Seems everything needed repairs this week. First there was an elderly but sturdy machine at work, which required my second-favorite set of instructions ever: the now-infamous page 36 from the vintage manual I keep in a nearby cupboard.
Raise your hand if you had to stifle a juvenile snicker when you read the title above. Raise both if you were unsuccessful. Very good. You get three points if you’re the first to spot the spelling error, and ten if you can identify the machine in question.
Page 36 also requires a trip to the following diagram, which I would argue makes their assurance that it’s only “7 easy steps” a giant lie. Like the photo above, click if you need more detail, but do so with care lest your brain explode.
Despite my near-uselessness when it comes to anything mechanical, I managed to muddle through and get the mystery machine up and running again — just in time to go home and spend another evening trying to fix my book. Alas, that task doesn’t come with an instruction manual.
Aren’t they pretty? Good thing I don’t use red ink, or these pages would look like they’d been murdered, and that would ruin the tone of the whole book.
Then, of all the luck, I needed repairs, too. Yes, the flu visited again, just a month and a half after it last stopped by. So much for my weekend plans. Instead of going into the mountains to take photos like the one below, which I snapped a few years ago…
…I got to photograph things around home. This is not nearly as exciting — or as pretty.
Unfortunately, alien creatures kept popping into the frame at the last minute. The blobby heads and tails were so big that even Photoshop couldn’t help me fix the results. Too bad. I do hate to leave things unrepaired.
I’m going to go for fax machine – and squeak instead of squeek
I do have to say that I got a little excited when I started reading the manual… *fans face with hand* I’m getting all hot and bothered!
I notice you made all of the pictures enlargeable EXCEPT the revision ones! Sneaky sneaky! Though, that IS a lot of ink there… Wouldn’t be more productive to do it on the computer, eh? But at least you’re being ruthless with your own work… It’ll be all the better for it!
FYI, the kittie picture is ADORABLE and I just want to PINCH THOSE CHEEKS!
Three points to Mrs. Lemon. But, alas, the machine is not a fax machine. Thank God. The fax machine at work kind of scares me.
Kyle, you made me laugh out loud! Thanks. 😀 As for revisions, I always do a round on paper first because I notice a lot more that way. Plus it’s easier to flip back and forth, make notes, etc. Then I revise again as I put the notes into the computer. Most revisions take place on the computer, though.
I L_O_V_E the picture of the cat nose!! That made me laugh out loud! May I save a copy of it?
I too confess to be a grammar snob. It drives me crazy when people make presentations or publications with errors. I really need to learn to keep it to myself, because I have probably insulted too many people “enlightening” them to their mistakes.
When I do paper revisions, they look exaclty like that!!! I even write on the opposite page too. 😀
OMG, are you kidding about that manual? And what IS that machine–a laminator, maybe??
Crazy-scary thing…I shouldn’t be looking at that diagram before bed, it’s gonna give me mechanical nightmares :).
i’m going to guess a camera.
and your revisions remind me of what my music looks like when i’m working on a piece.
Printer?
Love the mountain picture!
A fax machine? The fax machine at work says stuff about housing covers sometimes.
Jenny, check your email! 😀
Heather*, so glad I’m not alone with that one! I really think revisions — for me, at least — are more work than getting out that first draft.
Marilyn, I am dead serious. As soon as I saw it I *knew* it must be posted. And ten points for you! You were right.
Really, Emily? That fascinates me because I have HUGE respect for anyone who can write music, and I always just picture it pouring out in a huge lava flow of inspiration. Ah, movies. They’re never accurate, are they?
Thanks, PJ! I was hoping to get more this year. Rotten timing. Next year, I hope.
SV, sorry, but no. This is much, much bigger. And heavier.