Ok, Frowner, B, Minneapolitan, Chopper, alphabetical guy from Fargo, mq??. I'm willing.
Next week would be better than this week, but the specific day doesn't matter much.
Emerson, I'll clear most of the books off the couch for you.
Next week's fine with me. I'm in the warehouse district and I'm carless, so it's gotta be either downtown or busable. Uptown's good, too.
I propose Hell's Kitchen, which makes the best damn brunch anywhere, if we can meet around 1ish, or alternately the BLB or Barbette, both because I know where those are and b/c the bf works there. We could bowl. Or we could just drink drinks at Barbette, hopefully on a day when Chad the awesome bartender's working.
Or, you know, if we *must*, we can go someplace else.
Crap, Chad the awesome bartender quit. Okay, fine, any day. Bleah.
And Chopper has to bring his baby. Baby!!
Can I invite my cool friend Elise? She has a blog. And a baby.
I like babies. But isn't Chopper's still kinda small to be out in public much?
I think pretty much any day next week works for me in the evening, except Tuesday or Thursday. For weekend brunch time, I'm also open. I'm guessing this is probably going to wind up being a weekend thing though.
Any cool friend of Dr. B is a cool friend of mine. Except that I don't know anyone named Elise, I don't think.
THis week is bad, weekend is OK, next week is OK except eith Tuesday or Thursday. Depending on venue and time, kids may or may not be on the table. But you can always bring PK to the zoo with us on Saturday, B.
I don't mean to criticize your parenting style Chopper, but wouldn't it be better if the kids were in highchairs or those little plastic booster seats?
I am on call next week so unfortunately for me I am stuck in Fargo.
Huzzah! I'm going to meet teh internets!
So will this be evening or weekend?
isn't Chopper's still kinda small to be out in public much?
Why? Babies can leave the house, they just can't do it under their own power. And all the places I've suggested, at least, won't kick you out if you have a kid.
Alas, Chopper, PK is not with me; he's with his dad in Kentucky. Or I'd love to bring him to the zoo with you guys.
I also meant to say that I can't do Friday. If the choices are evening or weekend, then let's make it an evening next week. Monday or Wednesday, y'all?
Whatever day I get in it will be at about 7:35 pm by Greyhound.
Greyhound sort of suggests downtown somewhere, then.
Yeah, I used to know where but it's probably moved anyway. Downtown is not far from the U., IIRC.
I have no car; all transit involving me will be by bus, foot or maybe cab. Be advised, Emerson--you probably don't want to pack your rucksack with bricks when you come to visit.
I was planning on bus or cab, Frowner! I've been carless forever.
Next Wednesday at Cafe Barbette? They've got a newish chef whose work I really liked at his last place. Here's the menu. Prices are reasonable, there are vegetarian options aplenty, and per B the bar seems to be pretty good, too.
Looks good, but steep by my standards.
I think I owe you a couple beers, Emerson, for blowing off the last time we talked about a meetup.
Well, we want somewhere congenial where we can sit around a bit...if price is a consideration, what about the Blue Nile? It's a bit cheaper than Barbette, fun, and a good place to sit around, I think. Or hey, wait--I know just the place! Peninsula, on Nicollet. It's really good, a bit spicy but not too much for Scandinavian me, and a very wide price range.
Don't say that, Chopper, because then I owe B a couple of beers.
I'm a girl, I expect the boys to pay for everything.
Chopper, I'm glad you like Barbette's new chef.
Does Peninsula have a bar? Because the food sounds nice but we don't *have* to eat, y'know. It might be nice to have the option of just having a beer. Cuzzy's is a kind of semi-divey bar with bar food; there's Luce; and I'm a big fan of 112, which might be a little pricey but the menu's got a really wide price range--e.g., the harissa sandwich is like $7, and it's yummy.
Well, you can order booze at Peninsula, but there's no bar as such. But it's so peaceful and spacious! We could sit around...er, I don't really care much as long as there's tasty dinner. I'm not much of a drinker, y'all, so be warned that I'll remember your every foolish utterance to the end of my days.
I'm beer-only, so a real bar isn't necessary for me.
So what we're saying is that Emerson and I rely on B, Chopper, Minneapolitan and this mysterious Elise to get really, really drunk. Oh, and Chopper's kids as well.
As I understand, I'll get to Mpls Tuesday night about 7:30, stay at Frowners, go wherever on Wed. pm., stay another night, and leave on Thu. My schedule is pretty free after that.
My email is emersonj at gmail dot com.
Oh! I was confused, I thought we were meeting the night you got into town, Emerson.
