I’m not a gearhead, but I’ve been looking for a late-’90s early-aughts Jeep Wranger with a manual for quite a while. I had one for quite a while, and found myself in a familiar situation where the cost of repair would have broken the bank. Now, of course, with the ‘rona, I’ve been unemployed for six months, so no Jeep…

Thunder Bay is just north of Minnesota, and is famous for its pierogies. I had a pierogie salad at a buffet there, and it was a revelation. Think macaroni salad, but instead of macaroni, pierogies! Amazing.

For a “family restaurant” or diner, it’s meatloaf for me. It’s easy to throw a bunch of ground meat in the oven, but the attention a spot pays to seasonings and meat choices goes a long way toward telling me their overall attention to detail.

Okay- “Staged” looks pretty damn promising. Which reminds me, I need to rewatch Good Omens for the 6th time.

My wife and I listened to Arthur C. Clarke’s “3001" on audio book during a cross-country drive. So many things struck me about the book (first being that he thought humanity would survive that long). The big one was the idea of comet miners in the Kuiper Belt snagging comets to hurl towards Venus to terraform it. I…

I’ve really needed this whole story.

Sad to hear that all the Giz-related sites will eventually go to this new layout. It just doesn’t make sense to me. using /latest, I can still get my serial feed so I can scan articles one at a time. But this full-page stuff just seems messy. The eye isn’t drawn anywhere, it’s just randomized pandemonium. 

Man, I should just stop loving things at fast food Mexican restaurants.

“said that we’ll be the generation to eradicate racism” - um no. He’s too smart to make a claim like that. He said he thought we were up to the task, which is a very different thing.

Hopfen und Malz, Gott erhalt’s.

“They should definitely televise men with skillets fighting bears on ESPN this fall instead of the NFL. I’d watch the fuck out of that.”

Taco King is a yearly requirement for me. Simple, unadorned, Tex-Mex style chow. There’s just something about the simplicity and basic seasonings that make their tostadas and burritos so far superior to any other Tex-Mex food available in the state. It’s my first stop every year.

It may be that Biden was a “no-frills moderate Democrat”, but if elected, he would be the most progressive president in history. No contest. He’d make Obama look like William F Buckley. Because he’s a lifelong politician, he knows he has to listen to the people, including former opponents like Bernie and Liz.

Huh. Haven’t seen any SPPD officers doing this. Maybe it’s because St. Paul has a good police force. 

I suspect you’re not being serious enough for this weighty matter.

I’ve been in an unofficial feud with Andrew Zimmern (unofficial because he never answers me) about his claim that there is no such thing as “Minnesota Pizza”. There is. Square cut like Detroit pizza, but there’s a sweet pizza sauce and lots of crispy cheese that I haven’t had anywhere East of the St. Croix.

I still think Tom Baker was my favorite Rasputin.

Not knowing the “inside baseball” of football, I have been saying the Vikings should sign Kap. Minneapolis is where the current outrage began, and I think it would be a healing gesture. 

My wife and have been bingeing Parks & Recreation during lockdown. We’re on season 5 or so, and I swear I’d utterly forgotten about Paul Schneider. The character of Ben is so wonderful to watch. Also, the laughs-per-minute are stupidly high. Great show. 

I’m in St. Paul, and follow several great, local restaurants on Facebook. One is “Homi Mexican” a little ways down University from the epicenter of the rioting. It’s a very authentic Mexican restaurant - no cheddar cheese in the house. The owner is a little abuela named Hortensia, who runs their Facebook page. I read…