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​A major CenterPoint Energy natural gas pipeline exploded into a hellish fireball this morning in South Minneapolis on the street in front of a Cub Foods grocery store.

Firefighters from around Minneapolis and Richfield rushed to the scene of the 8:45 a.m. blast to find flames leaping into the sky from a swimming-pool sized crater. The fire was extinguished at about 10:30 a.m.

Luckily, no one was injured by the blast, though several cars were scorched by the heat and a Cub sign melted.

Slideshow: Fireball erupts in South Minneapolis

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The New York Times tackled the topic of webcams in bars, and the Twin Cities is at the core of the story. Among the central examples is Park Place Sports Bar in St. Paul, who use a local company called Barseenlive to show a live stream of the night's business. 14 bars in the area currently run such webcams.

That sound you heard is hundreds of your neighbors frantically clicking to see if their drunken exploits have been being streamed live from the neighborhood watering hole.

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City Pages art director Nick Vlcek spotted a dozen people patiently waiting outside of the AT&T store near Ridgedale at 10:00 this morning. The trucks should be rolling in around 4:00 this afternoon, delivering the coveted iPhones that will go on sale at AT&T and Apple stores at 6:00 p.m., as well as at apple.com.

Spotted: I-94W, just past the Basilica. The time: 9:00 p.m. on a Sunday night.

A convoy of four spotless, unmarked white passenger shuttles rolls down the middle lane doing 65 mph. The windows are heavily tinted and the sides have no markings. None of the vehicles has front or back plates. There are no temp plates in the windows.

Harmless? Probably. But you couldn't shake the feeling that if you asked the wrong person where those shuttles were going, you'd end up in one of those shuttles going someplace you wouldn't want to go.

Shortly before 5 p.m. on Saturday, pulling into the parking lot of Saigon Restaurant and Bakery, in St. Paul, a black Hummer with vanity tag that reads "PHOKING".

For those of you who consider the KQ morning show to be the leading purveyor of tired, oafish, and bigoted local morning radio (admittedly, competition is a little more crowded on the dial these days), it seems important to note a time when Tom Barnard was slightly less jaded. Okay, way less jaded.

As a June 1986 story from Minneapolis-St. Paul City Business proves, Barnard was once not only a cutting-edge talent, but very nearly a thoughtful one as well.

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Residents of Prospect Park may have noticed a new graffiti popping up in their neighborhood, just in time for the holiday season: "Santa Is Real," scribbled in cursive spray paint, often illuminated with a fanged, flying Santa-monster (which frankly looks more like Batboy than ol' St. Nick).More >>

Walking in downtown Minneapolis today, I encountered two bicycle cops at the intersection of Hennepin Avenue and 5th Street. They seemed to be engaged in casual conversation with a civilian. Everything about the scene was entirely unremarkable. That is, until I glanced over at one of the cop's and noticed that he had affixed a plastic pig head to his handlebars. Chief Dolan, that officer deserves a commendation for humor in the line of duty.

Thursday, 12:15 p.m., at Winner Gas, a service station on West Broadway near Lyndale Avenue North.

An electric-lime-green Hummer with huge spinner rims and Florida plates pulls into the lot and parks next to a pump for fueling.

One excited customer comes into the store and asks no one in particular, "Hey, man, you wanna get an autograph?"

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A thousand-dollar pickup stops in the middle of the street outside 22nd Avenue Station, Nordeast's neighborhood strip club. The woman in the driver's seat rolls down her window and hollers toward an older lady in a Subaru.

"Are there any churches around here?"

Subaru must be baffled. Is the woman with the sloppy Sunday pony-tail looking for a Ukranian Catholic or a Polish National Catholic church? Maronite or Greek Orthodox? Because you can find all of them, and a dozen others, within 10-odd blocks.

The woman in the red pickup elaborates, then. "My boyfriend just hit me," she says. She turns her head and points to her right eye. "I want a church."

God help her. And if that doesn't work, there happen to be a couple of bars in the neighborhood, too. Her boyfriend may be familiar with a few of them.