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< 1 minute read

October 15, 2003, 8:32 AM

What a windy day out today! It hasn’t been this windy since Hurricane Isabel. However, it’s not nearly that windy. According to Weatherbug, winds are about 20-30 MPH, with gusts up to 50 MPH. Nothing to sneeze at nonetheless. You can definitely hear it outside. Who knows… maybe I’ll lose my other screen now. I lost the first one during Hurricane Isabel, and it’s now in the garage awaiting reinstallation.

Otherwise, tomorrow I’m going to Pittsburgh! I’m going with LPCM, and we’re going to be cleaning rugs at Sojourner House, which is basically a halfway house for mothers who are recovering from drug addictions.

And lastly, I’ve hung an image that my father grew up with on my door. Basically, I hung up a picture of the Palace Amusements character “Tillie” (named for George Tilyou), which graces one side of Palace Amusements in Asbury Park, New Jersey. I’ve actually been to Asbury Park, but was too young to remember seeing Tillie in person. But the reason I hung Tillie up in here is because I’ve been studying vintage roadside architecture lately, and Palace Amusements ranks high up there, but has suffered tremendous decay since they closed in the late 1980s. There’s now a group trying to save the place and have it restored. Plus I think it would be a pleasant surprise for Dad to see Tillie again.

(Although if I had a better ink cartridge, maybe Tillie would look more normal instead of having purple hair due to my lack of yellow ink)

Categories: Asbury Park, LPCM, Weather

< 1 minute read

October 14, 2003, 12:52 AM

I still can’t believe that the people of California elected Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor, but you know what? I don’t live there, and if they want Arnold Schwarzenegger as their governor, then they can have him.

It’s just amusing what I realized recently. They’ve essentially made Rainier Wolfcastle, known in movies as McBain, the governor of California. Since as we all know, McBain is a parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger on The Simpsons. Now I just wonder how that will play out on The Simpsons. Will McBain all of a sudden become governor? Heck, we saw Mr. Burns run for governor (and lose after he wouldn’t eat a three-eyed fish). I think it would be interesting to see McBain in the governor’s chair.

Categories: State and local politics

< 1 minute read

October 12, 2003, 7:56 PM

This was in Lee Hall while I was at Tech picking up my sister and her roommate on Friday. My sister and I and Megan (roommate) are waiting for the elevator, and we see this male resident named Patrick that Sis knew from an anime club.

Well, I take the opportunity to plug Schumin Web, since I happen to have my Schumin Web sweatshirt on. My sister, meanwhile, is doing her usual thing – discouraging people from taking a look at it because she thinks it’s shameless self-promotion. Usually people filter that out. Well, Patrick, being the orifice that he turned out to be, said to me, “Well, she’s sexier than you, so I’m going to listen to her.” Don’t you just want to deck him for being so rude as to say that right in front of me?

It also doesn’t help his case when my sister said he had a handshake like a dead fish. I’d much rather have a crusher handshake than a limp one (but break my hand and I’ll hurt you with my remaining hand).

I was just a little taken back, though, about how rude this person could be and have no second thoughts about it. What was he, raised by wolves or something?

Categories: Some people

< 1 minute read

October 11, 2003, 11:04 PM

That’s right, there are GIRLS living here, and as such, my bathroom, which I’ve made into something truly manly, being completely functional in nature and nothing too artsy in there, has now been attacked by a fleet of girls, specifically my sister, and her roommate Megan. Now, all of a sudden, the hair and skin care inventory has expanded dramatically, from a single hairbrush (which I use to neaten my hair in the morning) to hair brushes, weird sprays, creams… all kinds of stuff. And that’s just the counter.

In my shower, there’s all order of weird poofy things, body wash (an expensive way to say “soap”), and razors. A razor, eh? I don’t trust myself around razors (thus why I use an electric), but there were no accidents.

The whole thing ends tomorrow, though, as the two of them go back to Virginia Tech. Let’s admit it, the two of them are great friends, and Sis and Megan are great people, but when they infringe on my bathroom, that’s pushing it.

However, to Megan’s credit, she did find my fire alarms quite interesting, though she didn’t recognize the fire alarm like the ones in her own dorm, since mine was mounted to a strobe plate, and the dorm’s are not.

Categories: Family

< 1 minute read

October 9, 2003, 12:42 PM

Metro finally got a public restroom in a station! A self-cleaning restroom has been installed at Huntington. What this means is that every 30 minutes, the restroom closes up and cleans itself. Interesting idea… I wonder if it catches on. I also hope that it’s really totally clean after the guy before you has done his business. Hmmm…

And they installed it at Huntington, too. Huntington Station shows up in some of my “Urban Comparison” pictures way off in the distance. Finally, this will give me reason to go to Huntington and ride the inclinator there.

But not before first having a BIG soda…

Categories: Restrooms, WMATA

2 minute read

October 9, 2003, 12:33 PM

The joys of driving through campus in the middle of the day… JMU students walking, JMU students running, JMU students mingling… all just fine by me. Then we have the problem:

JMU students crossing the street.

First of all, they’re totally obnoxious when they have the stop signs, and thus the right of way. You can find yourself sitting at these random stop signs throughout campus for minutes on end while everyone crosses the street. You really have to duck and dodge to get through, let me tell you, all the while trying not to run someone over.

