Day of failure... Day of Success

Let me preface this by stating that our days in egypt tend to cycle between good days and bad days.

Today was a good day. Yesterday was a bad day.

Yesterday, our day begins bright and early at 9:30 AM (we are almost over the time changes! yay), when we decide to take a little stroll over to the downtown, to catch a bus out to "the compound" -- aka, our school, the American University in Cairo. The bus is AC'd at

least

and though it takes a while to get out there, its almost a pleasant drive. I got to liste

n to my iPod for a while for the first time since the plane. I mean, sure, there's the almost never ending danger of death on any of the highways, and the bus had to take a little off-road detour to get around some

road construction, but nothing major.

Let me tell you, AUC is freeken huge. Like... Just massive. I can see why I'm paying double tuition to go there, everything is made out of marble! Seriously... even the sewer grates.

Is this not a messed up place or what?

One thing that strikes me about AUC is how much they lack in help. When we got off the bus, there are no signs, no people telling us where to go, we are just plopped on this endless square mile of buildings and kinda have to "find our way around". Which actually involves leaving the secure part of the compound, and going to the welcome center, whereby, to get back in, you have to go through X-ray machines, even though we of course drove into AUC without identification, and walked around without getting scanned at all. Sure. Its all the "illusion" of safety.

Of course the bureaucracy is insane (apparently a lot less than other universities, but still stupid). The entire day consisted of us walking around, me swearing, and saying how much I disliked the school. I'm sure its very nice, but its almost impossible to actually get anything done, much less find anyone that is helpful. Regardless... I did get myself a student ID. The topper though, was when we tried to go home, they made us pay 20 LE (th

ats egyptian pounds) per person to get home, because we didn't have our bus passes (which costs the equivalent of one months rent!) which we need to get to and from the university. Uhggg... So thats 40 pounds down the drain. And, we get stuck in traffic on the way back. We end up just getting out of the bus and walking through the traffic because its faster. Of course 5 minutes later whatever jam there was clears, and the bus ends up getting to the metro station we're walking to just as we do.

If anything? I'd say my time in Egypt is basically a never ending Senfeild show, complete with wacky plot-lines, and laughtracks.

We do end up meeting george, in our attempt to get some dinner after the fast. We're starving. Well, we walk around for maybe 20 minutes to find this HUGE place where they serve Korma, the local uberdish. This place serves it up 5 stories tall, its amazing. Of course they are closed. So we walk home. Go a little deaf when some kid pops a bottle rocket in the alley we're in, and it makes my ears ring.

We end up eating at the same place we did two nights before, learning that one of our roomma

te prospects already signed with the Steelers the night before (like the football/draftpick references?), and we trudge home. Last night we don't even try to go out, after getting home from AUC we simply chill in our hotel room, and pass out.

Our caloric intake, we feel, is getting frighteningly low. We might be consuming maybe 600-800 calories a day, and we're starting to get a little worried. We still don't feel hungry.

Things get a little interesting last night when our future roommate finally gets hold of us, and says "YES" on living with us. So we got a third, and we call our "dude". Monzer. He makes some calls, and says he'll have the paperwork for an apartment in the morning. Meet at 10 at the apartment. Oh, btw, we need to pay him a security deposit, his "finders fee", and first months rent -- in cash -- before he gives us the keys. Thats 10,000 pounds. OMG. So at 7:30 we wake up and take the metro to Maadi, where the apartment is. We don't want to get money and then get pick-pocketed on the train.

So we search around for an ATM. We finally find one, and not finding a second, we realize we have to get all this money out of this atm, at one time. We did research the night before about how to get money, and three debit cards turns out the way to go.

Picture this -- Me and andrew are standing on a sidewalk. There are rows of shops all closed down for Ramadan. A block to the north of us is an area the size of a city block, covered in sand. There are palm trees dotting the street we are on (4 driving lanes, and parking kinda everywhere). Andrew is in a tee-shirt, white new balance, and shorts, and I'm in a plane white tee, shades on, the necklace my sister gave me around me neck, jeans, some black all-stars on my feet, and my pocket knife drawn. I play with the blade as andrew starts the withdraw process.

Its dangerous and slow because we can only take out 500-1000 pounds at a time. Anyone driving by who sees two white kids sitting by an ATM for like 5 minutes knows whats up. I'm glad I have a knife, just incase anyone has any ideas.

