Sunday, March 12, 2006

This Should Probably Be Harder to Do

Blogging is the last--and I mean the last--thing I ever expected to do. I'll come clean about it right now--bloggers have been a target of my seemingly bottomless wellspring of kvetching. But in true Professional Critic fashion, I need to take a moment to re-examine, to uncover the good. (Note: In some cases good cannot be found for example Kevin Federline. Marzipan. Ice Dancing. Decaf. Dickies (Not the work pants of hipster kids but the fake turtleneck thingies my mother used to make me wear). Plain Chapstick. Tissues with lotion in them. Paper cuts. The word 'panties.' Seal-strangling six-pack holders. Halliburton snagging every no-bid contract for rebuilding American messes. Soy cheese.)

Well! I guess you can see why a blog is a good idea. I can rant and rave to my heart's content without fear of irritating, alienating, and/or boring those that are obligated to tolerate me. This is brilliant! I know I am way behind the technology curve here and blogs have been around for like, ever, but I just got a cell phone, so give me a break.

The first thing I am going to officially critique is this font, Trebuchet. I am extremely fond of the bold way it maintains its supple roundness without devolving into clownishness. In fact, I used it for the five gajillion resumes I have sent out, but lately I am coming to the conclusion that Trebuchet may be a touch casual for job searching and perhaps best left for signs urging coworkers to clean up after themselves in the staff lounge. I really ought to go back and re-do it in Garamond or some other quietly dignified font. Definitely not Times, the most undeservingly overused and ugly font in the world.

Since I can, I will mention that my love of fonts began when my older sister began attending art school. Hanging by her drafting table was a large chart with millions of fonts, which I would study to determine which took themselves over seriously, those that were too fusty, too plain, too weird. Also, drawing with the toxically stinky markers whose name escapes me now. They came in many different colors and nib styles--pointed, narrow chisel, wide chisel. They also bled like crazy and I never understood how you could control such an unpredictable flow of ink but I figured they were teaching her that. I wasn't supposed to play with these markers because they were expensive, but I did.

2 comments:

Jenn said...

Mellie Green online! I am a happy lady. You are my favorite critic already.

Anonymous said...

Those were my markers! You owe me money!!!!!!