This is the thread where all of the current and former Minnesotans HOLLA BACK

& of course Saint PEETAAAH.

(maybe at some point i'll drop my story of qualifying for jeopardy in an all-day test session at the Maul of America)

Oh for yum!

Mankato for birth, Burnsville for growth, and S. Minneapolis for current living (just north of the Hiawatha golf course, people!).

Represent.

Grew up about six blocks from the Byerly's with the chandeliers by the wonderfully named Excelsior Boulevard. Family have lived there since the late '30s and my mum lives two blocks from own childhood home. Dad brought up on Summit Avenue after childhood in Excelsior; now lives in St Paul suburbs. When I was a teenager, he lived in the top floor of his best friend's Lake of the Isles mansion and decorated the flat with help from 'consultants' at Targét Boutique. Three grandparents from south Minneapolis, one from Baudette, where his dad founded a hospital.

I don't speak Minnewegian (probably not just my term for the broad MN accent) but my mum and sister do. I'm sure it has something to do with my refusal to eat tuna hotdish with green beans and a topping of French fried onions. They ate it, now they say 'yah, sure' (sister) and 'ya know, I don't know nothin'' (mum) on a regular basis. I didn't really register the accent issue until I went away to college and people asked me why I didn't speak in that way.

Haven't been home since Indecision 2000. Funny, that.

I also spent a good chunk of time in the Minneapolis airport as well, owing to the fact that we missed our connection due to a combination of incompetence and bad airport design. We were coming in from Denver, and had two hours until our next flight, so we went up to the observation deck directly above our gate...like, literally 20 feet from the gate, up a set of stairs. We were sitting listening to the announcements over the loudspeaker, waiting for them to announce boarding for our flight, but they never did and we ended up watching our plane push away from the gate saying, "Hey, isn't that OUR plane?" Turns out that no one thought to wire the loudspeakers in the observation area into the speaker system for the area which was, I stress, ONLY TWENTY FEET AWAY, most of them vertical. Anyhow, we spent the next six hours in the airport waiting for the next flight to Toronto, and I fought with whichever damn phone system runs the pay phones at the airport, because they wouldn't accept a foreign Visa card for the long-distance call, the bastards.

"frozen chosen"! I am cracking up, I've never heard that before.

bow before the genius of the PICKLE DOG!!

As my mother would say, "oh, ISH."

Oh yah, don't forget FUNNEL CAKES.

Where'd you go to school, g.cannon? Know any Hastings folx?

Hastings, I'm afraid not. I was in St Peter for the four years of school and have lived in Mpls for the 2 and half after (which should clue you as to how old I am.

Don't corn dogs just kind of seem ANGLO to begin with? Minus the stick, maybe?

Minnesota, land of MST3K = a holy and righteous place unto the Nediverse.

g.cannon didn't mention Northfield so I'd ruled out St. Olaf (home of the Luteran Aristocracy, that wondeful contradiction of terms). Carleton (which breeds music journalists) sensibly requests most of them stay away. They get most of the state's Ivy League places due as much to hockey skillz as family connections, right, Dan?

Ned, the below-mentioned cousin is friends with MST3K original Josh Weinstein.

My cousin Kelly McG*ughey went to Gustavus for two years and was miserable in small part because she should have gone to Macalester or Carleton or somewhere out East (she's just 26 so maybe you knew her?). I'm still filled with horror about the place becase of this lame girl in my class who gushed "I'm a Gustie!" upon her acceptance ("well paint me blue and dip me in man slime!" I yawned to entire class)

Edina (we called them Cakeaters, they called us all matter of anti-Semitic shite at football games) is horrible but when I was going through my new-wave preppy phase in eighth grade I was unfeasibly grateful that three of the shops near the country club did Bermuda bag covers with tasteful monograms. And when I applied for a job in this same CC, the HR woman asked if I was from the Wayzata family of poshos who share my surname. Thinking this was lame, I answered, no, I'm from the St Paul branch mentioned in Fitzgerald (implication, so SWIVEL, you idiot lefse preppie).

Heh heh, that's right, you mentioned that in another post. :-)

"well paint me blue and dip me in man slime!"

DO NOT FEED THE DAN.

An inordinate number of Hastings "bright kids" (aka "kids I respected and was friends with") went to Carleton, including two of my other best friends ever (one of whom was an unrequited crush from seventh grade, aww; I think she's married to a doctor now). If it hadn't only been 45 minutes away from home (thus completely withing range of parental ambush) and had had a decent CS department, I would have applied there.

