The Minnesota Fringe Festival opens on July 30, running until August 9, showing hundreds of plays, improv, musicals, dance and other performance art shows at theaters in Minneapolis.

The Minnesota Fringe Festival is the Midwest’s largest performing arts festival, and is the largest nonjuried, uncensored Fringe in the United States. Artists apply to perform at the festival, the available spaces are filled by a lottery, and it's left up to the artists to put on their best show and to the audience to judge the performances.

Fringe tickets are $12 per show, with discounts for students, seniors, children, and for buying more than five tickets. Or, see unlimited shows with the $150 Ultra Pass.

Get a preview of what will be playing at the festival with the Fringey Awards, a collection of 60-second trailers and teasers for performances in the festival. Vote for up to three of your favorites, and the most popular will win $500 for its creator.

I first heard this local indie rock band late this winter. A couple of months ago, after a raucous day of snowboarding, I tromped to the parking lot, threw my board in the trunk, sat in the car to pull my boots off, turned on the radio, and The Current was playing the Idle Hands' then-latest track, Loaded. The perfect music.

The Idle Hands have been steadily gathering buzz all year. The Secretary, the follow up to Loaded, has been invading the Current's playlists in recent weeks.

It has a lot to do with their live shows. The Idle Hands rocked First Avenue at the South by Southwest Sendoff in March, impressed at SXSW itself, headlined to a packed 331 Club in April, drew crowds to a solo show at Art-A-Whirl in May, and answered the inevitable question - what about the album? - by mesmerizing the Kitty Cat Klub for their CD release party in June.

The five band members, two Irish, three Minnesotan, behave like true headliners. Their confident performances are from a group that knows they are making the music the crowd wants right now. Those people who stand in the first rows and spend the show taking pictures with their iPhone? They put them back in their pockets and dance.

The lead singer is one of those tall skinny indie heartthrobs who sings aksant into the mike in pure britpop style, but the guitars and the drums are pure indie rock. Loaded, their standout track, is simple, catchy and dancable but who needs complicated when you just want to rock out? The Secretary is intense guitars and wailing vocals reminiscent of 1990s British rockers Suede, mixed with the swagger of early Oasis, and dressed in better clothes.

The Idle Hands new album, The Hearts We Broke on the Way to the Show, is out now. The CD is available at the Electric Fetus, Cheapo Discs and local independent record stores.

See them live if you can: right now they are one of Minneapolis' hottest talents - you'll either catch a band at the height of their powers, or one of the early shows of a group that goes on to much bigger things.

The Idle Hands' next show is at Barbette's Bastille Day celebrations on Sunday July 12.

The Bryn Mawr Soap Store, an all-natural soap company, have teamed up with the Summit Brewing Company, to make, you've guessed it, beer soap. The locally-produced, handmade, animal-friendly soap contains hops and Summit Extra Pale Ale, and retails for $2.95 a bar at the Summit Brewing Store. Bryn Mawr's more conventional soaps can be found at just about every co-op in the Twin Cities.

Other local soap company news: Don't let it be said that the Olive Branch Soap Company from Bloomington doesn't have a sense of humor. While looking for a local soap that was more unusual than beer, I discovered that Olive Branch sells Dragon's Blood, Minnehaha Creek, Monkey Farts, and Walleye soap. None contain any of the advertised ingredients, most disappointingly the Walleye soap, which doesn't include any fish, but does have a liquorish scent that works wonders on anglers' smelly hands and supposedly actually attracts fish. Olive Branch Soap can be found at the Minneapolis Farmer's Market, and online.

Just about every city in the Metro Area requires dogs to be leashed when not fenced into a yard. So where can you take your dog to run off leash in the Twin Cities?

There are almost 30 official dog parks in the Twin Cities metro area for Fido to run free in a fenced area.

Minneapolis has five dog parks in the city. Dog owners have to pay an annual fee for their dogs to use the dog park, $35 for the first dog and $25 for each additional dog, higher fees apply to non-Minneapolis residents. Dogs also have to be licenced.

St. Paul has one dog park, the Arlington/Arkwright park. The parks is free to use but dogs must be licensed.

Here's a map of other dog parks in the Twin Cities metro area.

