Snooty Dog God
I watch a lot of old-people telly. I know it’s old people because the main advertisers are Cigna Funeral Plan and Ryman Rest Care. It’s the lucrative “you’re going to die” demographic.
But sometimes there are little snippets of hope, signs of life from the ’90s or, if we’re really lucky, the ’00s. Like this recent question on Millionaire Hotseat:
Before the options were even given, I knew it was Snoop Dogg and I felt all awesome, like I should add that to my LinkedIn profile. Then things got even better: I realised I knew the real names of two of others – Curtis Jackson and André Benjamin. I thought Chuck D would be Charles D-something, but it turns out his name is the very posh sounding Carlton Ridenhour. No wonder he uses a nom de mike.
The lady on Millionaire blindly guessed correctly, then went on to win $250,000. What do I get for my hip hop trivia knowledge? Well, I’m quite good to have on your pub quiz team, provided it’s not an old-people quiz.
Space
Air New Zealand tweeted an image of this old menu and it brought flashbacks of high school typing.
A menu from 1940 found in the archives! #FlashbackFriday pic.twitter.com/VxMnJqez0u
— Air New Zealand (@FlyAirNZ) March 20, 2014
See how somethings are centred and other things are left- and right-justified? Well, back in the olden days of manual typewriters, this had to be all worked out, er, manually.
You’d count the number of characters in the row, and figure out the number of characters in the text you were going to type, then space across exactly the right number of spaces so that when you typed “Asparagus Mayonnaise” it would be perfectly centred (unlike the one on the TEAL menu, which is off by two spaces).
I did high school typing from 1988 to 1990, up to School Certificate. I’d been using word processors on the family Commodore 64 – like the hallowed Bank Street Writer – for about five years prior, so to have to revert to counting characters to figure layout, well, it seemed like a pretty step backwards.
I had no desire to be a typist or secretary. I only took typing as a school subject because it seemed like a good skill to have, as in, if you can type, you’ll always be able to find work. The funny thing was, I never actually learned to touch-type at school. Typing was actually my worst subject. I struggled with it so much compared to the easier academic subjects.
Mastery of touch-typing came about five years later when the web came along. And while every job I’ve had has involved a keyboard, those old-style layout skills are something I’ve never had a use for.
Maybe it’s time for an organic artisan document layout revival. Bring out the vintage Underwoods!
The art of motel art
When I was on my Northland roadtrip, I took photos of all the motel art (or lack thereof) that I encountered. Concrete block walls, painted white, with a photo or print screwed on to prevent the artwork being stolen. Well, I didn’t need to steal it. I have these precious memories captured forever, etc.
