Entertainment Within Walking Distance

As I said in my first post, this is the sort of thing I'm planning on blogging about for the most part, since neighborhood business is going to be too infrequent to make a solid blog out of. Today's entertainment within walking distance was Acacia's Root Beer Floats. The weather yesterday had been threatening but today was perfect - warm enough to make ice cream a good idea, not so hot that it's unbearable to be out in it. Acacia is one of the smaller fraternities, found on Grey Avenue. The root beer floats were $3, with profits going to Pages of Promise (a student run, non-profit organization that holds biannual text-book drives on campus to send to schools and libraries in Africa) and the American Red Cross (to help recovering communities in Iowa devastated by historic flooding this past June). Another aspect of the event was a root beer pong tournament, at $2/game. If you're unfamiliar with beverage pong, the basic idea is pretty simple - teams stand at either end of a ping pong table, trying to bounce a ping pong ball into each others' cups, thus obligating the owner of the cup to consume its contents (usually a small amount in each cup, and several cups -- first team to empty all its cups loses.) The game is actually highly structured with all kinds of rules about what happens when a ball goes somewhere other than a full cup, and don't worry, the ball gets washed every time it goes off the table, or in a cup. SCAN members can probably guess the usual context of this game. As a result, and also since the tournament area was bathed in rap music, I can't really recommend sticking around to most SCAN members -- it's just not a scene I see you as being comfortable in -- but if you have fond memories of pong and rap music, $2 isn't a bad deal. For the majority of you, though, I can still recommend the floats, and simply suggest that after buying them you enjoy them somewhere more peaceful. This is Acacia's first year doing this as their philanthropy event -- their previous one involved the use of fire hydrants and the city was going to start charging them for the water. As a result, whether it happens the same way next year is a bit up in the air. Watch this space for more Greek philanthropies like this one.

Upcoming neighborhood entertainment that I'm planning on attending is the first in ISU Lectures Technology, Globalization, and Culture series, featuring Paul Shirley, former ISU basketball player and author of Can I Keep My Jersey?, as well as the first football game of the year. The lecture is in the auditorium in Howe Hall on Wednesday at 6pm, and is free and open to the public. Shirley is highly articulate, and when he finished his degree in mechanical engineering before he'd used up his NCAA eligibility, he stayed on for a year of grad school. The football game is Thursday evening, check out cyclones.com for more info including the various ticket prices (this is one of the cheapest games of the season for single game tickets). SCAN residents are welcome to contact me if you'd like company walking to campus for the lecture. (I'll be with friends from my undergrad days for the game.) Events I'm going to be missing include anything happening over the weekend (I'll be out of town); mostly bands at various campustown businesses and the M-Shop as well as a comedian at Stephens Saturday night. That show is free, but part of Destination Iowa State (i.e. intended for incoming freshmen) so I'm not sure whether it'll appeal to you; he's not anyone I'm familiar with. Also there's a women's soccer game tonight (a bit of a stretch to call the soccer complex walking distance; it's on Elwood aka University way up north at 6th Street, right next to Lied) as well as the Cyclone Fan Fest at the new indoor practice facility next to the stadium Sunday afternoon. Chris may go to that depending on when we get back -- I have a meeting that afternoon. Another maybe is what's playing at the Varsity II right now -- I've already seen Wall-E (and if you haven't GO NOW, best movie of the summer) and the other is The Longshots, the story of the first girl to play Pop Warner football. Sounds like it would be good if you were into sports movies and/or women's empowerment films. I did like Bend it Like Beckham, which also had interesting cultural aspects. Not sure about this one.

If anyone goes to any of the events I can't make it to, leave a comment below letting your neighbors know about the experience. In the interest of minimizing jerks posting anonymously, I'm requiring a login; if you've already got a gmail account you're good to go, and getting one is pretty easy. I'll have other posts about the ones I do attend.