Domino’s Pizza sells 26 Minneapolis stores

Domino’s Pizza has refranchised 26 company-owned stores in Minneapolis to a local operator. The stores will now be owned by Bill Graves–the third-largest Domino’s franchisee in the U.S. The company says current employees will keep their positions and no stores will be closed. LINK

OzTV - Minneapolis on Jan 12, 2011

OzTV checks in from Ozzy's show at the Target Center in Minneapolis on Jan 12, 2011. LINK: Youtube

Deconstructing a 36,000 Square Foot Home

I guarantee you have never seen a “tear-down” house like this one. A Minnesota company is disassembling an immense home in the prestigious Lake Minnetonka area west of Minneapolis.

This massive structure is filled with room after room of salvageable building materials in pristine condition, ranging from sprawling kitchens and custom cabinetry to a unique sauna and indoor pool slide.

At the company’s link are several pages of photos.

The company saves money by inviting the public to go directly to the home to harvest materials; what remains is transported to their warehouse and store for resale.

Link. Via: Neatorama, Via: Youtube

A Tornado was reported near downtown Minneapolis Today

A tornado was reported near downtown Minneapolis, moving north.


This video won't be here long cause it is updated daily, but if you go there asap you can see the tornado. LINK

Here also is another video I came across. LINK


There was damage reported to a church near the Convention Center.

Locations in warning include Brooklyn Center, New Brighton, Arden Hills, Fridley, Brooklyn Park, Mounds View, Spring Lake Park, Circle Pines, Lexington, Champlin, Oak Park, and Blaine. LINK

Minneapolis police, fire and inspections are making house-to-house checks for possible victims. The city also has structural inspectors checking out to several locations for structural evaluations.

As of 2:17 p.m. Xcel Energy is reporting 4,600 power outages in the Twin Cities metro area. There is also more photos at this. LINK

Beer can collection as wall art

Studio on Fire, a design and letterpress house in Minneapolis, installed this terrific beer can collection on their office wall. From their blog post about the, er, project:

There’s a better half of a thousand cans up there and darn near all are (diligently) cracked open from the bottom, preserving the original seal. Also out of all the cans hanging, there’s only a handful of duplicates. We are quite proud of this assemblage of our cultural history and all of us, at one time or daily, have to be reminded to get the hell back to work and stop staring into abyss of an unfortunately long-gone and better era. LINK

Gotta check out to see how close they are, may be interesting to see in person.

Six Things You Should Know About Minnesota

Think you know Minnesota? The Coen Brothers movie Fargo may make it seem that Minnesotans are yokels, but the truth is, Minnesota is far, far weirder.

Joshua Post Lee of The Black Table explains the things you should know about the Land of 10,000 Lakes. LINK
Southdale Shopping Center, circa 1956.

#4. We Invented -- and Perfected -- the Shopping Mall.

In the 1950s, Minnesota's shopkeepers figured people wouldn't want to shop at their stores if they had to step over frozen corpses on the sidewalk, thanks to our nipple pointy winters from hell. So when Southdale Shopping Center opened in 1956, it had a roof on it and included 72 stores, anchored by two major department stores, all arranged in a two-level design around a brightly lit center court. It offered free parking, and its 5,000 parking spaces were grouped into lots, well marked by clever symbols to help wind frozen shoppers locate their cars.

We all know it now, but back then it was an odd concept to have an enclosed space where folk could congregate and shop. It was big news that it had air conditioning and even bigger that there was helicopter service from Southdale to downtown Minneapolis. People stopped caring about us being the first so we had to build a more massive structure.

In August of 1992, in sleepy Bloomington, Minn., the Mall of America opened its doors. When it opened, the Mall was 71 percent leased with 330 brand new stores for business, including four nationally recognized department stores. Today, the Mall of America is the largest mall in U.S., and home to Camp Snoopy, America's largest indoor family theme park; Underwater Adventures, Minnesota's largest aquarium; a four-story Lego play place and more than 500 stores. It's so big and popular, the Mall of America is oft-cited as a potential terror target.

And in the coming years, new construction will soon give us the world title. LINK

Ice Cold Shanty Art

Every winter, in the middle of a frozen lake in Minnesota, a brave group of artists come together to create the Art Shanty Projects. Part art festival, part extreme sport, the Ice Shanty Projects requires that each artist build his or her own "Art Shanty", a modified version of the small shacks traditionally used for ice fishing. The artists must survive extreme weather- sometimes 20 degrees below zero- to build their shanty. In this pod, intrepid VC2 producer, Shakademic, braves the weather cold to cover the closing
celebration of this unusual celebration of art and ice. LINK

The Spoonbridge and Cherry: Is Good Art?

By Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Photo: Walker Art Center


The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota is celebrating its 20th anniversary of its Sculpture Garden (with the iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture). Most Twin Cities residents are so familiar with the Spoonbridge that they rarely discuss it as art - but is it art?

City Pages blog invited Peter Eleey, a curator at the Walker Art Center, to talk about the giant spoon and cherry: Link, Via: Neatorama