A real prank

November 13, 2009

mcguffey12I never went to college — but I do know a thing or two about good pranks.  Probably the best was when I was writing features for this bush-league bi-weekly outside of Houston.  One night, an hour before deadline, my editor, a big-boned rodeo cow-girl, threatened to spike my story unless I revised the final paragraph, which she considered verbose:  ”It’s jus’ too word-y — yeeknow?”

She was wrong, and I calmly explained that to her.  But, of course, she didn’t understand.  It was just the two of us in the office that night, arguing and arguing away valuable hours we could have been using to suck back a few at the tavern.

Did I get mad?  Yes.  Did I acquiesce?  Hell no.

Instead of revising, I waited until she went to the bathroom and then quickly pushed a file cabinet against the door, trapping her inside long enough for my story to get printed, unfettered by my cow-wrangling editor, who, as it were, dislocated her shoulder trying to escape.

What a lark!  That, kids, is a grade A, big-dick prank.  If only the Houston Police Department had thought the same.

Leave a Comment » | Harpo McGuffey, Newspaper, pranks | Permalink
Posted by thelongwoodhole

The day the library elevator almost got merked

November 11, 2009

April 1st, 2009, 3:45 PM:  Hoodlums purchase a six-foot cut of yellow nylon rope at Tractor Supply Company in Farmville for $4.45.

3:55:  Hoodlums drape rope across the steps that lead to the second floor of the Greenwood Library.  They tape signs on either side of the steps, take the elevator to the second floor, and tape signs on to the top entrance of the steps.  They grab a newspaper, take a seat at a table in the atrium, and wait.

4:12:  Unsuspecting library patron tries to use the steps.  He sees the rope, reads sign, and takes the elevator up.  Hoodlums run outside and pee their pants laughing.  Now bored, they go get something to eat.

7:10:  Hoodlums, out of curiosity, return to the library.  It couldn’t still be up?  It is.  Could it get any better?  It can: a cluttered line of men and women in Greek letters are waiting to use the elevator.  And they look, like, really freakin’ annoyed.

9:13:  The rope is still up.  No member of the library staff has apparently noticed the crowd of people, or heard the ding of the elevator bell every ten seconds, or caught a whiff of that nasty smoke that hopefully is not the elevator’s motor.

10:10:  Officially the best day ever.

10:30:  Somewhere around this time, the rope is taken down.  For  now, anyway.  Those stairs still need to be refinished!

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1 Comment | Newspaper, pranks | Permalink
Posted by thelongwoodhole

Friday Miscellanea

November 6, 2009

In Your Rotunda:  This week’s online poll is “What would you like to see more of in The Rotunda?”  Definitely take a chance to vote, especially if you feel like this student.       

So far, the results are:

pie chart

Forgot about EARN!:  You’d think that with an intrepid student-run think tank tackling the issues of money and brand-advertisement at Longwood, we’d no longer need to hire outsiders.  But no. 

Next week:  Pranks.

Leave a Comment » | Miscellanea, Newspaper | Permalink
Posted by thelongwoodhole

Where not to dispense bodily fluids, and other miscellanea for your Thursday

October 22, 2009

Remember:  The SGA is hosting a Student Services Open Forum this evening at six in the Lankford Ballroom.  Never have so many prominent members of the Longwood community been gathered together at one time.  That’s a fact.

In Your Rotunda: These folks know how to grab you by the lapels and keep you reading.   Here’s how they do it:  begin with a word, a word the simpleton reader may not understand.  Give the word’s definition.  Proceed to lecture.

For example, here’s a word:  irony.    Definition:  when a WMLU member, fresh from being issued an official reprimand on Sunday by her fellow board member, publishes an article in the Rotunda titled “Apathy IS a Problem.” The editors knew what they were doing when they filed this baby in the Entertainment section.

Is it possible to capture the essence of Longwood’s students and staff in a single photo?:

frazer Yes!

UPDATE: We originally wrote that the WMLU member/Rotunda writer was “raked across the coals.”  This was an exaggeration.   Based on the descriptions of the Sunday night meeting, the proceedings were civil.

