I have lived in Wisconsin my entire life and only recently did I learn that Minnesota hates us. Well, OK, that's a bit of an overstatement. However, I did recently realize that some Minnesotans have a beef with us.

While visiting the Mall of America I saw a T-shirt that said "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive To Wisconsin."

Huh.

I asked my Minnesotan friends about this and they said that a lot of their people don't dig Wisco because of the Brett Favre shenanigans and because a lot of folks live in Wisconsin but work in Minnesota.

"Your provincial-type Minnesotans see that as outsourcing or something," one friend said.

A weekly paper in Minneapolis goes so far as to keep a blog called "Weird Wisconsin," to which writers contribute stories about news items they find humorous.

Granted, the recent stories about Dane County residents Melinda Drabek-Chritton and Chad Chritton locking their daughter in the basement and starving her are weird, if not disturbing, but taken as a whole, the blogs paint an even bleaker picture: these Minnesotans have odd opinions about their neighbors to the east.

Perhaps these Minnesotans are not familiar with the contents of the book "Weird Minnesota."

Big concepts like "identity crisis" and "inferiority complex" are mixing with my other thoughts on Minnesota right now. It's funny, because in the southeasten part of the state, we sometimes have animosity towards Chicago-ans, but Minnesotans usually don't even make it onto our radar.

If anything, we don't think about Minnesota, particularly Minneapolis, enough.

Up until recently, when I heard Minneapolis, I thought, "Prince" and "harsh winter." That's about it. I have gone to the city a few more times in the past couple of years and I have enjoyed many places including Psycho Suzi's Motor Lounge, Diamonds Coffee Shoppe, Nye's Polonaise Room, Holy Land and more.

My unsolicited advice? Go there if you can ... but beware.