Emo but in a good way

Bullet points today because of time management issues in connection with the slowth of Holiday Inn's Internet combined with my own slate of activities!

- I'm in St. Paul, Minnesota tonight. The drive from Sioux Falls was not arduous and doesn't want to stick in my memory. Driving is like dreaming. Sometimes you think of neat creative ideas, or you notice something and say "I want to remember that," but when you wake up it's gone. I should make more careful use of Kino for moments like that.

- Before leaving Sioux Falls I visited their butterfly garden! Hundreds of tropical butterflies flapping everywhere, absolutely beautiful, like flying flowers. They only live a couple of weeks, so the greenhouse is constantly importing more of them. My camera's batteries gave out, so I didn't get as many pictures as I might have liked, but fortunately I brought a cigarette lighter/AC adapter and charged the camera in the car.

- Before checking in at St. Paul I drove through Minneapolis. Gorgeous skyline! I stopped in at the Smitten Kitten, a somewhat netfamous adult toy store notable for their friendliness, professionalism, and sponsorship of the Sex Is Fun podcast. It's nice to be planning a visit to a city and have an "aha!" moment when you remember a place there that you never expected to be able to actually visit. The store's much smaller than I imagined, but the staff lived up to their reputation! And it turned out I even got 10% off the book I bought by mentioning the podcast.

- Later I returned to Minneapolis to the Acme Comedy Club for an hour and a half of fun times. This was at my brother's suggestion; he said he vaguely remembered going to a comedy club in Minneapolis, and that sounded like a fantastic idea to me. Some gems of jokes in there. Their headliner was very much an SMBC-style comedian, for those who know what SMBC is; basically, very good at saying something mundane to rather funny, and then saying something else that casts what he previously said in a completely new and utterly hilarious light. Simple example: "I hit a blue jay with my car yesterday. [Cue "awww" from audience.] Yeah, it's very sad. He may never play baseball again." His name was Emo Philips, and apparently I should have heard of him; he could have been George Carlin. Just now in the process of writing I Wikied him and was shocked to discover that he is a well-known comedian who actually is 53, as he claimed; he looked to me like a very talented thirty-year-old in a gray wig who was using a "slightly senile old man" persona as part of his schtick. Actually, he said he'd let his hair go gray for a movie. He wanted to get in cheaper.

Well, past my bedtime! Tomorrow I expect to be in Madison, Wisconsin; I was hoping to stay with my cousin Susan, but sadly on this day of all days she's going to be in Chicago, where I'm going to be the following night. D'oh! So Days Inn it is...