1 Comment | Awkward, Miscellanea, Newspaper, Politics, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by thelongwoodhole

INTERVIEW: Jenni from the blog

October 12, 2009

Just because we don’t get our kicks from fashion doesn’t mean we can’t be a total whore for The Longwood Look.

Why do we like it so much?  Because it’s a weekly column written by two Longwood students that does not suck.  

And now it’s finally being included in the print edition of the Rotunda.   We recently caught up with Jenni, one of the two writers for the Look, who was kind enough to answer some questions about guilty pleasures, pajamas, and baby seals. 

The Longwood Hole:  What percentage of Longwood’s females would you estimate are stylish? What percentage are slobs? Finally, what percentage try to be stylish, but do not know the difference between shit and Shinola?

Jenni:  I would say we’re 65%-35% decent-slob. Personally, I feel that although there are many women who dress nicely, there are few who assert their identities through their styles. That’s why I’ve reserved 5% for the “stylish” ladies: women who don’t necessarily need pearls to have a good time.

TLH:  Where do you guilty pleasure shop in Farmville?

Jenni:  The ABC store. Just kidding. The Dressing Room was recognized in the August issue of Glamour as some kind of “hidden chic”, but I personally like that new consignment shop next to Pairet’s. They have some great vintage hats and dresses for good prices. I got a dress there for $5.

TLH:  How much feedback have you received from you column, now that it’s being published in print as well as online?

Jenni: Little bit. Perhaps if there were pictures of us next to our articles, people would think we were safe to approach. My theory is that they’re afraid we’ll write nasty articles at them. Too bad they’re right.

TLH:  Must we have a rich diddy to be stylish?

Jenni:  A diddy (sugar or otherwise) is only there to keep you blingin’. I buy my own clothes most of the time, and Megan [co-writer of The Longwood Look] sewed herself a dress.

TLH:  Have you ever seen someone successfully rock a muffin-top?

Jenni:  Not someone who wasn’t an actual muffin.

TLH:  For Christmas you are given an exquisite, thousand-dollar jacket that is made of 100% baby seal. Do you wear it, or donate it to Coats for Kids?

Jenni:  I pawn it and buy Christian Louboutins.

TLH:  Explain the cowboy boots phenomena, please.

Jenni:  There are luxurious suede boots available now in several colors, lengths, and price ranges, yet many young women opt out of them for overpriced lumpy fabric and tacky stitching. ‘Western’ trends are in right now, which makes cowboy boots an invasive species. Now we need a saloon, duels, and a player piano. This is getting pretty expensive.

TLH:  Have you ever worn pajamas to class?

Jenni:  What do you think?

TLH:  What fashion trend among females annoys you the most? Among males?

Jenni:  Females: harem pants or a complete lack of originality. Males: sexual opportunists or camouflage.

TLH:  What are some subjects we can expect The Longwood Look to cover in the coming weeks?

Jenni:  Fashion faux-pas, LA vs. NYC style, and, of course, shoes.

Leave a Comment » | Interviews, Newspaper, Things that are good | Permalink
Posted by thelongwoodhole

Cops & Crunks

October 6, 2009

Our friend from ODU came to visit this weekend.  At five in the afternoon on Sunday, we received this text:  

“Just woke up.  you longwood kids dont play around.”  

A study by the Roanoke Times concurs.  Longwood, according to an analysis conducted by the newspaper, has the third highest rate of alcohol violations, per capita, of all the colleges in Virginia.  We’re first among state schools.

Don’t chug that handle of Aristocrat and take to the streets in celebration just yet!  The article also details the Longwood University Police’s notorious hounding of alcohol violations.  The Longwood cops commented that they’re just trying to be “good neighbors.”  You know — the type of neighbors who arrest the shit out of everyone on the block.  

Nothing really interesting to be found in the police interview — until we got to the second-to-last paragraph:

“In addition, [Longwood University Police Chief] Beach monitors the buzz about parties and calls the hosts into his office beforehand to remind them of their responsibilities.”

