We're number ten! We're number ten!

Staring squarely in the face of a college football season that will feature - at least until the games start - the words "Mizzou" and "national championship" by sane members of the ESPN set, Outside Magazine came out with a ranking of their own. And Columbia came in at number ten on the mag's "best towns to live in" list.

From the Columbia Tribune article on the announcement:

The magazine said Columbia had evolved from a "stagecoach stop en route to California" to a hub for higher education and insurance firms, but along the way had "gained a rep as a staid, boring, and straitlaced community in need of a makeover."

The Midwest can fairly be accused of being "staid, boring and straitlaced," but I'm not sure this has ever been true of Columbia. Nothing straitlaced about riding over to Lawrence and burning the town to the ground. Murderous and evil, but hardly boring.