Get My Friends To Move To Minnesota

In the wonderful land of Minnesota, I am crowned King of the Meat Raffle (more on that story later). You are most likely asking, "What is a Meat Raffle?" It is exactly what it sounds like,  raffling off meat . In the great state of Minnesota (and also Wisconsin (remember, moving to Wisconsin is closer to me than staying in your rotting meat state), which is next to Minnesota for those who are poor with geography) we know how to have a good time when at a bar, pub, or out to grab a bite to eat. Apparently we raffle off meat at the same time to increase the amount of good times had by all. I know this idea seems hard to grasp, so I will walk everybody through it. Some person unveils a table full of meat (everybody is in awe at this point). The host(s) informs everybody what charity, athletic booster, school program they are raising money for (giving money to good causes and possibly getting free meat for it is a good thing). The host(s) then walk table to table and stool to sto...

That's right, it recently snowed here. Snow is awesome. We have it, you don't. What kind of lukewarm, non-beautiful precipitation does your I'm afraid to drive, walk or breathe outside during the winter city have.

A few weeks a wonderful Chicagoite? Chicagonian? Chicagogander? Let's just call him John Doe, said he was waiting for a post with something similar to the title above: Attention - Free Rent In Minnesota I posted it again in case you couldn't see it or it was too far for you scroll up to see since I am sure you use some hindering resolution similar to 640x480. We don't do that in Minnesota. Since the challenge (I considered it a challenge) I have been having a hard time thinking of a way to lure you into this fine state with Free Rent. Here are the possible solutions I had and their downfalls: 1. Squatting - There are many places to squat in this city and you can even use the squatters symbol (like they did two doors down (no, not the band or the other lesser known (don't worry) flint area band )). Sure there have been some amazing actions in Minnesota helping people stay in their homes when they are being evicted around here (it gets cold here (trust me, you...

All of our cities and states have their interesting histories (not really yours, only mine does) that we can all be proud of or just baffled by. Sometimes the history is something that only the  They Might Be Giants will appreciate. Well, in the honor of Constantinople and New Amsterdam comes Pig's Eye, the city name that may only be rivaled by Porkopolis (apparently just a nickname, but a wicked nickname). Pig's Eye, the once great name of what we now all refer to as Saint Paul, was the heart and center of all culture in the entire world and center to civilization during the... I had to stop myself there. None of that culture and worldwide civilization stuff is true. Pig's Eye is just a great name for a great city. It all started with Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant , that nice looking man who thrived in a town that eventually was named after him (well at least after his nickname because I am fairly certain that his parents (nor legally through some gov...

Continuing the bike trend is the amazing tall bike and types of freak/mutant bikes. If a bike a is a great thing, another bike that is made of multiple bikes must be a greater thing. How do tall bikes, something that exists around the world, fit into Minnesota? Let me tell you about The Black Label Bike Club . The Black Label Bike Club (started in Minneapolis) is considered the first outlaw bicycle club. All of the recent craze, including the international Black Label Bike Club chapters and many other bike clubs that have started, didn't start until this group of people from Minneapolis decided that they were going to do something cool/fun/unique (the way we like to do things here in Minnesota). I could bore you with talking about tall bikes and describing why they are cool, but until you see them in person, hang out with friends who have them and get scared to get on one yourself, my words will probably mean nothing. So go, look them up, see crazy pictures, check out t...

After describing the amazing Pedal Pub to everybody, I decided to make cycles (in their many forms) be the next tangent for the foreseeable future (just to clarify, I do not mean unforeseeable, because I do know how many posts this tangent will contain). I know most of you were thinking after the last post (feel free to tell me what happens when somebody assumes), that gigantic quadracycle looked amazing, but how would that be a practical way to traverse the city, especially since you need 8-10 people to power it. This is correct, unless all my friends move to Minnesota, then we will always have an abundant supply of leg power. Well, do I have a solution for you. Bicycles. 2 wheels instead of 4. What a simple fix. Sure, each of your cities has bikes and many of you (hopefully) own a bike. I'm so glad for you, what a great accomplishment for your city (spoken in the tone when you demean somebody by saying "that's cute"). I did a little research (known as hanging ...

