Month: September 2004

We’re studying hard, Mom …

From Excite.com News (really):

Three students at Jacksonville University have been punished for installing a stripper pole in an on-campus apartment and taking pictures as fully clothed women performed on it at a party. A female student who won a dance contest also was disciplined.

About a dozen women competed for a $100 Victorias Secret gift certificate Sept. 11, said James Foster, a 20-year-old who hosted the party. None of the women disrobed.

The men bought the steel pole from Home Depot, bolted it to the concrete ceiling and attached the bottom to a plywood stage covered in red felt.

Best line from the news piece: The party ended shortly after the beer ran out.

Fork over the money …

From NBC4 TV:

Security camera pictures from the bank in Aiken, S.C., reveal a masked suspect holding a pitchfork.

Police said he demanded money from the clerks and used the pitchfork to threaten them.

The suspect took off on foot into some nearby woods after he got the cash.

No one was hurt in the incident.

Festival

This weekend was Its Better in Mentor Days, a weekend festival held by the Mentor, Ohio suburb every year about this time. Its like most such late-summer, early-fall small festivals, serving mostly as a place to ride on cheap portable amusement park rides run by barely showered guys with mullets, or to get food from one of the many grease-filled food vendor trailers lined up near what passes for a midway. A large tent serves as shelter for local businesses and politicians to sell themselves to passersby.

Usually, the easiest way to remember what weekend this particular event is held is to look at the weather forecast for September. Generally, it rains or even snows during that weekend, but this time it was relatively decent, though cold.

Every year there are tens of thousands of such festivals taking up weekends, run by small towns, local curches or even large organisations. The last of them marks the end of summer, something which makes me very sad indeed.