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Halloween time in a college town is kinda fun. There’s always a really eclectic mix of the costumed and the un-costumed roaming the streets, each making the other look equally out of place. It makes for a generally and continually surreal experience.

Last night, I went out to the bar with SocBuddy Nick. I’d totally forgotten that Thursday night constituted the beginning of the Halloween weekend (as far as college students are concerned) until I got out of my car and saw someone walk out of the bar across the street with a television set. Or rather, someone walked out of the bar with a ~person~ dressed as a television set. I then passed a couple of gangsters and clowns on my way down the street, and almost got set on fire by a negligent naughty police officer’s flicked cigarette.

When I got into the bar, I squeezed my way past Mario (of Super Mario Brothers fame), a guy dressed as a box of wine, that Hunter S. Thompson guy from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and the King (of Burger King fame) before I found Nick, who was dressed as Nick. I ordered a drink from a pirate while Nick pointed out a friend of his, who was dressed as a (very) naughty FBI agent. My favorite part of her costume was that her fishnet stockings had a small, worn-looking tear in them, suggesting this wasn’t the first time she’d worn them out and about. After I got my rum & coke we stood around talking for a while with some of his friends, including the lead singer of Green Day. I almost got run over by Joe Dirt chasing someone else with a mullet, and had to move out of heavyset Jesus’ way so he could get to the can.

The array of costumes was a lot of fun, even though there were some duplicates. There were two angels (one regular, one naughty), two Jesuses (one with a wig, one authentically Jesuit (and Nick suggested I was going as undercover Jesus)), two Roman soldiers, and a couple of devils — all naughty, of course. What cracked me up the most were the complementary costumes worn by people that didn’t seem to know one another. For instance, there was a Mario and a Luigi present, but I didn’t see them together until late in the evening. Throughout the evening, Frylock, Master Shake, and Meatwad of Aqua Teen: Hunger Force all showed up separately and seemed thrilled to see others of similar humors.

Isn’t it interesting how any costume can become naughty just by using less fabric and a different cut? I was amazed by the array of ‘naughty’ costumes possible. Last night, I saw a naughty angel, three naughty devils (they were a group), a naughty police officer, a naughty nun, two naughty girl scouts, three naughty nurses (all with very different costumes), a naughty FBI agent, a naughty secretary, a naughty leprechaun, a naughty pirate, two naughty schoolgirls, and a naughty WWI-era pilot. The pilot was my favorite… who woulda thunkit possible?

My favorite memories of the evening — those that made it through the six rum & cokes — include:

• Authentic-looking Jesus flirting with one of the naughty devils outside the bathrooms.
• A surreal and animated conversation between phat Jesus and the Burger King.
• Mario and a Spanish conquistador dancing an Irish jig.
• Getting hit on by an amazingly authentic Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII (that sword was a heavy mofo).
• Box wine throwing Burger King a pass (Burger King had a football) across the pool table.
• Phat Jesus attempting to heal a shattered beer glass. Joe Dirt cleaning up said glass with his mop.

I got home around 1:30am and headed to bed shortly thereafter, though I did catch the last couple of minutes of South Park. When I headed to the bus stop this morning to go to work, I stepped out my front door and almost tripped over a two foot-tall witch. It turns out kids can trick-or-treat their way down Main Street all day today, so I got to see a lot of very cute kids running around my neighborhood with their parents in tow. I got to the bus stop only to discover I don’t know the bus schedule as well as I thought I did, so I headed back to my apartment. I had quite a start at one point when I stopped at a crosswalk and happened to glance behind me to see a six and a half foot tall vampire clad in a leather trench coat walking a foot behind me.

Once I had the bus schedule sorted out, I headed back towards city hall, passing a burly mason biker-looking guy working on the brickwork of the building across the street. He was listening to Justin Timberlake at full volume. It doesn’t get much more surreal than that.

And for the record, if you’ve clicked the link above, yes, Cloud Strife is and was a guy. I was in a bar last night packed to the rafters with women in naughty apparel, and only got hit on by the gay guy. I’m beginning to think I’m doing something wrong.

