Secrets of the City

Jason’s been in the links a lot lately. I guess when one guy covers everything from Uptown shootings to really fat cats, he’s got a good shot at the links pretty much every day.

Jerry the Bartender at Stasiu’s asked me just tonight, “what’s Jason DeRusha like in person, anyway?” My answer, verbatim, was “dude, he’s f*cking hilarious.”

Pshaw. 40 pounds?

Now here’s a big cat.

I was getting food after the E6 show on Friday, when I saw a report on the television about a really fat cat. I thought, “Who the hell would do a story about a really fa… and there’s DeRusha.”

That was one damn big cat. It’s about twice the weight of my dog.

Did we cover this? Trader Joe’s is really, really, really coming to MN.

I’m not a big fan of overfeeding cats. That it all.

…meaning we will have scenes like this in SLP.

Can we close the LRT down, I mean people are dyin’ out there! I think we’ve shown that we shouldn’t be allowed to have one as we can’t seem to muster the patience to wait for one to drive by.

I did enjoy the local media pile-on last night. The SUV vs. LRT beat out the scandal that is female backyard boxing which, it turns out, may be legal.

[pimp] Today’s Minnesota Stories video is worth a look. The Whitney condo grand opening this weekend got a little more interesting when labor unions staged a demonstration outside. [/pimp]

I have zero sympathy for the jackass in the SUV. I do pity the woman with him, but the driver got exactly what he deserved for ignoring the safety barriers. I don’t care if you’re in an SUV, in train vs. passenger vehicle the train always wins.

At least we don’t have problems like Houston where they seem to have people in SUVs making illegal left turns in front of their trains downtown on a weekly basis. But this isn’t texas, now is it?

What? Female backyard boxing! What females? Whose yard? When?

A lot of people were ticked about the fat cat piece. But here’s the best tidbit in my e-mail on this story: “In the future please choose to cover truly positive pet stories, there are plenty out there involving genuinely cute animals.” Indeed: local TV news needs to work harder at finding positive pet stories. We suck.

And hey– thanks Alexis! I’ve got to meet the legendary Jerry…

Jason, I think I can guess who wrote that email.

Anyone catch Kare11 last night? In addition to the SUV/train collision, they kept showing this fatal car race clip over and over. I was horried.

Here’s a nice look at transportation fatalities by mode from the BTS

cars kill over 40,000 people a year.

It’s good to see that the number of pedestrians being run over has been steadily declining, but ~5,000 is still way too high. Let’s also note how there are only ~300 transit-related deaths every year.

Take the train.

I saw that clip a million times on KSTP. I didn’t stay up to see our newscast last night (late thanks to some awesome NCAA games!)… but it seemed a little gruesome to me.

sorry, here’s the newest report stats, that one is a few years old.

oh and while I’m on a posting rampage, check out how ~3 million people a year are injured in auto accidents.

That’s about 1% of the total US population injured … every year.

I grew up in Indianapolis, and many people there remember the Indy 500 races by not who won or lost, but by the spectacular (and sometimes fatal) crashes. That said, those cars are remarkable pieces of safety engineering — at those speeds, I can’t believe anyone survives, yet they usually do.

Far, far too many teenagers die driving.

RE: Backyard Boxing Brouhaha

I don’t remember what channel it was on, I was just flipping to verify that every station would have someone standing out on Hiawatha going on about the (oh my god!) third accident involving the DeathRT. OK, I made that last bit up. Anyhoo. one of them then cut to blurry footage of two woman whomping eachother in a backyard while a bunch of mouth-breathers looked on. The talking head was going on about this disturbing trend and how it may not be illegal.

Guns don’t kill people, thge LRT kills people.

i love that fat cat. i’m happy to know that she’s healthy.

I’m glad honeybun! I’ve had all I can take of the e-mailers telling me that the owner should be reported for animal abuse. I’ve covered hoarders, abusers, etc. This is just a fat cat. And I’m sorry if it’s politically incorrect, but as a former fat dude… it’s funny to see a 40-pound ball of fur.

Incidentally, I lost about 55 pounds 2-years ago…. more than that entire cat weighs. That’s a gross image. Sorry.

Well, don’t eat the cat.