Ugh, "verticals" is one of my most hated industry jargon terms. It's one of those "let's take a perfectly good adjective and pretend it's a noun that means something else entirely!" things that just gets under my skin in the worst way. But good on you for getting the job!!

Woo, Amy!!!! YAY!

I have no idea what that means, either.

Woo, Amy! And much employment ~ma to those in precarious positions, or between positions.

THIS: "How to deal with a mansplainer starring Hillary Clinton in gifs" [link] is sheer genius frosting to that.

Seriously, watching Clinton deal with these fools was most entertaining. She is such a better woman than I. Rand Paul would be in pain today had I been sitting there.

Vertical writing? Whaat? But yay Amy job!

Congrats Amy!

They cut our production time by more than half, increased our page counts by more than half, and refused to hire people to replace the three people we lost last year, and did it without even telling us about it before they announced it to our customers, and now - NOW - they're asking *us* to "brainstorm" and "think outside the box" to figure out how to get all the work done on time. (Note, they don't really want our input. They just want to be able to say they asked for our input. Then when we complain, they can say, well we asked you for solutions and you didn't give us any!) As a result, I now have 33 articles that all have to be edited, layout done, graphics fixed, math checked, references checked, sent to authors, author's changes incorporated, back to author, rinse repeat until he's happy, and published on the Web in final form... all by next Thursday.

We seriously have the same job. And I feel like I'm otherwise totally unemployable, so I don't try to look for anything else.

If you're going to be writing vertically, then I suggest you get one of these.

I just love Scola.

If you're going to be writing vertically, then I suggest you get one of these.

Of course!

It's been a long time since I've had a 9 to 5 job, guys. But it's very casual, they're all young and probably aspiring novelists or screenwriters, and I can walk to work and wear headphones and be online all day!

I'm not sure it's actually real yet, but it's going to make such a difference to our budget, and my peace of mind, I can't even explain.

I will stop burbling about it soon, I promise.

Great news, Amy! That's awesome.

I still don't know what vertical writing is.

ION, I got this email notice from Emmett's HS:

Yesterday afternoon after the high school was out for the day (we are in early dismissal due to final exam schedule), three of our students, including one freshman and two sophomores, were sitting near the BART tracks near Fairmount Drive in El Cerrito. What we understand is that they were approached by two men who asked about their shoes. When one of our students stood up, one of the men pulled out a gun and shot the student, injuring him critically. Another one of our students was also shot in the face, but thankfully received just a flesh wound. The other student was able to escape without physical injury. The assailants escaped. I spoke with the parents of all three students last night and this morning. The young man who was injured critically is still in the hospital and his mother describes his condition as stable.

That's the BART station Emmett uses every day to get home.