THE CITY GRITTY >>

• BEST BOONDOGGLE
  You think this is no fait accompli? You think our political leaders will heed all those opinion polls and assorted municipal referenda that have demonstrated, time and again, the public's opposition to further subsidizing big-time sports? Then you probably also think Minnesota is a good... More >>
• BEST BROKEN PROMISE
  In his 2002 campaign for the U.S. Senate, the oleaginous, lantern-jawed opportunist went to great lengths to position himself as a common sense moderate. Politically, this made sense. Running against Paul Wellstone (and then, for a week, Walter Mondale), Coleman needed to appease not the... More >>
• BEST CAREER MOVE
  When word came down from on high last February that KSTP-TV wouldn't renew main news anchor Randy Meier's contract, our heads were still reeling from KSTP's botched attempt to re-sign his popular co-anchor, Julie Nelson, who's now making twice as much money over at KARE. We couldn't fathom what... More >>
• BEST CHEAP THRILL
  Let's face it, winter around here is one long, death-defying stunt. There are wind chills that would send your average Inuit scurrying for south Florida, and the grit-encrusted mountains of snow that swallow cars and small children. Last but not least, there is the ice that turns Twin Cities... More >>
• BEST CORPORATE CITIZEN
  According to the Minnesota Council on Foundations, charitable giving for education and the percentage of all dollars donated to programs in the Twin Cities area are both on the decline. General Mills is vigorously bucking both trends. The philanthropic part of the company, General Mills... More >>
• BEST FARMERS' MARKET
  Until recently we were much more in favor of farmers' markets in the abstract than the concrete. Sure, every year, as soon as the weather warmed up, we'd get all excited about the simple luxuries that might grace our table once the peak-sweet vegetables started to roll into town. But our... More >>
• BEST FESTIVAL
  The six-figure turnouts at this annual street fair reflect more than ballooning civic ecstasy at the onset of summer. It's a sign that, deep down, St. Paulites may not be ready to fully yield one of their most distinctive thoroughfares to corporate invaders. While it's still lined with some of... More >>
• BEST FOOD COURT
  O, woe is the food court, that bizarre union of cheap commerce and gluttony, hurry and rest, which really gained footing around these parts, mostly in shopping malls, in the 1980s. It's not so much that the food court was a bad idea at the time, it's just that as time marched on, the food court... More >>
• BEST GADFLY
  Phil Krinkie doesn't want to spend money on anything. Not to build a billion-dollar playpen for a huckster used-car salesman from San Antonio, and not to, um, educate our kids. We may not always agree with the Shoreview Republican's views, but we admire his pit bull approach to spotlighting... More >>
• BEST HELLRAISER OR ACTIVIST GROUP
  Unless your last name is Dayton, Pillsbury, or Cowles, you owe the folks at the helm of this St. Paul-based nonprofit a debt of gratitude. We don't know anyone else who is as dedicated to looking at Minnesota's economy from the standpoint of the working stiff, or anyone else who is doing a... More >>
• BEST LIBRARY
  To step into the immaculately renovated St. Paul central library just off Rice Park is to be transported back to a time when public libraries were the locus point of cities and hothouses of civic life. The library has all the modern amenities you'd expect, of course: convenient internet access,... More >>
• BEST LOCAL BOY GONE BAD
  You have to hand it to Dick Borrell: The mustachioed businessman from the west metro town of Waverly has more chutzpah than any 10 Minnesota politicians combined. In his 2002 race for the state House of Representatives, Borrell blustered his way to victory despite a sordid personal revelation... More >>
• BEST LOCAL BOY MADE GOOD
  Fitzgerald has seemed destined for NFL glory from an early age. The son of a KMOJ and Spokesman-Recorder sports reporter, the Holy Angels alumni and former Vikings ball boy had the chance to learn at the feet of pro greats like Cris Carter and Randy Moss. In his short but memorable career at the... More >>
• BEST LOCAL GIRL GONE BAD
  Much as we'd like to give this to some Hollywood starlet who betrayed her Minnesota roots and lost herself in a den of sin, misfortune, and bad career moves, it's time we all face facts: We don't have any celebrities here in Minnesota--at least not ones who haven't already bored us to tears. In... More >>
• BEST LOCAL GIRL MADE GOOD
  Katherine Lanpher could also be eligible for the "Best Comeback" award, for it was little less than a year ago when the former MPR Midmorning host was charged with drunk driving and hit and run. Yet instead of letting the incident ruin her career, Lanpher got her act together and continued to... More >>
• BEST LOCALLY GENERATED WEB SITE
  The American electorate is not, as the current thinking goes, split into halves: the blue and the red. Rather, the blue is itself divided between those who believe Jorge can be beaten and those who have looked at the Electoral College with a sober eye and a calculator. The half who see... More >>
• BEST MAYOR
  If we ever have a reason to think about small-town mayors, it's usually either as lovable town-dad sorts or vaguely corrupt, Mayor Quimby-style politicos--not particularly polarizing types. But Lee Hunt of Lake Elmo, a town of 7,500 just southeast of St. Paul mostly known for its enormous... More >>
• BEST MONTH TO BE IN THE TWIN CITIES
  Admit it, one of the benefits of Minnesota residence is the bragging rights you have among your out-of-town friends. "So, how cold is it now?" they ask, and over the phone line or even via return e-mail you can discern a sympathetic shudder when they get the reply, "It's about 10 below, but it... More >>
• BEST PLACE FOR A FIRST DATE
  Some of us unlucky few, when put face to face with an individual we are attracted to for a first date, are reduced to neurotic, sweaty-palmed, compliment-fumbling train wrecks barely able to formulate cohesive sentences. Just like Stan Marsh on South Park, still unable to tell Wendy Testaburger... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO DUMP SOMEONE
