Community Corner

Weird Iowa: Naked Baseball, Puzzling Politics, Doing Drupal and Anybody Seen Brett?

Weird crime, weird politics, weird mascot, weird Iowa.

We have a few bits of weirdness to tell you about from around Iowa this week, but we're going to start out with a promise: We will publish no baseball puns related to this first story.

(But feel free to imagine.)

Seems an Iowa City man tried for the most non-traditional inside-the-park homerun he could think of at a Waterloo Bucks game last week.

Find out what's happening in Iowa Citywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

According to police, the man sprinted onto the field during the minor league baseball game wearing , and made his way all the way to third base before being caught by authorities. He was charged with indecent exposure, public intoxication and trespass -- all misdemeanors.

At least he tried for a homerun rather than settling for a -- we promised -- a walk.

Find out what's happening in Iowa Citywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Speaking of Iowa City, and we usually do in Weird Iowa, an Iowa City man is facing a felony burglary charge after he allegedly broke into an apartment Thursday morning. When tenants of an apartment building on East Burlington came home last week, they found their door kicked in.

Inside, they allegedly found Quartez Lashawn Alexander, 21, walking into the living room from the bedroom area. When a female tenant asked Alexander what he was doing in the apartment, Alexander allegedly said " according to the criminal complaint.

Politics is often weird, and Friday's politics in Linn County was no exception. Now, we're not calling anybody or any political party weird, but it's undeniably odd when a State Senate candidate not only switches parties, but switches governments.

For months, Randi Shannon had been telling people why as the GOP-preferred candidate she's a better choice than Democratic incumbent Liz Mathis to represent Linn County's District 34.

Friday, as we reported in Marion Patch, she decided to drop out of the race not because she wasn't the better candidate, but because she had found a better government. And with that, she put out a news release from "Senator Randi Shannon" from  (See the photo.)

In a four-page letter announcing her withdrawl, Shannon thanked, "my fellow Ron Paul for President Supporters, My Fellow Members of Liberty, My Friends who home school as did I, the many Pro-Life Members," and more.

If we'll never quite get vandalism -- and we never quite will -- we'll certainly never get this one from West Des Moines.

Police there are investigating a rash of complaints from residents who say their vehicles were spray-painted bright blue and, in some cases, covered with eggs that may damage paint if left too long. . Police don’t have suspects or witnesses.

In the worst of the cases, a man living near the 300 block of 36th Street told police on Sunday that four of his family’s vehicles were egged and/or spray-painted while legally parked overnight. 

Finally, let's go to Ames. There's not really much weird about Drupal except the name, which just sounds weird, and the mascot, which certainly is.

That's good enough for us. And for that we thank the Drupal People with this plug: They'll be holding their second-annual conference to share more information on their open-source platform, which powers websites, applications and more.

The two-day conference, DrupalCorn, takes place in August at Iowa State University’s Memorial Union and  and it costs just $20.

Weird Rewind:


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