This is a Daily RFT exclusive. The parking meters in the parking lot of the Tivioli have been "yarnbombed" again (see previous incident here). This time the suspect wrapped fuzzy monster feet around the base of all the meters. No injuries reported except to the self-esteem of this staff writer.

Photo by Nicholas Phillips

Tivoli parking meters done got yarnbombed.

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Paul Jackson and Jake Houvenagle, the masterminds behind ShootPaul.com, and a friend.

​About six months ago, Jake Houvenagle and his friend Paul Jackson came up with a stupid drunken idea: They would build a Web site that would allow users to virtually shoot at Paul with a paintball gun, sort of like a live-action video game.

Unlike many stupid drunken ideas, this one is actually going to come to fruition. As you read this, Houvenagle, 29, and Jackson, 28, are assembling their shooting gallery in a warehouse in downtown St. Louis. (Houvenagle will reveal only that it's near the corner of Tucker Avenue and Washington Boulevard.) Soon they will start testing. If all goes well, the site, called ShootPaul.com, will go live at the end of May.

So why are they doing this?

"As we get closer to launch, I ask myself that question all the time," Houvenagle admits.

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PARKOUR!!! This was just uploaded to YouTube. Most impressive clip, in Daily RFT's opinion, comes at 0:45 in what looks like Queeny Park. (There's also some good footage from Forest Park's World's Fair Pavilion that starts at 1:06)

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Look at Greyhound, gettin' all snazzy.

​March is a depressing time of year. There's no snow (and related fear/excitement), little sun, not as much warmth as one would hope (we did just live through January and February after all) and damn it, wouldn't it be swell to get out of town? But holy shit, have you seen the gas prices lately or tried to get an airplane ticket for less than $300? Friend, you are SOL.

Or so you might think. But help has come from the most unexpected of places: Greyhound.

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The ol' 844 steams down the track.

​Update, January 18: The Little Rock Express beat out the Tuscola Turn, 76,217 votes to 73,175. Daily RFT apologizes to Tuscolans who cannot take a little trash-talking in the name of friendly competition.

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The nineteenth century was definitely a dandy one, so who can blame twenty-first-century St. Louisans from embracing it? First there was last weekend's honest-to-goodness slave auction. Now we're on a campaign to get a steam-powered train to pay us a visit. Yep, you read that right. Steam-powered. Just like the Hogwarts Express.

The Union Pacific Railroad, it develops, still keeps two steam-powered locomotives in its barn in Cheyenne, Wyoming. One of them, number 844, was the last steam-powered locomotive ever built for the railroad back in the early 1940's. The other, old number 3985, was merely the biggest. Sometime this year, one of them will go on a tour through this great country of ours. Whether it will go through St. Louis depends on if you, gentle reader, vote for the Little Rock Express on UP's Great Excursion Adventure website before midnight tonight.

Currently, the Little Rock Express, which connects Kansas City and Little Rock via St. Louis, is running neck-and-neck with the Tuscola Turn, which starts out in Boone, Iowa, and takes a right turn just south of Chicago and ends in picturesque Tuscola, Illinois. You have the power to save these poor engineers from a trip to Tuscola by voting early and often.

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Photo by Nicholas Phillips

Mark Aaron, Julie Wheat, and Ryan Freeman rockin' the snow day.

​The campfire is a-cracklin' on the top of Art Hill right now, and according to the three lone sledders during the morning rush hour, the snow is fine, powdery and dry. That means:

Snowboards and boogie boards: FLYING! (Daily RFT was offered a test ride, and, holy shit). (Daily RFT was also offered a swig of Grand Marnier, but had to decline at 8:33 am).

Plastic shells/toboggans: FAST!

Innertubes: SOMEWHAT SLOW. Although, the snow is getting kind of melty and the main sledding tracks well worn, meaning that tubes will start picking up speed as the morning progresses. 

Don't you feel better already?

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Black Friday shopping got you ... stressed?

Today only, the Aveda Experience Center in the St. Louis Galleria is offering free head, neck, shoulder and scalp massages, says spokeswoman Kelly Plummer. No need to make an appointment; the Aveda staffers are offering the freebie on a first-come, first-served basis.

You can also get your hair or makeup touched up for free, Plummer says -- but who has time for that when you could go stand in line at Wal-Mart or something?