I’m busy. Really busy. In fact, I am so busy this week that I’ve created a to-do list which breaks down the items that need to get done each day for the next four days, and further divides each day into AM / PM subdivisions. While this might sound par for the course for some of you (*cough* freaks *cough*), this is, in my recollection, the third to-do list I’ve created. In my entire life. Robby doesn’t swing that way, in general.

I was glad I decided to do it, though. It made the previously overwhelming tasks of this week seem altogether more manageable once I saw them on paper. “That essay isn’t so scary… look at how easily it has been contained in this one bullet in this list!” Well, I used hyphens instead of bullets (how very European of me!), but you get the idea. Things are less scary when they’re written down. Further, creating the list ate up a good 45 minutes where I could put aside my other worries and focus on an activity which produced a product. Of course, this blog entry is also eating into my time, as “blog about your day” was nowhere on my list. But, hey. You gotta learn to pick your battles.

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So Justin and I were eating our massive Sunday steaks (it’s become a ritual of ours to gorge on rare grilled beef on Sunday nights) and watching 60 Minutes last night. There was a really cool story about blind, mentally disabled, musical savants that was pretty cool. I saw a 26 year old man who couldn’t count to three on his fingers and couldn’t go to the bathroom on his own play “Fur Elise,” and then seamlessly on cue adapt it to sound as though Mozart had written it. Of course, the part of the show I’ll forever remember is when the narrator mentioned that one of these savants had been only one and a half pounds at birth, and Justin said, “hey… didn’t we just eat more steak than that?” And yes, yes we had. So from now on, our Sunday gorging will be known as “eating a preemie.” This will, of course, be inexorably followed on Monday by “giving birth to a preemie.” We also saw a 10 year old blind savant snow skiing. He was wearing a bright orange vest labled “visually impaired.” Justin and I immediately decided we both needed shirts like that. And, as Justin put it, “the people who’d have the most reason to be offended by it couldn’t even see it!” It is this kind of humor that has allowed us to live in this apartment for three months without cable. When 60 Minutes provides comedy gold, Comedy Central is superfluous.

Alright, back to the essay. According to my to-do list, I’m supposed to get it 75% done before I go to bed. I’m guessing 50% done would be a better guess, though. :(

Well, the semester is finally starting to catch up with me. I have a take-home midterm due in my visual rhetoric class next Tuesday, and I need to start work on a major project ~and~ a major research paper in that same class this coming week, on top of a major research paper for my rhetorical history class. Admittedly, those last three aren’t due for a good month or so, but considering the two papers will probably work out to around fifteen pages apiece, and both will require extensive research, and one will be discussing (I think) common typographical strategies and philosophies on the web, while the other will talk about (I think) Cicero’s conception of eloquence and its relevance in a digital age, meaning there won’t be a lot of overlap… I’ve got a bunch of work ahead of me. To make matters more interesting (from a disinterested perspective), my little brother is coming up to visit me this weekend, meaning I’ll be playing host instead of playing scholar (and both would be acts, I assure you). His visit will ensure I have fun this weekend, but it’ll also ensure I don’t get a lot of homework done. My mom and I had a great conversation about his visit earlier in the week:

Otherwise, life continues much the same as it has. I go to classes and work during the day, study at night. Sometimes I study at the coffee shop down the street with friends making random conversation from across the table (from cross-cultural directionality in first-year composition to facebook groups) instead of on my couch with Justin yelling random obscenities from the office (he likes to call me a ‘douche’ every half hour or so), which is a nice change of pace. I’ve also started listening to jazz while I study, which Justin has tolerated admirably well thus far. Although, he did complain a bit this morning. I was listening to a Herbie Hancock CD from 1964 (Maiden Voyage) while wading through Book III of Cicero’s De Oratore, and he complained that I was listening to “elevator music.” I explained it was classic jazz, and his reply was, “or, in common usage, elevator music.” I suppose so, but I’m enjoying the change of pace. He left for class about twenty minutes after that and announced as he walked out the door, “well, I’m getting off here.”

