With today’s news confirming InBev’s acquistion of Anheuser-Busch St. Louis has lost another business headquarters and one of the defining icons of the city as well. At $70 a share the stockholders will reap a tidy profit but at what cost? As little as a year ago AB was trading at $45 a share which means that had you purchased at that time you would have realized a nearly 60% return on investment today. But is it worth it? InBev has announced that it plans to slash $1.5 billion in operating costs over the next 3 years which probably means that many of St. Louis’s 6000 AB employees will lose their jobs. Efficiency is the name of the game though and this is not the only time this has happened in St. Louis. A look at the recent business history:
A.G. Edwards was acquired by Wachovia which did end up relocating jobs here from Charlotte, NC but many other jobs were slashed.
May Department Stores was acquired by Federated (Macy’s) who eventually shut down operations in St. Louis and took 1700 jobs with them.
TWA was acquired by American Airlines who cut thousands of jobs and plenty of flights. This is the reason you now have a layover in Columbus in order to fly to Denver (an exaggeration but not by much). This one pisses me off the most.
McDonnell-Douglas was acquired by Boeing. This one wasn’t necessarily bad for the city unless you count losing the prestige of a corporate headquarters. Boeing still employs over 15000 employees here and it’s still a place I can routinely threaten to leave my job for.
Recent rumors/minor concerns:
International Bowling Hall of Fame is heading to Arlington, TX is the next year. Now I’ve never been to this place and it’s always gotten ridiculed by visitors to the city but I don’t like to see it go. Especially since it’s leaving to make way for the perpetually delayed Ballpark Village project AKA the St. Louis Cardinals version of suburban living in the city!
St. Louis Rams are going to be sold. Chip Rosenbloom inherited the team after his mother Georgia Frontiere passed away. Rumors persist that the team might be moved back to LA after their lease expires in 2015. A new stadium is probably necessary to keep the team here. Rosenbloom has no interest in running the team as he’s off producing B-movies in LA.
I’ve already written about my disdain for the STLToday.com redesign. Well I still haven’t gotten over it. The geniuses over at the Post have decided to use a combination of Flash, JavaScript, and a kick in the nuts to shove advertisements in your face wherever you look. They are unavoidable. Here’s a brief tour in pictures.
The page loads. In the top left corner of the page seems to be peeled down revealing an ad that screams “Free Gas!” on a neon green background with white dollar signs flying around. The corner appears to be heaving/wheezing/pulsating and distracts you from reading the news.
What happens when you mouseover such an ad? Well of course it peels down to cover the entire freaking screen you’re looking at!
To get rid of this monstrosity you have to wait for the entire thing to peel down then wait for the close button to appear then click it then instead of just going away it has to peel all the way back up. Terrible implementation.
The second ad on the page is even worse. Worse because it’s almost unavoidable. If you scroll the page using the scrollbar you’re safe but if you’re like me and use a scrollwheel mouse or two finger scroll on a Mac you will hit this ad. This ad for Shubert Funiture Two covers the entire width of the page.
What happens when you mouseover it? Of course it covers the entire screen.
Again you must wait for the entire animation to complete loading then find the close button (not an easy task) and click it. I realize this is the “going out of business sale” but get out of my face. This has to be the most obtrusive news site ever created.
How has this effected my reading habits? Well I used to scan every section of the site now I just skim the homepage for as long as I can stand sometimes not even 5 minutes. I would be interested to see how their pageviews have gone down since the redesign. I’m now spending much more time reading The Guardian UK for my news. Shockingly the reporting on US news is better than what we have here in America. I’m also thinking about giving Newsweek a chance and for local news possibly switching to KSDK.com.
Just across the river there’s a lawless tribal region of Metro St. Louis. A place where the bars never close, alcohol is served 24 hours a day, and strip clubs outnumber churches ∞ to zero. That place is Sauget, Illinois.
A friend and I made the trip to this great American city and went to Pop’s to see Cemetery Gatez, a tribute to the greatest groove/power metal band of all time, Pantera.
I never got to see Pantera live when they were still together and ever since Dimebag Darrell was murdered onstage in 2004 I’ve felt like I missed an opportunity to see something special. Dimebag was one of the best heavy guitarists ever so I was excited to see if Cemetery Gatez could pull off this tribute.