Sooo…how does Chief Beach monitor the party buzz?  Is it consistent, reliable information, or does he just use Facebook?  Also — how the hell does he get the hosts to come to his office?  Does he track them down on his Segway?  In his dreams, perhaps.

In any event, we’re a bunch of sloppy fucking drunks who fall prey to excitable police.  As the article indicates, that’s probably the only reason we ranked so high.  So it’s all the cops’ fault, pretty much.  But — no sense dwelling on that!  Look at these D-Hall photos:

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(photo credit: facebook.com)

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photo credit: facebook.com

1 Comment | Alcohol, Newspaper, Police, Rivalry | Permalink
Posted by thelongwoodhole

Thursday Miscellanea

September 24, 2009

The Other Acclaimed Horror Writer: Peter Straub, writer of seventeen horror novels including Ghost Story, will give a reading in the Molnar Recital Hall tonight at eight.  Straub was supposed to do this a year ago, but had to reschedule.  If you’re free tonight, go see it.  Horror writers in person > Thirsty Thursdays.

RIP Frog: For those who have been at Longwood for a while, a good friend recently passed away.  Will Pettus, an ’06 alumnus, died this week of a heart attack while in Cumberland Gap, Kentucky.  If you knew Will and would like to pay your respects, go here.  We’ll remember Will as an educator and an outdoorsman.  He smiled a lot, knew how to hang out, and he liked overalls.  There aren’t enough people like Will, and we’ll miss him.

HEADLINE HEADLINE HEADLINE: We would just like to say that we think it’s pretty awesome and quite fitting that the rugby headlines in the Rotunda ARE IN ALL CAPS RAHHHHHHHHHH.

Big. Ass. Website.: If you haven’t already noticed, you no longer have to include WordPress when typing in the name of this website.  Just type longwoodhole.com

ALSO:   We’re now accepting artwork submissions.  Photos, sketches, paintings, Paint and iPhone doodles, comic strips, etc.  Submissions do not have to pertain to Longwood.  It just needs to be weird, funny, interesting, or a combination of all of these characteristics.  A black and white photo of an old person’s wrinkled-ass hands does not, in our opinion, fit into those categories.  But if the wrinkled-ass hands are flicking us off, well, we would certainly publish that!

Send to longwoodhole@gmail.com

Leave a Comment » | Books, Groups, Happy trails, Miscellanea, Newspaper | Permalink
Posted by thelongwoodhole

In this week’s Rotunda: Green Drama

September 23, 2009

This week, as we followed the Rotunda‘s admirable coverage of the First Avenue murders, we noticed a curious amount of responses to Rebekah Tucker’s opinion piece regarding Longwood’s funding.  

Remember how she used her first piece to complain that no one was utilizing the website’s commenting system for thoughtful responses?  This time there were lots of thoughtful responses.

There was criticism for her grammar, spelling, fact-checking, snarkiness, even for her assumption that the ghost of Dr. Jarman would disapprove of renovation.  

And it was not just students.  A poster named “Ramesh Rao” even chimed in:

“It is snarky in tone, uninformed, and takes pot shots at people in a manner that is ‘cringe-worthy’. Let not the excuse — ‘We are students, we work very hard on the newspaper, sometimes we say things we should not’ — be offered here. Reporting and commenting is a serious business, and one should take them seriously.”  

Rao would know about this, as he was once the faculty advisor for the Rotunda, and has contributed to the Richmond Times-Dispatch op-ed page.  Still, we were surprised he chose to leave a comment visible to everyone, instead of sending an email to Tucker or to the current faculty advisor.  Actually, we weren’t surprised at all. 

The responses continued.  A poster named “john graham” made the case that, tone and mechanical errors aside, Tucker’s piece had a real point to make.  We agreed with Graham — so did a few others on the comment board.

Today, in addition to Rebekah Tucker’s mea culpa, there is a Letter to the Editor from none other than T. Jordan Miles III ©, who took time from his busy schedule — which includes blogging for the Real Life Longwood — to express righteous outrage and come to the defense of The Great Dismal Swamp of Longwood.  

That’s certainly not necessary; we all know The Great Dismal Swamp can more than defend itself.  

