There are 425 different bird species that live in Creve Coeur Park, a 2,145 acre park that contains a 325 acre lake and a large wetlands area and is home to countless other animals. It’s a peaceful place where area residents can come to escape the strip mall that is Creve Coeur and instead look at a bird or two while contemplating the beauty of nature…but f*ck all that sh*t! Lets put a zip line up in that bitch!

Brushing aside vociferous opposition, the St. Louis County Council on Tuesday approved a treetop adventure course that naturalists fear will jeopardize birds populating a migratory habitat in Creve Coeur Park.

Critics blasted the council for expediting the measure without public input, not conducting an environmental impact study, shattering the tranquility of the upper park and permitting a private corporation to profit from taxpayer-supported property.

But at least the tax payers of Creve Coeur were all for the change right?

Of the 16 residents addressing the council Tuesday night, only one spoke in favor of lining a 7- to 10-acre canopy of trees in the park’s upper forest with cables, swinging bridges and ropes.

“I’ve heard from quite a few supporters through email and phone calls,” Burkett said. “They are just not as publicly vocal about (the issue) as the opponents.”

Ah…well…whatever stupid hippies, with your weird signs and arguments so horrible they are barely discernible from bong water gurgling! So what that all of this stuff is being crammed on to a public-owned piece of property and the county is only estimated to make, despite an adult ticket costing $55, a measly $100,000 a year (Seriously, that’s all they plan to make on this?!) but allowing a private company to generate a tidy profit? What are you, a terrorist?! Zip line! Helmets! Fat guys in tank tops that explain the rules a little too quickly! Those strappy harnesses that make your junk bulge out really far! *air horn blast*

Asked if he was concerned that noise and commotion of a zip line and obstacle course would ruin the park as a destination for residents seeking peace and quiet in nature, [County Executive Charlie] Dooley said, “We already have the speed (boat) races (on Creve Coeur Lake) — you could say the same thing for that.”

Damn straight! All this talk of zip lines and speed boat races is giving us such a raging America boner those birds are lucky we don’t march down there and kick all 425 individual species’ asses! Lets do this up all the way and spray paint the tops of the trees yellow so from space it looks like a giant yellow car ribbon magnet! We can even rename the whole thing “Alan Jackson Rules Park”! It won’t make the county much more money, but who has time to think about this with all the supportive emails and awesome blasting in your head?! Not the people in charge of Creve Coeur, that’s who. Goddamned American heroes.

…oh and it should be said that zip lines are, in reality, pretty freaking lame. This clip sums it up.

via STLToday

Another man was gunned down at a MetroLink station last Friday, but lets not focus on that says a MetroLink spokesman, lets focus on all the times people don’t die! Pay no attention to the woefully inadequate security guard, security is fine!

Metro officials say they spend millions each year on security, with dispatchers monitoring all 37 platforms all day and night.

Quoting how much you spend each year isn’t a good defense to the argument that security sucks…it just proves you wasted a lot of money during the suckage.

“Sometimes our dispatchers will see something on the platform that looks suspicious,” said Richard Zott, head of Metro security. “So they’ll call it out to the platform guy saying, ‘Hey, there’s a suspicious individual — go check him out.’”

“I mean, the guy he just stabbed is still gonna die, but the important thing is that we saw it with a grainy still frame and we sent the old woman security guard, armed with a flash light and whistle, out to go take a look.”

“If someone commits a crime, we can zoom in, get a still photograph and pass that out,” Zott said.

“…again, none of this is actually preventing the crime, but you should see our scrapbook!”

MetroLink is what it is. It doesn’t run late enough to use while going out, it doesn’t go to enough places, and no matter what the stats do or don’t say, it’s hard to describe your situation as “safe” while riding it…but if where you want to go is near a station and it’s during the day, it’s a nice solution. To pretend it’s anything else is just living with your head in the sand, but this story doesn’t change that. What’s interesting is that they are spending “millions” on securing just 37 platforms, and that their own spokesman thinks that the best time to announce that their security is “adequate” is just three days after a murder on a MetroLink platform.

You know what’s not interesting? If you mix orange soda with root beer, it will taste like shit but you could call it something fun like “A Carrot” because it’s an orange root.

via KMOV

Nearly a month ago we told you how Bridgeton, Missouri stinks. Like for realz stinks. It still stinks today, but at least area residents can metaphorically breathe easy after officials from the Department of Natural Resources released a statement saying that the stink wasn’t life threatening, but also confirmed that “the city who smelt it, probably dealt it.”

On Friday, the Department of Natural Resources quietly released a brief summary of air sampling results on its website.

Air samples were taken on Feb. 2 and Feb. 4 at locations around the landfill and in nearby residential areas.

Samples analyzed by the Department of Health and Human Services for volatile organic compounds, hydrogen sulfide, aldehydes and other gases and compounds. In both cases, the department concluded that “concentrations did not exceed a level of concern for public health.”

Hey, alright! Nothing to worry about then…other than the horrible stench of burning trash engulfing the home you invested your life savings in. We’re sure it’s just part of the price to live in the area that contains some of the airport, and a huge landfill, while being St. Charles casino and Mills Mall adjacent. Sweet living! Totally worth it!

“We don’t want this to be a one-time deal to shut everybody up,” [Kathleen Logan Smith, environmental policy director for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment,] said. “We want to make sure their testing is ongoing and has some integrity.”

