2008 Woodie Awards
Reed All About It:
A Trip to Minnesota and the mice along the way
Reed Stratton
Issue date: 3/4/04 Section: Features
This past weekend, several of the brightest and battiest Mirror staffers flocked into a ford van with a massive muskie plastered on the side en-route to Minneapolis, MN and the best of the Midwest newspaper convention for a three day excursion of newspaper workshops and grins in the twin cities.
After a few hours on the trek, singing along with Reel Big Fish and observing all posted speed limits, the van hummed in to a town called Mauston where we were greeted by a massive concrete mouse cradling a slice of Swiss cheese and a hunk of bologna.
After that pit stop, we got to Minnesota in about six hours and signed in to our rooms on the tenth floor of the Hyatt Regency. We were privileged to share the hotel with hundreds of high school cheerleaders, who felt it intelligent to press every elevator button from floor one to floor 25 and then gnaw on the very flesh and bone that encases our brains with their grating howls.
That night, after a few educational sessions, we met up in downtown Minneapolis and went for snacks at a jazz lounge called Dakota and then to the Acme comedy club. There we watched a fluffy-haired young man with ears the size of navigation satellites who claimed he's been said to resemble a baby mouse; he then informed us that he once used the pick up line, "I got porn, Stuart Little. Do you want to watch it?"
Transportation in the city was quite interesting; some of us traveled high class with a limousine driver; he offered to take us to the club for only 15 dollars.
I didn't go however; I was busy helping someone get lost in the savage firestorm that is the one way street system of Minneapolis. If you've driven there, you'll find First Street, one block down will be Second Street, another block down is Third Street, and then of course we find Nicollet, then Ninth Avenue which intersect with 12th street. Obviously, the people of Minnesota realize that the English sequence of numbers is one, two, three, Nicollet, six, seven, nine, 11, Mall, Mall, Mall, 12 and 14.
On Saturday, we went to the mall of America and discovered a trend that I can't decide is shocking or stunning. Adolescent women are now wrapping themselves in pleated dishcloths they call skirts. A stiff breeze might give any prepubescent an eyeful of the promise land. No doubt this is inspired by Paris Hilton; a woman so dense that she's unsure if a thesaurus is a meat or veggie eating dinosaur.
On the way home, we made a stop in of course Mauston where we ate some cheese and browsed through some priceless coonskin caps, enclosed in a glass case. The prices ran from $50.00 to 526 bright pebbles.
All in all, it was a very mice trip.
After a few hours on the trek, singing along with Reel Big Fish and observing all posted speed limits, the van hummed in to a town called Mauston where we were greeted by a massive concrete mouse cradling a slice of Swiss cheese and a hunk of bologna.
After that pit stop, we got to Minnesota in about six hours and signed in to our rooms on the tenth floor of the Hyatt Regency. We were privileged to share the hotel with hundreds of high school cheerleaders, who felt it intelligent to press every elevator button from floor one to floor 25 and then gnaw on the very flesh and bone that encases our brains with their grating howls.
That night, after a few educational sessions, we met up in downtown Minneapolis and went for snacks at a jazz lounge called Dakota and then to the Acme comedy club. There we watched a fluffy-haired young man with ears the size of navigation satellites who claimed he's been said to resemble a baby mouse; he then informed us that he once used the pick up line, "I got porn, Stuart Little. Do you want to watch it?"
Transportation in the city was quite interesting; some of us traveled high class with a limousine driver; he offered to take us to the club for only 15 dollars.
I didn't go however; I was busy helping someone get lost in the savage firestorm that is the one way street system of Minneapolis. If you've driven there, you'll find First Street, one block down will be Second Street, another block down is Third Street, and then of course we find Nicollet, then Ninth Avenue which intersect with 12th street. Obviously, the people of Minnesota realize that the English sequence of numbers is one, two, three, Nicollet, six, seven, nine, 11, Mall, Mall, Mall, 12 and 14.
On Saturday, we went to the mall of America and discovered a trend that I can't decide is shocking or stunning. Adolescent women are now wrapping themselves in pleated dishcloths they call skirts. A stiff breeze might give any prepubescent an eyeful of the promise land. No doubt this is inspired by Paris Hilton; a woman so dense that she's unsure if a thesaurus is a meat or veggie eating dinosaur.
On the way home, we made a stop in of course Mauston where we ate some cheese and browsed through some priceless coonskin caps, enclosed in a glass case. The prices ran from $50.00 to 526 bright pebbles.
All in all, it was a very mice trip.