Malkovich was such a great villain in that movie. And I still remember the way he look offended that Eastwood wasn't paying attention to his monologuing.
Mr. Treacher, love your articles. I'm a 59' and I am so glad to be out of the work force. I worked for a gov't contractor and had to deal with the occasional "can't be fired." One, who was very morbidly obese, faked falling down a flight of stairs for a disability claim. Another, committed a horrendous safety and hazardous exposure violation that would caused me to be escorted off site. It wasn't even recorded. So I can't imagine how bad it must be now. Also, were you one of the reporters on the Duke Lacrosse scandal? I can't remember when I started reading your stuff. Thanks for your work!
I've never been a reporter, but I sure did heckle the journos who praised that article and threw a fit when actual journalists (like my old pal Robby Soave) questioned it.
Not every change is an improvement. Change for its own sake seem kind of stupid. The move from physical keyboards to virtual keyboards was not a particularly good change.
You lit me up with that keyboard! I went to their web site and put in a request on their FAQ page for an Android version (also plugged your Substack column, who knows, they might send you a freebie). Old geezers like me desperately need this gadget.
I only remember one teacher from High School (I graduated in 1985) and it was Mr Ricketts. He was the varsity basketball coach, and he taught typing. I thought taking the typing class would help, so I signed up.
Mr Ricketts was a WW2 veteran of the European campaign. He might have been a drill instructor, I never quaried his service record. But I base this assumption on how he taught the class. He would turn on a metronome, move the microphone to it, and then proceed to bark out the keystrokes; "F, F, F, T!!! F, F, F, T!!!" and again and again, till it sounded like one loud, cantankerous typewriter in that room. And these were the old-ass, huge typewriters that probably weighed 40 pounds each. As black as the coffee he drank literally all day. He's where I learned the term "coffee breath."
I'm still a very above average typist, and my kids (both grown, both recent college grads) are amazed how fast I type. I don't think it's that fast, but who am I to argue.
Mr. Ricketts retired sometime in the early 90's, and passed away in the late 90's. God bless you, sir. Thank you for your service, thank you for ensuring the blessing of liberty at a time when it was in doubt, and thank you for teaching me to type. I wish everyone had that experience, the weirdly joyous fun of hearing a metronome click and clack back and forth, as a grizzled veteran in a buzz cut and a grey hoodie sipped coffee in between barking out the keystrokes.
LMAO. I took typing with one of those huge black manual machines too.
Passing was 30 words per minute. My teacher Mr. Stanton pulled me aside one day and said “I looked up your records. It is obviously not your goal in life to be a secretary/typist. I will pass you with a generous C.” Except for 9th grade Algebra where I sat in the last row with my friends and refused to wear my glasses, that was the lowest grade I ever got but was the most grateful to get it. It would have been so humiliating to fail typing.
For some reason, I was super motivated to pass typing in ways that I wasn't for other classes. I just wanted to be able to type well for some stupid reason.
I had a typing class that used pea-soup-green IBM Selectrics II's. Those were incredible machines, and absolutely massive. At the beginning, Mrs. Balog would also rhythmically call out letters, and we had to type them. We were eventually typing business letters and stuff, and got serious points taken off for typos. I got up to about 75 wpm on those things.
I think that was the one where you had to memorize how many times to back space for each letter. Screwed me up every time I made a mistake and had to use that clear plastic with the white out so you could lift off the mistake And put in the correct letter. I hated that same thing.
I remember we did forms as well, and I remember Typing 2 was about the forms, and I didn't do as well in Typing 2 as I did in Typing 1. I took Typing 2 because I was a fast typist, and my grade in Typing 1 showed that, but I sucked at the forms. I seem to remember we had to learn how to line up a preprinted form? Yea, I was not good at that.
Typed 90 wpm with no errors on a manual typewriter. When I got an correcting selectric my "digits" were flying! And yes, I'm old but my digits be digitizing ; )
I cannot tell you how much I miss a physical keyboard on my smartphone. I'm sure I was one of the very last hold outs on Blackberry for that reason alone. Thanks for the info- will be watching for Android version!
Malkovich was such a great villain in that movie. And I still remember the way he look offended that Eastwood wasn't paying attention to his monologuing.
