Mind. Numbing. Horror.

Last night, my dad gave me a call. He got an e-mail from the Twins saying they wanted a huge pro-Twin crowd at the anti-stadium speech. He asked if he swung by to pick me up at 4:45 pm, would I be ready? This is the man who once said if I got into Harvard or Stanford, he'd take an extra job at McDonalds to pay for it. And although he was quite relieved when I chose a much more affordable school, still I owed it to him to put on a Twins cap and go. Even though I knew I was signing up for an evening of pain.

And boy was I ever right. Because meetings tend to be akin to listening to Dankind ramble for four hours. Not just one Dankind, mind you. About 50 of them. And while I am very much for a new stadium, they were speaking on both sides of the issue. Some of the highlights of the evening included:

•A guy who introduced himself as the "Next Governor of Minnesota" singing an anti-stadium version of Take Me Out to the Ball Game and droning on for about 15 minutes on several tangents, none of which had anything the stadium, taxes or anyting worthwhile. While the room was about 50% pro-stadium and 50% against, everyone agreed his chances of actually winning the governor's mansion were about the same as Aaron Gleeman actually landing a date with Jessica Alba.

• A pirate-hat clad Libertarian party leader, who's speech seemed to be entitled "How to make a complete jackass out of yourself and alienate everybody."

• Tony Oliva giving about a 20,000 word pro-stadium oration for the Twins. Though only 20 of the words actually seemed to be in English.

• A Metropolitan State University Economics professor getting called out by a State Representative for teaching at Metropolitian State University. In the representative's defense though, the professor didn't seem to grasp the concept of economics.

• About 50 people who wrongly cited "Taxation without represenatation" as a reason why there needs to be a referendum on a tax measure. Even though "representation" generally means voting for a senator or congressman to make that decision for you.

In the end, the Tax Committee voted that the Twins Stadium tax issue didn't have to be voted on via referendum, in a move that increased the chances of there being a new baseball stadium in Minnesota exponetially.

It was the right move. And I suppose if I had to listen to another four hours of pointless ramblings to increase the chances of their, you know, actually being a Minnesota Twins in 2008, I'd do it again.