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how to make your girlfriend think your arial is HOTT, or Geek Love, Take 56
Deb: My coworker just showed me something really cool. Life-altering, even.
Alex: Oh yeah?
Deb: It's this new thing from Microsoft called "clear type". I had read about it somewhere; it's supposed to improve the screen legibility of type faces, something that Macs have always been better at…
Deb: Do you have Windows XP?
Alex: Uh-huh...
[Long instructions ensue about how to switch your computer to ClearType. Behold the Supreme Nerdy/Nobody Else Will Ever Love Us So I Am Glad We Found Each Other/-ness of the conversation that followed.]
Alex: Now it looks blurry
Deb: At first it seemed weird
Deb: But, I really like it now
Deb: Change it back if you do not like it.
Alex: No, I like it.
Deb: YAY!
Deb: I keep thinking it looks like a Mac.
Alex: It does, kind of.
Deb: Also, don't just have to use my Verdana 8.5 which I am obsessed with at 100%. Others look good, too.
Deb: I don't think I like how my site looks :(
Alex: Let me take a look.
Alex: Oooh... I like the way Arial looks. Very soothing, for some reason.
Deb: Yes. I agree.
Deb: There is something more rustic-looking about Verdana.
Alex: I like the way your site looks, actually.
Deb: … More soft, and comic sans-like.
Deb: … Which I usually don't care for but is suddenly oddly appealing.
[Alex changes his typeface.]
Deb: Dude, your arial looks HOTT
Alex: Tank ewe.
Deb: PS Courier New looks like poo poo.
comments (11)
Not that I didn't before, but now that I the-uber-geek-yet-not-computer-geek have found the wonder that is ClearType, I now absolutely think you're HOTT.
1 | mathematician | March 8, 2005 05:04 PM
Deb, thanks so much for this - i love ClearType -makes my fonts look that much sexier. and yes, easier on my eyes!
2 | writersbloc gal | March 9, 2005 10:25 AM
Staring at my computer screen is 200% more fun than it was yesterday. Even the Village Voice thinks it's a sexy good time.
3 | deb | March 9, 2005 11:09 AM
Yes, indeed, ClearType is a beautiful thing.
To further the geek discussion, Arial stinks. It was originally designed as a cheap knockoff of Helvetica and simply cannot compare to Verdana, which was designed with online publishing in mind. (The background story of Arial is an interesting read for like-minded typography wonks.)
Congrats on your appearance in the Voice, by the way!
4 | Mike | March 9, 2005 12:10 PM
Wouldn't it be better just to...ummm...get a Mac? ;-)
5 | Robert | March 9, 2005 12:49 PM
by the way, if you can get your hands on "fruttiger" (not sure of the spelling, but it's part of the QuarkXpress family of fonts) you will find yourself another font to drool and sigh over as my friends and i did back in college in our graphic design classes...
6 | writersbloc gal | March 9, 2005 04:10 PM
I tend to prefer Impact for most things, and script for when I want to make things look elegant.
7 | Hasan Diwan | March 9, 2005 08:13 PM
You have furthered my geek status as I have now moved on to clear type and love it. :) And I like how your site looks. :)
8 | Just Me | March 10, 2005 10:05 AM
this probably isn't a fair complaint, but i got all excited reading this, then went and read all about it at microsoft, then went to turn it on ... and found it was already on. bloody letdown.
9 | bryan | March 10, 2005 10:28 AM
I hear once you go ClearType, you can never go back. That other monitors... just won't work for you anymore. Bryan, I suppose you could turn it off for a couple days, suffer wildly, and then fall in love with it all over again.
Or, you know, buy a Mac. :)
10 | deb | March 10, 2005 11:06 AM
LOL
11 | Master Foley | March 16, 2005 04:31 PM