I vote we meet wherever's convenient for Frowner and me, since we're not car people. I'm willing to go to Peninsula (sigh) even though I suspect it of lacking ambiance. What time do we want to do this? Assuming people have 9-5 type jobs, is 6 too early?
I get into town at 7:35, so by the time I got anywhere it would be after 8, unless I was late or the bus got lost. I'd like to start earlier because I'm not a late-night person, and some people have job thingies.
I'm good for 6:00 -- 11:00, with a possible extension.
I'd vote for Scuzzy's over 112, just because it can be hard to get a table there (it's tiny). Luce is Frowner's hippy pizza joint. If we're concerned about cost, I'd say Cuzzy's is the way to go--a pint is expensive at Luce, and I'm guessing the same at 112.
Y'all can start at 6:00, I likely can't make it down until 7-7:30.
You know, B, now that I think about it I don't want to risk being responsible for taking us all somewhere that lacks ambiance. It would really kill the evening for me if you-all were checking your watches and glancing embarassedly over your shoulders. I'd rather just buy Emerson a beer at the fancy place to which I have never been.
Peninsula looks awesome. I would totally eat there.
Didn't we have a commenter based in Malaysia at one point?
ANd isn't Nakku in the Twin Cities now? Nakku, are you coming on Tuesday?
Oops, that's ukko. Ukko, are you coming?
Also, Indonesia = Malaysia.
Have you told that to any Malaysians recently?
35: Oops! Sorry, I was just being picky. I'm bowing out of the "where we go" issue at this point.
Who are the Twin Cities? What is an ukko?
I bet ol' rosy-toes goes to Malaysia all the time, to buy pirate DVDs. Arrrr!
43: We're just going to have to pick names out of a hat, I can tell. Maybe we could go to Peninsula for dinner and then adjourn to a bar. The food at Peninsula really is awfully good.
Okay, I'm sold. Peninsula it is. Did we decide 6ish is okay?
Have you told that to any Malaysians recently?
No, but an Indonesian chef did recently tell me that most Indonesian food is Malay.
Most Greek food is apparently Turkish, but you don't want to go pointing that out just anywhere.
Traditional Chinese music is also Turkish.
Coincidence? I think not.
Whatever is fine with me. Penninsula is convenient to the bus, and it's right across the street from both the Black Forest, the Bad Waitress (s/b "the Naughty Waitress" but what're ya gonna do?) and Azia (although what they would make of the troupe galumphing in to Azia is more than I care to speculate on). And if we were really in high spirits we could drunkenly wander over to the CC Club. But I will have to work the next day, so I probably can't really tie one on like I'd like to. (Work has been so insane recently. You wouldn't believe it. I'll tell you about it at the meet-up, but for now, let me just say that anyone who hires a 22 year-old B-school graduate is really asking for trouble these days. Generation-fucking-Awesome -- what a load of bollocks that turns out to be.)
My parentheses bag is empty and I need to sleep. See you all next week.
What is the dress code in these places? I tend toward hyper-informal but can gear up to moderately informal if need be.
Good thing I thought to come back and look at this thread. I am not 100% sure but is this little shin-dig going to be Tuesday or Wednesday? I may be able to make it if all the planets align.
Oh yeah, why don't we get a sticky post at the top of the page like the costal elite?
Yeah, nobody cares about us out in flyover country. Stupid coastal elites, you'll be sorry when global warming really kicks in!
I think it's Wednesday, though. Some time around six, at Peninsula?
Frowner is right. I'll be late, most likely.
So I'm thinking 6pm at Peninsula. I warn y'all, though, that if people are going to be dramatically late I'm ordering a plate of the crazy bar-snack eggplant dish to eat while I wait, so that I don't actually kill anyone from hungry rage when you actually arrive. (Just like a werewolf, I am safest when sated. Although not so much on human flesh.)
Peninsula is at 2608 Nicollet. Should you be confused by the vast mobs of midwesterners at the restaurant, I am a stout white woman with glasses (not helpful, but I'll be wearing my hipster stretched-ear things which should differentiate me from at least 2/3 of the crowd.) I will also be reading Goethe's Italian Journey. I am also wearing a black shirt, although this does not indicate a political position.
The canonical mode of introduction is the query "Who wants to sex Mutumno?" although what people tend to do in practice is look around quizzically for other people looking around quizzically.
Yes, but you see not only do I not particularly want to sex Mutumbo but I also plan to be eating eggplant-in-coconut-batter and reading Italian Journey, two supreme pleasures which may make me less than sufficiently attentive to people coming into the restaurant.
You have fantastic typing skills for your age, Chopper. Or did you mean that you look like the tall one?
Chopper looks very boyish now he's shaved.