It seems my posts may be a little too beer related lately. But what can you expect from a home brewer (look at me act like an expert after brewing just one delicious batch of beer)? Recently I was invited to celebrate my brother-in-law's birthday. The plan was to ride on a gigantic quadracycle and drink beer for a few hours. Drink beer in the streets? What? In traffic? On a quadracycle (I didn't even know that was a real term)? Something didn't seem right/legal about this. Let me introduce you to the Pedal Pub centered in wonderful Minneapolis, MN (you know, one of those cities in the state of Minnesota that I want you to move to). Don't worry, the person driving does not drink, you are just the human power of the operation. Have you ever thought to yourself, I wish I could spend time with my friends getting exercise while we drink beer, rather than putting on millions of micrograms in each sitting? You have the opportunity here in Minnesota! Have you ever tho...

Before I get back to informing everybody of all the wonderful Minnesota activities/attractions/life changing locations, I feel I need to make a challenge to at least one individual (the challenge will be open to all). A few days ago, I talked with a friend from Indianapolis, Indiana, whom I met at my current job and used to live in Minnesota and moved back to Indiana over 2 years ago. This friend has curly hair and has a last name that is 6 letters long. They also has a dog named Sada. This friend will remain nameless. My friend mentioned making their own blog about why Indianapolis is cool. Well, I haven't seen this blog yet. It looks like there is no competition between Minnesota and any other place. I guess to make this a reason why you should move to Minnesota I could say "Minnesota is the only place that has a blog dedicated to getting friends to move to Minnesota." Minnesota is the only place that has a blog dedicated to getting friends to move to Minnesota What sup...

After starting this blog I was trying to figure out what a victory would be. Do I have to get my friends to move to Minnesota, just like the blog title says, in order to claim a victory? What if one of my friends moved from Michigan to Wisconsin? Is that a victory, a partial victory, simply unfortunate since they didn't complete their transfer? Well, you can call today's news a victory or whatever else you wish (however, if you don't call it some sort of victory, I will declare you are wrong). A friend who is living in Hong Kong, have plans to move back to Seattle, Washington. Sure they lived there before they moved to Hong Kong for a year. I guess they knew their relocation to Hong Kong wasn't permanent. Yes, I know that Washington isn't neighboring Minnesota. But, when I use Google Maps to calculate the directions from Hong Kong Island to Saint Paul, this is the answer I get: We could not calculate directions between Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong and Saint Paul, MN...

Bacon! Bacon! BACON! (spoken in the voice of that dog running around the house looking forward to getting/finding bacon. Unfortunately, this dog was fooled into eating Beggin' Strips, but you (if you move to Minnesota) can be saved from this embarrassment). Have you ever yearned to live where bacon freely flows from taps? When I say "flows from taps", I don't mean flow like water or beer, but flow like bacon. Let me introduce to you the Triple Rock Social Club , home to good music, good food and good drink. The perfect place for the gregarious gastronome. Every Wednesday (I hope they still do this because all of our arteries need it) is Free Bacon Wednesdays. This is not "Kids Eat Free... if your parents pay too much for their crappy meal" or "Kids Stay Free... if your parents already paid for the entire room" or even "Movies are free... if you sneak them off the store shelf and into your coat pocket." No, my underprivileged friends, thi...

Today's reason for you, all the important and cool people in life (which I can't figure out if it is more of a compliment to you or to me since it makes it seem like I only know awesome people), to move to Minnesota is Punk Rock Bowling . I am sure if you take the time to look up Punk Rock Bowling, you will find that many cities around the not quite spherical world have some sort of punk rock bowling tournament. Also, you may find events or nights where people bowl and listen to punk rock music on the radio/sound system/jukebox. That is not the point of my article. So please, go look up these cities, look up these events and feel good that you found some information on the internet. Then think hard about the fact that you used the internet (one of the easiest technological inventions (ideas) to gather information) to fuel your "research", when in reality you didn't do any work at all. You didn't find a cool place that has punk rock bowling and visit the venue....

