Conner's Blog

A month or so ago, I was trying to do laundry using my apartment’s facilities. I had washed the majority of my pants and when I went to put them in the dryer, I found that the dryer’s coin slot wasn’t working. So I was sitting at home with eight pairs of wet pants, no clean pants, and a decision to make.

1. I could go to the laundromat and dry my pants.
2. I could sit at home bitching about my situation on Twitter.
3. I could sit at home angry about my situation, drinking and watching Netflix movies.
4. I could put on the only clean pants I had, which were sweatpants, and head down to the local watering hole.

I ended up choosing option 4, and it wasn’t too long before the #sweatpantscrawl hashtag was born. I ended up just watching a hockey game and going home, but it there was some interest from the twittersphere to join me on my crawl. In fact @kshoop has been trying to get me to organize a crawl for a while so I’m finally doing it.

The crawl will be taking place on Saturday March 6th. I’ve decide to hold it in Northeast. I considered heading downtown or to uptown, thinking it would be fun to stop in a few of the bars there with a collection of sweatpants clad people, but decided that the atmosphere in NE would be more fun for this outing. I haven’t quite nailed down a starting location, but am working on that. So mark your calendars and sign up here(twitvite) or here(facebook). Can’t wait to see you all.

I’m certain 95% of my readers are planning on watching the Vikings game this Sunday. It starts at 5, and since the winner of the game goes to the Superbowl, it’s kind of a big deal. I don’t know if I’ll watch the whole thing, but I plan on keeping my eye on the score regardless of what I’m doing.

I can’t say I’ve watched much of the Saints this year, but I know they have a killer offense, and what some call a good defense. I expect all the experts are predicting a Saints win, especially since it’s in the Superdome. I disagree, I think the Vikings will pull off a victory, and not a small one either. I think the final score will be somewhere in the 14-31 point range in favor of the Vikings. Why? Well first off the Vikings defense is playing well again, especially their front four. And no matter now good Drew Brees may be, he can’t do anything when he’s lying on his back. Also Brett Favre won a Superbowl in that dome, and regardless of what I said about him in the past, he’s playing at an unseemly level for a 40 year-old and somehow I think he’ll repeat history this weekend. I still don’t like him, but I begrudging have to say I was wrong about how he would impact the Vikings.

But that’s not the only Minnesota related competition happening Sunday. It turns out that the chefs at Saffron were picked to compete on the Food Network’s the Iron Chef. Guess when the show airs? Sunday! It starts at 8 so there might be some overlap with the game, but since the Vikings are going to crush the Saints there will not be much.

So here is the deal, Azia is generously hosting a viewing party for us. The party kicks off at 7 and the show will be on at 8. Along with that, Azia is purchasing a case of Rogue Brewery’s signature Morimoto Soba Ale. So not only do you get to watch some creative cooking you get to drink some creative beer.

So how about it, can you handle cheering for two Minnesota teams in one day? If you can, make your way to Azia and enjoy some good beer, good food, and have a chance to see Minnesota pull off two victories in one day.

RSVP here.

In case you wanted to know, I’m participating in PowerPoint Karaoke.  If you want to know what it involves, this pretty much sums it up.

Imagine this: You have to deliver a PowerPoint presentation about an unfamiliar topic, with slides you’ve never seen, to an audience eager to heckle and laugh at you. If you’re in your underwear, you’re having a nightmare. If you’re clothed, it’s called PowerPoint Karaoke. (source)

Also, a quick example

In essence, I will be getting up on stage and presenting a slide show on an unknown topic with slides I’ve never seen.  You may ask yourself, “Why?”  The truth is, I have no idea, but I’m kind of freaking out right now.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

I apologize if you now have the worst earwig in the world stuck in your head, but I didn’t know what else to call this post.  Our story starts on Tuesday where an awesome friend of mine scored a +1 for volunteering at First Avenue for the Phoenix show.  Now if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know that I had been trying to get(begging for) tickets  few weeks.  So I was very excited to go.

First, the concert was great, Phoenix puts on a great show and you could tell they were excited to be at First Avenue.  Everything they played was great.  I’d write a big recap but I’m awful at writing about concerts.  Instead I’m going to send you to More Cowbell’s writeup which was pretty much spot on.

During the show though, something happened that later that week really showed off how small this town really is.  About halfway through the performance, I saw the bouncer at the front of the state shining his flashlight into the crowd.  Wondering what he was doing I looked behind me and saw this girl on a guy’s shoulders.  I saw the bouncer yell and then it looked like he headed back there to put a stop to it.  At the time I really didn’t think much of it, crazy stuff isn’t that unusual at First Ave.

