Spider-Man Shirt

  At the comedy club tonight, there were two comics that wore the same Spider-Man shirt. It was the opening and closing comics of the night. There was some mention of finding it at a second hand store and how it may have been the 21st birthday for the first comic. I said it looked like a Halloween costume on the first comic.
   At midday I was waiting to hear on CNN about the kid who flew from MSP to Las Vegas. They went to commercial 3 times after speaking of it before they finally did the story. I was with the airport expert on this one, as it really is up to the airline more than airport security to see that only ticketed passengers get onto the flight. I dealt with this when I was coming back from St. Louis one time. Somebody's seat was taken on the flight, didn't bother to find out why. So he takes mine. Then other passengers, not the flight crew, starts to check tickets and found out somebody got on the wrong flight. It was up to the gate agent to pay attention and tell them it was the wrong flight.
  I also did a trivia contest at work, and it looks like as of the end of my workday that I did well enough to advance to the second round. The top 40 percent advance, and I checked periodically to find out my percentage was holding up, around 36 percent. There was little milk cartons and pastries in the morning to greet us, along with shrink wrapped 80th anniversary shirts for our business.  

Summertime Sadness By Lana Del Rey

    I started my drive back from Iowa City mid-morning. Early on I heard one song twice on the car radio. it was 'Summertime Sadness' by Lana Del Rey. I like many of the lyrics like 'Before you go' and 'Nothing scares me anymore'. Also 'sadness' in the title makes me think of the Smashing Pumpkins double-CD 'Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness'. I once heard somebody say at the comedy club how her songs are 'Cutting' music. Meaning, what you listen to when you're sad enough to cut yourself. Well I don't mind hearing sad songs. It makes me happier, knowing I'm not alone. Same reason why I liked Smashing Pumpkins. Front-man Billy Corgan even said in a Rolling Stone interview how sad music made him happy as well. When I tried to find it on Youtube, on the first attempt I found a different version than what was on the radio. It was slower paced, and I didn't like it as much. I tried again and found it, discovering the one on the radio is the 'Cedric Gervais remix'. Sometimes I like a remix version better, like Lady Gaga's 'Just Dance' with Kardinal Offishall. Come to think of it, I heard another version of 'Just Dance' when driving home today- different from the one I just mentioned.
   For most of the drive it was fairly uneventful. I got breakfast at a Casey's before leaving the Iowa City area. Then I stopped in Cedar Falls and Clear Lake, and both of those happened to be Casey's stores as well. I got pictures of more of the Charlie Brown characters in the Cedar Falls store, advertising chocolate milk. Last year I think I just got the biggest one, which said 'Little Monsters' making me think of the term Lady Gaga has for her fans. It started to rain just before I got to the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area, and then it rained off and on for most of the way back to the Twin Cities. I didn't mind it at all, I can drive through fairly light rain or at times it was just drizzle. Then just a little north of Northfield it grinds to a crawl due to construction. Eventually I decide to take an alternate route, and bypassed most of the 10 miles or so of construction. I ended up at the Target store in Lakeville as I needed to go to the bathroom. Then I was on my way again, But of course I was nearly home by then which was a nice feeling.
    I watched the end of 'The Simpsons', it appeared to be a Halloween episode. Then I went grocery shopping and watched some of the 49ers-Texans football game. The 49ers got off to a fast start, with a 'Pick 6', my favorite play of the game. They were way ahead at halftime. After I got home I set aside my phone to let it recharge. When it was done I checked messages and there was one from my dad. He spoke of being at his class reunion a few weeks back, which they had at a homecoming football game. Also about seeing 'The Butler' movie three times apparently. He did see some of the Hawkeye game I had attended, on TV.

Iowa vs. Michigan State Football

    Went to the Iowa football game against Michigan State, Iowa lost 26-14 after leading 14-10 at the half. I travel all the way from the Twin Cities to sit next to somebody from St. Paul at the game. Go figure. He works at the library at St. Kate's College. I said I had been there for a few events, like a Brandi Carlile concert and to see Maya Angelou speak. I had a bag of peanuts and a cup of Sprite at the stadium and a hot dog and a Sprite outside the stadium after the game. I recognized some of the music played by the marching band, like one song seemed to be 'Reach for the sky' by Social Distortion. After the game ended there was a recorded version of Lady Gaga's 'Applause', which I liked hearing of course. At halftime the band played Doobie Brothers music, first was 'China Grove', a song in the movie 'Field of Dreams'.
   In the evening after the game I liked seeing a syndicated rerun of 'Big Bang Theory'. It was when Sheldon got tired of everyone around him arguing so he holed up at the comic book store. Also found an episode of 'Monk' where Monk flipped a train switch to prevent somebody from being killed who had just won the lottery.  

