Ahahahahaha. Ahaha. A-HA. *diez*
Dec. 31st, 2007 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agilebritDid I really just say this in my last entry:
Now all I have to do is format it, print it, take it to the post office, and ship it off.
And what a lovely dramafest THAT turned out to be.
Adventures in formatting, printing, and post officing, let me show you them.
As many of you may or may not know, I use WordPerfect. I know everyone uses Word, Word is the Gold Standard, I should switch to it for a myriad of reasons...but I don't wanna, frankly.
Of course, this causes problems when my printer acts up. As in, spewing black ink randomly on the edges of the page, when I've just put in a brand-stinkin'-new brand-stinkin'-name cartridge. I tried printing out the first page of the story numerous times, and it kept giving me that. I printed out the cover page a couple of times, and it gave me a lovely and strange black rectangle on the page. Yeah, that ain't gonna fly.
So, I call my local Office Max. "Can you print out a WP doc?" I ask. "Nope, sorry." Well, CRAP. What sort of OFFICE STORE can't print out a common format? So I call Office Depot. "Sure, but the print person leaves at 5:30." So, I get the doc onto my thumb drive and race over there, ten minutes to spare.
And the first machine she tries it on won't open it.
I headdesk. Almost literally. Reluctantly (she can sense my despair, but wants to go home, I can tell), she tries the other machine. It pulls it up and prints it out freakishly quickly. YAY! thinks I. Until I see it, and it's in Ariel font. I need it in Courier. Which it's saved in. AUGH.
Dammit. I should have tried Kinko's, shouldn't I have? Hell, they're open 24 hours. Okay, next time.
So, anyway, I give her $2.75 for a doc I can't use and come back home, pissed off and nearly in tears from frustration. "Screw it," sez I, and decide to wrestle with the printer again. So I tell it to print the whole doc. Have a party, printer! Maybe you'll get your shit figured out halfway through and I'll at least have that much I can use, and then reprint what I couldn't use, right?
And it prints. And it's pristine. All that drama...for nothing. Whatever, eat my shorts, Epson. Fine, I get it packaged up with a SASE and hie me to the PO, which, in my memory, closes at 6:30.
I get there at 6:15, and there's one car in the lot. One. My PO is NEVER this not-busy. Crap! thinks I, did they close early because it's New Year's Eve? You know what, screw it, I can use the self-service gizmo and stick it on the card if they're actually closed. I passed "heartily sick of this shit" about six exits back. But there's no notice on the door, so I walk in.
And they're open. I'm in an out of there in, like, a minute. This never happens. I breathe a sigh of relief and wish my postal peeps a Happy New Year. And the BearFic is off to Writers of the Future.
Now watch it get lost in the mail...
Now all I have to do is format it, print it, take it to the post office, and ship it off.
And what a lovely dramafest THAT turned out to be.
Adventures in formatting, printing, and post officing, let me show you them.
As many of you may or may not know, I use WordPerfect. I know everyone uses Word, Word is the Gold Standard, I should switch to it for a myriad of reasons...but I don't wanna, frankly.
Of course, this causes problems when my printer acts up. As in, spewing black ink randomly on the edges of the page, when I've just put in a brand-stinkin'-new brand-stinkin'-name cartridge. I tried printing out the first page of the story numerous times, and it kept giving me that. I printed out the cover page a couple of times, and it gave me a lovely and strange black rectangle on the page. Yeah, that ain't gonna fly.
So, I call my local Office Max. "Can you print out a WP doc?" I ask. "Nope, sorry." Well, CRAP. What sort of OFFICE STORE can't print out a common format? So I call Office Depot. "Sure, but the print person leaves at 5:30." So, I get the doc onto my thumb drive and race over there, ten minutes to spare.
And the first machine she tries it on won't open it.
I headdesk. Almost literally. Reluctantly (she can sense my despair, but wants to go home, I can tell), she tries the other machine. It pulls it up and prints it out freakishly quickly. YAY! thinks I. Until I see it, and it's in Ariel font. I need it in Courier. Which it's saved in. AUGH.
Dammit. I should have tried Kinko's, shouldn't I have? Hell, they're open 24 hours. Okay, next time.
So, anyway, I give her $2.75 for a doc I can't use and come back home, pissed off and nearly in tears from frustration. "Screw it," sez I, and decide to wrestle with the printer again. So I tell it to print the whole doc. Have a party, printer! Maybe you'll get your shit figured out halfway through and I'll at least have that much I can use, and then reprint what I couldn't use, right?
And it prints. And it's pristine. All that drama...for nothing. Whatever, eat my shorts, Epson. Fine, I get it packaged up with a SASE and hie me to the PO, which, in my memory, closes at 6:30.
I get there at 6:15, and there's one car in the lot. One. My PO is NEVER this not-busy. Crap! thinks I, did they close early because it's New Year's Eve? You know what, screw it, I can use the self-service gizmo and stick it on the card if they're actually closed. I passed "heartily sick of this shit" about six exits back. But there's no notice on the door, so I walk in.
And they're open. I'm in an out of there in, like, a minute. This never happens. I breathe a sigh of relief and wish my postal peeps a Happy New Year. And the BearFic is off to Writers of the Future.
Now watch it get lost in the mail...
