All Kinds of Messed Up

Adventures in copy editing, part 2

marykittneel — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 01:21:57 +0000

“al-Mart” (Wal-Mart)

That’s bad, but the one I still run hot and cold thinking about how mortified I would have been had I not caught it was the time when “the general pubic” was invited to an antiques auction.

moar funny pictures

Thus ends the liveblog

marykittneel — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:21:08 +0000

Yep, I know. You wish it weren’t over. When you read my liveblog, you felt like you were THERE. Yep, well, after sports editor finished playing both versions of “Jeff Gordon’s Gay” he accidentally deleted a folder full of important photos he needed for the sports section. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND … he had his machine set to do an “empty trash” automatically whenever something got moved there. I didn’t even know you could DO that!

So, things sobered up quickly after that. I got home around 10. Did you know that if you crush up a Benadryl tablet and try to swallow the resulting powder with water, it turns your tongue numb? So I guess we’ve learned two lessons here, my little chicken nuggets: don’t set your computer to automatically empty trash, and if you need to numb your tongue for some reason, crushed up Benadryl does the job admirably.

G’night!

Jeff Gordon’s Gay

marykittneel — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 01:58:02 +0000

Yup. That’s what we’re listening to. In fact, our sports editor has TWO completely different versions of it. My stuff’s gone to the printers’, but they need me to wait around and copy edit the front page. I could still be home by 9 … maybe.

marykittneel — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 00:22:27 +0000

Let’s see … I’m waiting for one more ad to be built so I can send the last page of my section to the printers. The sports editor and the EIC went outside for a smoke, then came back in and sports editor accused EIC of breaking wind and now EIC is singing “Staying Alive” in falsetto.

OK, and now they’re talking about a woman who is allegedly bonking her foster son. *shudder*

I hope to go home within the next two hours. Now I’ve jinxed it.

“Save 15% on this, ya freakin’ lizard!”

Maybe liveblogging a day in the office was a bad idea

marykittneel — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:59:26 +0000

Every day except for Friday I work at home. Friday is “deadline day” for our publication, which comes out on Saturdays, so that’s when we all gather at an actual office and finish up layouts, drop in advertisements, and copy edit.

It can be exciting sometimes. Earlier today I overheard the following snippet of conversation: “You mean, he hit the shopping cart, backed up, then tried to hit her, too?”

But on the other hand, I actually fell asleep writing the weekly state news wrap-up. You’d think I could keep myself awake with my writing, but no.

If something interesting or funny happens, or if I run across any awesome funny animal pictures while web surfing instead of working, I’ll post it. Like this one:

moar funny pictures

OK, time to bring out the big guns. Diet Dr. Pepper doesn’t have enough caffeine to get me over this afternoon slump. It’s time for a Diet Mountain Dew. Later, y’all.

Adventures in copy editing

marykittneel — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:12:45 +0000

from a sports article: “ballet parking”

*shakes head and sighs …*

marykittneel — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:54:41 +0000

The excuse of having to keep up with events since I’m a writer can be dangerous. I could be spending 45 minutes looking at overweight hedgehogs and convince myself it will help me write this week’s column.

It would seem that, when it comes to just sitting down and writing, writers are probably the worst people on earth. I know I am not alone in washing laundry/painting toenails/cleaning tile grout/etc. instead of writing the thing that I need to write so that I’ll get paid. Are other professions like this? If I were an accountant, would I spend all day thinking up reasons not to balance the ledger, or whatever it is they do? If I were a sword swallower, would I continually look for better things to do than swallow swords? Now, if I were a proctologist, I would almost certainly spend as much time as possible avoiding, um, productive work.

OK, must get off the Internet … that “Sponge Bob” marathon isn’t going to watch itself.

So, yeah. I’m new here.

marykittneel — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:23:10 +0000

I’m a writer/editor, and there are some things that just don’t belong in the “official” publications. That’s why God gave us blogs.

I’ll be back later.

Hello world!

marykittneel — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:00:06 +0000

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