Have you ever seen an iMac with the skin off?
3 minute read
November 30, 2007, 9:21 PM
Well, you soon will. I had the opportunity to do a memory upgrade on a first-generation iMac G5 today at work, and so I got to open one of those puppies up. So this is what the iMac looks like with the skin off:
Continue reading…“Ben Schumin believes his life is very interesting. He’s wrong.”
3 minute read
November 29, 2007, 7:11 PM
Do you remember back in April when I inadvertently stayed up all night because I had too much coffee at Daily Grind? Well, while messing around on the Internet, I discovered the latest person making an attempt to be witty at my expense. This would be a person going by the name “Javier Magnante” (more than likely not the person’s real name), who runs the blog Today’s Special Is Pain, which dissects my Journal entries in a style similar to Mystery Science Theater 3000. He takes a bit of text from my Journal and reposts it in a light gray color, and then he makes sarcastic comments right below it in this salmon-colored text.
His style is rude and crude, as he portrays me in his profanity-laden commentaries as someone who is constantly eating large quantities of ham and paying no attention to personal hygiene, while simultaneously having sexual relations with my digital camera and laptop computer. Needless to say, cheap shots are in no short supply. Frank Wade should go see this guy for advice on how to take cheap shots at me.
Categories: Netculture, Some people
Ever seen a Wheelock push station live and in person?
< 1 minute read
November 25, 2007, 10:26 AM
Those of us on my discussion forums have known for some years that Wheelock makes “push stations”, which are similar to pull stations, except you just push a large red button rather than pull a handle. But no one’s ever seen one. I was at the Ikea in College Park last week, and saw one. It was in their “Family Restroom” at the front of the store, in fact, and it was blue and marked “MEDICAL EMERGENCY”.
So yeah, there you go. And as this is in a restroom, you can tell that some people have gotten bored in there and scraped off a few letters.
Categories: Fire alarms, IKEA
What a fun weekend!
5 minute read
November 25, 2007, 8:38 AM
All in all, I had a fun Thanksgiving weekend in Stuarts Draft, but I’m still very glad to be home again.
Thanksgiving itself involved the usual – turkey, and all the various fixings to go with it, and then falling asleep afterwards.
Then I spent Friday with Katie. We had a blast, as we did anything but shop. We went on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while, then rode back around to Charlottesville, where we went to the Mellow Mushroom, where we had a vegetarian pizza with a pesto base. Twas awesome.
However, before Katie and I started out, we got a movie of Katie’s cat Peabo chasing a laser pointer around…
Categories: Charlottesville, Driving, Food and drink, High school, Katie, Target, Thanksgiving, Walmart, Waynesboro Outlet Village
Happy Thanksgiving!
< 1 minute read
November 22, 2007, 5:13 PM
Happy Thanksgiving!
Hope everyone had a safe and fun turkey day.
Categories: Thanksgiving
Gentrification in Stuarts Draft…
< 1 minute read
November 22, 2007, 1:54 PM
I’m in Stuarts Draft for Thanksgiving, and I was driving around with Mom today, and I was like, whoa at just about every turn. All these new buildings. Dominion Outdoors and all this other shopping going up by Exit 91 in Fishersville. Food Lion and a related huge shopping center on US 250 in Fishersville. There’s a Sonic in front of my ex-Wal-Mart in Waynesboro now. Staunton now has Starbucks.
And a lot of McMansions are going up all over the place, as well as all kinds of condos. Oh, dear…
I’m just afraid that with all this building that it’s going to run roughshod over what I like about Stuarts Draft and surrounding areas. Wide open spaces. Scenic views. Leave that field there. Plant a plant, not a shopping center. I’m afraid it might suck the life right out of the area, and turn it into something that looks like Fairfax County. I don’t particularly care for Fairfax County, because it’s a traffic nightmare, and all you have is shopping center after shopping center after shopping center. I don’t want the area where I did most of my growing up to turn into that…
Categories: Stuarts Draft
You know, you’d think I lived here or something…
2 minute read
November 20, 2007, 11:30 PM
Yeah, based on my activities today, you’d think I lived in Maryland or something. Today, I finally got a Maryland driver’s license. Emphasis here on “finally”. I’ve lived here for what, six months now, and I’m just now finally getting the Maryland license. So that took me a while.
Of course, I’m pleased to have a license that once again agrees with the state where I actually live. Now whenever I get carded for the Manischewitz that I occasionally buy, the birthdate will be nearer the center, vs. in Virginia, where it’s towards the edge and partly blocked by the edge of the pocket in my wallet. Likewise, when I go to the bank and they ask for my ID, now it agrees with what’s in their systems, since I changed that to my Maryland address right away online.
