The ambience of the dining rooms is often raucous, the clientele being mostly undergraduate dorm residents. As colorful young students at surrounding tables discussed their next piercing or the color they might dye their hair next, I mostly kept to myself, reading computer magazines or class handouts.

In Weinstein Hall's dining room, there was a jukebox, and the music was always too loud. It was a mix of heavy metal, rap, and on occasion, Kenny G. One day early in the Fall 1994 semester, television screens appeared in Weinstein dining room. In place of the jukebox was a kiosk. The screens proclaimed it as "IT -- Interactive Television." Students were able to select from popular music videos, which were separated by carefully targetted ads. The first day the TVs appeared, one group of diners was outraged. They passed around comment cards, and filled out several, to complain of this intrusion into their dining pleasure. After several months, though, IT remains in place.