Recall: “This is where it gets a little bizarre for a while.”
< 1 minute read
October 31, 2004, 2:59 AM
It’s WAY past when I should be in bed, and I’m still researching protest photos. Do you remember, from the journal entry I did about the Million Worker March, where I said, “This is where it gets a little bizarre for a while”?
Well, that was because for a while, I, along with “Teapot” and her group, went chasing after a group allegedly wearing a hot dog suit. We then learned that there was also a guy dressed up as the Hamburglar, and a chicken. After the march, back here at the computer, I wrote this about our unsuccessful hunt:
…where we could get a good look over the whole general area for the hot dog guy. No hot dog guy. So we headed back to where we were, in the shade north of the Lincoln Memorial, wondering if such costumed characters actually did exist…
Well, they did exist, as confirmed by posters on DC Indymedia. And now, in hunting around, I landed on sootoday.com (a newspaper in Sault Ste. Marie). On their Web site, I found this:
Continue reading…Categories: Activism
I’m just like, “Oh, my gawd…”
2 minute read
October 31, 2004, 1:40 AM
This evening, after unveiling a beautiful new Online Store, I did a little photo research online. I went looking for photos that other people took of various protests that I’ve been to.
The first one I looked for is the Million Worker March. I found a few groups of photos. I even found one photo with me in it. I was just like, “Oh, my gawd…” Even though I was a participant in a feeder march, the main rally, and the breakaway march to the hotel, I still find it interesting to find myself in a photo of the group. Especially since I usually never find myself in these photos. In another photo off of an Indymedia site (not DC’s, and I can’t remember which one), I was just barely missed. The people next to me were photographed, but I somehow ended up behind a banner. But in this one photo at the hotel, I found myself, and I was in the process of taking a movie with Big Mavica. I checked the movie that I was taking (I’m probably going to use it), and the photographer came into frame and took the image. Cool!
Categories: Activism, Schumin Web meta
Take a look at this, and see what the problem is:
2 minute read
October 28, 2004, 11:38 PM
Categories: Amusing
I need to be re-Googled so badly…
3 minute read
October 26, 2004, 9:57 PM
As of right now, most of my search results are bad. Specifically, at this time, it affects all pages in the Life and Times, Major Areas, Odds and Ends, and Photography sections. That’s because all my pages now end in .asp and not .htm, since the new menus require the new extension. And the aforementioned sections are the ones where the redesign has been completed. Journal, being a new section, is different because there are no old results. It just needs to be crawled for the first time.
So as a result, I can expect to see some of my site traffic dip until Google finds me again. I’ve done my part, though, and resubmitted the home pages for the changed sections, where all the links live.
Otherwise, I got out of the house for a little bit today. I actually went to Staunton Mall to get my glasses adjusted, and then went to the Staunton Wal-Mart to do a little shopping. In this case, Staunton Wal-Mart is crucial here. I don’t shop in the Waynesboro Wal-Mart on my off-days. Feels too much like going to work. So I went to Staunton. I hadn’t seen them in a while, and so that was nice. Staunton has now turned their Garden Center patio into a full-scale greenhouse like we have in Waynesboro, which I thought was cool. It definitely beats the heck out of the open-air patio that it used to be.
Categories: Family, Myself, Retail, Schumin Web meta
Every so often I go visit…
< 1 minute read
October 26, 2004, 9:54 AM
You know where to go if you need to get some serious laughing? Homestarrunner.com, of course. I looked at Strong Bad’s three most recent Emails – The Facts, Time Capsule, and Extra Plug.
“The Facts” is about why Strong Mad should not have a cartoon of his own. “Time Capsule” is where Strong Bad sets up a time capsule with a cassette tape and dry ice in it (the dry ice so it will go “froosh” when someone opens it), which Stinko Man from 20X6 (pronounced “twenty-extee-six”) then proceeds to eat. That one also has a song about Grumblecakes as an easter egg.
The one that really had me laughing, though, was “Extra Plug”. Strong Bad was asked what he could use the extra plug under his desk for. Turns out he had bought some light-up shoes, which he believed could attract women to him solely on the basis of his shoes. He managed to flip a breaker, since the power went out. Seems those things really do suck up the juice. They’re also really loud. They finished the Email, however, in an unusual way. And they ended up also sucking up all the juice at Club Technochocolate. They ended up powering the shoes from the King of Town’s place. Fun.
Now what I’m going to have stuck in my head all day is that Grumblecakes song. It’s definitely an interesting song, being quite catchy. And my dirty, filthy, sordid little mind has read two interpretations into to that song.
World’s worst pickup line: “Hey, baby, want to share those Grumblecakes?”