Categories: Move to DC area, National politics
I’m drained!
2 minute read
November 18, 2007, 11:31 PM
Let me say this: I’m drained! Tonight, I completed and published three photo sets in Life and Times. Since the September 15 protest, the weekend with Katie, and the October Rebellion protests happened so close together, I decided to do the photo sets for all of these as one giant project. That’s something that will drain you by the time everything’s said and done. Everything that I would normally do for one photo set was done in triplicate. Three times writing. Three times picking photos. Three times watching movies. Three times the photo prep work. My goodness, I’m glad to be done.
That’s not to say, however, that these were not great experiences. Now you can finally see my first serious moves with radical cheerleading, as well as my usual black bloc stuff. So yeah. Plus Katie and I had a blast, as we kind of wandered around Washington and thereabouts, going from Chinatown to Metro Center to Dupont Circle to McPherson Square to Rosslyn to Georgetown to Foggy Bottom to Pentagon City and back to Silver Spring.
Categories: Schumin Web meta
I call this my “heartburn” look…
2 minute read
November 18, 2007, 12:27 AM
I’ve got two photos to show you that I found somewhat amusing. This first one was taken late on Friday at work, and is of Zack, a coworker of mine, and me, posing for a photo in my office:
Once a slimeball, always a slimeball, I suppose…
2 minute read
November 8, 2007, 7:38 PM
Some people never change, I suppose. When I was in seventh grade, my homeroom teacher and I did NOT get along. He was a bit of a jerk back then, and told little seventh graders to work interpersonal problems out themselves and not even so much as assist in the process. I am convinced that he did that because it was easier to let these little children who don’t know any better come to blows, because then, by letting an issue boil over rather than actually having to deal with the issue at hand, he could just pull both students apart and send them to the office, and not have to so much as get his hands dirty. And that would be that.
Now fast forward to 2007. As you know, my mother now teaches in the middle school that I once attended. My former seventh grade homeroom teacher is now an assistant principal at another middle school in the same county. And Mom was at that particular middle school for something, and ran into him. He mentioned to Mom that he’d seen me recently. Mom gave him this puzzled look, and asked where he’d seen me. He said, “Wal-Mart.” Busted. Mom enlightened him, as it’s now been seven months since I left Wal-Mart. She said, “Ben works in Washington now.”
Categories: Middle school, Some people
Hello from the city of brotherly love…
2 minute read
November 4, 2007, 10:10 PM
Well, from the suburbs of the city of brotherly love, at least. I’m not in Philadelphia proper. Anyway, though, I made it. I am spending three nights in Fort Washington for a class in Blue Bell.
What’s weird, though, is how the locations go. I live in Montgomery County, Maryland. Then I traveled however far it is to Philadelphia, to end up in… Montgomery County. Pennsylvania, mind you, but a Montgomery County, nonetheless.
And then otherwise, it cost $11.75 in tolls to get up here. Every time I looked, it seems, there was a guy in a yellow safety vest with his hand out. The Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore cost two bucks. The Susquehanna River bridge cost five bucks(!). Then the Delaware Turnpike, the short stretch of I-95 in Delaware, cost four bucks. Then driving a few miles up the Pennsylvania Turnpike cost another 75 cents.
I’m just glad that tolls are few in the DC area. The only toll road I know of in my area is the Dulles Toll Road.
Categories: Philadelphia
I’m going to Philly…
2 minute read
November 2, 2007, 9:16 PM
This Sunday, I’m going to Philadelphia, and I’m staying until Wednesday. I’m taking a course which explores the function of a Macintosh in great depth. For those of you familiar, it’s MacOS 101, which is titled “Mac OS X Support Essentials v10.4”. In short, I’m going to be able to troubleshoot a Mac like the pros, so that when a Mac hiccups, I should know how to cure those hiccups, or at least tell you why it’s hiccuping.
Then I’m also going to have two computers in tow. Since I’m going to be doing some of my regular work while I’m out on this little business trip, I’m going to have “Jeff”, one of our office Macs, with me. Then I’m also going to have Lappy, my personal laptop, with me for taking care of the Web site and such while I’m out.
And the drive is almost all Interstate, too, starting at the Beltway in Silver Spring, and going almost all the way to my hotel in suburban Philadelphia. Specifically, it’s mostly I-95, which should be interesting. Last time I rode that stretch of I-95 was to go up to New Jersey in January 2003 for a funeral. So we’ll see.
Categories: Philadelphia, Work