The thing about StLP is the high quality and success rate of its comic/film/musical/writerish alumni. Al Franken blames it on the creosote.

Creamed Paul Westerb*rg with large, heavy door upon leaving work recently. We were both shocked (for different reasons, probably) and I somehow managed to not apologize or acknowledge him in any way. He rode away feebly on a crummy old bicycle.

Have hung out with Trace Beaulieu (MST3K's Dr. Forrester, voice of Crow) at outdoor barbecue. Quite a charmer.

...I'm seriously floored by this. I need a time out (and to go to the DMV. uh, be right back)

I am going to comb my yearbook for S4unders and ask if you're related to any of them.

XPOST OMG!!!!!!!!! MEMORIES! Was Miss Ch4tel4ine still there? Mrs. M4ttson? Mr. Schu1tz and his scandalous new wife?

Did B0b Kr4ftson try to recruit you into Jesus's Army, too? He told us that everyone who enjoyed "Silence Of The Lambs" was going to Hell. So awesome.

M4ttson: check. My 10th grade English teacher.

Mr. Shultz and Ms M0hn (scandalous wife) were my TEAM-TEACHING 11th grade English teachers. They have since (a) had a baby and (b) divorced. (I love that M0hn was his daughter's college roommate. So racy!)

Krafty B0b didn't recruit so much, but he DID have Sunday night "philosophy" discussion groups which mostly consisted of me and my friend Tom arguing against creationism.

My bit of St. Louis Park: if you spat across Minnehaha Creek, your spit would land in Edina. Most of the houses built alongside the creek there and into Morningside were originally cabins or summer places. My uncle's old place right on the creek was a mink farm a long time ago. I had my mom on the phone yesterday going on about the history of various old houses in our neighbourhood (she would know) and it made me kind of homesick.

(x-post I was right!)

The snowdrifts against my hotel there looked for the life of me like that scene in The Shining when Danny slides down from his third-story window.

oh god that winter. i was in st. peter. it was HELL ON EARTH but i'm pretty sure i wandered around coatless and drunk on more than one occasion

I lived near the intersection of Chicago & Franklin. I voted in the same hospital that Prince was born in.

otherwise there's spaghetti factory and a mccormick and schmick not too far away if you want reliable chain stuff.

http://www.archive.org/download/BrianUdelhofenTheShadowPercussionProject/spp.wmv

Just about anything on Nicollet AVENUE between 16th and Lake is good but a bit of a hike. They call this Eat Street for the hard-of-thinking.

Geoff, my cousin went to Mtka. Also, Grumpy's v. Bunny's FITE.

Otherwise, Grumpy's is badass as well.

I just got off the phone with my mom, who is doing my Christmas box. She rather dangerously had a 'thought' and procured some form of 'sweatshirt' for me so I said TAKEITOUTTATHEBOX. NOW.

My favorite restaurant in Minneapolis is and probably always will be Pepitos, but 46th & Chicago is pretty far from downtown.

Don't mind me, am just killing time until Kate gets here to take us to pizza. And booze. Listening to MIA to drown out the conversations of couriers downstairs who are making with the Pépé le Peu and smoking me out.

Shame there are no good Vietnamese places close enough to downtown.

apptly the owner is a big standup fan, so he runs a comedy open mic (or did 3-4 years ago). a friend of mine and i used to live down that way so we'd go all the time, and we ended up there on said night.

the first guy up is introduced as "dave 'the hitman of comedy' nelson" and he's a fat dumpy bearded guy with a red sweatshirt on. he takes the mic (and let me remind you the room is filled with families, ppl just eating w/o caring abt the comedy) and announces "HO HO HO MOTHERFUCKERS." a few more wierd unfunny non-sequitur and very dirty jokes and the polite laughter had totally evaporated. the room was absolutely silent. you could hear ppl's forks on their plates.

the only one i can really remember is "i'm a humanitarian, i like to work with ppl, help them out... i like to go to the airport and talk to the hare krishnas. then i take 'em home and i FUCK 'EM IN THE ASS." the only response was a woman in back: "there are children here"

i don't remember how it ended.

check out chef e's soul food on like 18th and nicollet. it's off the chains.

OH SHIT

Hah! All you city people from the civilized parts of MN. My father is from da Iron Range and still emails me Ole and Lena jokes..

IRON WORLD
WOLF CENTER
BIG STICK
NORTH COUNTRY: THE MOVIE