A Holiday Message From Ricky Gervais: Why I'm An Atheist

I'm sure anyone who reads this also follows what I do on Facebook to some extent, but this is so good that I also had to post it here.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/19/a-holiday-message-from-ricky-gervais-why-im-an-atheist/

success!

My beer is moderately drinkable!

Beeeeeer!

Two posts in one day? No one can live at that speed!

So, I brewed my first batch of beer two weeks ago, thanks to a great deal on Groupon that finally kicked my butt into gear. $40 for a complete brew kit and a recipe kit was too much to pass up, given that the beginner equipment kt is usually $80 and a recipe kit usually runs ~$30 for a five gallon batch. It's an Irish Stout, which I'm led to believe is more or less a Guinness clone. It's been sitting in fermentation for 2 weeks and smells like beer. I'm bottling it tomorrow. It appears I haven't entirely ruined everything yet, so keep your fingers crossed. You may have a sixer of moderately drinkable homebrew in your Christmas stocking.

I have to say, for as much as I read leading up to doing the brewing, it didn't really click for me until I actually did it. Now it makes total sense. Next up, I'm planning on doing a strong Belgian witbier, with two-stage fermentation and everything. Here's hoping I don't blow up the apartment - I don't think my $300 deposit will cover it.

New City vs. Old City

Music Scene (you knew I was going to start with this, right?)

New City takes this one handily. I mean come on, Prince and Bob Dylan, enough said. Well, ok, not enough said, because this city's music scene is out of this world. I miss 4 or 5 shows a week here that I probably would have gone to in KC. The First Ave Club is great. There is a great collection of local musicians here as well. Of them, I've only seen Cloud Cult so far, but they are lovely. Doomtree, Jeremy Messersmith, and Mason Jennings are probably next up.

Art Scene

This one goes to KC. Granted, I haven't explored this much yet in Minneapolis, but there's no real companion to KC's Crossroads neighborhood and the associated First Fridays, which are really incredible.

Politics

Minneapolis takes this one. Minneapolis is pretty reliably leftie. Not being split across a state border makes it a lot easier to get civic-y stuff done (see: light rail), and as far as I have seen, there's no poaching of businesses between cities, at least not on the level of KC. Other than that, I don't know too much about the politics here yet.

Weather

Kansas City's too hot. Minneapolis is too cold. Minneapolis gets the slight edge here, because I deal with the cold better than extreme heat.

Dining

Kansas City has world class barbecue, and a pretty good food scene. Minneapolis restaurants in general have a remarkable selection of vegetarian entrees - not that I'm vegetarian, but it's striking in comparison to KC. Every hole in the wall place has something like vegan chicken nuggest or mock duck tacos or something. It's kind of great to explore this stuff, which is widely off the menu in KC. Haven't tried a ton of places yet, for fear of offending my poor wallet, but I like what I've seen so far.

Transit

See the aforementioned light rail, add buses that people actually take, and Minneapolis wins this one by a landslide.

Downtown

While Minneapolis lacks anything like the Power and Light District or the Crossroads, Nicollet Mall and the surrounding area are kind of amazing. Tons of cool restaurants and music venues. And everything is clean and there are always tons of people out at all hours. I have to call this one a draw...

Living Conditions

Well, housing is a lot more expensive here. We live in an apartment in the burbs, which is certainly an adjustment from our house in the thick of it in KC, but we are adjusting. Having light rail to take into the city is great (no driving or paying for parking), but there really isn't a lot to do in Burnsville. We're certainly not roughly a mile from two happening neighborhoods like we were in KC, but we're not near the crime either. I love the old house in KC, but I have to give the nod to Minneapolis here. The crime was a rough thing to deal with in KC. Living in an apartment has its ups and downs. Our management is pretty incompetent, but hey, getting all the laundry done in parallel is great. And we have a pretty large apartment for the price up here.

Public Radio

I love KCUR, but MPR is here. That means The Current in addition to a classical station and a regular NPR news station. Despite A Prairie Home Companion being recorded here, I have to give this one to Minneapolis, mostly on the greatness of The Current.

Job

My job here pays marginally more and has, on balance, slightly better benefits. It's pretty boring, and there's too much bureaucracy and process and 20 ways of doing the same thing, and my coworkers were totally way cooler at the old job (and I'm not just saying that because some of them read this). I have to give the nod to the old job. My Modern Warfare skills have totally gotten rusty. Everyone still says "the tire company?" when I tell them where I work.

Miscellaneous

Like I said, it generally seems a lot cleaner here than in KC. It's not total panic on the roads when snow falls. They actually have smartly planned bike lanes and buses take the shoulder in rush hour. I miss my group of friends in KC, and I know it will take time to build something similar here. It's still a little weird to live in the burbs again, but driving (a lot) less is really nice. I still like KC a lot, and I am having trouble distancing myself from it, but I guess that will come in time.