It's 'NutNews week again. Groan. Stilted prose, half-finished thoughts, articles stolen from various sites around the 'net and uncredited, and my half-assed html skills. So. Much. Fun. (In the "not really" way.)

I don't know why I act like I care. It's not like I have any control over the content, the boringness of which is the biggest problem. For instance, at one point, I suggested to one of the ChaosManagers that advertising a class for which the registration deadline had already passed? Was really just taunting the people who didn't get signed up in time. She laughed--but the class is still going to be advertised.

And then there was the moment when I had to go to various people's office and explain to them, one by one, why it was not a good idea to put the order form for buying Office 2007 up on the website in .docx format. I thought I was going to have to draw pictures to make them understand that the only people who need the order form can't access .docx documents because that's the 2007 format.

The consensus is that the newsletter today is just like it was two months ago, when Penelope used to produce it. People around here say that like it's a compliment, but it was a mind-numbingly boring newsletter two months ago.

I guess it doesn't have to be--I have carte blanche to edit anything I want to edit, with the caveat that my edits are subject to being re-beiged if I get too lively--but I can't decide whether or not I care that much. It's hard. (Because it's boring.)

Vela, my own personal ChaosManager, continues to display her allergy to contractions. I don't know why. At the moment, I'm going through the articles and introducing contractions where appropriate--or where the mood moves me. And I'm re-titling her articles because I don't find something like "Marketing Update" to be all that compelling. (Although she probably has a point when she says she doesn't want the title to invite people to read the article, because she doesn't want to listen to complaints.) And I'm reading her sentences closely because subject-verb agreement is something she's only nominally interested in. And she has a habit of writing the first half of a sentence/thought and then leaving it to finish later--except, she doesn't finish later.

Oh, why don't I just admit it? I'm rewriting half the silly thing. Not, you know, in any major way, but at least enough to make the articles sound as through they were written by a reasonably well-educated English-speaking person. (Or as close as I can come to that, after several years of blogging.)

The temptation has been strong this week to build some easter eggs into the html. I would, but I don't think anyone here would be amused. (Nor do I think anyone here would actually find such a thing, but you never know.) What I have been doing (largely on my own time, I hasten to assure you) is writing a spoof newsletter. Mostly on my own time, but occasionally as I work on the Real 'NutNews, I stop and capture random ideas.

I don't know why I thought you'd care about all of that.