Gosh, it's like old home week. I found a yellowed copy of Home Planet News #38 in a box in the closet. It's their "Focus on AIDS" issue from 1995, and it happens to contain the first short story I ever published. That was a good season: first publication, got invited up to read in NYC at the issue release party...all sorts of nifty things were going on. I brought my handsome friend Andrew along, who wasn't bent in any way all, but when I sat back down at the table with him after enthusiastically performing high-class works like "What I'll Think About While Pat Robertson Swallows My Load," (I was so In Your Face™ back then!) I'm sure he could feel the eyes on him, which, I must confess, I enjoyed in a slightly wicked sort of way.
Home Planet News is still around, although they don't have much of an online presence and they certainly don't have archives going back fourteen years. So, I scanned it.
That took a some doing. Home Planet News is printed in tabloid-format, on newsprint, and the story was spread out over two pages and three lengthy columns, so I had to do a bit of cropping and stitching together. And scanning. Then more scanning. It took several tries to get it right, so I hope you appreciate all the work I've done for you. Which is a polite way of saying it was an incredible pain in the ass because the HP PhotoSmart scanner sucks moose ass. Why do technology companies seem to think that "smart" means "We will program our device to make decisions based on assumptions about what you want to do which are totally incorrect and will transform an otherwise simple job into an unending hell full of profanity and holes punched through wallboard?" Bastards.
No, really. Hey, HP? Here's a hint. When you have a nice, friendly, selectable indicator on your scanner that says, "Actual Size," it would be really helpful if the scanner didn't resize the image. If I ever meet someone who works in HP's scanner division I will kick them square in the crotch. Twice. Once for making a fifteen minute job take two hours, again for increasing my cortisol levels, and once more for stealing my evening. So that's three times. No, let's make it four. Plus a blow to the head with whatever's handy.
Or! I'll just disembowel them, drape their viscera about my shoulders, plant both feet into their steaming, empty gut-hole (provided I'm wearing shoes and pants I don't like), and belt out "Jerusalem." Then I will order coffee.
Anyway, the .PDF is here (1.6MB). I make no promises about the tale. Freshman effort and all that.
Oh, and...you might want to wait awhile to read it, because the story might clash with this murderous tirade right here.
Home Planet News is still around, although they don't have much of an online presence and they certainly don't have archives going back fourteen years. So, I scanned it.
That took a some doing. Home Planet News is printed in tabloid-format, on newsprint, and the story was spread out over two pages and three lengthy columns, so I had to do a bit of cropping and stitching together. And scanning. Then more scanning. It took several tries to get it right, so I hope you appreciate all the work I've done for you. Which is a polite way of saying it was an incredible pain in the ass because the HP PhotoSmart scanner sucks moose ass. Why do technology companies seem to think that "smart" means "We will program our device to make decisions based on assumptions about what you want to do which are totally incorrect and will transform an otherwise simple job into an unending hell full of profanity and holes punched through wallboard?" Bastards.
No, really. Hey, HP? Here's a hint. When you have a nice, friendly, selectable indicator on your scanner that says, "Actual Size," it would be really helpful if the scanner didn't resize the image. If I ever meet someone who works in HP's scanner division I will kick them square in the crotch. Twice. Once for making a fifteen minute job take two hours, again for increasing my cortisol levels, and once more for stealing my evening. So that's three times. No, let's make it four. Plus a blow to the head with whatever's handy.
Or! I'll just disembowel them, drape their viscera about my shoulders, plant both feet into their steaming, empty gut-hole (provided I'm wearing shoes and pants I don't like), and belt out "Jerusalem." Then I will order coffee.
Anyway, the .PDF is here (1.6MB). I make no promises about the tale. Freshman effort and all that.
Oh, and...you might want to wait awhile to read it, because the story might clash with this murderous tirade right here.
I feel the same way about my HP Scanner. I think my favorite part is when I scan a photo and it 'informs' me that I want to use a really low resolution. When I star in my own personal movie I will have an "Office Space" type moment where my scanner/printer gets the shit kicked out of it.
The REALLY annoying thing? I was using my mother's rage-inducing all-in-one HP PhotoCrap scanner, and didn't know that she had a perfectly decent Epson scanner on the other side of the desk, semi-hidden beneath a pile of papers.