That's not incense and peppermints, it's burning vinyl

Google's WikiHow link today was "How to Make a Salvador Dali Clock." This sounded interesting, until I found out you have to destroy a vinyl record to do so. I do enjoy the warnings though, which remind people of the temperature of things removed from an oven, and the etiquette of taking a friend's record and giving them back a clock.

At least there was the cutesy use of a Strawberry Alarm Clock record for the demonstration.

North, to Nebraska. ...No, wait.

Ah, five states this month. At the beginning of the month, I went with the fam to visit my brother, who is employed by a French company in Central Arkansas. I capitalized the "C" since the town is the home of UCA, Scottie Pippen's alma mater. Go Bears. While there, we went to the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock. No, I couldn't help but notice that the building looked rather long.

Anyways, this post is about Wednesday. My friend Kim wanted to attend a concert in Omaha featuring two bands he's seen perform in Europe, the Reverend Horton Heat (hereafter tRHH) and Nashville Pussy. I recall when tRHH came to IC while I was there, but I didn't attend a show. To rectify this, I was more than happy to provide a ride, since Kim is sans voiture.

They played at the Sokol Auditorium, which is better described as a ballroom. I especially enjoyed the smoking ban inside, as well as the spare earplugs Kim offered me. Yeah, I'm old; I also like hearing. Due to the low profile of the bands, the place was only 75% to capacity. I could walk around most of the place without trouble, but there were enough people to start a mosh pit. I've never seen bald guys in a pit before.

Nashville Pussy has a female lead guitarist (she's married to the lead singer) and they make it a point to have a female bass player. I celebrate this diversity. I wish a more salient point came to mind about this band.

For those who are not familiar, I would describe tRHH as Dick Dale with rockabilly overtones. Needless to say, I loved his show. TRHH played "Greensleeves," of all things, calling it the first "serf guitar" song. Huh-yuck. :)

Anyways, two ridiculous points stuck out that night. The first was driving three hours each way in a nice snowstorm. Classic GGG (that's me, in case you forgot). The other was the dinner experience. Kim is a Morrissey-type, so I found a Persian restaurant (Ahmad's) nearby, which had some veg options. The food was good, if expensive. However, we didn't expect to see an eighty dollar bill. Our beverage cost was 46 dollars alone. For Taj Mahal and Kronenbourg 1664. Upon further inquiry, we found that the waitress took our food total, added each drink price, and made that our beverage total. Words fail me. Kind words, at least.

We still had time after dinner, so we headed next door, to a place called Mister Toad Library and Pub. The nerd in me clamored to go there to see what treasures lay within. While enjoying an Irish coffee, I found there is indeed a library motif in one half of the pub, although I didn't check to see if the books were more than decoration. The piano was real. The bathroom was amusing, since the sides of Drambuie cases were used in lieu of wallpaper. The pub itself was littered with toad paraphernalia. For the curious bibliophiles who may be reading, here's the catch: Omaha bars still allow smoking. I was really envious of home at that moment.

India rules!

My tale of yesterday's trip to Omaha should come tomorrow. But today, the acme of all news stories, from last month.

With no power

I just witnessed a shoplifter tonight. As I was walking into the West Ames Hy-Vee, I was walking around a guy as one of the cashiers said, "Sir!" rather loudly. The guy impassively continued toward the exit, so the cashier ran up and grabbed the guy's shoulder. The guy wrested away from the cashier's grasp and runs out, and the cashier called the man in charge of security.

Meanwhile, I thought to myself for the next several minutes, "I could have stopped that guy." I later convinced myself that it was petty theft, not worth risking personal harm, and I had just walked into the store with no understanding of the situation.

Of course, I also thought about how the guy might end up killing my Uncle Ben. That would suck.

You won't care about this

1. Bakers Square was owned by Pillsbury once. It was called Poppin' Fresh Pies. This is the biggest sign that I was born in the Eighties, and didn't live in the Eighties.

2. Bakers Square is a wholly owned subsidiary of the company that owns Village Inn. This knowledge blew away a quarter century of clouds in my mind, which I didn't even know existed until I came to Iowa eight years ago. This is because there are no Village Inns in Illinois, except near the River. The Des Moines area has three Bakers Squares, oases in the desert of Village Inns across Iowa. I never knew that the lack of overlap was due to their affiliation.

3. Why is there overlap in Des Moines? The original Bakers Square (neé Mrs. C's) started there.

These are the things that fascinate me when I have a project due five hours ago.