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< 1 minute read

October 25, 2003, 11:16 AM

I watched Saturday morning cartoons this morning… I’m amazed what they do nowadays. Of course, it’s better than one cheesy cartoon after another like it used to be, but still this is amazing.

We start out with a children’s version of Trading Spaces. Here, two kids and one friend each, plus a designer and a decorator each, trade spaces and redecorate the other’s room. Different designers and different host from the regular show, but still interesting. A major difference I noticed is that they don’t mention their budget at all. All in all, though, I enjoy Trading Spaces in general, and this was no exception.

Then there’s “Endurance 2”. This reminds me of a kiddie version of Survivor, except it appears that the kids get to shower and get, like, real accommodations during the show, compared to regular Survivor, where they totally had to fend for themselves. Still, they have stunts and a form of “Tribal Council” where teams who are marked for elimination play “Paper, Rock, Scissors” with elements wood, water, and fire. Interesting.

Interesting what they show nowadays, indeed…

Categories: Television

< 1 minute read

October 23, 2003, 10:33 PM

Well… kind of. I did manage to get away with having no phone number listed in the JMU phone directory, which I did intentionally. However, I still do have an entry in the phone book and my address is listed, but I doubt many JMU students will actually drive out to Stuarts Draft to go visit me. Besides, it’s more interesting to send me to them, since it’s a way to get out of the house.

A “real” nonpublished listing, by the way, would not appear in the phone book at all, and would show up as “NONPUB” in a directory assistance service.

Still, I am quite pleased with myself, since I’d had problems with prank calls in the past. And with dorm numbers, you have one choice: published. So I’d get drunks calling me on Friday nights trying to get some entertainment. Now, I can work in peace on Friday nights, and not have to worry about getting a phone call, because JMU doesn’t have it.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering what my obsession is with having a nonpublished number, it’s several reasons. First of all, the whole thing with the drunks, plus after working for CFW/nTelos/Telegate for almost five years, I’ve seen the whole non-published listing thing, and how well it works. And lastly, speaking of my former employer, after almost five years of working in a phone job, what makes you think I particularly want to spend more time on the phone?

Categories: JMU

2 minute read

October 23, 2003, 5:28 PM

As announced in the October 23 edition of The Breeze, the Student Government Association at JMU will now be picking a “Student of the Month” from nominations by students, organizations, faculty/staff, administrators, or themselves (the last one which we call “shameless self promotion”).

The requirements to be the Student of the Month are to have at least a 2.0 GPA, be a full-time student, be in good standing, and that only the past 90 days can be considered.

The winner gets a $50 gift certificate to the JMU Bookstore, lunch or dinner with Linwood Rose (JMU President), and a formal resolution of recognition from the SGA Senate.

I am ineligible for the Student of the Month program due to my being somewhat less than full-time this semester (I’m taking six hours, and you need twelve to be considered full-time). Just as well, though. People are always surprised to hear this, but I absolutely HATE public recognition. I despise it. It means very little to me to be recognized publicly in front of a bunch of people. In fact, I can’t stand public recognition and award ceremonies so much that I would deliberately miss recognition functions (and they would have to track me down later to give me the award), and I absolutely refuse to attend my own college graduation at JMU. Seriously. I simply want to receive my degree in the mail and then quietly fade from the JMU scene. Seriously.

Continue reading…

Categories: JMU

< 1 minute read

October 22, 2003, 1:53 PM

Well, it turns out that some filters at Schumin Web were eating the Emails. My tech people will be hearing from me. Meanwhile, though, we sent the GoDaddy authorizations through a different route, and I was able to authorize them just fine. Now I pulled all the eHost strings I was supposed to, getting the authorization codes for some and unlocking others, and so the domains ought to move right over just fine, though as the losing (or should we say loser) registrar, they could still screw it up. But we all hope they don’t…

Categories: Internet

< 1 minute read

October 22, 2003, 12:50 PM

Lately I’ve been trying to do registrar transfers for my different domain names because the new registrar is much cheaper than the old registrar. And amazingly, both seem to be screwing up today. eHost (a reseller for eNom) is looking in amazement at me as I work to transfer ALL my domains away from them. Meanwhile, GoDaddy is having problems sending my confirmation Emails.

And on top of that, the domain I originally tried to transfer to GoDaddy during the summer bombed miserably, since eHost totally had no idea what they were doing as they couldn’t supply me my .org authorization code. I actually had to go so far as to renew that domain with them (which I didn’t want to do), which went through. All the while, they’re swearing on their mother’s right kidney that GoDaddy is the registrar for schuminweb.org, while I’m swearing on their mother’s left kidney that eHost/eNom is the registrar, and that a WHOIS search shows them as the registrar, and I recently renewed with them and it went through just fine.

For GoDaddy, that seems to be a rather easy issue, since I think that the Emails are getting eaten up somewhere along the line, and I’ve Emailed my people to get rid of any spamfilters that they have on my Email. Now eHost, on the other hand… it almost seems as if I need to go down to wherever their offices are and make some heads roll, because this is downright nutty what they’re doing.

Categories: Internet

2 minute read

October 20, 2003, 9:41 PM

I actually got back from Pittsburgh yesterday, but I was SO tired yesterday, this journal was about the last thing on my mind.

Anyway, though, it was interesting. We worked at a soup kitchen, we helped with distribution of food, visited a drop-in center for homeless people, and of course, our main event: cleaning carpets at Sojourner House, a facility for mothers recovering from drug addictions.

On Saturday night, after everything was finished, we went out on the town, and met up with my friend Patrick Jarrett, who I’ve known for several years online. He gave some of us a tour of the town, and we also rode the Incline and rode “The T”, which is Pittsburgh’s light-rail system (their equivalent to Metro).

Continue reading…

Categories: LPCM, Pittsburgh

2 minute read

October 16, 2003, 12:51 PM

Sometimes it’s interesting what happens when the unexpected happens and you have to deal with it. Somehow, a bird got into Canterbury. Don’t ask me how. I don’t know. All I know is that when I came to Canterbury today to visit Kathleen to talk Pittsburgh (which we’re going to today), I heard a flapping sound, looked in the direction of the sound, and there was a bird on the first floor of Canterbury, inside.

So I go upstairs, tell Kathleen that (A) I double-parked her, and (B) that there is a bird in the house (to which she said, “Yeew”). So we’re talking about stuff and working on stuff, and we hear a sound in the main upstairs room. First instinct is that it’s someone, but it turns out to be the bird. So we close the door so it doesn’t get in the room where we are.

When it’s time to leave, the bird is right upstairs in the next room, trying to get out, but not realizing that the window is closed. Poor bird. Meanwhile, Kathleen and I are no help, flipping out at every little move the bird makes, and ready to jump if it comes any closer to us, and we can’t just open the windows it’s running into, since neither one of us wants to go near it.

Continue reading…

Categories: LPCM

< 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