Winter

Monday Miscellany is a weekly-ish column with no real focus or direction. A mix of news, politics, sports, culture, media, reviews, trivia, local events, puppy gifs, stuff I saw on Reddit/Wikipedia & some other items perhaps only tangentially related to Minnesota. If this column has a purpose, it would be to provide you, my dear reader, with (A) a brief escape from the monotony of your Monday morning chores and duties, and (B) some topics to talk about should you encounter an awkward silence during an upcoming first date. Feel free to refresh this page multiple times, as I get paid per view. Links to Monday Miscellany...

Spring is in the air, and I'm feeling a little guilty. I feel like we Minnesotans got away with something this past winter. In terms of snowfall, the East Coast — specifically Boston — was hit harder and more often than a Brad Radke fastball. Every time I turned on the TV, it seemed there was another report of those poor suckers out east shoveling themselves out from under a fresh pile of snow. Meanwhile, here in the Great North, where the white stuff is supposed to fall all the time, we had barely enough accumulation to build a ...

The announcement that 2013 would be the last year of the Holidazzle Parade came as a head-scratcher to many (including myself). Why would Minneapolis abandon its event of more than two decades? Didn't it annually attract 300,000 spectators? The official "tough economic situation" line didn't stick. The real answer: the Minneapolis Downtown Council wanted to create a much more lucrative...