so don't ask if you don't want to know
This week has kicked my ass . . .
and it’s only Thursday. Shit.
I completely lost Tuesday. I think I spent the morning driving Ginnie to school and Casey wherever he needed to go. He was late for work, though I did ask him twice what time he needed to be there. I came home from that and crashed HARD. I tried to catch up on email, lj and flickr stuff but failed miserably, opting for a bit of grocery shopping instead. One must eat.
Wednesday I got up and managed to put a dent in most of the above sites, and planned to go to Gangplank that afternoon to work with Tyson on his podcast. Halfway through the morning I noticed a tweet from someone about not attending hacknight that night and thought OH SHIT, IT’S WEDNESDAY? Oops, Tyson records on Tuesdays. Dropped Ginnie at work and eventually headed up to Gangplank to do their podcast and Evo‘s. The guys there had recorded one last week while we were at Dragon*Con and I copied that to bring home to edit, along with the two we threw together on the spot.
What a monster edit that was. I had to cut about 30 minutes of “guy” talk, laughter, fart jokes and general mistakes down to maybe 8 halfway decent minutes of actual content. Took me two hours last night because of course I’m so anal I wouldn’t quit ’til it was done.
Last night’s sleep period was filled with evil dreams. I got up this morning and finished the final steps and loaded that podcast on the site. Took Ginnie to school and buzzed over to Casey’s for his Thursday/Payday runaround to then to work. Then Ginnie from school and dumped a couple of her friends before coming home.
Where I found my copy of the Gangplank ‘cast we recorded last night turned into 15 minutes of NOTHING. Shit. I’ll have to go back up there and hope upon hope the original file is all right. It was really good content, too. I worked on Evo’s episode this afternoon and managed to get everything done in time to fix dinner. Now it’s barely 8:30 and I’m ready to go to bed. How lame is that?
I don’t have anything planned until tomorrow afternoon, so maybe I’ll be able to think straight by then.
Everyone’s talking about the political conventions. The Dems did this and the Republicans did that. I have NOT been paying attention but you can’t help but hear (see?) so many rumors and people posting crap against the “other” side. I KNOW I’m NOT voting for McCain. Period. I was leaning towards Obama but there’s so much shit floating about that side, too. Who are the other candidates? (Rhetorical question, y’all.) I’m so fed up with the bullshit, I just want to know what are my other options and I’m sure there are lots of people out there that feel the same way. Whatever happened to fair and balanced reporting? (Another rhetorical question.)
Got in an argument with Evo about the two spaces after the period (or other closing punctuation) rule. He says not any more. I say absolutely yes. Can I get a ruling on that? It’s driving me nuts. Yes, I realize in my case it’s not a drive but a walk but I still think I’m correct.
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about 3 years ago
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Evo is right.
The two spaces after a period was the standard when typewriters were used because the letters/fonts were monospaced. That is, all letters were alloted the same amount of space, whether as wide as an m or as skinny as an i. That extra space after the period was to keep the end of the sentence from blending into the beginning of the next.
With the advent of computers and proportional type spacing, the second space is no longer required. And boy is it hard to get into the one space habit when you learned to use two spaces when you learned to touch type!!!
about 3 years ago
I can’t believe you actually expected to have a normal week just after D*C. Are you feverish?
about 3 years ago
I’m responding in on the two spaces. I haven’t heard of any changes but I don’t really keep up with that stuff either. I do know that my Blackberry will input a period and capitalize if I use two spaces as opposed to just one. So if there was a change in sentence structure Blackberry hasn’t conformed to it yet. LOL
about 3 years ago
Found this on the web. They recommend using only one space as opposed to two spaces. I’m going to have trouble doing that considering I was taught a long time ago to use two spaces.
http://www.webword.com/reports/period.html
about 3 years ago
So far, everyone tells me browsers and other internet areas automatically take your two spaces and make them one anyway. So fuck it. I’m going to keep using two space and the world can kiss my ass.
(I’m a poor loser.)
about 3 years ago
Even Microsoft Word will do that, if you turn on whatever feature it is that auto-fixes small mistakes of yours, like transposed I’s and E’s. Think it’s… Hotfix? Autofix? I forget, and I can’t be arsed to launch Word2007 because much as I love it, it’s a bit of a resource hog and takes longer to launch than I have attention span this morning. ^_^;
about 3 years ago
Fixed width versus non-fixed width
The two spaces after the period thing comes from an era where the only choice you had in any kind of typing was the fixed-width font of a typewriter. Now, however, modern typographic requirements point to one space only after a period. This is because a non-fixed-width font can misinterpret that double-space-bar and make it look like a gap tooth smile. However, if you know your work will be displayed in a fixed width format, knock yourself out.
p.s. Hi Spellwight!
about 3 years ago
Re: Fixed width versus non-fixed width
Hi Sam!
about 3 years ago
APA format says one space after punctuation.
about 3 years ago
I’m old school, and I use two spaces after a period, even at the end of a paragraph, I’m that bloody retro-grumpystubborn about it. I’m aware that many authorities on this subject have pointed out many valid reasons why this is now totally unnecessary, but dash it all I like my double spaces.
Quite why I bother I don’t know, since any browser out there will automatically strip > 1 space down to one space only, unless one uses a non-breaking space like this. The non-breaking space is a pain to type (ampersand nbsp semi-colon) though.
G
about 3 years ago
Two spaces. Yes. Why the debate? I rarely pay “by the space” when I type something and it certainly makes things easier to read.
about 3 years ago
Yeah, but you’ll notice everyone’s right. We’re wasting effort putting in our old school two-spaces when the fucking internet takes the extras back out. But I’m too old to break such an ingrained habit. I think it’s much easier to read, too, especially with certain fonts.
about 3 years ago
It may be wasted effort but . . .
. . . I still do the two-spaces after a period, too. At this point, it would slow down my typing speed to try to remember to do one space. Since I’m not that fast a typist to begin with (60 wpm), I don’t need anything else to slow me down!
Dani in NC
about 3 years ago
Two spaces is fine for informal writing, and I prefer it. But AP Style, and I imagine Chicago Style, specifically dictates one space after periods/full stops.
about 3 years ago
Yeah, there’s no such thing as fair and balanced reporting. The news is what ‘they’ want you to hear. There is no disinterested third party in reporting anymore. There is only the news people in power want reported. The people in power being big business.
about 3 years ago
2 spaces, even when typing non-english.
C