Right now i’ve got the MS Word help contents on the right and this incredibly long and complicated User Manual i’m trying to format on my left. Me, my head is on my desk, trying to focus on my breathing so i don’t have a brain-frustration implosion. I must take a moment put of my extremely frustrating day to shout into the great beyond – I HATE MS WORD.
Dear Ms Word et al,
Ms. Word you are an overbearing bitch. I just want my bullets to look a certain way, ok? I want them to be nice and strong and black, not a light grey circle with white on the inside so that it looks like a speck of dust on the monitor. And i want the text to be near the strong black bullet, not 4 miles down the road like it’s embarrassed to be seen with it.
Why does this need to be such a struggle between us? We can work together. Just stop autoformatting every letter i type, ok? Let me tell you what i want instead of trying to guess what i want before i’ve even decided. You are not a good at reading my mind Ms. Word. In fact, you are piss poor. In fact, not once have you ever correctly guessed what i have wanted. In fact, I hate you.
I put a curse on you and all your progeny,
n!l
New Angeles Monthly, June 2008
Weekend America, March 30, 2008
Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2008
Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2008
Nil by Mouth is written by Neille Ilel. Neille is a writer, reporter and user interface specialist in Los Angeles. If you think that's a lot, she's also got a host of meandering sidelines including improv comedy, tennis, cooking, drawing and thinking about learning to play the guitar.
Nil is her given name. It's a long story.
E-mail her here:
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.com