New Belgium, the bicycle loving brewery, brings the Tour de Fat to Minneapolis on July 18. It takes it's name from the Tour de France and New Belgium's Fat Tire beer, but this event doesn't have any races. Instead there will be a bike parade at 10 a.m., followed by entertainment from Mucca Pazza, Sean Hayes, the Squirm Burpee Circus, the Daredevil Chicken Club and the Sprockettes. The lineup has comedy, music, marching bands, dancers, circus, vaudeville and cabaret, and some are inspired by, or performed with, bicycles.

Fat Tire beer will be for sale at the event, of course, and one person will win a sweet new commuter bike. The catch? To get the bike, the winner has to give away their car. The car will be given to a non-profit, and to be eligible to win, first tell New Belgium why you want to trade your bike for a car.

The event is free, although donations are invited, which will go to local bicycle-related non-profit organizations, off road cycling advocates MORC/MOCA, and the Midtown Greenway Coalition, developers of Minneapolis' Midtown Greenway bicycle path.

If you are a CenterPoint Energy residential natural gas heating customer, and your home was built before 1992, you can receive a free low flow shower head.

In most homes, showers account for the most water used, around one-quarter of an adult's total water consumption. A low flow shower head mixes air in with the water to maintain water pressure, but less water is needed to do it. Low flow shower heads cut water usage by about half, and your water bill with it.

Request your low flow shower head at CenterPoint Energy's website. And here's how to install it.

More ways to save money with local Minneapolis/St. Paul utility companies - save on water, trash, electricity, heating and cooling

Eat flesh, mutilate flesh and watch flesh being devoured: all for free. Here's some free activities that (mostly) aren't actually that gruesome.

Free Bacon Wednesdays at the Triple Rock Social Club. From 9 p.m. until 1 p.m. or until it's gone, patrons of the Triple Rock can enjoy free bacon every Wednesday night. To wash the bacon down, PBR tallboys are $3 and there's no cover charge.

Free Piercings at The Ink Lab. Have your ear lobe, ear helix or your navel pierced for free by an apprentice piercer at the Ink Lab in Uptown Minneapolis. Free piercings are done on Sunday afternoons and supervised by a licensed piercer. The Ink Lab tattoo shop has one of the best reputations in the Twin Cities and their licensed piercers are very well regarded.

Free Snake Nature ProgramWhat do snakes eat for dinner? A free snake event at the Richardson Nature Center in Bloomington introduces visitors to a live snake at dinnertime. Cameras are recommended if you'd like a grisly photo of a snake swallowing something whole. Sunday July 26, 3-4 p.m.

I may have been one of the last people to do so, but today I paid my first visit to the new Trader Joe's store in St. Paul, which opened last Saturday. The whole of St. Paul appeared to be at the opening party and the store has been hopping ever since. Judging by the success of Trader Joe's other Twin Cities stores in Maple Grove, Woodbury and St. Louis Park, the St. Paul store will remain just as busy.

Trader Joe's occupies it's own niche in the world of grocers. There's a focus on specialty and unusual items packaged and priced to make them attractive and accessible to as many consumers as possible. And Trader Joe's most famous line, $2.99 Charles Shaw wines, Three Buck Chuck, brings folk to the store just by itself. Trader Joe's sells liquor in the same building as groceries by having a separate entrance and checkout for the liquor department.

Not everyone is pleased to see Trader Joe's arrive in St. Paul's Highland Park. Nearby independent grocery store Korte's Market gathered signatures to oppose the store while the development was being planned, and is now waiting to see what the effect on their business is before they take any action to deal with the competition.

Traffic, a problem plaguing the St. Louis Park location in particular, has been a concern with the latest Trader Joe's, which has an even larger catchment area of shoppers. Most people from Minneapolis, St. Paul or the south metro area who wants to visit Trader Joe's will be coming to the St. Paul location. So far the traffic has been hectic but manageable at peak shopping times.

Union representatives have been picketing the new store this week, carrying signs urging shoppers to boycott Trader Joe's for not employing union workers. Trader Joe's average wages are higher than the average union employee, and the company benefits and retirement plans are available to employees working over 20 hours a week. And it seems that the staff are happier, when the checkout clerks hand me my receipt with the standard "Have a nice day!" they seem to be a little more sincere at Trader Joe's than other chain grocery stores.