The next night I went to Give & Take and participated in a game called “Hi honey, how was your day?”  The premise of the game is to walk up to someone you don’t know and ask them that question.  I didn’t know my neighbor so we both asked the question and we told each other about our day.  It turns out we had both been to the Phoenix show the night before.

Side note:  If you haven’t been to Give & Take yet, you should keep your eyes open for the next event in October.  It’s a lot of fun, extremely interesting, and if you enjoy meeting smart people it’s a great place to be.

Now the fact that two people went to a sold out show at First Avenue isn’t really that much of a stretch.  Yes it’s a small venue, but the idea is not outlandish.  But then we starting talking a bit more about the show.  She started telling me about the show and said that something strange, that had never happened to her before happened at the show.  She proceeded to tell me that she was standing in the middle of the floor when suddenly this guy came up behind her, picked her up, and put her on his shoulders.

Yes, the girl who I saw on the shoulders of a guy in the middle of the floor sat next to me at an event the next day.  How crazy is that?

Back in July, Jason DeRusha of WCCO asked a Good Question about how you get a day dedicated. In sudden fashion, the Twin Cities web was flooded with people declaring July 30th, 2009, Jason DeRusha Day.  I managed to obtain the original DeRusha Day poster which was printed off by Greg Swan to help promote the occasion at his work.

This poster sat on my desk ever since (I’m not exactly speedy when it comes to filing or throwing away things), and was even used as a mouse pad. Then last week, the mayor of Minneapolis R.T. Rybak declared 9/21/2009 Jason DeRusha day. So I asked on Twitter whether the old poster was worth anything. Doug told me I should put it on eBay. I thought about it for a while, and then discovered that Jason was making his celebration at OM in Minneapolis a fund raiser for People Serving People. So I decided to auction off the poster for charity. It’s currently on eBay, with all proceeds going to People Serving People.

In an attempt to keep my blog from growing mold and slowly disappearing I thought I should put something up here.  The last week has been fun, but I just didn’t have the ambition to write about anything. I thought I would put a quick listing of what I’ve been up to.

First, I went to my first night of Tech Karaoke last week.  I had been planning on going to this on several previous occasions, but instead of making it I kept either forgetting or having something come up.  I had a really good time, met some new people and even sang “Fat Bottomed Girls”.  I’ll definitely be making it to more of these.  I rode my bike to The Otter that night and it was kind of scary riding home.  Lightening was flashing over the city, but once I realized it was nowhere near me all I could think of is how much I wished I would have had my camera and tripod with.

I also tried out a couple food places recommended to me.  The first place I tried was the Cheeky Monkey Deli in St. Paul.  Art was the first person who told me about it, and I’ll be honest, I’m listening to Art from now on.  Not only is the place very unique, but the food was unreal.  I had the roast beef sandwich and for what you pay you get some damn tasty food.  I definitely recommend you check it out.  The second place I tried was Dave’s popcorn.  I had a craving for a chocolate shake earlier in the week and this was recommended by Angie as a great place to get a shake.  I stopped by Friday and was not disappointed.  It might not have been the best shake I’ve ever had but it was in the top ten.

Finally Saturday was incredible.  I started out the day biking to the Stone Arch Festive. I wandered around, ate a few unhealthy things and really enjoyed the art on display.  I’ve decided I should really work on my photography, maybe even take some classes, because I would love to compete with some of the artists on display there.  I also took in a show by the The Alrights, who are slowly becoming a favorite of mine.

The Crowd at Rock the Garden

Saturday evening was the kicker though.  I had purchased Rock the Garden tickets the day they went on sale and couldn’t have been more excited to go.  We ended up missing Solid Gold, which I was okay with as I had seen them live previously.  But we got there in time to see the other three bands.  Yeahsayer was a disappointment for me.  Though I enjoy their music, their live show was kind of boring.  They just didn’t really have any sort of presence in my opinion and their music isn’t overpowering in itself.  Calexico on the other hand blew me away.  Of the four bands that were playing they were actually the one I was least looking forward to seeing, but they proved me wrong.  Between the trumpets, the upbeat tempo,and the perfect music for a sizzling hot day I couldn’t have had more fun.  I’m definitely a bigger fan of Calexico due to seeing them live.

The capper to the evening was of course The Decemberists.  I had been looking forward to seeing them for quite some time.  I can understand how some people aren’t fans of them, but I can’t help but enjoy them.  I wasn’t sure about the fact they were playing The Hazards of Love from beginning to end, but it really worked.  I think I’ll enjoy listening to the album more now.  The end of their shows was awesome to, they played a couple songs from earlier CDs and then capped the evening off with a cover of Crazy on You.  It was really a perfect ending to the night and I thought they actually did a better job that Heart did.