They’re willing to go the distance on this further testing, which could include one or more of the following:

1. An intern instructed to drive out to Bridgeton every day with his windows open to confirm the current stink levels.

2. Seeing about putting out the trash fire.

3. Telling everyone #3 is impossible, because it sounds really gross to actually go and check in to.

4. Checking with Costco to see if there’s a way to order a Bridgeton-sized Stick-Up air freshener. A public vote will be held this November to decide between two scents: “Waterfall Breeze” (D) and “Some Kind of Indiscernible Citrus” (R).

5. Just keep telling everyone we’re working on it until people get used to the smell.

via STLToday

No one would have thought a “casual” date request on Craigslist could go so wrong, but here we are. Hell must have frozen over at this point, or maybe Lindsay Lohan finally told someone “No, I don’t think it will fit in there,” because if a Craigslist arranged date has gone awry the world is clearly on it’s head.

You picking up the sarcasm?

Good.

[A] man told St. Peters Police he placed an ad on Craigslist for a casual date that entailed dinner and a movie.

…and just a dinner and a movie right? Nothing else? You were definitely trying to keep this encounter of the casual persuasion we assume.

Christina Marie Gable, 30, of Winfield, responded to the ad. The man drove to Winfield to pick her up and took her back to his home in the 400 block of Lantana Lane West.

A 60 minute round-trip drive for dinner and a movie?  Chivalry is certainly not dead in St. Peters! (Note: Chivalry is actually dead on the East side. She used to strip over at PT’s.)

Gable began drinking vodka heavily and then told him wanted she wanted him to pay her $1,000 for sex. The man said he refused to pay for sex and offered to take her home.

Woah woah woah! I thought this was the kind of date where I come pick you up at your house, bring you to my place to watch Top Gun on VHS and then we see what happens, but now you want me to pay?!

Gable then threatened his life several times and began hitting, scratching and biting him, according to the police report.

The St. Peters police officer reported Gable was intoxicated when he arrived and was speaking incoherently. The officer said she spit on him through the cage bars in the squad car seven to 10 times.

Don’t worry about your bum Craigslist date bro. Turns out she was a spitter anyway.

via St. Peters Patch and our tipser

Each year we like to scour YouTube and find the best uploads of drunkenness because we know you kids love the social media these days (“social media” is a fancy term for sexting and comparing who go the most wasted without having to be in the same room. We live in the future!).

#5 – Guy Falls During Parade (by mdfoley75)

We’re guessing that this guy wasn’t even drunk, which is why it’s at #5…but we’re totally sure it’s funny, so it made the list.

#4 – The Drunken Mardi Gras Montage (by Naylor217)

We dislike the YouTube montage because people generally don’t cut down the clips enough and they tend to drag on way too long. This one doesn’t stray from that mold, but it’s still has some funny parts.

#3 – Where the Drunk Guy Punches Cop in the Face! (by leaknews1)

Here’s how it goes down: While arresting someone, the cops get a bottle thrown at them. They figure out who it was (little guy in red hat) and when they start talking to him little red hat guy starts throwing punches! You gotta admire his spunk…in that you can’t wait to watch him get beat down.

#2 – The video with two girls dancing that YouTube Removed

We watched it and it wasn’t hot enough to be removed. It was worth a #2 while it was up though.

#1 – The Mardi Gras Dance Off! (by 314ramsey)

Who seems the most drunk: The two doing a dance off in the middle of Mardi Gras? Or the guy filming the whole thing sideways?

We’ll never know.

On Friday we spread the link of our two year old pre-Mardi Gras coverage entitled: “Dos and Don’ts for you Mardi Gras Weekend” It’s a classic, which is kinda why we stopped covering Mardi Gras, but this year we slipped up. While we thought somethings were obvious, we should have added a new “Don’t”. Specifically: “Don’t: Point Your Gun at Police Officers.”

“I was never scared, but I was just shocked that I had just seen that, with as many shots and as much blood as there was,” he said. “At that time of day in that part of Soulard in the middle of Mardi Gras, that was the last thing I thought I was going to see.”

Police said the uniformed officers were working part-time jobs for Mardi Gras Inc. and responded to a report of gunfire about 2:30 p.m. near Ninth and Barton streets, just south of the main Mardi Gras activity.

Otis Roberson, 32, was brandishing a weapon in a crowded Soulard when two off duty police officers who were working security for Mardi Gras Inc (Yes, everything you love has a secret “inc” behind it. Such is the world today.), rode up on a golf cart and ordered Roberson to drop the weapon. When he instead pointed it at them, they fired bringing him down. Robinson later died at the hospital.

No word on Roberson’s intoxication level that we’ve been able to find, but STLToday is reporting that he did get off three rounds before the cops took him down. Pretty scary, and here you were thinking that the worst thing a fellow drunk could hit you with was a stream of urine or a beer bottle. You thought wrong! This is St. Louis!

Don’t worry though, because the guy that does PR for the people that run Mardi Gras Inc said it’s cool. Just keep drinking and everything will be fine.

Mack Bradley, a spokesman for Mardi Gras Inc. that runs the Soulard festival, said Saturday’s shooting may be the first such incident in the history of the event.

That kinda depends on where you draw that borders of “the event”.

He said he thinks the fact that most people who attended had fun and went home safely demonstrates that Soulard’s Mardi Gras is a largely safe celebration.

By that standard every day is a great day in St. Louis because, unless 500,000 people died that day, most people got home just fine. Also people must really overrate the violence in World War II, because we’re all here right? So that means most of the people survived that too! “The Greatest Generation” my ass, right Mack? That guy…that guy right there, the one simultaneously puking and peeing after drunkenly throwing a rock through that building’s window…he’s the real hero. He sorta survived Mardi Gras.

via STLToday

photo via KMOV