midwest refugee

Homebrew bill signed into law

MADISON, Wis. - Homebrew legislation was signed into state law on Monday, updating current laws regulating the home brewing of fermented malt beverages. The bill allows people who homebrew as a hobby to make and share their homebrew outside of their homes and to hold tasting events and competitions.

“This is common sense legislation that will allow home brewers to continue to pursue a hobby that has been around for decades,” Rep. Dan Kaufert (R-Neenah) said. “The bill will simply allow home brewers to share their homebrew with friends, family members, and club members.”

In other news, raw milk and marijuana are still illegal in the state of Wisconsin.

Madison, Wis.—A man who legally changed his name to Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop was arrested earlier this month for drinking in public and now faces gun and drug charges on top of that.

This is real, people.

Police say that Zopittybop-Bop-Bop, 30, was on parole for carrying a concealed handgun when they found him. He also had drug paraphernalia on his person.

Zopittybop-Bop-Bop faces new charges of carrying a concealed weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of marijuana and a probation violation, according to police.

Mifflin Street party gets drunk, stabby

Congratulations, Wisconsin. You’ve out-drank yourselves again.

This year Madison’s Mifflin Street Block Party was apparently the craziest its ever been. Which is quite the accomplishment, considering Mifflin is like the drinking Olympics. Drunks far and wide, from Cincinnati to St. Cloud, practice all year round and then amass in Madison at the end of the school year, day-drinking until their balls fall off.

And this year more than ever! Suffice it to say, some people were not pleased.

A very disenchanted Mayor Paul Soglin said Saturday an “extraordinarily” high number of people were taken to detox after boozing it up at the block party. Twenty people, to be exact, compared with five last year.

“This is unacceptable,” he huffed after walking through the crowded block party Saturday afternoon. “The city has no business sponsoring an event where the primary activity is drinking.”

Insert upbeat banter: Oh man, look at Wisconsin, drunk again! Ha-ha, typical Wisconsin! Am I right?

But I wouldn’t be right.

Because once the sun began to go down, things at the block party started to get a little dark when later on there were two stabbings. Yeah. Mifflin apparently went just a little bit psycho in its drunken stupor Saturday evening because, you know, like I said, two people got stabbed.

Rose Bowl 2011: Wisconsin Vs. Texas Cornfed Christian University

Go Bucky, obviously.

Milwaukee, Madison make Top 10 U.S. Cities For Live Rock Music in 2010

Wisconsin — Apparently Milwaukee and Madison are two of the best cities in the country to see live rock music. According to website songkick.com.

Milwaukee came in at no. 6 on the list, and Madison came in second place only to, wait for it, Austin, TX!

Other cities mentioned include New Orleans, Vegas, Denver, the Twin Cities, Seattle, Portland, and Nashville.

In your face, every city on the East Coast.

Wisconsin Badger Herald Calls Out Student Scalpers

A student paper in Madison, Wis. publicly humiliated a handful of students who were scalping their Rose Bowl tickets for profit earlier this week. They called them out in order to make an example and discourage other students from doing the same.

But I’m not quite as surprised as the rest of the nation is. It’s fucking Madison - WISCONSIN - the Badgers. Badgers football is the pride and joy of Wisconsin’s college sports teams. Of course the locals were pissed!

Here’s an excerpt of the article , in case you can’t read the fine print above:

Truly, there is a special place in Hell for people who buy Rose Bowl tickets with the sole intention of profiting from them. It is entirely unfair to those who actually love this football team and were counting on a cheap face value ticket in order to make the trip to Pasadena an economic reality.

Daaaang!

Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from growing up in Wisconsin, it’s that you don’t come between a Wisconsinite and his or her football.

Case and point.

And you know what? I agree. Scalpers who buy tickets for the sole intent of turning a profit are like one step up from…I dunno, Al Qaeda? Seriously, I think it goes Al Qaeda, ticket scalpers, Hitler, and then those cops who write out parking tickets, followed by Dallas Cowboys fans, and so on.

I look forward to your emails, Cowboys fans.

But seriously - who do you think was more in the wrong here? The student scalpers for being dicks, or the newspaper for calling them out on it?

Three UW-Madison students have seemingly kick-ass kegger, are fined $86K by local police

Madison, Wis. — Three students racked up $83,000 in fines earlier this month after throwing a huge barrel party at their house, according to reports.

Granted, the boys were selling and encouraging underage drinking without a liquor license, but still.

This is what students in Wisconsin do best - get shit-canned wasted at barrel parties until they puke on their shoes, or off a balcony or something.

I mean, come ON. Have these cops been to Madison before?

Let me rephrase that: Are these officers of the law even American??

And moreover, are they Americans with a firm understanding of the drinking culture that proudly thrives in and around U.S. public universities nationwide???

It’s called having fun and drinking beer - you do it in college.

Sure, hand out a few underage drinking tickets - okay. But $83,000 in fines to some 20-year-olds?

Really?

I can’t even imagine what that hangover felt like.

“I am promising you Wisconsin, change is going to come…You can’t lose hope.”

— President Obama, addressing a crowd on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus on September 28, 2010.

MADISON — The Wisconsin DNR says it now has more evidence that four cougars have come through the state in the last couple of years.

I didn’t know the SATC ladies were in Wisco! How faaabulous.

MADISON, Wis. — Ismael Ozanne has been appointed the newest Dane County, Wisconsin District Attorney. He is also the first African-American to hold the position in any county in Wisconsin.

Geez, what is this, the year 1975? Did it seriously take this long for Wisconsin to get a black D.A.?? I mean, even Alabama had a black D.A. in the ’70s, right?

Well, better late than never I suppose.

See this photo right here? Looks exhilarating, doesn’t it?

Yeah, I guess.

Now, let’s picture something slightly different. This time, nstead of a taut safety net set as pictured above, try and visualize the safety net instead resting only two inches above the ground. Yeah. Only two inches.

And that’s where today’s news story begins.

Teagan Marti of Florida, fell at least 40 feet to the ground after a safety net on the Terminal Velocity ride at Extreme World failed to break her fall.

OK OUCH. That’s fucked up.

She was in critical condition Saturday evening at American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison.

Seriously, how is, say, the American Eagle wooden roller coaster at Great America in Gurnee, IL still totally fine and running, but this sketchy “controlled” free-fall ride made by some German company like five minutes ago putting people in the ICU??

Scares the bejeezus out of me I’ll tell you what.

And as an afterthought, what kind of person’s idea of fun is jumping off a structure over 40 feet high only to supposedly be caught at the very last minute by a net? I can honestly tell you that I would never in a million years be caught dead on any sort of free-fall ride. No thanks. I cried after Giant Drop at Great America once. I was eighteen years old. I’m not ashamed.

That shit is for the suicidal, honestly.

Hey - does anybody else remember when UW-Madison photoshopped that black kid (on the far left-hand side) in to the cover of their undergrad application packet or whatever it was that was sent out to all high school seniors graduating in 2001? Just so they could seem diverse? And then they got busted?

That was silly.

Does it kind of look like Bucky Badger is about to slap a bitch?

fiorizanul

stattoos:

Wisconsin tattoo by smutandeggs

Your crazy Midwestern tattoo of the day is actually quite adorable today…