan of, I'm not paying $20 or $30 to see them, which means there's no chance I'm overpaying for food, the reason dozens of vendors were in St. Paul in the first place.

If you're a fan of the bands playing on the main stage, then $30 is a fair price for a live show. By most accounts, the evening entertainment drew plenty of people, but during the day business was rather slow, I read. And if I'm going to a concert for a few hours, I'm not that concerned with tasting local cuisine before, during or after the concert. Vendors were not pleased with the new format. Some said they did less than half the business they did last year and questioned if they'll bother to participate in 2011.

This isn't surprising. The festival brought in more food vendors, then expected people to spend $20 for access to them. The more competition you have, the fewer dollars each vendor will net, especially when you limit access to their food with a cover charge.

Festival ownership claims to be happy with the progress they made in shifting the festival from a free event to something else.

Perhaps so, but I noticed that the festival's Facebook news feed kept telling people they could buy the $20 pre-sale tickets at a local music store each day, even after the festival started, and pre-sale tickets could be ordered each morning through the festival's website. The festival smelled a bit desperate to draw attendees.

One thing they appeared to do that made a lot of sense, they didn't charge for kids 12 and under, or something like that, evidently. Initially I saw no indication that there was a discount of any kind for children, but it appears they didn't charge parents for dragging their children to the festival, a festival that was stinking hot during its first two days. The stifling heat of day 2 was blamed for the lackluster attendance on Saturday, July 3.

What was the biggest flaw in their marketing and execution this year? In my opinion they shouldn't have been selling the event as Taste of Minnesota. If they had marketed the festival as a replacement event that emphasized music and entertainment, it would have been easier to swallow. If they had marketed it as a music festival with a great variety of culinary delights, instead of as the Taste of Minnesota, perhaps they would have sold the idea better.

If they wanted to change the event, the should have changed the name. The outcome may have been the same, but they wouldn't have faced the stigma of charging for an event that use to be free, and nobody who cared would have been confused by the death of Taste of Minnesota or the birth of Minnesota's Freedom Festival.

For the love of money? (unedited)

2010-06-30T23:20:00.001-07:00

It can't be for the love of money.

As previously noted, I'm a fan of the Bulletboys, a footnote from the hair band era that won't die. How big of a fan am I? You can revisit my BulletBoys history here: BulletBoys sing!

That entry received a comment, from the touring bass player, allegedly. That prompted more BulletBoys discussion here: BulletBoys write!

So what's the latest on a band that was once pimped as the next Van Halen? Allegedly the other three guys, the dudes not named Marq who appear in videos that can sometimes by found on Youtube, have reformed the BulletBoys, with a new lead singer.

There's just one problem with their reunion, the original lead singer, flamboyant Marq Torien, continues to tour with his version of BulletBoys, a version that somehow manages to keep on keepin' on.

That's right, a band that has seemingly no business putting on shows for the masses now has two versions, according to the once proud 80s rock website Metal Sludge.

As I noted before, Marq isn't drawing huge crowds to his headlining shows when he tours. And now the other guys, who seem to want nothing to do with Marq, have decided that there's a market for their musicianship, performing BulletBoys songs that were mildly popular 20 years ago, with a lead singer I've never heard of? Caucasian, please!

If the remaining three BulletBoys can find a way to take their show on the road, I'm sure a few people will show up, but I can't fathom how they'll make any money selling their act to fans of the genre. Somebody call Susan Powter, we have to stop this insanity.

In other BulletBoys news, I did a quick check of Marq's Myspace page for his version of the band. Surprise, surprise, he'll be back in Minnesota three weeks from tonight, in the southern Twin Cities suburb of Burnsville. The bar he'll be playing at has booked hair bands occasionally. I saw L.A. Guns at that place a few years ago. It's a lousy venue for a live show, but about the right size for a BulletBoys concert.

I said before that I'm not going to pay to see the BulletBoys again. And although it probably won't be worth the gas money, if I can somehow get a complimentary ticket, I might just make my way south in three weeks and hang out by myself, with 75 other diehards, to watch Marq prove yet again that it's time to hang it up.

Unfortunately it doesn't appear that Rob Lane will be making the trip with Marq on this tour. Too bad, I'm sure he'd put my name on the guest list.

Viva Laughlin (unedited)

2010-05-31T23:40:00.000-07:00

Not long ago on a casinoguide.com blog I wrote that I'm too young to start vacationing in Laughlin, Nevada.

As previously noted, I spent a few days in April vacationing in Laughlin. The trip was with my girlfriend, and we rented a convertible in order to spend a night in Vegas. Remember this?

The trip was ridiculously cheap, which is why we went. Getting out of town is great, and when times are tough, you take what you can get.

