I'm back from my 4 hour odyssey. St. Louis is just as I remembered it: the Esquire is still a dump and the Reserve is still trying to turn Apartment 12 into a luxury Central West End condominium, which is quite difficult since Apartment 12 is not anywhere near what can be reasonably advertised as the Central West End.

A lot of people have asked me "what do you like about Kansas City that makes it better than St. Louis?" The obvious answer is that I wake up in the morning assuming that my car is still in the parking lot, rather than on its way to East St. Louis or in the process of being painted a different color at a chop shop.

But the less-obvious reason is the unique attractions, such as Leila's Hair Museum. I've not actually *been* to this museum, but you can't go wrong with a plug like "It could possibly be the only hair museum in the United States, maybe the world."

The museum has received nationwide press coverage from such fine publications as Ripley's Believe it Or Not ("Believe it Or Not: People pay 3 bucks to see creepy things made out of dead people's hair") and Let's Tour America-Missouri ("When you're done at Nostalgiaville, the Tan-Tar-A Indoor Water Park, and Branson, make sure to finish off your tour of Missouri at the hair museum"), and it will surely become a National Historic Site once Leila and her considerable beehive shuffle off this mortal coil and become the final exhibit.

Just another reason to visit me out here, as if you needed anything else.