As for Tucker’s apology, it was mature and timely, reflecting both the Rotunda‘s growing pains and good intentions.

Leave a Comment » | Awkward, Hypocrites, Money, Newspaper, Professors, The Great Dismal Swamp of Longwood, The Real Life Longwood | Permalink
Posted by thelongwoodhole

End of Times at Longwood

September 18, 2009

Three years we’ve enjoyed free newspapers – and now it’s over.  Just like the hard-drinking honky-tonker who awakes one morning to an empty bed, this semester we must awake to empty kiosks. 

Please come back, darlin! We'll treat you right this time!

Please come back, darlin! We'll treat you right this time! (photo credit: The Longwood Hole)

No longer can we fall asleep with a paper in our arms.  If we want it now, we’ll have to go to the Internet.  Or pay money. 

According to one distributor,”I still deliver the paid subscriptions, but you can’t get a free paper on campus anymore.  Some people are upset but not enough to actually do anything about it.”

After all the times we swore we’d never pay money for it!

A source within the SGA stated that the fifteen thousand dollars spent on the Collegiate Readership Program was the lowest from any participating school in Virginia.  The SGA voted to use the money previously spent on the CRP to resurrect The Virginian, the Longwood University yearbook. 

We’ll be taking a closer look at The Virginian, which looks to be the exact opposite of free: it will be sold to students for thirty dollars. 

Yeah.  We’ll be listening to this song all weekend.

UPDATE (9/21/09) — Things aren’t looking good for free news.

1 Comment | Happy trails, Money, Newspaper | Permalink
Posted by thelongwoodhole

In this week’s Rotunda: An Editor-in-Chief’s Righteous Outrage

September 3, 2009

Rebekah Tucker, by her own admission, likes to complain.  But not like everyone else.  Rebekah has a civic responsibility to complain.  She writes a weekly editorial for a campus newspaper.    This week, though, she decides to step down from her Ivory Tower of Tut-Tut-Tutery, her Bastion of Bitching, and try a more heart-to-heart approach:

“[...] today, instead of my normal complaining I would like to talk to you about something I find rather annoying. But instead of complaining, I’m hoping to get you to think about it and maybe complain a little about it yourself.”

Basically, Rebekah complains for thirteen-hundred words about how no one gave a shit about SGA stripping funding from clubs last fall, but when the news broke that ZTA’s ass-branding days at Longwood were numbered, everyone on campus had a comment – twenty comments, to be exact.

 Enter Righteous Outrage:

“Not that I thrive on controversy, but it did confuse me greatly that not one person seemed to care [about the SGA shenanigans]. I have been told that people stopped caring because it was so close to the end. While I understand this, I cannot help but ask, since the school year has started back up, does anyone care now? I’ve brought it up again, club funds were cut significantly – how does that make you feel?”

Did no one, in fact, give a shit?  We suspect that part of the reason no one commented on the SGA story was because many of the jilted clubs were struggling to finish classes and win back their club’s cheese.  When WMLU got gypped by the SGA, all the DJs, every one of the indie-pukes and emos and Bukowski fanboys, got off their snarky asses and did something about it, first by appealing the ruling, showing up to subsequent hearings, and then made sure one of their got appointed to the SGA.  They also got an organized, coherent letter to the editor printed in The Rotunda.   

As for the clubs who lost their funding – maybe showing a similar display of solidarity would have prevented a situation where you’re treated to Rebekah’s empathy:

“Your club’s funds were cut completely, meaning the SGA decided that your club should not be funded at all. How do you feel now? I’m willing to bet you’re not too happy, and I can’t blame you.”

Should’ve left a comment on the website while you had a chance…IDIOT!  How’s it feel now?  Hurts, don’t it?    

So far, the comment system is only useful for pointing out grammatical errors and throwing dirty, mostly unwarranted, insults at the writer.  What kind of weight does an annonymous commenter really have, anyway?  As was shown last spring, reasoned arguments, if they need to made to a large audience, should be saved for the letters to the editor, a place where some folks can show the complainers how to complain.

Leave a Comment » | Money, Newspaper | Permalink
Posted by thelongwoodhole

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