Why we have mixed feelings about Sven Sundgaard

There are many reasons we have mixed feelings about Kare 11 weatherman Sven Sundgaard. Let's narrow them down to five.

1. Sven is in his mid-20s; we are in our mid-20s. We're still not used to seeing people our age as legitimate contributors to the adult community (we say this despite careers in positions of relative adult authority). How can we trust somebody our own age to tell us what the weather will be like? That's senseless.

2. Sven can't ad lib. Earlier this summer, Kare 11 had an unexpected malfunction (as opposed to an expected malfunction) in their computer system, and the graphics to show the weather failed. We assume that somebody with training in either broadcasting or meteorology would at least be able to TALK about what the weather would be like the next day. No, Sven stood there in utter horror, unable to do anything. He even said, "I don't know what to do right now" before some producer mercifully cut to anchor Mike Pomeranz who did know how to ad lib (because as Jerry tells George, they tend to give those jobs to people who are, you know, in broadcasting).

3. Sven is in a ridiculous commercial. Sven, in all his metrosexual glory, gets ready to go jogging in a tank top, shorts, stylish sunglasses, and immaculate hair styling, as the camera pans around to different parts of his taut muscular body. During this preparation, Sven speaks in a language that I assume is Norwegian, and ends with a "You Betcha." Then he takes off running. We don't know whether to love or hate this commercial. We are not gay men ("Not that there's anything wrong with that"), but if we assume that if we were gay men, we would like this commercial.

4. Despite wanting to dislike him (he reminds us a bit of all the cool kids in high school), we sort of like Sven. He's pleasant to look at, and he brings out the dorky banter and unfunny joking like a regular local TV news personality. But he does this without looking like a typical schmuck in a suit. There doesn't seem to be any reason to name this blog "Sven Sucks," "We Hate Sven," or even "We Dislike Sven." But we also don't see a reason to make a fanboy blog lapping love on Sven.

5. We actually don't care about Sven at all. Not even a little bit. but this is the sort of amusing bit of Twin Cities commentary we can make. You see, we don't like to spend money. If we did, we would read about the restaurants, theaters, and other cultural activities in the local newspapers and magazines (we're regular readers of The Rake and Lavender--after all, they are free magazines), then go spend our money. No, we like to sit around, spending our money on nothing (this also means not spending our money on expensive TV packages--we pay $10.33 a month for cable, thank you very much, and we only pay that to ensure that Viking games will come in clearly). This means that the parts of Twin Cities life we are best suited to comment on are the free activities (St. Paul is filled with nice parks to walk around in), and TV. But a blog about our walks through St. Paul's parks would be pretty dull. So we decided to devote the majority of our commentary to local TV. But we are also hypocrites, so we occasionally shell out a bit of money to go to a cheap restaurant or movie theater (such as Friday, when I ate an entire box of Sugar Babies while watching "Snakes on a Plane").

So far we've got 4 commentators, so pay attention to who is writing each post, since even though we often write in the royal "we," we are separate individuals with divergent opinions.

Enjoy?