Did I mention that Justin had a big interview in Seattle earlier this week? The company he interned with this summer, AmGen, flew him back out to Seattle for an intense interview session Monday. Well, he left Sunday around noon and got back Tuesday morning, which meant I got to drive to the airport twice this week. This also marks, if I remember correctly, the fifth or sixth time I’ve been to the airport in the last year. And yet, I’ve never flown. Sigh. Anyway, Tiny said the interview really well, which might mean I’ll either need a roommate or a change of scenery come January. I’m not really excited about either idea, though I do wish him the best. He brought me back a souvenir from his hotel, too: a shower cap. Or, as the box proclaims in French, a “bonnet de douche.” I’m sure this translates into “hat of the douche” in Tiny parlance. :)

I’ve really been in the mood to decorate my apartment recently. Since Monday, I think. I want to hang photos all over the place (I have a decent Heather Champ collection now, and I want to print a couple of mine such as Justin’s guitar or this tree) and splash rich reds, blues, greens, and golds on the walls. I want rugs and drapes and pillows scattered willy-nilly. I want subdued lighting along the walls (except when studying) and the apartment to smell as though someone had burned woody incense several hours prior. I hate it when I get domestic urges like this, because it’s not really feasible to satisfy them. All of them, at least. I can probably handle the photos, and perhaps even the paint, at least in small measure. I’m thinking I could probably paint the top foot and a half or so of my bedroom walls (there’s a wood trim that runs along my bedroom walls about 18″ below the ceiling) a really saturated color and then it’d be okay to leave the rest white. Anybody up for a painting party?

Yesterday was decidedly one of the most enjoyable I’ve had in a good long while. I wish I’d taken more pictures, so I could remember more of it. :) Alas, my camera’s battery was nearly dead, and I didn’t have time to charge it.

I worked from 11-4, which was neither good nor bad. I suppose I really worked 11-12 and 1-4, because I took an hour lunch with second-year grad students Scott, Quinn, Matt, and Kate (Merrick) at Don Nachos, which, despite the name, actually serves pretty good and authentic Mexican food. I had a burrito roughly the size of my head. I ate it all. Somehow.

After work, Kate (Hellmann) picked me up on campus and we headed to Ledges State Park, which turned out to be a really good idea, because the fall colors were great (see above) and it gave me a chance to get a little bit of exercise in. We stayed at Ledges for a couple of hours, walking the trails and enjoying the scenery. As we were walking back to the car, we saw three deer grazing not more than fifteen feet away. They seemed pretty unconcerned by our presence, so we watched them for a couple of minutes. As we were leaving Ledges to head back to Ames, we saw manyThousand birds (sparrows, I think?) swarming a field. I got a quick photo of some of them from the car, right before they passed Right Overhead. Like maybe five or six feet above the car. It was pretty cool to see that many birds that close up.

When we got back to Ames, we were feeling pretty hungry (somehow), so we decided to try the Hunan Palace (which I always misread as the Human Palace) buffet for dinner. In other words, after my giant lunch and a bit of exercise, I decide to regorge with a gargantuan Chinese buffet. After we were both stuffed beyond measure, we headed back to her place so she could do some homework. She didn’t get any done. Hmm… that sounds more suggestive than I’d intended. :) In reality, we had a glass of wine and talked with her roommate Tasha, mostly. Then we decided to head back to my place to pick up Tiny and head to the bars.

However, when we got to my place, JJ was there, and they were doing shots. Last night was JJ’s last night in Ames before he left for Boulder (from our couch, about two hours ago), so we decided we’d have to party hard. We took several shots (three or four peach schnapps, a tequila, and a Jagermeister, for my part), played a game of darts, and then headed to the bars. We ended up going to Whiskey River, playing several games of pool, and drinking several (I count six or seven) pitchers of beer. We also played a deer hunting game for a while, but it was madly expensive and we were too drunk to shoot much anything, so we played another game of pool and then headed out. Kate headed home (she had a meeting on campus this morning), while the rest of us went to campustown for our next stop to hang out at Paddy’s with JJ’s ex-roommate Klocke (pronounced clucky). We stayed at Paddy’s until closing time, hanging out and drinking several more pitchers of beer. After Paddy’s closed, we headed upstairs (literally) to Klocke’s apartment.

Let me just preface the next part of the story by saying you know you’ve had a good night when you find yourself sitting on a street corner, next to a great-smelling Greek gyro stand, wearing an Arabic (I think) tunic (I think… cloak?), playing an African bongo drum, surrounded by hundreds of drunk people.