Oh, this is clearly the place to tell my meet-up-gone-awry story.
So, back when I lived in a group house (which was awesome, except for the dead mouse in the sink and the Green Anarchists and the time my plants got stolen) we were looking for a new housemate. We'd advertised, and I'd spoken to a girl on the phone. We were going to meet up at the local hippie-punk Seward Cafe. I'm a black woman with long braids and I'll be wearing a blue winter coat, she said. So the actually-existing housemates and I went to the Seward and there, in that extremely white-left-hippie-venue, was a black woman with long braids wearing a blue winter coat. I went up to her...and, lo and behold, she was not Potential Housemate and was actually rather offended to be asked. Moments later, her virtual double (soon to be our Best Housemate Ever) walked in.
Since then, I've been to the Seward many times and--and this is a criticism of the whiteness of the left--I have never again seen two black women in the cafe at the same time. And the food is pretty tasty, so it's not a problem with the cooking.
OK, I'm near the U at this very moment in a coffee shop, having just paid $10 !!1!!111! for a wireless day pass. Hopefully I'll see B. sometime between now and 6 pm to plan our joint strategy.
Frowner is, as you'd expect, cheerful and pleasant. She has a great library doublestacked everywhere. She's not exactly blonde.
Report on B later.
John
Frowner is, as you'd expect, cheerful and pleasant.
I suspected as much. Leftists -- you can't trust them.
Don't know about you, but I expected it from the "protesting to much."
Frowner is, as you'd expect, cheerful and pleasant.
Oh, don't worry--Emerson is just saying that to conceal my real identity as a cold, bitter misanthrope. He suggested that I change my nom de guerre to "Snarler" but I said that I didn't want to confuse you, LB. I do, however, have a great library.
Emerson is much more mild-mannered than I'd expected, and we had a very pleasant evening, although I stayed up late enough that I am excessively sleepy today. So B and Chopper are lucky--they'll see me only when I'm sluggish and fatigued.
Well, if this is happening, I might as well show up, though no one knows who I am! Woo! Yay for reading and never commenting!
Apparently not reading the NameNazi posts. But enjoy the meetup.
Keith Ellison will be there to brief us on the progress of the Jihad Against American and Freedom. His appearance should be kept secret, however.
Keith Ellison will be there to brief us on the progress of the Jihad Against American and Freedom. His appearance should be kept secret, however.
LB, there comes a time for all of us when we realize that no one cares what we think.
Ah, but I would think you would be with me in refusing to treat that realization as any reason to drop the subject.
70: Yay, lurkers! Or if you're really clever, you could pretend that you're ukko.
Everyone could pretend to be ukko. It'd be like the end of Spartacus.
By all means, continue to harp!
Okay, John, I'm getting in the shower now. Roll back what I said by at least an hour.
Curses! This lurker won't be able to make it tonight . . . alas. Perhaps next time. . . .
B, I'll be across the street at Applebees next to the Radisson. Lesser evil.
Not my day either. One kid had her braces break while the other is projectile vomiting. I volunteered to duck out of the office and run to the orthodontic emergency repair shop since my wife did not think she could take jr. with, his cookies not staying un-tossed and all.
Alas, that means I need to be at the office two hours later to get my billed hours in for the month (my work is very flexible except that no billed hours may cross the 15th of the month.) So I would be late, were I to come, and alone since the baby-sitter does not sit sick kids and I would have to leave my wife at home. With the prince of puke...
Even though it would be nice to tell my wife that I am going to go drinking with my imaginary internet friends and we will really miss her. I have a feeling that down that road lies nothing but pain, don'tcha know.
So have fun and send me pictures, that I might know what incredible debauchery I missed out on.
-ukko
B says she's going to be late and is sorry and something about a bus and various profanities, but you get the gist. I hope.
Dancing on tables? Do not want.
But we all had fun anyhow. Even those of us who don't eat spicy food.
Chopper's baby is very small, but I wouldn't want to paint it. (No, really, pretty decent-sized and very cute! I even got to hold her.)
Frowner: did not frown. Also a big liar. Others are complicit in the lies. It's all a sham. Imaginary people you meet on the Internet: do not trust them!
B, as expected, is blonde, wholesome-looking, and very late. Bf is a long-suffering gourmet. Chopper's baby is intelligent and well-behaved, as is Mrs. Chopper. Chopper has pinchable cheeks like Yglesias's. The walleye was overcooked but tasty. Minneapolitan is a finance hotshot. Frowner is cheerful. No one but me drinks enough at these things. The end.
Minneapolitan the Marxist is a finance hotshot?
Oh, my innocence...
