saintpaulitan
life in the other twin city

Every year, the Minnesota Street Rod Association rallies a bunch of their members and parks a huge caravan of beautiful classic cars on the mall in front of the Capitol Building. Exactly why they do it or how it got started I have no idea, but for legislative employees, it makes for a pretty sweet lunch hour.

More pictures on my Flickr photostream.

Saturday night was my friend Josh’s birthday, and we kicked off the evening by going to the Minnesota RollerGirls season championship at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium. It was the second RollerGirls bout I’ve been to, and it was definitely $12 well spent.

If you’ve never been to one of these before, you gotta go. It’s a truly all-American celebration of weirdness and aggression. And by saying it’s weird, I don’t mean to diminish the sport’s athletic bona fides; this is definitely a respectably punishing physical activity. But there is a different vibe at a RollerGirls bout than at, say, a Gophers men’s basketball game. I’ve been to my share of those, and I’ll take RollerGirls over that baloney any day.

My only complaint is about the price of concessions. $5.75 for a PBR tall-boy? You’ve gotta be kidding. Also, the next time I go to one of these, I’m getting there early so I can get some good seats. It seems like the front row is the place to be — where you share some of the physical danger along with the actual competitors. The nosebleed section is definitely too high up to be able to really get into the action.

The other thing I should mention is the halftime show. Who would’ve thought that an E.L.O. cover band could bring down the house? I got some great video footage of a kid in the audience rocking out to the performance, but I’m having some trouble uploading it to YouTube. I’ll post it if and when I figure out what the problem is. Here’s a picture, anyway:

By the way, the Rockits won the championship. I was a little disappointed because I was rooting for the Dagger Dolls. Not because I know anything about the teams, mind you; I just like the name Kim Jong Kill.

*UPDATE: Here’s a link to a blog post with some good video from the game.