Friday, October 6, 2006
As purses grow, so does the backlash
By De’Adra Walker
contributing writer
As fall begins and the new school year
starts, I am always eager to watch the emer
gence of the season’s latest trends, as well as
the revival and renewal of those past. While
many trends gain popularity simply due to the
physical appearance of the article of clothing,
haircut or accessory in question, I am quite
pleased to see the
coming of a trend
that is proving to be
fashionable, as well
as practical in a few
ways oversized
purses and fashion
bags.
In an unnamed,
but representative
sample of the female
student population
on the Behrend cam
pus, it was found
that a woman’s purse
is her sanctuary,
claiming that any
and everything of
importance to her
can be found there.
In previous years, however, the hierarchy
deciding exactly what to carry in one's purse
has been a difficult task due to the size of
purses. The smaller the bag. the more selec
tive one must be with its contents. Many
women (myself included) have become accus
tomed to smaller purses through the process
of assimilation. Thus, "essentials" and
“everything important including the kitchen
sink” have simply become minimized to a cell
phone, a debit card, lip gloss and chewing
gum. However, with this blossoming of over
sized purses and bags, freedom has been
restored and the trend of small bags and not
enough space to carry what is needed is no
longer a problem.
Most recently. I have witnessed these bags
doubling as bookbags. These particular bags
are about the size of an average backpack, and
allow young women to have space for not only
their academic essentials, but also their femi
nine essentials —lip gloss, cell phone and any
other make-up/monetary/mp3 player-like
Student Life weekly snippet
What the Bellhop Saw set to debut
What the Bellhop Saw debuts this Saturday night at the North East Cultural Center.
By Sean Mihlo
student life editor
What happens when a slew of goofy guests
descend upon the same hotel room at the
same time? Confusion, craziness and hilarity.
On Friday, October 6 at 7:30 p.m. at the
North East Cultural Center, the North East
Community Players will present What the
Bellhop Saw. Directed by Chris Bucci, the
slapstick-comedy is the story of Wally Leech,
a bellhop in one of New York City’s fanciest
hotels. Wally (Bucci), ever the caring and
gentle human being, promises his brother
George a “free” suite for the day so that
George (Dave Yosten) can live out his fanta
sy of having an affair with his secretary.
Everything is grand and dandy until Wally,
unbeknownst to him, finds out that the suite
has been overbooked, to say the least. The
nightmare ensues as a cast chock-full of
quirky characters including an incompetent
C.I.A. agent, an author, an Iranian terrorist
who wants the author dead, the author’s
daughter, a celebrity-obsessed maid, an angry
wife and a pig-tailed little girl
r'lr
The other day,
while walking
between the Kochel
Building and the
contributed photo eec * Union
This Marc Jacobs bag may one day knock you over. Building, 1 was
smacked in the side
with a bag the size of a small child. Bumpings
into such as this are not uncommon in the
move of traffic between classes. The oddity
of this occurrence was the fact that the young
lady whose shoulder this bag was on was
walking literally a foot away from me. Her
bag protruded that far from her body. I
glanced at my own small pink bag under my
left arm, which housed my notebooks and
binders, and then at hers pondering exactly
what she was hiding in it, judging from the
bump, it may have been a small child.
1 think that we as a female population
T [TDE'i TT E"
However, the balance between practicality
and outrageousness is shifted when these
already oversized bags begin to grow. A bag
the size of a backpack used to carry books and
binders in addition to the contents of an aver
age-sized purse is practical and useful. When
a bag crosses the line between being large
enough to hold books and being large enough
to fit a Ford Focus inside, then we have a
problem. If one feels
the need to coordi
nate her school bag
with her new denim
jacket by way of a
fashion bag, by all
means. These bags
come in multiple
shapes and colors
and are made of
should probably take a step back and examine
our choice in accessories, if bags have grown
to the point where bags do in fact have space
to include everything and the kitchen sink...
and the stove... and the shower... and the pull
out couch... and then that Focus.
descend upon the hotel room.