I imagined minneapolitan as an anarchist activist type.
91 is a very good write-up, even if, or maybe especially because, Mrs. Chopper is going to kill you.
Frowner *is* a liar; among other untruths she is quite pretty and has totally cool and trendy glasses and an awesome haircut.
Also, while I stood John up, I was *not* late to the meetup. I was there before he was. And why does he say the bf is long-suffering? Hmph.
John is almost as committed to the cranky old guy persona in person as he is online, making one wonder exactly how much of a persona it is. Luckily, he's also hilarious and made me laugh 'til I snorted at one point.
Also the boyfriend and I seduced Mrs. C. into having her first cigarette in a year. Bwahahahaha.
No one but me drinks enough at these things.
Some of us just know how to hold our liquor, old man.
No one but me drinks enough at these things.
I genuinely don't understand why you don't have to fight women off with a stick, Emerson. Such a perfect little sentence. You must have the worst hygiene of all time.
Minneapolitan is surely both, and neither! The internets reflect so little, yet so much. So little.
((o blue.dot service unavailable?))
Actually Emerson's pretty good looking. It's because he goes on and on about how much he hates relationships.
Frowner? Trendy glasses? Dammit. The rest I believe I suppose, though re: the good lookingness of everyone, bitch thinks Nedra Pickler is pretty, and she's made-up.
Nedra Pickler isn't real? Next you'll be telling me Santa Claus isn't.
I'm really not a Marxist. I totally think that the split within the First International should have been resolved in Bakunin's favor, and you can't get much more left-deviationist than that.
Madame Chopper was really nice and we had a great conversation about public education around here. She even knows one of my old school chums! Chopper was pretty much what I expected from comments and photos, and Baby Chopper was very cute and had tiny tiny toeses.
Emerson is devilishly good looking and his hygiene is beyond reproach. Perhaps with the help of God and the love of a good woman, he would reverse his Policy. But probably not, because then he would not be the clever, morally upright character that he is.
And finally, some of us don't drink as much as we would like because we have to get up waaay too early to go to our dreary, ironic jobs where we live in fear of being denounced as anarchists. (Although if people are too crass to figure out as much when your new sneakers say "CLASSWAR" on the backs, they probably wouldn't get the conflict anyway.)
Yep, whenever I see someone wearing new CLASSWAR sneakers, I know they have to get up waaay too early and go to dreary, ironic jobs where they live in fear of being denounced as anarchists. I totally get the conflict, I'm down like that.
Also the boyfriend and I seduced Mrs. C. into having her first cigarette in a year. Bwahahahaha.
So transgressive!
Ogged, don't you read your own comment boards? Minneapolitan mentioned being in finance months ago.
My glasses are timeless, thank you, but I did fall about laughing for most of the evening. And it's not that I'm a liar so much as that I...omit...from time to time. For example, I never said that I always frown.
B. is far more glamourous than I'd expected and has, herself, really fantastic glasses. Also great shoes. Bf was both charming and serene. Emerson is a stitch and, as has been observed above, clearly does not adhere to the No Relationship Policy out of any kind of neccessity. Chopper--I wouldn't cross Chopper if I were you. And he can really swing a baby. Mrs. C is clever and amusing and looks very Minneapolis-ish, somehow. The baby is adorable and has a great slow blink that she does. Minneapolitan is an anarchist activist type with a genius for finance; I've always thought he'd be happier under socialism, though. The food was awfully good, although I'm coming round to Emerson's way of thinking about shrimp. Emerson got an enormous, malign-looking fish and gleefully...well, he couldn't really disembowel it since that had of course been done in the restaurant kitchen, but he did what would have been disemboweling if it had had any left to dis-. I recommend the taro bowl thing.
We spoke of things, as the poet said, that matter: mostly gossip about other Unfoggers. Oh, the things I know about w-lfs-n and Ogged! Well, most of it was positive, anyway. Medical devices were also a topic.
The fish was a walleye, a local specialty. I was curious to see what Indonesians would do with it, and while it was good, and too much for one person, they got it wrong. Walleye has wonderfully delicate, flaky meat, somewhat like trout, and it ought to be baked or fried, but they stewed it. The sauce was good, however.
Heebie was nominated and seconded for new commentator of the year. Sifu had some support but he's not really "new", being a regular at The Poorman.
Quick question for Minnesotians. Are the Violettes a big local band? Their album is still probably the best thing I've ever heard by an unsigned band when reviewing CDs for the radio station.
I'm the last person you should ask about local music. I saw that Thunder In The Valley band awhile back, and thought they were pretty good. And the Jug Band Competition is always fun.
110: it's an honor just to be disqualified.