Fair warning that this is going to be a bit of a lengthy update but I'm not sure that anybody reads this anyway so I'm not sure why I care. :P Anyway...

We're going to be moving into a different apartment at the beginning of the month. A nice, big 2-bedroom place with fresh carpet (my allergies will be thankful for that) and new paint. Much nicer than this place. Oh the joys of packing and moving...again.

Last weekend, Teresa and I went to Minneapolis. That was a good time. We left Thursday night to go to her cousin, Autumn's place near Houghton. I got to meet her new dog which is a rottweiler/doberman cross. Just like her last dog, it drove my allergies nuts. I was sneezing and had a runny nose up until we went to bed. After I layed down, I was having trouble breathing fully like I sometimes do with a good, full-on allergy attack. Luckily it cleared up through the night. Friday morning, the 3 of us packed into the car and headed off to Minneapolis.

Arriving in Minneapolis, we went to Autumn's friend's (Brian & Holy) place to meet the world's most hateful cat. I think she disliked me more than the rest of us because I started to tease her as soon as we got there. Later that evening, we all went out for supper at a place called Gameworks. Don't EVER go there. It wasn't busy and we still had problems. First, the waitress quoted us wrong prices on drinks. She didn't write down our orders. Our drinks were brought out by a different waitress. Our food was brought out by a waiter and one of the items was wrong. The wrong item was discounted off the bill but the drinks weren't priced as quoted even though the first waitress promised they would be.

After eating, the 4 of them headed off to the Dixie Chicks concert just down the street at the Target Center while I wondered off into the bar/gaming area to watch a baseball game to kill some time. I was sitting near a Big Buck Hunter game and one guy played one for probably close to an hour. I'm not sure how much money he spent on that game but he made himself heard when he lost or was displeased with the game. I was probably 20' away and there was music playing but I could still hear him cursing at the game. Every so often he would smash the gun on the game too. The group told me the concert would be over around 9:30 so I went outside to wait for them at that time. This was an interesting couple hours. It started off with a lady getting hit by a cab. She was hurt but not bad enough to need an ambulance. She just couldn't walk very well. Now, I don't have anything against black people but they seem to like to make themselves heard and cause a scene if required. There was a group of 2 guys and 1 girl (all black) who witnessed the accident. They were yelling and making a scene about how the cops handled the situation. That continued on for probably half an hour. I got to witness a lot of shitty cars with manhole-sized wheels on them. There were also some nicer cars with these awful gigantic wheels on them as well. I had only one person ask me for money while I was standing there and he was very polite about it when I told him I didn't have any. I saw a black guy brushing his hair even though it was probably 1/16" long, if not shorter. I think I saw a pimp. He was a little black man probably no taller than 5'. He had longer grey hair, a black suit, a black top hat, gold chains to his wallet and black and white dress shoes. He was also wearing sunglasses but he wasn't the only one wearing sunglasses that night. I saw many oddly-dressed people besides but the pimp was the one that really stood out. Lots of girls wearing clothing with less fabric than my t-shirt has. And they weren't all small women either. I nearly saw a lot of accidents. People like to cut it close driving there, like they do in any big city.

After the concert was let out, we went to a small bar to listen to a woman sing lounge covers. That may sound awful but she was quite good. I don't remember her name or the place but it was quite entertaining. We'll have to go back next time. She plays there every Friday. That place closed so we went to another bar close by called Nye's Polonaise Room. Playing there was the World's Most Dangerous Polka Band. Not my thing but it was different anyway.

Saturday was spent doing a lot of walking. First we went to Ikea. We bought a coffee table, 2 end tables, a wall shelf, and a few little stainless corner shelf things for $0.99/ea. (reg. $10). Teresa was able to find a Swedish-looking lamp shade and desktop base for $4. We went to the Mall of America after that. Not much to report from there besides more walking. Once the mall closed, we headed to Porky's on University Ave. A few nice cars were there but I was expecting more cars with how big the area is. Sunday morning we had a tasty breakfast prepared by Brian and then headed back to the mall again so Teresa could return a purse she bought and then back to Ikea again to spend the purse return money on the shelf I mentioned. We finally made it out onto the road around 4 PM. We stayed overnight at Autumn's again and left early Monday morning. All pictures from the weekend can be seen here.

I think that's about all I have to report for now so until next time....