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	Welcome To My Home... February 24, 2004 A Kink If you haven't made copies at Kinko's recently, here's the rundown of how it might work. First of all, obviously, you need to drive over there. Our particular scenario takes us into downtown Fullerton. You spot Kinko's with surprisingly little trouble and park in the nearest public parking facility you can find, which lies about two blocks from the actual store. So you grab your stuff, walk along side the street for a while, and take a quick shortcut through the Kinko's parking lot that you somehow neglected to notice on your first pass. Now you're in the store, and you stride purposefully towards the copy machines. Over the past two weeks, you have, we'll assume, painstakingly transcribed a Xerox copy of a letter design onto a piece of Bristol board for your Typography class, inked it, and measured crop marks precisely two inches around the entirety of the finished letter. So now, in relevant terms, you're trying to copy something that is about 11.2 inches square onto an 11x17 inch piece of paper. This is because, when the teacher ran copies of your template, he must have decided it would be more fun for the students if no standard-sized copy paper could fit the entire design, and thus declined the opportunity to size the whole thing down by half an inch. In any case, you decide to see what you can do, and you go about figuring out how to obtain and put money onto a Kinko's ExpressPay Card. This nifty card represents the only way to pay for copies made at Kinko's and also gives you something that you will now likely have to keep for the rest of eternity or suffer the loss of the remaining 12 cents in your new Kinko's ExpressPay account. Now it gets to the fun part, because Kinko's doesn't indicate how much you're paying until after you've already paid. It's kind of like a game that way. "But they're just copies," you think to yourself, "so it should be okay." You discover, after making one unusable black and white copy and an equally useless color print, that you are mistaken. Having spent three dollars on two worthless copies, you decide that you will be broke by the time you figure out how to achieve your desired effect, and you leave. You have plenty of time, as you walk back to your car, to reflect upon your situation and consider alternative locations to produce copies of your work. After nearly completing the trek, however, you stop short in your tracks. "Crap!" you say to yourself. "I left the original in Kinko's!" Except, in the absence of company, you might use harsher language. It is exceedingly fortunate that you realize this soon enough to retrieve it, and you are thankful that you had a chance, while walking to your car, to recognize your error. So, in summary, it is sometimes advantageous to park half a mile away, even if the benefits are not immediately apparent. Also, you should probably make copies at Office Depot, which does the same thing for fully a third of the cost. Comments February 24, 2004 First Post in the Second Person Feel that excitement. More copy fun. I went back to Office Depot to get some more copies, and one of them printed with a map of South America on the back! This was after I had immediately left another Office Depot location where the copy machine thought that I wanted, instead of an exact clean copy, an approximation of what that copy would look like had it been burned, trampled, and smeared with charcoal dust before being shoved into the machine. Unfortunately, I was looking more for a clean copy at that time, so I decided to drive back out to the store further away. I think I've spent more time trying to copy the assignment than I spent actually working on the darn thing. Art. I'm thinking about entering one of my digital paintings in the TSU gallery, so if you've got an opinion on what my strongest piece to date is, now would be an excellent time to speak up. Then I'll just need to run over to Kinko's and get that printed up... I actually do have a printed glossy of my "One Moment in Time," but it looks pretty scratched up, so I'd prefer to print out a fresh one if I can, anyway. Oh, and I've been randomly updating various parts of my art section. Some of you probably haven't even been to the sketchbook in ages, so that might be a fun place to start. The PMC. It rocks. I will make every effort to attend every event, and I've added a PMC section to my art section. Justin Ridge (former CSUF student) came out to talk to us about his job at Nickelodeon last Saturday, and that was very entertaining and informative. He's also got a website. Psychology. I took a personality test for my psychology class. Apparently, I'm cynical, angry, and usually in a bad mood, but I'm so passive and reserved that nobody notices. That sounds about right, actually. February 25, 2004 What I love about Kinko's How in order to start up the computer, you insert your credit card. Call me stingy, but that process gives me a bit of pause. Automatically, I'm under intense pressure to see if I can access my floppy, open my file, wait for everything to load and then print before the minute goes up. The prices aren't half bad for being so convenient, but there's so many things that could go wrong. How often is it that everything goes through exactly as planned the first time? I think I liked it better when it printed out an invoice for you, so you could complain to the attendant that printer was OUT OF PAPER, so you shouldn't be charged for the downtime as it was being replaced. As far as the TSU gallery, I've always liked your penguin, but that's just me. : P -Victor February 26, 2004 On the positive side Scene 2. The Better Side of Kinko's. Kinko's, as my typography teacher says, is only as good as the people who work there. That is a fact that I can now attest to. It seems everyone had fun Kinko's stories to tell. Some people went to three or four locations, even, before finding one they liked. But lots of people seemed to have good things to say about the Brea store, so that's where I went to print up my painting for the TSU gallery. It was, indeed, a very positive experience, especially in relation to my last adventure at Kinko's. Where before, I could hardly find anyone to talk to, the people working in the Brea store were extremely helpful. They were willing to walk me through the process, and when my picture was taking a long time to print, the guy helping me put in his employee card so it wouldn't continue to charge by the minute. Typography. In typography, we had a class critique of our first assignment in typography today. A critique is what he called it, anyway, but it was really more of a presentation. He didn't want us to talk about anything negative, but rather to describe what we did effectively, what we learned, and what challenges we overcame. It was also a very good opportunity to share Kinko's stories. This type of a 'critique' is so much different from anything of the sort that I've ever done, and it really allowed for a much more open and relaxed atmosphere. After talking about my work, I actually felt better and more confident about what I had done. Life. I am not coming home this weekend; I've got way too much to do. I will probably come home next weekend, though, because I'm running out of money and clean clothes. Then the weekend after that (3/12), I will spend in the art building for the PMC Bomb marathon, where I will attempt to complete a short animation for the first time in my life... in one weekend. February 27, 2004 Proceed with Caution Scene 3. Seriously. If you ask for help and they don't give it to you, leave. Even the Brea Kinko's can be crap sometimes. I wish to find a copy place that charges me the same amount for a task every time I do it so I wouldn't need to go in wondering if it'll cost me three dollars or ten that time. For now, just remember that if it's not worth paying more than five dollars for, don't put more than five dollars on your ExpressPay card. It's a lot easier to get refunded for their screw-ups that way. March 3, 2004 Hmmm... I want to come home every time I'm running out of money and clean clothes. -Julie		Quick Links - Fun 'n Folly - Juggling Club - RF Haunt - RF Gallery News/Updates HOME - Latest Post ARCHIVE - Full Archive <- PREV | NEXT -> 2/24 - A Kink 2/14 - The PMC 2/4 - I Don't Like What You Call Music 11/18 - This Looks Familiar 10/23 - It Didn't Have a Name 7/24 - Approaching Reality 6/27 - For Those Still With Us... 6/12 - Get The Picture? 5/30 - Lasting Impressions 5/15 - The Great Outdoors Previous 10 shown Read More... 8/6/02 - First Post HOME - Latest Post ARCHIVE - Full Archive
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