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The Boost: A guide for your weekend, and what's in the paper

Madison Underwood | munderwood@al.com By Madison Underwood | munderwood@al.com
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on April 26, 2013 at 7:45 AM, updated April 26, 2013 at 7:53 AM

The Boost is a daily guide to news, living, and entertainment in Birmingham and in Alabama. Here's your boost for Friday, April 26, 2013.

Mullet Toss Thursday at the Flora-Bama
Enlarge People took to the beach behind the Flora-Bama Lounge and Package on Thursday, April 25, 2013 for the start of the 29th annual Interstate Mullet Toss and Gulf Coast's Greatest Beach Party. (Brian Kelly/bkelly@al.com) Mullet Toss kicks off Thursday at Flora-Bama gallery (13 photos)
What to do this weekend: On Friday, let's go to the theatre. Nilo Cruz's "Beauty of the Father" is playing at the Birmingham Festival Theatre through May 11, and AL.com reviewer Alec Harvey gave it four out of five stars. It plays at 8 p.m.

Do that, or catch Brit Floyd, a Pink Floyd cover band, at BJCC - tickets start at $31.50.

But, really, we all should be at the 29th Annual Interstate Mullet Toss and the Gulf Coast's Greatest Beach Party at the Flora-Bama.

It's a fish throwing competition, basically.

If you don't make it to the beach to see dead fish get thrown around, which is more awesome than it sounds, do not miss Magic City Art Connection, which runs Friday through Sunday at Linn Park.

On Saturday, it's Earth Day at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Also, check out Ona Watson out at Ona's Music Room.

On Sunday, there's the Woodlawn Souldown, or scuttle over to Avondale Brewery from 3 until 6 p.m. for Avondale Groove & Brew, a concert benefiting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Five Shot Jack and Hoodstock will play, tickets are $10. Later, at 6 p.m., catch Escondido at Good People Brewing Co.'s taproom for free.

There's an Alabama/Auburn hovercraft competition: The future has failed us in so many ways, but primarily on delivering novel methods of transportation. We were supposed to have jetpacks by now. Flying cars - we should have had those for about a decade. What about cars that drive themselves? Google has one, but we don't. What about those floating skateboards from "Back to the Future"? And hovercrafts, dammit!

Instead, we have the Segway.

Thanks, science.

Since our primary modes of transportation are not remarkably different from anything we had 50 years ago, it's really cool when we actually get to see futuristic-feeling modes of transit, like hovercrafts, being used.

A hovercraft competition between engineering students at the University of Alabama and Auburn University called the Iron Bowl of Hovercrafts - or, as AL.com reporter Paul Huggins calls it, the Carbon Fiber Bowl - kicks off on Saturday. You can read all about it here.

I heard Auburn's hovercraft was cow-powered. I don't know how that works, but they figured it out.

the_birmingham_news_20130426_A01-page-001.jpgThe front page of the Birmingham News for Friday, April 26, 2013.

What's in the paper: An Alabama Media Group special report on one family's two-year struggle to get FEMA help following the April 27, 2011 tornadoes leads the Friday edition of the Birmingham News. Also on the front page: The Birmingham Airport Authority finally turned over more than a thousand pages of public documents to AL.com following a lawsuit, Boston Marathon bombing victims will get a Congressional Medal, bombers targeted New York, and a current Alabama Supreme Court justice will be Jefferson County's next county attorney.

Elsewhere in the April 26, 2013 edition: Alabama Attorney General Luther strange doesn't care for a rate review in the Public Service Commission, the Birmingham City Council is sort of okay with proposed Birmingham Water Works Board legislation, an ad that says "Got Drugs?", more 2011 storm stories, a black market ring was run out of a gas station, a couple is believed to have robbed a Piggly Wiggly, and much, much more.

In business: Remember that time that Hyundai ran an ad where a guy tried to kill himself? Hyundai is really hoping you don't.

The Boost is curated five days a week by Madison Underwood. Send tips, comments, suggestions, and insults to munderwood@al.com.
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