Hmm, I just read that tomorrow is National Something-On-A-Stick Day.

As an ex-RA, I can say I would've come down like Thor's hammer on those assholes, tommy. Where was your RA?

My freshman college roommate was a super nice, easygoing guy from Cincinnati. He later became editor of the school paper in his senior year and gave me my own column. You're a good man, Chris Roemer!

For my Sophmore and half of my Junior year my close friend Chip was my roommate. That was nothing but fun. Second half of Junior year I had a double room to myself and my girlfriend, Suz, moved in. My senior year I was an RA and had a double to myself again.

I can't even imagine that kind of stuff happening at my college. There was one RA embedded with every Freshman hall of 14 kids. With that kind of ratio you can be on top of everything.

For my freshman year one of the most popular guys in our building was gay (though he wasn't out then. Still, nobody was surprised when he did come out.)

My junior year there was some friction with my next door neighbor (he'd flip out and complain when I had friends in my room laughing). But my circle of friends had a deep rooted value to be inclusive with everybody - especially people who would normally be outcast. (This was driven largely by my best friend, Alex, who was very charismatic and found a niche for every oddball in our group.)

Anyway, we wound up inviting my troublesome neighbor to our regular, informal softball games and getting to know him. Later in the year, I had a super nasty stomach virus and was making a horrible mess all over the bathroom.

Whitefont: Both vomit and diarrhea on the floor.

He came in and cleaned up after me and took care of me.

He was the first person I knew to die of AIDS. RIP, Andy.

As an ex-RA, I can say I would've come down like Thor's hammer on those assholes, tommy. Where was your RA?

He told me I should do stuff to the guys doing stuff to me, to get even.

I just didn't want to sink to their level, so I didn't take his advice (besides the aforementioned early-morning phone calls).

In retrospect, a lot of guys on my floor where quite misogynistic. Plus they liked to sit around and brag about their sexual exploits. I think the fact that I didn't join in those discussions (plus I wasn't dating or sleeping with anyone) was why they tagged me as gay.

So did any of your dorms have a "club" where people would pull fire alarms in the middle of the night?

During my sophomore year, we had a real fire in the dorm. It apparently started in the generator room, around 8:00 on a Sunday morning. For some reason, the alarms didn't work, so nobody knew until the RA ran by, pounding on the doors.

After that, I took alarms very seriously. Even at the dorm where the alarms went off in the middle of the night about every other week.

Sorry you had such a rough freshman year tommy.

I don't have any bad roommate stories, but a friend of mine in college had an interesting roommate story. Her roommate kept having sex with her boyfriend while my friend was in the room. Her boyfriend was Andrew Koppel, Ted Koppel's son, who was at my University for a year or two before transferring/getting kicked out. Anyhow, apparently a popular refrain during sex was "Who can make you come?", asked by Andrew followed by, "You can, you can" by my friends roommate. This led to the making of a song derived from "The Candyman Can" song by my friends and I.

OMG Gud, TOO funny.

Demand water heaters:

One way to save a lot more energy than a demand water heater is a hot water recirculator. Uses hot water flowing out to heat water coming in. Some have storage, some don't. But the shower and washer use the most hot water anyway, so the ones without storage save almost as much as the ones with. One point about demand water heaters. They last longer than normal water heaters, so they may pay for themselves faster than energy savings alone account for.

God, tommy. I have all sorts of thoughts about this kind of people that I'd keep to myself.

I'm a freshwoman, but I rent a place with 2 roommates. After 3 years of boarding school and 2 years of army, I had enough of compulsory roommates (even though I spent most of the last year of boarding school in a room of my own, when the staff was considerate enough to understand that I won't be able to study (and as one of the top students of school, raise the bar) with 2 night owls as roommates).

We so need to get that island of our own. I love you people, and want to wreak vengeance on anyone who's trying to make your lives harder than they already are.

The new song was "The Andyman Can" but I can't remember the lyrics.