I had been to Laughlin once, spending a handful of hours there during a trip to Vegas. I don't know if they still offer them, but years ago there were free buses from Vegas that delivered you to Laughlin for five hours. I was on vacation with my friend and her parents, and we took the free bus one day, just to see the casino town built along the Colorado River. That was the reason Monica and I went to Laughlin. I think her parents spent all their time gambling.

It was interesting to see, but I had no desire to return to Laughlin. But when the price is right, it's hard to say no.

We had a direct flight from Minneapolis to Laughlin on a charter airline. The airport is a single runway parallel to the river, on the Arizona side of it. I don't remember what airline it was, but I liked it. The drinks were a buck or two cheaper than most airlines, which certainly put me in the mood for a 3-1/2 day vacation.

We stayed at Harrah's, the last casino along the river. There are eight or 10 casinos along the river, and one across the street from them. Many of them are easily accessible by walkways along the river. Unfortunately Harrah's is a bit of an island unto itself. It's not miles away, and there's a way to get to the other casinos by walking, but it's not quick and convenient to do. On a hot day in Laughlin, I wouldn't want to make the walk, even if it's a dry heat.

Harrah's is a nice property, and on the weekend the Laughlin casinos nabs their share of varying demographics. It is, after all, 100 miles closer than Las Vegas for many people in Arizona, and touring shows of varying genres do come through town, so it's not entirely a retirement community. But it sorely lacks the opulence and reckless disregard of Vegas.

We arrived on a Saturday night, prime time for the casino cruisers. I was grateful to have a late afternoon flight instead of an early morning flight as is often the case when flying to Vegas. It was a nice day in Minnesota and I spent part of hit hunting down a feature photo for my newspaper(s). Not what I wanted to do, but duty calls.

Our first night was rather modest. We played some video blackjack and I made a few bucks, even though I swear those video blackjack machines are rigged. We didn't venture elsewhere that night.

On Sunday the weather was nice. It was sunny and warm, but the hotel towers shade the pool by mid-afternoon. The pool itself was cold, surprisingly so, and the hot tub wasn't exactly hot. But it was nice to enjoy outdoor pool weather in April.

It may have been my first vacation in Laughlin, but I'm no dummy. I found coupons for two Laughlin casinos inside American Casino Guide, a comprehensive book about casinos nationwide. The book is popular primarily because of the coupons in it, many of which are for the Vegas area, and many of which aren't that spectacular. But there are several two-for-one discounts in it. For Laughlin there were two-for-one buffet deals at Harrah's and another casino up the river, Aquarius. We also had a two-for-one meal deal in the cafe at Harrah's, so that made three discounted meals during our trip. And what did I pay to get this book? Less than $4, delivered. It costs around $15 to get it delivered, typically, but I'm savvy, I used a little of that online magic to get a great deal.

We spent some time Sunday night exploring other casinos. As I noted, it's easy to go from one to the next as long as you're not at Harrah's. They have a water taxi service, however, that runs up and down the river each day. It doesn't run particularly late, so we took one of the pontoon boats up the river that evening and took a traditional taxi back to Harrah's. It costs $4/person for the water taxi. It cost less than $8 for a traditional cab to take us back to Harrah's.

I had some good and bad luck on Sunday evening. On Sunday afternoon I saw the Minnesota Timberwolves were only 5-point underdogs against the Charlotte Bobcats, in Charlotte. The Wolves are terrible, and Charlotte was a playoff team. I bet $25 on the Bobcats. They were crushing Minnesota at halftime. I wish I had bet a lot more than $25, as I easily won that wager.

I entered a poker tournament that evening at Harrah's. I think it was a $45 entry fee. I had good luck in the first hour. I had pocket queens on a hand where an opponent had pocket kings. The flop had all low cards, so I bet a decent amount. The woman called. A queen came on the turn, I bet the rest of my chips, (which technically was an all-in bet, although it lacked the intimidation of an all-in bet.) We turned up the cards and everyone saw how lucky I was. I had to dodge a king or jack on the river to win the hand. She would have made a higher set with a king, a straight with a jack. She got neither, I win the hand.

Unfortunately blinds move fast enough that you can't sit on one big win for a long time. After the intermission the blinds were quickly zapping my stack, so I had to go all in with any decent pocket cards, and when I did it was game over for me. Such is life.

On Monday we rented the Ford Mustang for our trip to Vegas. It was a bit cool by Nevada standards, so the convertible wasn't as appealing as it should have been, but it was warm enough to enjoy the ride, at least during the afternoon. We arrived in Vegas mid-afternoon. How did we spend our first hours? After checking in at our hotel I dropped my girlfriend off at Luxor, where a friend of hers was staying. I went to the Pinball Hall of Fame and spent three hours playing pinball machines of every vintage. It's a working pinball museum, and it's a blast. I could spend hours at that place.