Mr. Treacher, love your articles. I'm a 59' and I am so glad to be out of the work force. I worked for a gov't contractor and had to deal with the occasional "can't be fired." One, who was very morbidly obese, faked falling down a flight of stairs for a disability claim. Another, committed a horrendous safety and hazardous exposure violation that would caused me to be escorted off site. It wasn't even recorded. So I can't imagine how bad it must be now. Also, were you one of the reporters on the Duke Lacrosse scandal? I can't remember when I started reading your stuff. Thanks for your work!
I've never been a reporter, but I sure did heckle the journos who praised that article and threw a fit when actual journalists (like my old pal Robby Soave) questioned it.
Not every change is an improvement. Change for its own sake seem kind of stupid. The move from physical keyboards to virtual keyboards was not a particularly good change.
You lit me up with that keyboard! I went to their web site and put in a request on their FAQ page for an Android version (also plugged your Substack column, who knows, they might send you a freebie). Old geezers like me desperately need this gadget.
Yeah, they say they want to do an Android version. Looks like this one is selling big, so keep your fingers crossed that they can expand.
You betcha. This thing is so tempting that I am ALMOST tempted to get an iPhone. Of course...(insert grumpy old man resistance to change joke here).
I only remember one teacher from High School (I graduated in 1985) and it was Mr Ricketts. He was the varsity basketball coach, and he taught typing. I thought taking the typing class would help, so I signed up.
Mr Ricketts was a WW2 veteran of the European campaign. He might have been a drill instructor, I never quaried his service record. But I base this assumption on how he taught the class. He would turn on a metronome, move the microphone to it, and then proceed to bark out the keystrokes; "F, F, F, T!!! F, F, F, T!!!" and again and again, till it sounded like one loud, cantankerous typewriter in that room. And these were the old-ass, huge typewriters that probably weighed 40 pounds each. As black as the coffee he drank literally all day. He's where I learned the term "coffee breath."
I'm still a very above average typist, and my kids (both grown, both recent college grads) are amazed how fast I type. I don't think it's that fast, but who am I to argue.
Mr. Ricketts retired sometime in the early 90's, and passed away in the late 90's. God bless you, sir. Thank you for your service, thank you for ensuring the blessing of liberty at a time when it was in doubt, and thank you for teaching me to type. I wish everyone had that experience, the weirdly joyous fun of hearing a metronome click and clack back and forth, as a grizzled veteran in a buzz cut and a grey hoodie sipped coffee in between barking out the keystrokes.
LMAO. I took typing with one of those huge black manual machines too.
Passing was 30 words per minute. My teacher Mr. Stanton pulled me aside one day and said “I looked up your records. It is obviously not your goal in life to be a secretary/typist. I will pass you with a generous C.” Except for 9th grade Algebra where I sat in the last row with my friends and refused to wear my glasses, that was the lowest grade I ever got but was the most grateful to get it. It would have been so humiliating to fail typing.
For some reason, I was super motivated to pass typing in ways that I wasn't for other classes. I just wanted to be able to type well for some stupid reason.
I had a typing class that used pea-soup-green IBM Selectrics II's. Those were incredible machines, and absolutely massive. At the beginning, Mrs. Balog would also rhythmically call out letters, and we had to type them. We were eventually typing business letters and stuff, and got serious points taken off for typos. I got up to about 75 wpm on those things.
I typed on a Selectric II for my first job.
I think that was the one where you had to memorize how many times to back space for each letter. Screwed me up every time I made a mistake and had to use that clear plastic with the white out so you could lift off the mistake And put in the correct letter. I hated that same thing.
I remember we did forms as well, and I remember Typing 2 was about the forms, and I didn't do as well in Typing 2 as I did in Typing 1. I took Typing 2 because I was a fast typist, and my grade in Typing 1 showed that, but I sucked at the forms. I seem to remember we had to learn how to line up a preprinted form? Yea, I was not good at that.
Typed 90 wpm with no errors on a manual typewriter. When I got an correcting selectric my "digits" were flying! And yes, I'm old but my digits be digitizing ; )
I cannot tell you how much I miss a physical keyboard on my smartphone. I'm sure I was one of the very last hold outs on Blackberry for that reason alone. Thanks for the info- will be watching for Android version!