So we sat in Klocke’s apartment for a bit, talking. At one point, I looked over at JJ, and he was trying to put on a cool-looking blue and white striped tunic. Klocke had apparently found the tunic at a garage sale a while ago. For whatever reason, neither of these facts surprised me. The tunic was a little small for JJ, so I took it and tried to put it on. It fit like a glove. That is to say, it was extremely tight and I didn’t really think I could get it back off without a big struggle. So I wore it.

After a while, everybody decided we were going to head back outside, as there were several hundred drunk people still wandering Welch Ave, so I wore the tunic outside, getting more than a few stares. :) The gyro stand was parked down the street, so we headed that direction. There was a guy sitting on the corner playing a bongo drum, and upon closer inspection, I realized it was Ben Kirk, my fellow geek in crime from high school, so I sat down next to him to talk. After a few minutes, he passed me the drum, so I pounded away for a good ten minutes or so, until my arms got tired.

Ben and I eventually traded phone numbers (actually, it turned out he still had mine from four or so years ago) and he headed home, while I headed back upstairs with JJ, Tiny, and Klocke. Klocke and Tiny both picked up guitars and started playing, and JJ found a set of bongos and joined in, so I grabbed a pair of drumsticks (all just laying around the living room… weird in retrospect) and started playing on my legs and a plastic bowl I found. It was a pretty good time, though I played long and hard enough that I now have a pretty big blister on my left index finger from the drumstick. We eventually decided to head home, but Klocke told me I could borrow the tunic for a possible Halloween costume (I’m thinking shepherd, using the staff Tiny no longer needs for his), so I got to wear it home. When we got home I finally pulled myself out of the garment and crawled into bed a little after 4:30am.

So, how’s that for a day? I was pretty happy with it. Plus I’ve another party to go to tonight, though it’ll be at an apartment and with a small group of mostly English grad students, so it probably won’t be quite as wild as last night (though definitely fun in its own right). Maybe I’ll wear the tunic. :)

I spend way too much time on facebook. I mean, I currently have 86 friends listed on facebook, and assuming they update their profiles ~maybe~ once a week, how often do I really have to log in to stay caught up? Not nearly as often as I really am logged in, I assure you. However, while playing around in facebook yesterday, I finally figured out how to make it serve a very interesting and useful purpose: facebook can operate as a matchmaking service.

The key of the matter is, facebook’s search function is very comprehensive. In fact, it’s even more comprehensive than the ‘Advanced Search’ screen lets on. Most of the pages in facebook operate using some form of search. For instance, the ‘Social Net’ screen, which shows 10 random profiles of anyone from a friend to a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, uses their search engine to generate random results. The same goes for when you list members of a group: it’s simply a search for profiles at your school which belong to a group of the appropriate group id. And that, my friends, is the key to making facebook work for ~you~.

How To Turn Facebook into a Matchmaking Service

• Find a group that interests you (the more members, the better).
• Add the appropriate age & sex search strings to the end of the search URL. For instance, adding &relationship=1&sex=1 to the end of the URL looks for single females. Sex=2 looks for men, and relationships codes are: 1 for single, 2 for in a relationship, 3 for an open relationship, and 4 means married (if that’s your thing).
• Hit enter and reap the wonderful, filtered results.

That’s all it takes! Facebook will take the additional variables into account and return only the results that match all the criteria. My favorite two searches so far have been “Search - people who are female, are members of i love sex, and i’m not ashamed, and are single,” and “Search - people who are female, are members of redheads/redhead lovers, and are single.” Your mileage may vary on those I guess, but I figured those were good places as any to start. ;) And I only found one exStudent on those searches, too, which is better than usual (course, one redheaded exStudent just got a boyfriend, otherwise it would have been two). I generally see my exStudents all over the place where I don’t necessarily want to. For example, I was amused / honored to discover that I had three (or would that be six?) members of the “100 hottest boobs” group as students last semester. It’s really amazing what facebook can teach you about people.

Of course, your group choices don’t have to be as blatantly physical as my examples. Used by the powers of Good, this method could actually prove useful as a means to find single people at your school who share a similar interest (I bet you could make a killing with single, male, “The Force is Strong With This One…”).

Hmm… a single, female, ‘100 hottest boobs’ search returns 36 ladies. I really think I might be on to something here. :)