My girlfriend is well connected, she had a comped room for us at Paris, and we also had a free buffet dinner at Caesar's Palace, as well as a late show at Bally's. The buffet was normally $27 per person, and plenty of people were lined up to pay for it. We didn't have to wait, and it was complimentary. What a life I lead!

As for our show, it was rather odd. It was a classic Vegas show. Jubilee has musical numbers, fancy sets and topless women. It's quite a production, but I still don't get the point of the topless women. In a strip club, it makes sense. When dancing and singing, it seems silly. Not every woman was topless every moment of the show, but there was plenty of it throughout the night. It was an entertaining show, although after an hour you've had enough. I wouldn't recommend paying full price to see it, but as a free show, it was something to see. The musical tribute to the Titanic was well done, although watching a Vegas show paying homage to a sinking ship is a bit odd.

After Jubilee ended my girlfriend gambled and I walked down the strip to buy some cheap souvenirs. I was looking at calendars on display near a cash machine in the shop. The dude at the cash machine was dressed a bit sloppy and looked rather confused, as if he couldn't figure out how to make his card produce cash. I minded my own business, but in the back of my mind wondered if my minute pouring over calendars in the shop was unsettling to him, as if I was trying to see him enter his secret code. Sure enough, the guy asks, in English, if I wouldn't mind stepping a way for a minute.

English clearly wasn't his first language, so I didn't immediately understand his request. He said he had obsessive-compulsive disorder, and was offering to buy me something if I'd back off for a minute. At least that's what I thought he was saying. At first I thought he was trying to talk me into some sort of scam that I failed to understand since I had a hard time deciphering his lackluster English. But eventually I realized he was just nutty, and needed space. I was pretty much done looking over the calendars, so I had no problem with that.

A woman working in the store, however, did have a problem. She came over and asked the man if he was bothering her customers. The rather quick exchange ended with exclaiming "fuck you" before exiting the store. The woman went out after him, calling to the security officers who were working in the parking lot of the strip mall. I didn't go to the door to see the exchange, or try to defend the guy. Perhaps I should have, as I could hear some sort of discussion going outside the store. Instead I went about my business and hoped the dude with the bad haircut, pajama pants and flip flops would resolve his issues. I see odd characters like that every time I'm in Vegas and wonder how they came to be there. I assume he wasn't a tourist, but even if he was a local, he probably didn't grow up in Vegas. Somehow a guy who didn't have command of the English language and looked like he had just crawled out of bed was trying to use a cash machine at a souvenir shop on the Vegas strip shortly after midnight on a Tuesday morning in April. Explain that one to me.

We hit the road promptly Tuesday morning so we could have the rental car back in Laughlin by noon. I didn't want to pay for a two-day rental if we weren't going to use the car for two days, so there was no all-night fun and games for me in Vegas. As it turned out, I never wagered one dime in Vegas. If I had more time I would have went somewhere I liked playing blackjack. I had a rental car, it would have been easy to do, but I couldn't afford the time. I also would have enjoyed taking a late night spin up and down the strip with the top down, but it was cool, and very windy, so that idea got nixed.

Our final day in Laughlin was spent at the pool in the afternoon and gambling in the evening. My girlfriend gambled at Harrah's, I went up the river by myself in search of better blackjack action. It was a Tuesday night in April, not exactly the most thrilling night of the year, but wow, it wasn't Vegas. I was surprised by how dead the casinos were. I found decent action at my first stop, which I think was Edgewater. Unfortunately my luck was non-existent. I lost $50 playing $5 hands and went on my way.

The next stop was Aquarius, where I managed to win $50 at a $5 blackjack table in a short period of time. Sensing my luck wouldn't last at the table with a couple of amateur players on the felt, I changed tables. I had early luck at my second table, but that went south. Eventually I cashed out even.

I made one more stop for the night, at Colorado Belle. There wasn't much happening there, just a few tables in play. You'd think it was 5 a.m. in Vegas on a Tuesday it was so quiet at 11 p.m.

I managed to have good luck, winning enough cash at $5 or $10 a hand to cover my modest losses during the trip. It was a hand-shuffle table, and I was about even for the trip. I decided if I was ahead $10 by my accounting that would pay for the cab ride back to Harrah's and I could call it a night. I immediately won three hands, cashed out, called a cab and finished the trip a winner, if only by $10.

We had an early flight out on Wednesday, so there was no last-minute gambling that morning.

I wouldn't pay a lot to go to Laughlin, but I enjoyed the trip. We may do it again soon!