Then there’s the painted crosswalks without stop signs or traffic lights. Crosswalk means we know to expect pedestrian traffic through that area. That still doesn’t mean that you can dart out in front of cars. And the pedestians think we have to stop for these things. I overheard one girl on the sidewalk say, “Thank you for stopping!” as I drove past without stopping. I’m sorry, but if there is no stop sign or traffic light, I don’t have to stop unless it would be unsafe to keep going (i.e. if some idiot is in the street already).

Continue reading…

Categories: Driving, JMU

< 1 minute read

October 9, 2003, 1:29 AM

I do so love it when things come together. With the help of “STN 2” on the CafePress boards, I got a new set of ASP code up and running on my Online Store. I don’t know about you, but I think it looks really good. I also took the opportunity to make a few other changes on there to enhance the appearance. And it took maybe an hour tops to do the conversion and testing, testing it in a “test-stoer” directory (I mistyped and decided to leave it, since it was a test folder, after all). So take a look, let me know what you think… you know. All that good stuff. And buy some Schumin Web merchandise – the thongs are still there.

Categories: Schumin Web meta

< 1 minute read

October 2, 2003, 11:20 AM

Is it Friday yet? No? Still Thursday? Drat… I need Friday to be here, because Friday is my workday at home. Work on JMU stuff, as well as personal stuff. And trust me, I will be busy that day, I can assure you.

Meanwhile, we’re getting, as I understand it, a big mass of arctic air coming through here, which will make the weather a lot colder lately. As it is, I broke out my Schumin Web sweatshirt for the first time this season today.

Categories: Weather

< 1 minute read

October 1, 2003, 4:01 PM

And my sick Mavica (the small one – Big Mavica’s just fine) is going to get mailed to Pennsylvania in the next few days to get fixed. A shame when these things break, isn’t it?

Categories: Cameras

< 1 minute read

September 30, 2003, 7:01 PM

I forgot to tell you this in the newsletter!

I say one of the worst places to be is right below a horn, which happened to me last Thursday in Keezell Hall (someone accidentally burned their lunch).

There’s a discussion about this going on in the forums. Interesting stuff. Still can’t believe I forgot to mention it in the newsletter, despite the subject line…

Categories: Fire alarms, JMU

< 1 minute read

September 30, 2003, 5:41 PM

You may have heard of the Forgetful family (from Today’s Special). You know… Frannie, Farley, Freddy, and Flo Forgetful. I should just change my name to “Frankie” and join right in, because I’m just feeling all paranoid about forgetting something. And so far, I haven’t forgotten anything, that I know of. Somehow, I just have this fear that I’m going to forget where I parked the car today (in the parking garage at JMU), and walk all the way to my usual space in J-Lot and then realize that I’m parked way across campus from my usual space. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. I’ve just been a little paranoid about that.

Now of course, the Forgetful family takes it to a bit of an extreme, forgetting to put wheels on the car, or forgetting who their own cat is, and so on, but still, I’m just afraid I’ll forget something.

Next thing you know, I might just scream out “KEVIN!” or something like that.

Categories: Myself, Today's Special

< 1 minute read

September 30, 2003, 12:03 PM

PT Barnum once said that there’s a sucker born every minute. I wonder how many people are going to be a sucker on this one. This is a classified ad that I found in The Breeze‘s classified ads in their September 29, 2003 issue. And I quote…

Looking For a Friend? I will hang out with you for $10 an hour. Call Mike, 438-XXXX (number withheld for obvious reasons)

I have half a mind to call this “Mike” fellow up. I should call him up only to find out if someone was desperate enough to actually want to pay someone $10 an hour for companionship.

I hope no one’s desperate enough to actually reply to this ad, and I definitely hope no one actually PAYS for this…

Categories: JMU

< 1 minute read

September 24, 2003, 11:40 AM

I can’t get over that it’s fall already! The season of summer is behind us, and soon the leaves will be changing to Hokie colors (as in Virginia Tech, where Sis goes), and then falling to the ground. I never really got the opportunity to see Reddish Knob during the summer, which I meant to do, but hey – Reddish Knob during the fall could be fun!

Categories: Weather

< 1 minute read

September 22, 2003, 11:29 PM

Yeah, this is a weird one that I had last night.

Picture it, if you will. I’m in Harrisonburg, in Potomac Hall, in the pavilion room, with the 2002-2003 hall staff (which I was a part of), plus Mandee, the new hall director. In this little meeting, we’re telling Mandee all of the evils of working with Mecca, the hall director that we had to deal with (more like suffer through). Well, later in the dream, I get a phone call on my cell phone, which is rather strange, because (A) I don’t keep it on, and (B) I don’t give out the number for my cell phone. So who was the person on the other end? It was Mecca! How interesting. Mecca says, “Benjamin, why am I calling you? Why were you in there talking about me?” I got to finally put Mecca in her place over the cell. It felt good. The basic gist of it was well, what are you going to do about it? I don’t work for Residence Life anymore! I’d like to see you try! Boy, that felt good. That felt VERY good.

And just a clear reminder to the thought police (pardon, Office of Residence Life), this was indeed a dream. And a darn amusing one at that, too.

Categories: Dreams, JMU

< 1 minute read

September 20, 2003, 3:47 PM

Don’t you just hate it when things don’t work out? I’ve been having such difficulty with the photo for my upcoming “cell phone rant” quote, and as such, I’m forced to reschedule it from going up tomorrow to going up in another week. Thankfully, I have another quote ready to go, so it’s just a matter of swapping dates, but still… this was a quote I’d really “talked up” in the last week. But this is what happens when reality rears its ugly head sometimes…

Categories: Schumin Web meta