Categories: Homestar Runner
I hope I’m not coming down with something…
2 minute read
October 26, 2004, 9:01 AM
I really hope I’m not coming down with something, because this would be a heck of a time to come down with something. Though it would serve me right, since I’ve overextended myself lately, going eight days without a break on a number of occasions recently. Most recently, I had the Million Worker March followed by seven straight days at the Service Desk. That’s a recipe for fatigue.
And so today and yesterday, my nose has been stuffed up. I don’t know what to tell you on that one. I hope I’m not getting sick. Since that would just be unpleasant. The last time I was truly sick, as in feeling bad enough that I actually had to miss something was back in 2002. Usually when I catch something, it manifests itself as a sore throat and then goes away on its own. No big deal.
So we’ll see.
Categories: Myself, Schumin Web meta
So do you like my signage?
2 minute read
October 25, 2004, 3:00 PM
To drive home the importance of the upcoming election, I actually took my picture off of the main page, in favor of a photo from The Schumin Web Salutes America embellished with red, white, and blue striping and “VOTE NOVEMBER 2” in large letters. Just my not-so-subtle way of getting out the vote. And nonpartisan, too. I’m just saying VOTE in that area. Here in the Journal, however, I’ll tell you that I’m voting for John Kerry and that you should too.
Meanwhile, we can tell what Darby Conley’s feelings are about the election, as well as who to vote for. For those of you who don’t know, Darby Conley is the one who does the syndicated comic strip Get Fuzzy, which I read in the Staunton paper. It’s a very amusing comic strip, with Satchel the dog and Rob the human both being bossed around by Bucky the cat, the cat with that one big fang.
So why do I mention this? Look at today’s strip:
Categories: Comics, National politics
Next up… Photography!
2 minute read
October 21, 2004, 10:40 AM
I’ve determined that the next section to be redone is going to be Photography. So far, I’ve brought all the photo sets from 2000 into the new design, as well as the first edition of The Schumin Web Salutes America.
And this is the first time I’ve redesigned section-by-section. Usually when I redesign The Schumin Web, I do the whole thing behind the scenes. Then I take several hours and upload the whole thing again. The downside to that method is that while I’m redesigning, I can’t have regular updates, since I’ve completely converted over to the new template at once, making any updates more trouble than they’re worth.
This time, doing it by section, of the eight sections of the site, seven of them are operating normally, as if nothing’s going on. One section, Photography, is currently under the knife getting remodeled. So no updates there until I’m done. Then when I finish, I move on.
You know what I like about this, the 2004 redesign? The loss of the scroll-box navigation, which started to get on my nerves after two years. It should have tipped me, when I found it necessary to create an “Alternate Navigation” page for the site, that this was not the greatest navigation method. But for two years it worked out for me. Now the menus will be down the left side. Plus I created space under the menus for other things, intended for the extreme bottom of the page. What I’m going to do in that space, I don’t know yet, but it’s going to be page-specific. There’s going to be nothing standardized in there, except for the fact that the space is available for use. And I really have no idea what I’m going to put in there, so it’s going to enter this world blank. But it’s there.
Now, though, I must get ready for work.
Categories: Schumin Web meta
I have the best election day schedule!
2 minute read
October 20, 2004, 11:31 PM
I’m working 7 AM to 4 PM on election day. That’s a very good schedule for me for that day. I can work from 7 AM until 4 PM. Then on the way home, I can go vote. Then after that, I can hit CNN and watch the election coverage, and see who on earth is going to be the President of the United States on January 20, 2005.
Will it be John Kerry, or will it be four more years of Bush? We shall see…
Meanwhile, it feels very strange writing this journal entry. This is the first new journal entry since I redid the journal as part of the site redesign. And the verdict is… I’m not used to this. I enter my journal entries into an online form and submit them online. So I do use a Web browser to do this, via a Web page. But when I did the journal, I updated my journal form. So while it’s the same basic form, it’s bigger, and it’s a different color. And even though I did all the changes myself, it’s still going to take time to get accustomed to it. We shall see…
Categories: National politics, Schumin Web meta, Walmart
The rest of Sunday…
6 minute read
October 20, 2004, 2:59 AM
Well! I told you about the Million Worker March that was held on Sunday, and all of my crazy adventures there. Now here’s what happened during the rest of that day, which was also somewhat interesting.
First of all, on my way up to DC on October 2, remember how the Vomit Fairy came to touch me with her star-ended wand? Well, when I got to that rest area again, I stopped to see whether my mess had killed the grass underneath it or not. Turned out that they had never cleaned the mess up, and it was still there. I nearly had a relapse right then and there. I will be checking there again next time I go to Washington on November 4. If it’s still there, I will be making a little fuss about it. Because then it will have been a month.
