Debating Deadlines

The mock election meeting today went as usual. Mike tried to control the group, we got severely off topic several times, and someone had to settle us back down. I think Danny Perlstein is my favorite person to waste time with. He's educated, and he's got a good grasp on political humor.

Anyway, Mike asked for the text of the pamphle (the one I spent all last night making), and I told them all I could send it out tonight. They all flipped out over the inclusion of Cynthia McKinney. I think she's a big name, and an important illustration that we do draw a diverse group of speakers to campus, but I was maligned for my choice and told that Cynthia had to go becuase she was "too liberal." Alas Ms. McKinney, we hardly knew ye.

I mean, it's not my fault that there are very few conservative speakers on campus, and those who do choose to come do so in almost complete secracy. There were plenty of announcements for Cynthia McKinney, but who hearlded the arrival of chief Bush Economic advisor Stephen Friendmann? No one.

Anyway, one kid got all uppity and wanted to see a new pamphlet tonight. On the other hand, I had promised the guys a roast, and I was in severe need of a nap. 2 p.m. quickly turned into 8 p.m., and following a brief family phone odyssey I was ready to start the roast -- at 9 p.m. Around the time I was knee deep in peeled potatoes, the phone rang. Grumbling, I grabbed at it and tried to jab the on button with my starch-covered fingers. The voice at the other end was Mike Zuckerman.

"Hey, can you send out that pamphlet now?"

Now I'm not sure if these people understand, but to do a high-quality print job, and make it look good in the end, you need some pretty high-end software. The Sun has it, I don't. For me to "send the pamphlet out now," I need to walk down to the paper, open the office, start up the sports computer (it's the only one that can read Quark 6.0 files), and then I can get to work on editing the file. That's a good 20 minutes of prep time, not counting the actual time it'll take to change the file. Then I know they're going to send me some more "suggestions" (i.e. questionable changes, or other things they don't like), and I'm going to have to repeat said process. All in all, I'm probably looking at a couple more hourse of work on this stupid thing this week.

But anyway, Roast, annoying phone call during which I tried to explain to Mike what I just wrote in the last paragraph, and then Dan McAlvin called. For those of you who haven't checked out his site recently, I suggest you do so. It's listed on the left as "Here.but.Not," and has just been pimped out with multimedia clips of Dan, doing Dan-like things. My contribution was a small video of us getting kicked out of Tops supermarket. It was a contribution that took up another good 30 minutes, but one I didn't mind. I had been neglecting to do this for Dan for over a week now, which was severely uncool of me, espcially since Dan did me a favor by carting my ass out to Tops in the first place. We're in for good times next year, for sure, if I can just survive this week.

So then I went for a walk with Christine. Uneventful, yet still very nice, very peaceful. Enough said.

So now it's 4 a.m., and I have just gotten home to check my e-mail and mail out the pamphlet text. See two angry e-mails from said committee members, who were upset that I had not sent out the pamphlet information. I warned them that it would be "sometime tonight" (and as Todd so aptly defines it, if I haven't gone to bed yet, it's still tonight). I offered them hard copies to peruse over and take home while at our meeting, telling them that they should make their changes there and e-mail me corrections. They declined and opted to wait for my e-mail. And wait they have.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to cause these people grief, but if they reject my intial offer for a chance to have instant feedback, I'm not going to jump through hoops becuase it suddenly becomes convenient for them to take an interest, especially not when I'm in the middle of preparing a major culinary undertaking such as a roast. Mike told me we needed to have the pamphlet ready for some VP guy on Thursday, I sent the text, I'll make the corrections I get after my Comm Law final on Wednesday -- end of story, particularly becuase this dog doesn't learn tricks.

The biggest frustration is that I just did something any of these people could have done. Adobe Acrobat Reader has a text-capture tool. I just selected the text in the PDF I sent out and put it into a word file. These people are honestly idiots, especially if they couldn't figure it out after I gave them instructions. I hate cleaning up after other people's idiocy, which is truly what has prompted this rambling 4:50 a.m. posting.

Now if you'll excuse me, the Sand Man is waiting. I'm late for my appointments in dream land with Anson Rowe, Alexander Hamilton and Jessica Alba.