The farce also stars NECP regulars Pat
Devlin, Lynn Kessler, Linda Lewis, Bev
Walz, Sam Dzuricky, Stephen Vitron, Peggy
Hauser and newcomer Jamie Pryber. Three
young actors will play the part of the pig
tailed girl throughout the play’s run, includ
ing Liz Keddie, Gina Dißuono and Brittany
Rogers. Sally Abata serves as Assistant
Director for this production.
What the Bellhop Saw will begin its two
week-plus run today, Friday the 6 at 7:30
p.m. on the 2nd floor of the North East
Cultural Center, located at 25 Vine Street in
North East. After today, the show runs as fol
lows, with all show times at 7:30 (unless oth
erwise noted): October 7, 8 (2:00 p.m.), 12,
15 (2:00 p.m.), 19, 20, 21 and 22 (2:00 p.m.).
Tickets, priced at $8 for adults and $6 for stu
dents, can be purchased at the venue itself or
via telephone, 814-725-5055. For more infor
mation about the play, visit the North East
Community Player’s website at
www.myspace.com/necp.
everything from
canvas to fake
leather.
Transferring files made easy
By Logan Stack
Dear ASCII
My friend has a lot ot stull on his computer, and 1
want a copy. What would he the best way to move
many gigabytes (GBl ol tiles'.'
- Jerry Pohl. Journalism 07
Dear Jerrv
There are many ways you could do this. II you
have a large thumb drive, you can make a lot ol
trips between your dorm rooms, but that s terribly
inconvenient
Your friend could burn the tiles to a bunch ol
DVDs. But you could run into problems if your
friend has a copy of the 7.2 Ciß "Pirates.avi . It
would require software to break the tile into
chunks small enough to burn to disk, or a compar
atively expensive double-layer DVD-R. It your
friend doesn't have a DVD burner, or doesn't
want to spend the time burning a pile of disks tor
you. fear not! There are other options.
Far more convenient are external hard drives.
For about $lOO. you can get 200 GB worth of
external hard disks. These work exactly the same
as thumb drives, but require an electrical outlet.,
so you plug them in for both AC power and USB.
You could loan this to your friend, and get it back
when he fills it.
If you don't have the money, or don't want to
spend it. you can transfer it directly. Fake your
computer to his room, and you can then transfer
the tiles through a wire. There are all sorts of
wires you can use: parallel, serial (both very
slow). Firewire (you both may not have this).
Ethernet, etc.
The easiest and cheapest mode is Ethernet.
Anyone living in the dorms has an Ethernet wire
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eras cmmn UM. me. ■ cmtnart' we fnm Nm i» ifiuaMloa ina chmaar <m an ragtetena aantaa main ol tttftpai Pnpenea. Me., a iatManr cl Cwamart USA me.
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The Behrend Beacon I
going from their computer to the jack in the wall
to get their Internet connection. To connect the
two computers over Ethernet, you'll need either a
special wire called a “crossover cable" (about
$10). or a switch/hub.
With the crossover cable, you just plug one end
into each computer, and look for each other in
"Network Neighborhood". Your friend will have
to share the folder with all the content. Secondary
click on the folder and select the “sharing" tab.
Change “Do not share this folder" to "Share this
folder," and click "ok."
With a hub or a switch, you can use the Ethernet
wires you already have. These devices cost more
than a crossover cable (about $2O). but allow
more than one person to get the files at once, as
you can have many people plug their computers
into a switch. You could also use this to play video
games with each other, or for many other things.
Also, you don’t have the risk of accidentally using
the crossover cable when you plug your computer
into the wall next year. Crossover cables aren't
compatible with normal ones and it won't work.
According to Res Com, you are not allowed to
connect to your friend’s Internet connection in his
dorm. So he has to unplug himself while using the
switch. You can't actually use his connection
through the switch anyway, ft takes a router
(about the same price) to let multiple computers
(like a laptop and a desktop) share the sort of
Internet connection that Penn State provides.
They can't tell if you do it, but it's against the
rules, so don’t do it.
Be sure that the file transfer is legal too. Not all
files are freely redistributable, so you may be a
pirate if you copy it.
Do you have a computer question .’ Ask ASCII!
Send an e-mail to ascii@psu.edu, and you will
probably have it answered in the next week's col
umn.