sometimes you just have to ask for what you want. sometimes it takes a lot of words to get there– and sometimes you’re lucky enough to nail it right off the bat. that’s seldom the case for me. I require drafts. and mulling and second-guessing and ad nauseum review and rehash– but eventually I get there. wherever There is.
in this case it’s getting the goddamn names list I’ve been working on for the last several months out to the paying, or, well, silently appreciative public. ;-)
I’ve got this word document that I need to convert to a pdf for ease of viewing and formatting beauty and finesse, but my version of acrobat is not compatible with osx nor with any version of word I currently have on the computer– how dumb is that? to have the whole os9 environment available to run but unable to actually use the software because it relies on another piece of software (something office-tastic) to even do its thing? annoying, to say the least. and because I’m no longer affiliated with the university in any way shape or form (hoorah! so long overdue!), I no longer have access to their wealth of software licensing. so sad. and the current employer does not indulge in such trifles– at least not for peons in my position. but why even bother with the pdf, you might ask, seeing as how you’re just putting the word document online anyway? and to that I say, shuttup. because it’s ultimately prettier. and there’s more than one way to fleece a mountain, so mohammed can just… well, just, NEVERMIND. because I wanna.
so. I’m Putting It Out There and placing a person-to-person call to the universe to answer with some nice individual who’ll download and convert the file for me and email it back. hoorah! how simple is that? ain’t it grand the way the web works?
and now for a brief history/overview of the above-mentioned file…
The Names List.
for the last ten months or so I’ve been working a low-level job for a certain standardized testing company located in my town– part of the delay in making this fabulous document public, beyond the technical difficulties, has been the stress of attempting to describe just what the hell I *have* been doing, and why. so I’m not even going to get into it. suffice to say, it has served its purpose perfectly. the point, really, is that in the course of this job it has been my daily occupation to field calls from students and their parents who are trying to register for said test. so there’s this great big database of names and assorted other information that we search to provide the best doggone service possible for a fair price. and I’ve kept myself amused, lo these many months, by collecting an array of the the most… startling and downright confounding Real Names ever– and giving them each a little imagined fictional destiny. so that’s what the list is.
enjoy. :-)
huzzah!!
(working on day three of insomnia, if you couldn’t tell. but at least the flu’s gone.)