Environmentalism + Christianity

Here's a link to my friend Patrick's project on environmentalism and Christianity!

Mizzou Wiki

something I'll miss about Columbia: guy friends who dance at parties

Blacktrick from Adventure Week:

Travel to St. Louis!

This is for my friends Jeff and Patrick, who (hopefully) will be returning the favor and coming to visit the Gateway to the West soon. Since St. Louis is pretty spread out and favors the over-21 set, our options are limited, yet exciting. I'm going to give as comprehensive of a list (St. Louisans please add on) as I can for them for them to choose from when they come to visit:

The Obvious:
- the Arch (w/ ride to the top)
- Cardinals game (schedule)
- Ted Drewes Frozen Custard (menu)
- The City Museum (crucial)
- Westminster Christian Academy

Neighborhoods:
- the Hill (Italian neighborhood) (restaurants)
- East St. Louis (guided tour)
- North County (guided tour)
- The Loop (shopping/bars)
- Central West End (shopping/bars)
- Laclede's Landing (mostly bars, some restaurants - kind of seedy)
- South Grand (shopping/restaurants)
- Downtown walkabout
- the Fox/Moolah theater area (SLU)?

Restaurants not by anything else:
- Carl's Drive-In (not actually a drive-in, just a tiny diner kind of like Town Topic in KC) (City of Manchester)
- Crown Candy (for the milkshakes) (Old North St. Louis)

Forest Park:
- St. Louis Art Museum (free)
- STL Zoo (free)
- general running around (map)

Places I've never been:
- St. Louis Contemporary Art Museum

Other necessities:
- riding on the Metrolink
-

(all images - STL Style)

"I'm going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come": brief review of Kansas City and Lawrence, KS

emmy, patrick, and I in front of the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum

So, being lame, I went to Kansas City for my last spring break of my college career. I had the lowest expectations possible for any city on planet earth. I have been raised in St. Louis, and so have been raised with the lowest of views of Kansas City. They are smaller than us (metro area: 1.9 million vs. our 2.8 million), have a crappier airport than us, do not have Forest Park, do not have the Cardinals, do not have the City Museum, do not have our history (Gateway of the West, Lewis and Clark, etc.), and generally suffer from an inferiority complex that is pitiful.

However (and this pains me greatly to say this), after this spring break I think Kansas City is better than St. Louis. While St. Louis has very cool parts of town, they are all 20-minutes away from each other. St. Louis is very fragmented, each county harboring a suspicion of all the other counties. Never will I give up on St. Louis, but KC's downtown and midtown are in far better states than St. Louis' right now. Their Power and Light District that is being built looks super-cool, they have more gay people, more art events, more hipster kids (how I love those hipster kids), and as sad as their Royals are they still love them, which is cute.

It is almost as if the ego of St. Louis is standing in its own way. As I'm looking forward to moving to the great city on May 18th (maybe for good), I am trying to figure out exactly what St. Louis' problem(s) is/are.

One problem is the stubbornness/corruption of the city politicians. They don't like change. (as can be seen in this article about the Metrolink).

Another problem I want to find out more about is how the city is split up, tax-wise. Somehow, the tax money from the counties does not reach downtown. Why? This adds to the cultural/geographical/psychological fragmentation of the city. We are a house divided and we don't let our kids go downtown.

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Also, another blow to my city-love ego came when I found out that Lawrence (home of the hated Kansas University) has an Urban Outfitters downtown and is generally cooler than Columbia. Go ahead and stab me in the heart.

Anime Conference of St. Louis

Practically the only character I recognized, Princess Peach in all his glory.

My friends Shannnon (as Cloud from Final Fantasy on the left) and Shaun (Zak from something, on the right)

No idea - help, Patrick?

the lobby of the hotel, shock.

So I went to the Anime conference in St. Louis this past weekend for a bit, to see my friends Shannon and Shaun, who were in town for it. It was stunning. Subcultures fascinate me, especially high-school ones. Every high school I've been involved with or been around has had a group of Anime-enthusiasts, and I want to learn more about it. Here's what I learned from this weekend:

- the sense of community at these things is huge, people yell out the name of the character you cosplayed as and hug you.
- 'Anime' is kind of an umbrella term that includes Star Wars, gaming of all types (there was a Guitar Hero battle room), 'goth' culture, and everything Japanese.
- Shannon told me that the age demographic for Anime conventions has shifted dramatically down in the last decade, from people in their 30s and up to now mostly high school.
- This subculture is mostly caucasian.

Viral Marketing

Warner Bros., who is releasing the new Batman movie, sent their marketing team to Mizzou last Thursday for a little viral marketing. Patrick told us all about this. Basically, instead of the production company spending a lot of money on TV ads that people ignore, they send a van with free t-shirts and a couple charismatic 20-somethings to a college campus and let the college students do the rest of the work.

Viral Marketing (by my definition) is when a company does one major act that startles people into talking about the company or what the company is promoting (like a movie). So we end up doing all the work for them (yes - like blogging about it. Sorry) Wikipedia: 'Viral Marketing'

So, this is what happened. Allie and Jake were in town from St. Louis because Jake is going to go to Mizzou next year. So we were taking him around campus, showing him stuff, etc. We met up with Patrick and he told us about viral marketing and that the van promoting the new Batman movie was outside of Memorial. So, like the pawns we were, we went and saw what was going on. Jenna was there too.

The people with Warner Bros. (who wouldn't tell us that they were from Warner Bros.) told us that if we stood outside their van with posters saying "I Believe in Harvey Dent" for 20 min. we would get free t-shirts. Yes, we are that easy.

I felt like I was in a cult, I got all excited about Harvey Dent and started making up cheers and marching around Lowry Mall with everyone and encouraging everyone that Harvey Dent really was the one who was going to turn around Gotham, etc.

So there were all these Mizzou Facilities trucks driving by all the time and I told Jake (the high school senior) that it would be funny if he ran up to one and slapped a bumper sticker onto the bumper while it was driving by. So he did. AND THEN A BIKE COP CAME OUT OF NOWHERE and came up to Jake and said "I'll give you two options, either you chase down that truck and take the sticker off or I charge you with vandalism." Poor Jake.

So Jake borrows Jenna's bike and takes off after this truck (down a road in a campus he's never been to before) and the bike cop follows him. After about 10 minutes of waiting and laughing we start walking in the direction that Jake went and can't find him anywhere. Eventually we see Jake riding triumphantly down Hitt St. with a crumpled bumper sticker in his raised high-schooler fist.

We saw the same van later on that night out in front of the Methodist church downtown and finally realized how obnoxious we had been. Another table at Shakespeare's pizza were making comments about how all of the Harvey Dent people should be demonstrating for something that actually matters instead of the Gotham DA who would become Two-Face. It's true.

Brief Senior Tour Update

(columbiamissourian.com)

MU Basketball Game - finally went to one. It was kind of sad because Mizzou isn't that great this season. It was literally the last home game of the season - my last chance. Patrick went with me (after 1.5 hours of convincing). We only stayed for about 45 min, and found out later that Mizzou beat Iowa State in two over times. Dang it.

Universal Thrift: kind of like a garage sale in a building (I know that's what most thrift stores are like, but this seemed crappier). Mostly home furnishing stuff. Did not meet expectations.

CJ's Hot Wings: absolutely wonderful. Went with Julie and Stacey. Really really good food and quite cheap. You know you're in the right restaurant when construction workers come in for dinner after work. They know.

Added to the list:
- Go to Mojo's (club/venue)
- Go to the Mizzou Observatory