Schaeffer Hall, Iowa City

This morning, I headed to Iowa City for homecoming weekend. I got an invite to attend an event at Schaeffer Hall related to the history department, as this was my major there. I probably hadn't been there since I graduated. I arrived at 5pm on campus after parking my car at a nearby ramp. The power plant whistle had just sounded. They were already packing up at the event, but I got some of the goodies before they were taken away. I really like the cheese at these events. Also had a cookie and a soft drink. The event coordinators were impressed how I could name most of my history instructors, and some of them are still at the university. I confirmed this when looking at the directory. Some are listed as 'emeritus', meaning retired. I did get some pictures inside, this included an 'indoor cornerstone' for lack of a better term that spoke of when the building was opened and when it was re-opened after renovation. It was shut down for renovation when I graduated and I recall being asked to complete a survey about it. I would like to think they paid attention to comments made by me, as I said one room I had a class in was too small. The homecoming parade took place nearby, and I noticed plenty of Corvettes were used for the VIPs, they later stated these were on loan from a Corvette collector club in Cedar Rapids. After the parade I got some Sam Adams beer for my former roommate, at Hy-Vee, and we drank some of it that evening.
  Before leaving town I did do some chores, like dishes and taking out the trash. There was not much else to do other than pack, and I travel light. Usually better to do them before going out of town than after when one tends to have more energy.

Cookie Store Cat

    I took a later bus home after work as it is the typical thing right before I am out of the office. I had things I wanted to finish before leaving, including putting up out of office replies. I liked who I saw riding with me, hadn't seen them in a while. It was a young mother with her two sons. Previously I had seen them riding in the morning. I liked how one of them was reading a book, called 'The cookie store cat'.
   I liked both 'Big Bang Theory' episodes I saw tonight. The syndicated rerun was when Amy asked Leonard to be her date at a wedding, wanting a corsage as she never went to her high school prom. The prime time episode was about Raj being in charge of a scavenger hunt. Bernadette was teamed with Leonard and she was really competitive. Sheldon was teamed with Penny, and Howard with Amy. After a while, Howard and Amy didn't care about the contest and this was due to them finding out they both like Neil Diamond music. It ended with them singing karaoke.
   I did have a TV dinner tonight, but decided it wasn't enough and went to the grocery store to get a Spam single and a small bag of Lay's BBQ chips. Seemed appropriate since I am single!
     I also watched the movie 'Up In The Air' on video, and I could recognize scenes filmed in St. Louis. In one there was Mike Shannon's restaurant in the background, which is downtown near the baseball stadium. I liked finding some of these places when doing my visit in July, and hope to find some more in my next visit. The next thing is to get the movie soundtrack-and the novel, written by
Walter Kirn. I know both are listed on E-bay. Still wondering when the movie postcards will arrive, ordered from Singapore and it already has been three weeks.

Not A Light Out, But The Weather

    As I was heading to the comedy club tonight, I saw some flashes of light. A neighbor passed by, I asked if there was a light out but then I understood 'Oh, it is the weather'. As in thunder and lightning. I took my raincoat with me and didn't need it at first. But after the show I sure did. One of the comics was visiting from Los Angeles, but said he was originally from Springfield, Missouri. I liked hearing this as I spoke of my visits to the state. The show closer was the 'Extra murder' comic. He did a joke  I hadn't heard in a while but really liked, about somebody having a poor imagination, claiming they couldn't picture homosexuality.
    I did show the new employee more of what I do, this time near the end of the day. This included locking up file cabinets. It was busy for much of the day, but some of it was just catch-up from the previous day.
    Hard to say how much the E-harmony thing is progressing. What I have told myself is that I learned some valuable lessons from past relationships. Sometimes it is fine to let things fail if one gets early warning signs that it won't pan out. I got some of these signs from one match, so I closed it right away. I asked a question and didn't get a straight answer, really didn't get one at all. I said this proved a lack of communication. They spoke about a past relationship too soon, and then admitted it was a bad idea. This also proves they didn't learn from their mistakes, and suggested they weren't over it yet but claimed to be. There will be others though, but scheduling for a while may be a problem. It has to be when work schedules allow and planning around events where tickets have already been bought.      
      While it is true that weeding out matches based on the 'Lack of effort' factor is a good idea, I have to be even more selective than this. One must think of common interests as well.  

Three Women With Hula Hoops

    At the comedy club tonight, one act was three women with hula hoops. It was entertaining on some level, but they ran the light. They took turns with the microphone.  I liked seeing the 'Extra murder' comic after the show. I said I liked the new joke about 'The hot dog monster', invented to keep his young nephew out of his room. I said it reminded me of a college instructor who spoke of telling his young kids 'The TV monster' took away their TV.
   Before the show I picked up the Bob Newhart book I ordered last week. It is called 'I shouldn't even be doing this'. I also decided to get a Charlie Brown item near the register. It was the philosophies of the four most popular characters- Charlie, Snoopy, Linus and Lucy- in mini-book form and through various comic strips. The Newhart book should be a fun read, though I noticed there are no photos in the middle of the book. I am used to this with biographies, although this is classified as a memoir.
   I had some more Godfather's Pizza when getting my car out of the shop after work. On the bus over there I saw four people leave a seat with ice cubes on it, too cold and wet. I found a Cheez-it cracker box on one seat, empty. So I took it home and it will go in recycle soon.