Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Not that I would encourage this, mind you

Today's Tuesday Morning Quarterback contained the following item, which I thought eerily appropriate to this here site:

TMQ Praised for Length, Dullness

Readers have complained that the printable Tuesday Morning Quarterback -- many print TMQ to read during critical business meetings -- does not contain cheerleader pictures and other graphics. Paraic Reddington of Perth, Western Australia, wrote to praise this very lack. Because the printed version appears to be some dense, overly long report on a weighty topic, "this version is very passable as legitimate office work when viewed from 'over the shoulder,' " Reddington wrote. Susan Weir of Overland Park, Kan., wrote to note, "Last season, I started blocking out time in my Outlook calendar so people wouldn't schedule me into meetings when I only wanted to be reading TMQ." Susan, just print it and read during the meetings!

"Dense, overly long, and weighty!" No wonder my ears were burning! (Hey, two out of three ain't bad.) Again, the global economy is fragile enough that I don't want to contribute to its destabilization, but I thought you readers should be aware of this practice, if only to stamp it out, of course.

In an unscientific analysis, I cut and pasted the two previous entries into a 12-point Times New Roman WordPerfect document. The new-comics rant was about 3 1/3 pages, single-spaced, and the Teen Titans essay was just over 4 pages. As it happens, this week's TMQ (printable version)tops out at just over 12 pages of single-spaced 12-point Times New Roman type.

I do not consider this a license to be even more long-winded, especially since TMQ is only published weekly. Only you can decide whether my essays are long and dull enough to be mistaken for work.

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