At Vienna, I ended up catching a train that, to say the least was interesting. The lead set was a Breda rehab consist, 3008 and 3009. I rode 3009, the lead car. The next two cars were regular Bredas, and the last two cars were CAFs. Talk about your odd consists. Rehab-Breda-CAF. Just as weird as the Rohr-CAF-Breda consist that I saw back in August at L’Enfant Plaza. One thing about this consist at Vienna, though, was the amount of wheel noise that was heard. From my vantage point at the head end of Breda 3009, I’d never heard so much wheel noise before. That was a surprise for me.
Million Worker March…
12 minute read
October 19, 2004, 1:30 AM
All I have to say was that I had fun at the Million Worker March, an event to bring the plight of workers into the spotlight. And I would do it again in a heartbeat.
I’d been planning on attending the Million Worker March in Washington DC for some time – since about July or August, I want to say. Now I research these events way ahead of time to find out what is planned in and around these events and keep a tab in any new developments. Then I set my agenda based on that as the date gets closer. In this case, I found out a few things ahead of time. Number one was that there would be no actual official march like on June 5 or previous events that I’d been to. I also learned that there would be an anarchist feeder march meeting up at 16th and Eye Streets, a block away from McPherson Square station, in front of the AFL-CIO headquarters (an organization that did not sponsor the Million Worker March). I also learned that it would also be embraced by anti-war groups. As you know, I am very much anti-war. So anti-war lent a familiar touch to an otherwise new topic to me.
So my plan was to basically join up with the anarchists for the day. I’d start out with the anarchist feeder march and join the main rally that way. Then in the main rally, stay with them. Basically, the idea was to follow my June 5 strategy, where I joined a small Black Bloc for the duration of the event. The people in that group were my soul mates for the day, and it worked out really well.
Categories: Activism, Black bloc, DC trips
Good morning, world!
2 minute read
October 17, 2004, 2:06 AM
Yeah, fan-bloody-tastic. It’s early. Just the right time to bust a move to Washington DC, too.
As soon as I finish this journal entry, I’m hopping into the shower to make myself all fresh as a daisy. Then I’m getting dressed, getting gathered up, and then… I’m going out!
It kind of reminds me of what Jeff Hyslop sang in Today’s Special’s episode “Live on Stage” about going out. It went like this:
Categories: DC trips, Today's Special
Blue. Blue is good.
2 minute read
October 16, 2004, 11:45 AM
Well, so far in my going about fishing for opinions for my test area for the site redesign (a bit incomplete), it’s been positive so far, and a change has been made to the header based on feedback. I love getting feedback.
What’s interesting, though, is the difference the little things make. Compare:
Categories: Schumin Web meta
Well, guess who’s home this weekend…
3 minute read
October 15, 2004, 11:35 PM
Yes, my sister’s home this weekend. And she brought Chris, her boyfriend, with her. And she and Chris are going to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg tomorrow for Howl-O-Scream, which is some event over there.
Me, I have no interest in theme parks. I get the same feeling of excitement railfanning the Green Line in Washington. So I have no need for rollercoasters. And I also have no need for the crowds of people and roadshow prices.
But anyway, Sis is back for the weekend. Fun. Though our paths have probably crossed for the only time this weekend. She and Chris are going to be in Williamsburg on Saturday, and I will be in Washington on Sunday. As such, when they leave for and come home from Busch Gardens, I will be sound asleep in my bed. While they’re at Busch Gardens, I’ll be at home. Then while I’m getting ready for Washington, they’ll be sound asleep. And then while I’m in Washington, the two of them will be going back to Blacksburg.
“Priortize”?
< 1 minute read
October 13, 2004, 9:00 PM
In the third debate, which just ended at the time of this writing, George Bush used a word that I didn’t know the meaning of when he was talking about the availability of flu shots. I don’t know what “priortize” means. That’s pronounced PRY-er-tyze. That’s what Bush said.
I know a word that’s similar to priortize. It’s “prioritize”. I know what that means, and it’s pronounced pry-OR-ih-tyze.
Now I don’t get flu shots as a rule. So I am personally not all that concerned about the availability of flu shots, as I had no intention of getting one in the first place. But I’m just amazed that after almost four years as president and having been made fun of time and time again for mispronunciations, that he totally mispronounced “prioritize” on live national TV in the last debate.
Otherwise, though, it was a good debate. And I’m still voting for John Kerry. And I think Kerry did a better job than Bush in the third debate, like he did in the other two.
So now we have some last-minute campaigning, and then on November 2… we vote!
Categories: National politics