  Given the peculiar state of modern romance, it's reasonably likely that you met your soon-to-be-ex online. Isn't it fitting, then, that the relationship should end where it began? Granted, e-mail is a cold-blooded form of communication. In the short history of the internet, the carelessly or... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO GET DUMPED
  Take your love interest shopping, and you're bound to expose the fatal flaws in your relationship. The stresses of parking, waiting, and screaming children are bad enough. Add to that the icy anger brought on by having to walk down the wind tunnel known as Nicollet Avenue on a chilly Saturday... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO MEET SINGLE MEN (GAY)
  After a few decades of selling 3.2 beer, this hole in the wall near Loring Park--reputed to be the city's first gay bar--recently upgraded to a full liquor license. And the jukebox is a gem. For seductive barroom tableau, you can't beat dialing up "Maggie May" and bending over one of the room's... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO MEET SINGLE MEN (STRAIGHT)
  It's a meat market, sure, but with the clout of being the first certified organic meat department in America. Beyond free-range poultry and sirloin, there's no better place in the Cities than this bohemian enclave to pick up your own tofutti-cutie. Simply put, you need the basics--cereal, toilet... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO MEET SINGLE WOMEN (LESBIAN)
  Every Sunday afternoon women gather at the Arise! Bookstore to read letters from women in prisons all over the country and send them the reading material they request. There's no tiresome sign-up process and no stupid training meeting: Just show up with a smile and a willingness to pitch in and... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO MEET SINGLE WOMEN (STRAIGHT)
  We are aware that the public penchant for '70's retro fashion includes a revival of the rumor that the best place to meet single women is at the grocery store. This is a lie that's almost as ugly as low-riding flair pants. Gentlemen, if you want to meet single women, position yourself near a $25... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO PEOPLE-WATCH
  Many of us city folk don't realize that much like the adventures of squid and jellyfish at the bottom of the ocean, sometimes there's some wacky stuff going on in the 'burbs. So whether it's the cheap eats available at the most ungodly hours or the way that the cool hangouts in the outer metro... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO TAKE OUT-OF-TOWN GUESTS
  By all means visit Snoopy. He's big and he's inflatable and your guests will want to see him standing there, a sentinel for Florsheim Shoes and Cinnabon, and all the other one-of-a-kind retail establishments down in Bloomington. Once you've received Snoopy's benediction, and your guests' bemused... More >>
• BEST POLITICIAN
  It's been said that years from now, future Minnesotans will look back with amazement that we once had the temerity to elect a former pro wrestler as governor. But it's quite likely that they'll view the Pawlenty years with equal wonder. It won't just be that after a century of progressive,... More >>
• BEST PUBLIC RESTROOM
  We're all getting tired of the swanky bathrooms and the one-upmanship that goes with them--they don't really mean anything besides their superficiality (eye candy), and essentially, their invasion of one's privacy. As desolate as an Amtrak restroom might strike you, it's the meat-and-potatoes... More >>
• BEST SCANDAL
  Back in the bad old days, political graft was unambiguous. As the Vice President, Spiro Agnew accepted cash bribes in paper sacks in the basement of the White House. There was a certain straightforward integrity to such old-school corruption. Nowadays, most graft is the lawyered variety. For the... More >>
• BEST STATE FAIR FOOD
  It ain't fried and it doesn't come on a stick. Frankly, it's unlikely to build up in your arteries like stucco, or to accelerate the hour of your death. That's a sure turnoff when it comes to State Fair cuisine. And yet these plastic-wrapped tubes of locally pressed cider do kind of behave like... More >>
• BEST STATE FAIR RIDE
  Maybe you're the kind of person who likes to spend $25 to be strapped into a nylon harness, hauled into the air by a discount winch, and then dropped about 75 feet, until the man-corset tightens around your corndog-bloated belly and you bounce a few times like a helpless and drooling... More >>
• BEST USE OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS
  We're completely, hopelessly, irretrievably smitten with the new playground equipment that's popped up, a few parks at a time, throughout Minneapolis over the last three springs. Because most of the city's play equipment was old and far from meeting current safety standards, in 2002 the... More >>
• BEST VICTIM
  Poor, poor Joe Soucheray. He is the most put-upon of modern American archetypes: the Conservative Male Talk Show Host (CMTSH). For a group that spends an inordinate amount of time decrying the "culture of victimhood" that is supposedly stripping America of its moral backbone, these folks sure do... More >>
• BEST VIEW
  Some of the most impressive views of the downtown skyline are marred by the presence of interstates 94, 35W, and 394. With their elevated exit and entrance ramps, smog, and constant traffic snarls, these highways are not merely obtrusive, they are a dreary reminder of how car culture has... More >>
• BEST VILLAIN
  The Pawlenty era has seen the rise of a most unlikely public watchdog, the Minnesota Taxpayers League. The conservative group, which basically views all taxes as the end of Western civilization, has managed to chart the course for the governor's agenda and all of his neo-con followers at the... More >>
• BEST WEEKEND GETAWAY
  There are quaint American cities without Duluth's windblown bohemia, lakeside burghs without Duluth's severe beauty, and party towns without Duluth's excessiveness. But combine these fascinations into one place, located less than three hours north of the Twin Cities, and you have an almost... More >>