Sam Stall

Do barbecue joints need board of health clearance to set up grills in their parking lots (where the flies, stray dogs, and hobos live)?

The Hoosierist has purchased and used nearly every form of firework known to man, from the tiniest firecracker to devices only slightly less powerful than the ones carried under the wings of Air Force drones. And he still has all his fingers.

Back in the ’80s, you couldn’t shuffle a deck of cards in the Hoosier State without someone looking at you sideways. But today, the only things beyond the pale are dog racing, cockfighting, sports betting, and anything Internet-based.

Question: If you could press a button and make one Indy thing vanish forever, which would you choose?

Canines at dinner, lifeguard credentials, and cricket mentors. Ask The Hoosierist.

The new Godzilla movie hit theaters this month, but Indiana residents who crave monster thrills needn’t settle for a Japanese import. Per certain sources, our state is crawling (and slithering and flying) with home-grown horrors.

The Hoosierist would love to serve up a racy origin story for Kokomo’s Silk Stocking District, but the facts won’t cooperate.

If you’d like to do something besides stand around smiling while the tykes feed their candy addictions, drag the family to these events.

This week’s Fire Department Instructors Conference (FDIC) will draw just shy of 30,000 smoke-eaters to the Indiana Convention Center—along with hundreds of manufacturers selling everything from hoses to boots.

There’s plenty of precedent for trying to extend human lives by studying dogs. Canine research helped pioneer the use of insulin for diabetics and blazed the path for anti-hormonal prostate cancer treatments.

Why isn’t a rolling bar powered by tipsy people constantly teetering into the canal or plowing into pedestrians? Because a company employee known as “The Bar Handler” always steers.

The Hoosiers film crew couldn’t get quite enough warm bodies to fill the stands at Hinkle Fieldhouse for the championship game scenes, so they fudged with creative camera angles.

“If you spill that on my costume, I’m leaving you here,” said a man in Halo armor to his friend wielding a slushy.

Our Irish friends constitute only 11 percent of the population, but you wouldn’t know it from the number of local bars with names like O’Hooligan’s and Hidey McCarkey’s.

Apparently, John Green’s bestselling novel about two star-crossed lovers is really, really good. The Hoosierist can only read a couple of pages before crying.