DISQUS

Yes, Twilight IS like crack. I've read it (and the other 3 books in the series) a few more times than I'd like to admit, but after having visited the Olympic Peninsula last week, I thought I'd give it another go, to read it from a new perspective. It's kinda cool to read about someone driving down a highway you've just recently been on yourself, you know?

On another note, that conference in Chicago looks like fun. If we didn't have our biggest tradeshow in Chicago a month after that, I'd be inclined to see if I could attend. As it is, though, mid-Sept will be a blur of mad-dashing it to get all our collateral for the show finalized, approved, printed, packaged, etc. Always fun. :)

Ooh, I love that you guys do all your editing with paper and (multi-colored gel) pens. Where I work, everyone seems to insist on using Word and it's oh-so-(less-than-)spectacular "track changes" function. I *hate* it. I'm the layout person, and these changes frequently come after I've put everything into layout. They say, "Can you put this PDF into a Word doc so we can edit it?" I try to get them to print the dang thing out and just take a red pen to it, or even just mark up the PDF in Acrobat. But noo... they can't do that! They're computer guys! They don't even *own* red pens! (Nevermind that it's way more work for me to re-lay everything out from scratch again instead of just making the edits myself in InDesign. That's not their problem.)

Seriously -- you guys and your gel pens are my HEROES! :)

Ok, I have to laugh at the image selected for "Bethlehem Central High School." When I looked at the image, which describes a whole bunch of marching bands that attended the St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin this year, I found two specific connections to myself - (1) Huntsville High School attended (the rival high school in my town, from which a whole bunch of my friends graduated), and (2) Freedom High School, in Bethlehem, PA (which is, I assume, how your search landed you on that particular photo), was also in attendance. One of my company's big facilities is in Bethlehem, and I know a lot of people who live there. :)

Ok, random late-night comment spam ends here. Sorry. :)

Yay for reading Murakami! He's one of my all-time favorite authors. After Dark was good, but was too much like his short stories for my liking (his short stories are always unfulfilling - I'm always left wanting to know what happens next, you know?) If you're enjoying After Dark, I highly suggest some of his earlier works in the surreal realism genre: The Windup Bird Chronicle (possibly my favorite book of all time), and the Rat trilogy, which consists of A While Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance, and the first book in the "trilogy," Pinball 1973, which is no longer being published (and much, much rawer), but can sometimes be found online in PDF or HTML format... (Google it - you'll find it.)

I can't tell you how interesting and informative I find this series of posts, Kim. I'm currently the layout guru and junior copyeditor for my marketing team, and while I love what I do and where I work for now, what I'd really love to be doing a few years down the road is doing that same type of work on a magazine (and if it's a fiber-related magazine, so much the better!) Your insight into the inner workings of such a publication are invaluable, and make me that much more motivated to find such a job when the time comes. Thank you! :)

~Liz