With a recent massive harddrive failure, I’m going back through all sorts of backups that had to be scattered across drives to save. Every now and then I come upon a little nugget or memory. Here’s one about the college radio station I was a part of. I’m not sure what this was written for, probably the 50 year anniversary of the station.
——
It was the end of our Senior year (2002). For 4 years WDUB had been a part of our lives and we weren’t quite ready to leave it behind. We didn’t want to just fade out like the music before a PSA about Bigfoot stealing your shoes, we wanted to leave a memory in people’s minds that made them think back fondly about the station and the slightly-odd DJs that controlled the 91.1 frequency. A prank was most definitely in need. Abe, Jess, and Ed (names not changed cause noone is innocent) came up with the idea of making the entire CD library disappear. There had been a great deal of “disappearing CDs” by malicious or careless parties around this time, so we thought we’d take it so far that people would laugh.
During Finals Week, Jess and Ed scheduled back to back radio shows so late into the night that we would have to shut down the station when we were done. This gave us plenty of time to get the job done. Abe met us at the station, and we began moving the CD catalog. We pulled every single CD, yes every single CD, and began stacking them in the newsroom downstairs. Using the mail bins, we did our best to keep everything in a decent order for the poor souls that would have to move them back (us). After several hours, we finally accomplished the gargantuan task of relocating 7000 CDs. The FM room and every drawer in the back room was completely empty save for the thick layer of dust that had built up over the years. I guess not cleaning is truly a Doobie tradition. With all of the CDs relocated, we settled down to making the “ransom note” in true ransom note fashion. Unfortunately at this point we could no longer say, “No issues of CMJ were harmed in this prank.” Ransom note made, evidence stupidly left behind in the trash can, we locked up the station and ran into the darkness of night.
Later that night a DJ stumbled into the station, didn’t see the CDs in the newsroom and thought they were truly stolen. A late night call woke up a very grumpy station manager, and the fur started flying. Over the next few days, rumours of suspension, criminal charges, and even not being allowed to graduate began to circulate. The station was closed down, locks changed, and students were not allowed to broadcast during finals week. This being the unexpected result of a prank that had many people laughing and some not so happy, we decided it was time to fix things. After some anonymous negotiation through a 3rd party, we were finally allowed back into the station to put the CDs back where they belonged in hopes the station could be reopened. Along with a true band of dedicated Doobie DJs, we spent the night carting the CDs back upstairs, alphabetizing and reorganizing, as well as finding many of the “missing” CDs.
Early into that morning, with all the CDs put away, many of the senior DJs bid a final farewell to the station they knew and loved so well. But we had all contributed our part to the crazy history that makes WDUB the best student organization at Denison University. Here’s to 50 more years or music, fun, pranks, and something to do from 3-5am! To all the present and future DJs, keep the spirit alive.
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I just checked out the WDUB website myself and find it kind of insulting that they say:
“In the fall of 2004, WDUB began a second era of its history as the station began streaming its on-air content to worldwide internet users.” That’s utter crap as I was streaming the station online via shoutcast while I was there and I graduated in 2002! Hell, I even had a webcam going for my shows. But maybe evidence of my existence with the Doobie was wiped clean after the above debacle.
I must be slacking! Just a few things I’ve been meaning to post:
Friday – sucked, I hope noone gets what I had. It ranked just under food poisoning on my list of illness. Luckily it lasted 24 basically. Thanks to everyone who sent their get wells, and especially the parents for the medical advice. 🙂
Saturday – Surprisingly I felt much better and Heather and I headed to Monterey
Work this week brings me down to Santa Clara for some day-long meetings, so I’m hanging out in a swanky hotel room all to myself rather than having to make the drive back and forth 3 times. While the room is extra nice, I do miss Heather and the cats being around. Not sure what the weekend brings, but I’m sure it’ll be fun.
Figure I ought to update last weekend (and week) before this weekend starts. Heather is so much better at this. But here we go:
Saturday:
Didn’t get out of the apartment until 5ish, but was nice to stay in.
Went over to The Fork for Dani’s going-away, pre-gaming party.
Ate a bunch of delicious vegan sushi.
Went to the Dustfish Massive party in west Oakland. It got shut down early, no suprise. It was easy to see being that it was enormous and everyone was there. The car ride back was fun.
Rubin was kind enough to drive us back to The Fort which turned into an after party until dawn.
Sunday:
Several people crashed at The Fort, and we all started rousing around noonish.
The weather was unbelievably beautiful and it was determined we would have a picnic at Mountain View Cemetery.
The entourage walked to the grocery store, bought food and girl scout cookies and then hiked to the cemetery where we feasted, took pictures, spun rope dart and flags, climbed pyramids, and enjoyed the sun.
I took a large number of photos, playing around with my still new camera, learning the ins-and-outs of it.
Then it was back to The Fort for a DDI meeting, then back across the bay to my place to crash.
Monday:
Work, website coding, etc.
Tuesday:
Went to The Fort for massive amounts of cooking. I won’t even try to recount what was there, but it was all delicious. I was so distracted that I did not document via pictures.
Watched The Lost Boys, chatted about Sidekicks, went to bed.
Wednesday:
Haircut time finally!
Went to the Pirate Salon for a haircut with Tanya after waiting almost 3 months. The mullet is once again gone, and she did a great job of accentuating the blue that Heather put in awhile back.
Thursday:
Work and then coding, coding, coding.
Friday:
Sick as a dog, stayed home from work.
There, all caught up! 🙂
Hopefully this weekend Heather and I will make it to Monterey, but that all depends on me feeling better.
We were walking around Oakland last sunday, enjoying the weather and
came upon a pile of stuff on the sidewalk. It was mainly trash but
sitting there in plain view was a Linksys WRT54G router. The holy grail
of cheap routers. I picked it up, turned it over and gasped when I saw
it was v3. Easily hackable and with extra RAM on board. In my bag it
went with a silent hope that it was still good. I just now got around
to checking it. Looks like its in perfect shape. Even flashed DD-WRT
on it! Score!
This will probably mean nothing to all the CA readers, but for those of us with roots back east, and especially in the south, this is like the holy grail. For years I’ve marveled at the ability for Waffle House servers and cooks to communicate and cook so quickly and efficiently. Here are their secrets, recovered by a brave soul who risked flying scattered smothered and covered hash browns to retrieve a snapshot of the secret code used by the Waffle House staff. (Thanks Nick!) Quite an ingenious method actually. I can’t wait for the next road trip that lets me go to a Waffle House again and watch it in action with my new found knowledge.
These are all too often it seems. From what I hear it used to be only one or two a year. This is my 4th one in as many months. The first one I’ve experienced in my apartment too. The building definitely had a swaying feeling. The cats, however, are not worried in the least as they sleep on the couch. Wow, magnitude just got posted. My biggest one yet, 4.2. According to the Richter scale that’s equivalent to a small atomic bomb.
Update:
wow, 4 in a row down by Lafayette. I only felt the first one. George said it knocked his razor off his counter.
1.3 2007/03/01 20:59:29 37.897N 122.120W 14.1 1 km ( 1 mi) NW of Lafayette, CA
1.8 2007/03/01 20:52:40 37.897N 122.112W 13.8 1 km ( 0 mi) N of Lafayette, CA
2.8 2007/03/01 20:46:13 37.899N 122.112W 15.1 1 km ( 1 mi) N of Lafayette, CA
4.2 2007/03/01 20:40:00 37.901N 122.098W 16.6 2 km ( 1 mi) NE of Lafayette, CA