The show was intense. The band opened with A New Level and kept the energy up through all the hits including Walk, I’m Broken, This Love, Cemetary Gates, Cowboys From Hell, Fucking Hostile, and Drag the Waters. A large circle pit opened up bringing most of the Pop’s floor into a flurry of legs, elbows, tables, and beer. This wasn’t a dead on tribute however. The vocals did a decent job emulating Phil Anselmo’s growl but the guitar solos weren’t exactly up to Dimebag standard. Cemetery Gatez got the job done however. I was happy to scream along with my favorite jams and ended up having a pretty good time. As I sit here 20 hours later my voice is hoarse and I can still hear ringing in my ears. Maybe I’m getting old quicker than I thought. I will definitely be going to the next show Gatez plays in St. Louis.
The show was opened up by Soul Descenders. Though they all looked like they were 17 these boys could shred. Probably one of the best local bands I’ve heard in awhile. Though I can’t figure out the band name. What exactly does Soul Descenders mean? Shouldn’t the name really be Descending Souls? Well nobody said they were geniuses but they can play.
For those of you uninitiated here is a collection of Dimebag Darrell solos:
Last night I went to see The Kids in the Hall at The Pageant and it was just as good as the TV show. I never saw the show before production stopped in 1995 but when Comedy Central picked it up in syndication in 2001 I used to watch it every day. I would get home from class (probably Accounting or something equally as asinine) and sit from 1-2pm drinking beer and watching KITH in the New Hall dorm at SMS. Ah college was great.
I was worried that the live show wouldn’t live up to the original series’s quirkiness. But it did and more. It was a cross-dressing good time. A few highlights:
The show opened with a video of The Kids planning a new show. For the opening they decide to rape Kevin.
A couple comes over to see a newborn baby but decides the child is pure evil. Quote: “It’s like Auschwitz in swaddling!”
A Buddy Cole sketch in which he proposes that Jesus Christ was a homosexual
Two salesmen promoting a device that can siphon fat from the gut to fuel American SUVs. Quote: “You mean those fat girls we finger-fucked in Texas held the key to the energy crisis?”
Dave invents a time machine which he uses during last call so he can go back in time 3 minutes and drink forever
Kathie and Cathy have lunch and Cathy explains how “tweaking” on meth can help you lose weight
Dave receives a BJ on his B-Day from his wife. Asked if he’s ok with receiving his BJ only once a year he replies, “Oh of course anymore than that and it would cheapen it.” To which his wife replies, “Oh, you’re such a feminist!” Dave then goes back in time about 3 minutes with the aforementioned time machine.
The Chicken Lady having phone sex. Instead of the exploding feathers she shot eggs as she climaxed.
Dave goes back in time (the time machine played an important role in the show) to kill Hitler but then decides he’s not that bad of a guy. He inadvertently creates Hitler’s hatred of the Jews.
Superdrunk! The man who becomes a superhero after getting drunk.
The show closed with The Headcrusher crushing the heads of various audience members then crushing all the Kids (including his own) heads.
This really was a good show. I didn’t even notice I was standing for 2+ hours.
For a special treat here is the newest KITH skit (potentially NSFW unless you work at Quizno’s):
The USDA recommends we consume around 2,000 calories a day. Allowing for slight variations in height/weight and activity level I’m guessing I should be consuming around 2,800 calories a day to maintain the 220 lbs of twisted steel and sex appeal™ I’m currently carrying around. But all this counting calories/carbs/fat/sugar is hard! Especially since I’m fully living the bachelor lifestyle and any expectations of regular fruit or non-fried vegetable consumption are officially nil.
Last week I was at my local Schnucks doing my least favorite chore - grocery shopping - in the only manner I can tolerate: breezing through the aisles not really paying attention to things like the items I’m grabbing or their cost all the while grumbling under my breath at the old people who get in my way. This is a tried and true system. I usually end up with enough food to eat 2 full meals a week, possibly a lunch, and strong enough coffee to raise the dead.
But something happened last week. After performing my usual shopping sprint/geriatric dodgeball session I rolled up to the register and started unloading my haul. I looked down into my cart and realized the sum total of what I’m going to be subsisting on this week: 6 rolls of toilet paper, a gallon of milk, and 6 cans of soup. That’s it! Somehow I’d managed to sleep-shop my way to a week of tomato soup and beef stew. Awesome!