Trader Joe's isn't content with four Twin Cities stores. A store is rumored to be planned for Hopkins, and another store on Lyndale Avenue in Minneapolis is definitely in the planning stage but faces opposition from a store one block north - the Wedge Coop. Trader Joes and the Wedge have a lot of overlap in their target markets and while Trader Joe's doesn't sell co-op staples like bulk produce and carries very few local Minnesota foods, Trader Joe's purchasing power will undercut the Wedge for many natural and organic foods and as a result, the Wedge's business is likely to suffer.

The Wedge is objecting specifically to Trader Joe's application for a liquor license. Liquor is such a significant part of Trader Joe's business that they won't build the store unless they can sell beer and wine in it. Minneapolis has legislation mandating business who hold liquor licenses to be at least 2000 feet apart. Hum's Liquor, across the street from the Wedge, would usually prevent either the Wedge or the proposed Trader Joe's having a liquor license too, but Trader Joe's has applied for an exemption and received the support of Minneapolis City Council in April. If the state and local residents agree, then Trader Joe's will be permitted to sell Three Buck Chuck on the site and the store will likely be built.

It's only been three years since the first Trader Joe's opened in Minnesota, and it is certainly taking the Twin Cities by storm. But are their organic goods for the massses and cheap wine a welcome addition, or unfair competition to independent markets and co-ops?

Back in the 1920s and 1930s, St. Paul was the most notorious of the Twin Cities. Along with politicians, businessmen and socialites, prominent gangsters and their followers were attracted by the bright lights and corrupt authorities of the Silver City. Some of the "Public Enemy" era's best known villians, John Dillinger, Babyface Nelson, Roger "the Terrible" Touhy, Machine Gun Kelly, Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, and the Barker gang all spent time in St. Paul, robbing, smuggling, looting, extorting and murdering.

Public Enemies, a new film starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger and Marion Cotillard as his girlfriend Billie Frechette. The pair, along with Dillinger's gang, lived in St. Paul briefly in 1934, were involved in a shootout at a St. Paul apartment building, and Frechette was convicted of harboring a fugitive at the Landmark Center in downtown St. Paul, then the Federal Courts Building.

Curious about St. Paul's past? John Dillinger Slept Here by Paul Maccabee documents St. Paul's gangster era. This definitive read is published by the Minnesota Historical Society press and available from the MNHS and local bookstores.

The Wabasha Street Caves, home to speakeasies and mobsters, and the scene of at least one murder has cave tours every Thursday, Saturday and Sunday taking visitors back through 150 years of the cave's history. They also operate a bus tour, the Saint Paul Gangster Tour, taking guests around the most nefarious sights of St. Paul.

Public Enemies is now showing at movie theaters across the Twin Cities.

Black bears were in the news today after a young bear attacked a woman in Siren, WI, midway between the Twin Cities and Duluth. The woman met the bear by her garage, and was knocked down by it, sustaining minor injuries. The same bear had been seen several times at the home on recent evenings, and even entering the house on one night, and seemed to be unafraid of people.

There are about 30,000 black bears in Minnesota and around the same number in Wisconsin, but attacks on people are rare - less than five in the last ten years.

Other metropolitan areas like Los Angeles have bears visiting houses in town, but the Twin Cities is a little too far south for most bears. The black bears' habitat covers much of northern Wisconsin and the northeast of Minnesota, including Duluth and many popular camping and vacation spots.

Most black bears stay away from humans, but can be enticed to homes and campsites for food. And almost all human-bear interactions are caused by bears attracted to food or garbage. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said that people in neighboring homes in Siren were intentionally feeding bears.

How can you avoid bears, and what should you do if you see or meet a bear? Should you climb a tree? Actually, black bears can climb trees too. If you are planning a trip to bear country, read up on bear safety tips for camping and hiking, which include advice on what to do in the unlikely event of a bear attack. The most important advice? Prevent bears coming to you in the first place by being careful with food and trash, and never feed a bear.

If you want to see bears in the wild, the much safer alternative is to visit the Vince Shute Wildlife Center in the Northwoods on Minnesota, near Orr, a protected area of woods home to many bears. The center has a viewing platform to observe bears in their natural habitat.