Register to vote... and then do it

Fortunately, Minnesota is a state where you can register at the polls, but not everyone is as lucky. Some state's deadlines are as early as October 2nd which is right around the corner. Check your state's deadline and register to vote.

This is important, folks.

If I were Tommy Ramone...

... I'd be freaking right now.

Johnny Ramone, member of legendary punk band, dead at 55

This Game Is Finished

Tim and I have a fun little electronic game called Brainwarp. You press a button and it starts shouting out colors or numbers at you and you turn the thing around until that color or number is on the top.

Last night, the tree across the street got struck by mega lightning. There was enough electricity in the air that it started the game up. Nothing quite so reassuring as trying to get back to sleep after a mega jolt like that, only to hear...

...This Game is Finished.

New Construction in the hood

Even though it seems to make Tim nervous, I still prowl the Edina Realty site. It's not that I want a new house -- I love our place and plan on staying here for-evah. It's all about me being a nosy miss and wanting to see the insides of houses and now much they're trying to sell 'em for.

This morning, I stumbled upon New Condos on 8th Street pretty much right across the street from the 8th Street Market. I'm going to have to drive past there to look even though construction doesn't start until October.

It says "11 styles available" so I'm guessing it's going to be a pretty big project. Eek. On the bright side, it's condos, so that will help the student/resident ratio.

Here It Comes Again...

I think I've figured out what it is about Minnesota winters that folks from sunnier climes don't get.

It's that feeling when you step outside the door and it's 50 below zero. You pause for a second, and think, "Okay, I'm outside now. Hmmm. If I remain outside for any length of time, I will actually, physically die."

Your house is a bubble, surrounded by an atmosphere of slow, inexorable and painful death.

For people in Florida and Arizona to understand the feeling, they'd have be wary of Earth's gravitational field failing and suddenly flinging them off into the vacuum of space. All those of us in Minnesota, North Dakota, Maine or Canada have to do is miss our bus.

Floating Checks

Minnesota has always been a big Personal Check state. This has been changing slowly, but you can still write a check just about anywhere. This is really useful on the 14th and 29th of the month when my account has been virtually empty for a good five days and payday is in a mere 12 hours.

However, according to this MSNBC article, come October, floating checks will be a thing of the past. Apparently, they'll be electronically debited that same evening. Feh.

Well, it's only 12 hours, right? I can buy the groceries tomorrow, right? Sure it's easier for the banks, and probably significantly more lucrative as well. The article estimates that an additional 7 million checks will bounce every month. My bank charges like $32 per overdraft, so that's $2.7 billion for the banks. Yeah. That's fair.

Best... Episode... Evah...

Making Fiends 11