This got me thinking. What if instead of counting calories I counted cans? Imagine that - Well today I had a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew, Green Giant Corn, and 6 Bud Lights. Well that’s less that 10 cans I guess I’m good. Choosing a balanced diet would be so much easier! Not to mention the grocery store adventures could be cut to < 8 minutes. I can't even imagine where this would put my daily sodium intake level.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch underwent a redesign this week and the results are very….underwhelming. Now I’m not a designer (I mean look at the design of this site) but I can tell you what works and what doesn’t. This design does not.
A large city newspaper should look at least semi-professional. I’m not sure what the Post is going for with this one. I guess they wanted to “hip it up” and make it all web 2.0-y. But the teal background (ooh look a gradient!), gigantic hover menu, outsized fonts, and confusing page organization kind of miss the point. Really what should the most important part of this site be? Hmm, maybe the ability to easily find and read the content of the paper?
They’ve somehow decided to cram every possible link they have into the navigation menu. Just look at the size of this thing. Talk about obtrusive.
I have higher hopes for the “#1 St. Louis Website.” I can’t even send a link to my friends in LA, Chicago, or gulp even Springfield without cringing. I know I’ll have to explain yes, this is actually our website. No, I don’t think it looks good either. Yes, St. Louis sucks compared to your city.
With the 2nd pick in the NFL Draft the St. Louis Rams selected DE Chris Long from the University of Virginia. All week it has been reported that the Rams would select either Long or LSU DT Glenn Dorsey. The toughest defense in college football is always played in the SEC and I’ve seen Dorsey dominate punks all year long so I was hoping he would be the pick.
I was mildly disappointed when Long’s name was announced but after watching some video I’m feeling a little better. Long is a big, strong, and athletic end. He is the son of Hall of Famer Howie Long so he has a good pedigree and there’s probably a 60% chance that he’ll rock a sweet flat top at some point.
Glenn Dorsey fell to the Kansas City Chiefs at #5. Dorsey will be a solid NFL pro and the Chiefs are having an exceptional draft so far .
Chris Long will hopefully shore up a porous Rams defense and help the club rebound from an awful 3-13 campaign. Head Coach Scott Linehan’s head will be on the chopping block if they don’t.
75 years ago our long national nightmare finally ended. It was now legal again to sip a beer in public. Prohibition in it’s strictest form ended with the passage of the Cullen-Harrison Act and all kinds of Alcohol were legalized on Dec 5, 1933 with the passage of the 21st Amendment. Imagine that - an amendment to the United States Constitution which banned alcohol! We can thank the buzzkills at the Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union for that skidmark on our Nation’s most important document.
To celebrate our nation’s return to sanity I headed over to the Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood for the Repeal of Prohibition Beer Festival 2008 . For $30 you got a tasting glass and all the samples you could handle from five microbreweries - Schlafly, New Albanian Brewing Co., Mad Anthony Brewing Co., Brugge Brasserie/Wabash Valley, and Three Floyds.
Now as a general rule I operate under the assumption that all microbrews taste like a smelly old boot so I came into this event with no expectations. I figured I’d try a few beers and if nothing moved me I’d stick with the old standby - Schlafly Hefeweizen.
Surprisingly this beerfest delivered! For the first time I tried Schlafly’s Coffee Stout which is just as delicious as it sounds. I felt like I should be eating eggs with this beer. It would be perfect with breakfast! The Irish Stout, Oatmeal Stout, Maplewood Ale, and Summer Kolsch were all outstanding. Schlafly really came through on this one. Sadly there was no Pumpkin Ale - my favorite of the Schlafly seasonals. I guess I’ll just have to wait until September. Fall means football and Pumpkin Beer and that always gives me something to look forward to.
The other breweries, however, disappointed as expected. I honestly think NABC’s goal is to give people alcohol poisoning. Their Imperial Pilsner (8%) was just ass. I managed to choke it down but it gave me flashbacks to the night I went round for round with a case of La Fin Du Monde (9%) which I later realized translates to "The End of the World" and from what I remember - which is nothing - the title is well deserved. Not an experience I would want to repeat. Imperial didn’t stand a chance with me. The Thunderfoot (10%) was equally potent and just as gross. I lost feeling in my tongue after trying this one. I think I’ll steer clear of New Albanian the next time I’m in New Albany, IN.
Mad Anthony’s Black Squirrel Stout, Three Floyd’s Rabbid Rabbit, and Brugge’s Tripel de Ripple all disappointed. Maybe next year Schlafly can just showcase it’s own beers - and put some Pumpkin on tap!