Something that keeps many of us in our current city/state is the job that we have. Some of us moved from our hometown to take that one job after college. Some of us have stayed at home, most of the time in our parents basement, for our whole lives and stay there for that job. Some of us have moved to an area first and found a job later. After looking at these statistics , no matter what your reason for moving was, I think Minnesota is the place for all of you. In case you are bad with numbers and don't understand what percentages are (they are usually out of 100%, but sometimes people get that wrong too) I created (colored) a map of the united states. Green State = Minnesota -or- The place you should be Red States = Some of the unemployed states you live in Yellow States = Places that have a lower unemployment rate than Minnesota Numbers = The ranking of some states. The lower the number, the lower the unemployment rate. You will probably notice there are 12 states ahead of Minne...

Do you like to drink alcohol? Do you like bars/pubs? Do you like Zombies? Even if you answer no to all of these questions, I am fairly certain you can like or appreciate the Zombie Pub Crawl . According to friend testimonies and Wikipedia the Zombie Pub Crawl started in Minneapolis (that is one of the cities in Minnesota if you are just joining us) in 2005. The Crawl has become a well established and well attended event since it started. Before we analyze this spectacular event let me give you the story of my first run in with the Zombie Pub Crawlers. The year is 2008 and I was playing at the Bedlam (another great post on its own, with great stories). I was somewhat confused that people were at our show dressed up like zombies, but I thought, "oh well, we are a hardcore punk band, there is a huge crust city the Bedlam's mission is "is to produce radical works of theater with a focus on collaboration and a unique blend of professional and community art." Zombies han...

Since the Winter Olympics are starting very soon, I felt like explaining something cool about the winter and Minnesota. Scattered throughout the Twin Cities metro are Ice Skating/Hockey(with boards)/Broomball rinks, outside, in many parks. The best part of this is they are free (and maintained) for people to use. In your city, you may have ice rinks or ice arenas inside large buildings (eyesores) for you to escape your boring, non-winter reality; these are places you have to pay to enter. Well not in Minnesota. We believe that ice skating is a natural human right, or something like that. I understand you can argue that we pay taxes to keep these ice rinks around. I cannot deny that, but here is why it is better than paying your 5-10 dollar admission to skate in your arenas. 1. We pay taxes for the awesome parks (which we have in abundance and I can post on that later) already, so the land is already there. You could say we are making sure we use the park year round, by flooding it with...

All the cities that we live in have a history associated with them and some people have said that our history defines us. If this is true, and it is going to be true for my argument today, then we should take a long look into where we live and see if your city has something this great in its past. Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or MST3K for the cool kids) is a show that ran from 1988 to 1999 and taught us all how to love life and to laugh once again. Every episode we visited our friends Joel, Mike, Crow, Tom Servo, Gypsy, Cambot, The Forrester's, Brain Guy, Bobo, the beloved TV's Frank, Trumpy, and so many more. These friends taught us one of the most important life lessons of all; it is good to laugh, not only to laugh, but laugh at the world around us. If you were sitting in a boring high school/college class, what better way to get through the class then to crack jokes (either silent or out loud if you had the courage). Was work incredibly boring, annoying, or tiring? How abo...

I decided to start a blog, attempting to convince my friends to move to Minnesota. All of you from Detroit/Flint/Indianapolis/Nashville/elsewhere, you know who you are and why you apparently hate me because you don't live near me. I understand that most, probably all, of you will stay where you are or move to another non-Minnesota location someday. Because of this, my blog will hopefully serve one of two purposes: 1. Convince you to move to Minnesota. This is a small and hopeless possibility, but it won't stop me from trying. 2. Make everybody who doesn't move here feel very guilty for neglecting me and all that is Minnesota. When the topic is brought up, every one of you gives a single excuse for not moving here. "It is cold!" Think of this blog as a pros/cons list of reasons to move to Minnesota. So far you only have one con, the weather. I understand people don't want to live in below 0 (Kelvin) temperatures, but hopefully you will be won over by the pros t...