Segmented concrete box-girder construction!

I'll explain, in a bit.

Saturday afternoon I pull up in front of the Edina Municipal Liquor Store, aka the State Victory Gin Dispensary, and there are two squad cars and two sheepish-looking individuals sitting on the curb, giving each other rueful grins. Inside the store I asked the cashier: so, someone try to knock over the place, or just boost some spirits?

“I wouldn’t know,” he said.

Oh, come on. I could accept almost any possible explanation, from “can’t say,” or “just got on duty, myself,” or “mind your business, citizen,” but “I wouldn’t know” seems like a rather obvious lie. I have no idea if a crime was committed here, and the presence of two squad cars with flashing lights outside the plate glass window by which we stand comes as much of a puzzlement to me as it does to you.  It would be insulting if you were in the mood to be insulted, but I wasn’t. It was too nice a day. Or had been, when I went inside the store; when I came back out, minutes later, it was raining. On my freshly-washed car. But it was still a good day. Saturday Errands are a chore sometimes, but I was in full provisioning mood – stock up on dry foods for the coming panic, and whistle while you work! Exchanged Natalie’s costume at Target; the lady behind the desk held it up and said “She didn’t want to be a devil?” Picture Marge from “Monsters Inc” for the full effect.

“I don’t want her to be a devil, but I don’t have any say in the matter. It’s too small.”

I got a bigger devil costume – there was another style with a saucy hemline hiked up on one leg, which was marketed at 6-10 years old. Comes with a fake contraceptive patch, probably. From the “Do-be” stage to “Do-me” in about two years, to use an old Romper Room term.

At the grocery store I encountered the most oddly named cereal yet:

I understand the tie-in, but at least call it High School Music Frosted Twinks or Thespi-Ohs, or something.

Most uninspired store-brand Chex knock-off, ever:

It did replace the unpopular Mealy Heptagons, so I’ll give it that.

Off to the hardware store to exchange two globe light bulbs for different wattages. I didn’t have the receipt, but said I’d put it on my card. The clerk pointed wordlessly – the Ghost of Christmas Future had more animation and dialogue than this one – at a giant machine by the door, which we will call the Receipt-O-Matic. It was about the size of three refrigerators; you put your card in the slot, selected your last transaction, and it would print out a slip of paper for you to walk over to the clerk. I understand that it was probably easier than redoing their POS computer system, but still. She scanned the barcode – and I’m constantly amazed that we never run out of variations on barcodes – and that was that. Not a word was spoken. The check-out clerk was chattier, although dead frog guts stuck in the tread of a semi would be chattier; she was small, frail and slightly palsied, and full of cheer. She’d been an hour late to work, she explained, because of the freeway. I’d noted the problem while driving west;  eastbound  494 was stopped dead solid for mile after mile. She told me why: they’d closed the entire freeway for some bridge construction. Everything was being funneled off onto one ramp, which had a stoplight on the top. Oy. The manager was an hour late too, she said with a smile of relief. She moved very slowly while she bagged the items, as if she was bagging glass balls.

Then I realized that she was bagging glass balls, specifically, my 100-watt globes.

Other than that? The usual. Then again, that was the usual. Spent a few hours on Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 – and yes, I will give you the chance to see what I’ve been doing. There are some real RCT artists out there, and I’m not one of them, but I do have a flair for infrastructure. Others have a flair for mayhem; one of these days I’ll give this a try:

It was unusually warm; everything is still mostly green, or wearing the colors it prefers. The dog couldn't care less:

Hey! Over there! To your left! Beauty! Eh. Been there, smelled it, lifted the leg.

New today: a feature that helps you feel vastly superior to the popular culture of another era. A Mono era. A treacly saccharine era. Ho, how far we've come, how much we know! Nothing to learn from these joes.

Anyway, it's this:

We'll start with a sweet little song that peaked at #216. I have the top 300 for the year, so we'll run out of time before we run out of songs. But isn't that always the case.

New Match; see you at buzz.mn. If you're wondering about the Screed I alluded to on Twitter, well, it's a monster, and needs to cook. Turns out to be book-length in subject, and it needs time. Also, I have a headache. Have a grand day - and DON'T FORGET, new video at startribune.com at noon. We tour the giant Crosstown Highway reconstruction project. Segmented concrete box-girder construction!