Here in Minnesota, we relish the cold weather. We love the cold, the snow, the ice, cross country skiing, outdoor hockey and football. We’re Norwegians mostly, so we didn’t find the accents in Fargo, the movie, all that strange to be honest witcha. You betcha.

Anyway, we are having the world’s largest ice fishing contest (is there another one?) on one of the lakes ‘up north’ of Minneapolis.

Get this, sponsors of the event expect 150,000 people to be out on the Lake. That was not a typo…150 thousand. It’s as if the entire city of Des Moines, man-woman-child, came up, drilled a 24-inch deep hole in the ice, and started fishing.

There will be beer drinking.

Ed. note: 1/23/09: Weather report says Minus 10 for Brainerd, MN, tomorrow. Not counting wind chill. I know what you are thinking: Is this yet another sign that Darwin was right? Yep.