'Interesting' twist...

The time was you'd get a fake check in the mail that was only good if you cashed it with the party that sent it to you, as a discount toward what they were trying to sell you.

Twice in the past ten days, we've gotten mail at the store with what looks, smells, and actually is a real, honest-to-goodness, deposit-it-in-the-bank check for some piddling amount (like $3.50) with no obvious indication that it is part of an offer to sell something... you have to read the fine print for that. Apparently, cashing the check would signal our agreeing to sign up for some service, to the tune of nearly twenty bucks a month.

From the slimeball's marketer's side, this has several advantages:

1. Not having to really sell the product, as signup is automatic upon cashing of the check, which itself betrays no such "gotcha" (so should the check get automatically lumped in with others as you go through the day's mail... tah-dahh... you'll get automatically enrolled);

2. Most outfits won't notice the new monthly $20 billing; those that do and complain will be told they signed up for it; those that scream bloody murder once they have it all explained to them will be un-enrolled, though there will probably be enough others who will feel obligated to stay enrolled since they did, after all, cash the check.

I, naturally, would be a member of the "scream bloody murder" faction, as we've already been hit by a few scamsters, including one outfit that published the store's 800 number in a directory and then charged us $400 for it, claiming we authorized the deal... except we don't have an 800 number and they had nothing from us with our signature on it (which was not surprising, as I believe their invoice was the first communication we had from them).

* * *Enough of that. I think I'll start the day with a 1000-word warmup, then do the figures for the last of 60K, and then incorporate them into the document (i.e., do the figures and save them individually, then add them as I have this feeling that having Acrobat, PaintShopPro, and Word open at the same time, with frequent large transfers of data via the Windows clipboard, is a likely recipe for disaster).

Cheers...

P.S. Note to self: Last night, around 11:15, I posted a short item using the Zaurus. I don't see it anywhere. the Z is 12 hours "ahead" of where it's supposed to be (still in Kazakhstan, I'll wager)... but that does not address the issue of the missing post. No biggie... just info in case a wayward post with a reference to Das Boot shows up in some unlikely spot. Then again, maybe the post never made it to the database... I did a web post and did not check the result of hitting the "Post entry" button.

Moving along smoothly...

The 1,000-word item is done, and it turned out there were 20 graphics that needed to be imported into the last part of 60K (which is looking more and more like about 36K). The file weighs in at 600K, which is respectable.

The item due Thursday has 14,000 source words, so I am going to have to kick butt to get it done for delivery on that day. I have no idea what degree of repetition there may be in the document, but I can already see that I'm going to have to spend time editing parts of the OCRed version (ripped from a PDF file), especially some of the tables, which will detract from my effectiveness.

Next step for now: Spell-check and then print the last part of 60K for review, which will not a minor undertaking. I think I will do it in chunks (else the temptation to gloss over things may become overwhelming). Hopefully, I'll be finished by tomorrow night, and I'll also have at least 4,000 source words of Thursday's job done, too.

I am an incorrigible optimist, ain't I? Back to the face of the salt mine!

Cheers...

Farblegargling Word...

So the OCRed file is now saved as a mishmash of pages of every farblegargling conceivable size that approximate something between A4 and 8.5 x 11. And Word positively, absolutely refuses to allow any page to be resized, claiming that the settings I've chosen "for the left and right margins, column spacing, or paragraph indents are too large for the page width in some sections."

I may have to cut and paste chunks from the old file to a new one, but I doubt it will help, as I tried the old cut-and-paste-the-whole-thing trick and it didn't work.

What's worse is this: if I do nothing but call up the Page Setup dialog and merely click OK without changing a farblegargling thing on the Paper Size tab, I get the same message, telling me my settings are no good!

Life is sweet, unless you have to work with Word a lot.

Cheers...