Isn't technology wonderful?

I love the thing where someone comes out with a big nostalgic blog post and/or evil experiment of teaching the childrens about how journalism used to be done back in the days of typewriters and lightboxes [link] , and everyone who ever did it gets all "OMG that takes me back" for about 10 seconds before someone says "... yeah, and it really sucked."

(I'll also note that I only did real old-skool layout in HS, and then did the weird in-between phase in college where we had computers for typesetting columns which we then still had to cut out and paste up. IOW, I inhaled just enough rubber cement for nostalgia and bitching at the kids who have never worked in print at all, and not remotely enough for cred.)

I love the thing where someone comes out with a big nostalgic blog post and/or evil experiment of teaching the childrens about how journalism used to be done back in the days of typewriters and lightboxes, and everyone who ever did it gets all "OMG that takes me back" for about 10 seconds before someone says "... yeah, and it really sucked."

Add waxers and border tape to that and you would be talking about me.

Sheesh. Glad those days are gone.

eta: OH, and rub on type. Lord, we thought we were so kewl.

Border tape has supernatural powers. I'd find pieces stuck to me after more than a week of showers. I think I had an orgasm the first time a drew a box in PageMaker.

I spent years of my life with part of my left forefinger and nail trimmed off by an X-acto knife from trimming copy and border tape.

Regarding our earlier conversation -- Who Uses An AOL Email To Cast a Lawyer Reality Show?

I was particularly amused by:

[co-blogger] doesn’t share my disdain for AOL email addresses; he wonders whether they are “retro chic.”

Border tape has supernatural powers. I'd find pieces stuck to me after more than a week of showers. I think I had an orgasm the first time a drew a box in PageMaker.

I spent years of my life with part of my left forefinger and nail trimmed off by an X-acto knife from trimming copy and border tape.

Ginger and I are living in parallel universes.

and blue lines - do people remember blue lines? (I remember once we'd gotten a blue line of a new magazine and someone saw it and said they thought all the blue was kind of boring and hard to read ... and the paper was icky.)

I remember once we'd gotten a blue line of a new magazine and someone saw it and said they thought all the blue was kind of boring and hard to read ... and the paper was icky.

I have had that same experience.

I had a boss who didn't really pay attention to publications until the blueline, and would look at it and say things like, "Maybe we should add pictures of the board members."

"Maybe we should add pictures of the board members."

OH GOD. Now I'm a bit freaked out. This is an exact quote from my life.

Plus? Routing a blueline through no less than 10 staff members, including the ED only to get chewed out for factual and/or typographic errors that no one saw.

Heaven be praised for spellcheck.

Those blueline chemicals were horrible. Could have been used in chemical warfare.

That wasn't warfare?

My current boss doesn't have time to read the articles anyone (including me) writes for our magazine until we get a proof. At that point she goes through them and re-writes, corrects, has things she wants me to fact-check, etc. And there's never time to give me her articles for copyediting (really - if we're not going with the serial comma, why does she use it EVERY TIME?). Can't tell you how much the printer loves us.