That’s my last week in a nutshell, hope you had a great one and hopefully I’ll be back to keeping your days full of insanely boring things soon.  This heat is draining any ambition I have and I”ve been super busy at work.  I’m going to try very hard to get a Where? up tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll hear from you then.

I love three day weekends.  This one was definitely a great one.  The weather was great and I kept busy doing things I love.  My Friday was spent at work of course, but afterwards I got home, walked to the library to pick up a book that was being held for me and then I biked down to First Avenue.

Side Note: Since I moved to Uptown, I hadn’t tried biking to downtown Minneapolis.  After Friday night I’ll never go any other way.  It took me ten  minutes to get to First Avenue, and it should have taken me five.  It would have taken twenty minutes to drive there and park and it would have cost a lot more.

First Avenue was hosting Rock for Pussy which was a David Bowie tribute concert.  It was a benefit to raise money for the Minnesota Valley Humane shelter.  It was a lot more fun that I had expected and I really enjoyed myself.  I ended up hanging out with Art and Emily, and meeting a  few of her friends, including Stephanie (who’s blog I’ve been reading for a while).  Stephanie informed me the grilled cheese at First Ave is delicious, and I take her food opinions seriously, as she writes about bacon weekly.  I didn’t try it that night, but I intend on returning and giving it a try.

Side Note #2:  Emily’s friend Molly asked me to inform my readers that she recycles.  There was a conversation preceding this, but I had consumed a few too many adult beverages at this point and it’s too blurry to recount accurately.

I headed home early because Saturday I headed up north to a friend’s cabin for a few days.  The weekend was spent fishing, drinking, sitting by the fire, and enjoying as much of the perfect weather as possible.  I managed to win boche ball and won two straight games of cards.  I only mention because winning lawn and card games is something I never do.

I should probably also mention that I took some photos.

This fawn was laying right next to the road when we were just getting to the cabin.  Don’t worry, it’s mother came back and saved it later.

There were a few hummingbirds flying around the cabin.  I probably took fifty photos.  Hummingbirds are awesome.

I managed to snap this shot on our way into the lake we were fishing on. Who doesn’t love loons?

Finally, while were were fishing we saw some people bowfishing.  I was hoping to snap a photo of them actually trying to get a fish, but I settled for this.  It was a 20+ pound buffalo fish thye caught before we showed up.  I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a fish that large in real life.

On Monday we headed home fairly early and I spent the afternoon relaxing.  I got Chipotle for dinner and vegged out in front of my computer watching my new summer TV show In Plain Sight.  Overall the weekend was a smashing success, and I’m looking forward to a nice short four day week.

Side Note #3: For some reason this year it hit me that I haven’t attended a Memorial Day ceremony in much too long.  I used to attend the one in my hometown nearly every year.  I even read a poem I had published one year.  I think I need to remedy this next year.  Sometimes we forget why we get three day weekends.

Occasionally the music video surpasses the song, at least that’s how I feel about this.  This was filmed in one continuous shot.  It is wonderful.

Nyle “Let The Beat Build” from Nyle on Vimeo.

Via Monkey Disaster

So I’ve decided to continuing plugging the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra here.  I have no idea if it has attracted any new audience members, but it would be great if it did. If you do go to the concert, please let me know what you think in the comments.

This month the orchestra is performing in Stillwater.  Along with the usually wonderful musical lineup, this Sunday’s show will contain a small tribute to the late Bill Holm.  The Orchestra is debuting a piece by John Tartaglia, which contains vocal text from Bill Holm’s last book.

So come over to Stillwater on Sunday, enjoy some wonderful music and enjoy works by two Minnesota artists.  The concert is free, though donations are welcome.

Info:
Time: 3/29 at 4:00 p.m.
Location: Trinity Lutheran Church 115 4th Street North, Stillwater, MN

If you have any questions, please contact me at conner@connermccall.com, and I’ll be happy to answer them.

Two weeks ago I posted a request on Twitter for sea themed costumes for a party I was going to.  I received many great ideas.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t very prompt in getting something together so I didn’t get to use them, but I ended up coming up with my own idea. 

I was walking into Target thinking I would get some stuff and throw together a beach bum costume.  I wasn’t happy with this option, and my mind wandered to Robinson Crusoe.  Of course that led to Castaway and then inspiration struck.  I would go as Wilson.  One white shirt, some Sharpie work, and presto I had a costume.  I didn’t win the costume contest, but got a lot of compliments.