We take turns with our cards, so it doesn't start rejecting them. It takes 16 ATM transactions to get the 10k out of the bank. I shove the cash down one jean pocket, and we get going.

The deal process takes very little time. We read through the contract, andrew is a sissy and doesn't want to negotiate much (not his strong point). Its already a pretty good deal, and I doubt we could have gotten it down a whole lot. I'll get pics of the apartment later.

We read it over, argue about some stuff, fork over the cash (trust me, I've never felt so much like a mobster as that moment when I was holding 8000 in hundreds and 50's. Its a big stack.

We fork over the cash, get our copy of the contract, go over the papers, go

over the passports, go over maintenance, go down to a hardware store, buy a lock for 35 LE, go back to the app, have the handy man install the new lock, get the keys, make sure everything works, and voila! We now have an apartment.

The only thing we don't know how to do is get internet there. For some reason there is a 4-6 week delay on setting up internet in Maadi (for the people who run the phone). We're exploring other options.

So that was my day, walking around with 10k in cash. What did you do today?

Our little adventure.

Cairo Cityscape.

Let me preface this by stating that I’ve now been in Cairo for 4 days. Boy does time fly when you’re trudging through dust and dying of heatstroke.

But I digress, its actually great here. Allow me to share with you some more insights.

First, by and far what we do most of our day is walk around and get stared at by just about everyone. We’re white, and we are carrying backpacks (because our hotel is sketch, and the safebox isn’t big enough for our stuff, so we hike it everywhere) and my roommate Andrew is running around in shorts (EVERYONE in Egypt wears pants, seriously). So its not hard to figure us out. Recently, we’ve created a nice little posse. Alison found herself a nice roommate in Marziya, a funny Kenyan who’s been living in Colorado for a few months. They found each other on facebook, and apparently it was roomy love at first site.

-- Side note --

Andrew just mentioned that I shouldn’t refer to him as “a dick of a shmuck” in the blog, so please take note that no where in this blog will I refer to Andrew as “a dick of a shmuck who runs around all day in shorts”.

-- End Side Note --

Back to Marziya. So they will be living together (much to our disappointment, we wanted them to live with us), probably in an apartment in Zamalik. But, since then we’ve been hanging around a lot together, and sometimes with their mutual friend George, who speaks perfect English and Arabic (he’s like a godsend). He happens of course to know lots of cool places all around cairo too. We make an interesting group because andrew and I stick out. Alison could probably pass as Middle Eastern Somewhere, but obviously dresses western, and Marziya wears hijab, and totally passes as Egyptian, but is the most western girl ever (she knows Swahili, but no Arabic, or very little). So we make for an odd group of kids. Marziya gets the most stares because she’s a woman, so thats one stare, but then she’s with us stupid Westeners (that gets a second glance back), and then they’ll hear her speaking English, and that gets her a third crazy look.

One of the nice things about Cairo is that even though everyone knows you’re a westerner, no know knows where you’re from! In Europe, anyone can pick out an American from a mile away. But people are always asking us -- “Where are you from? France? Spain? --- Oh, Amerika! Texas? Caleeforrnia?” So the anonymity of not having to deal with anti American harshness is somewhat comforting in a weird sort of way.

Obviously the big thing is Ramadan, I mean, it rocks the Middle Eastern World. Life changes 180 degrees the moment the first day of Ramadan starts. For example, we aren’t muslim, but we are still fasting, not so much by choice, but mostly because we don’t want to stand out, and there is no where to get food. I mean, restaurants don’t open until after sundown during this month. So Business hours are weird. Basically shops are open from 8 PM to god knows how early in the morning, and then at 8 AM everyone goes back to work! The hotel guy must be super tired. He sleeps when he can on a couch in the lounge, and boy, do they need it. Fasting (i find) is twice as hard in Cairo because the place is so dusty. In Wisconsin when you don’t drink anything for a day, your throat is a little dry, but in Cairo you’re basically eating a pound or two of dirt every day just by breathing, so by not drinking water, its gotta be crazy. We’ve been drinking about 3 lbs of water a day, and we figure we sweat out 2 or 3 of those pounds, and piss out the rest.

I’ve discovered why many places smell bad. Its not that there is more piss… Its just that everyone sweats out 80% of the water everyday because its so hot, so when you do piss its super concentrated. If I had to guess, I’d say the amount of liquids I’m peeing has decreased 70%-80%. You just sweat it all out.

So at the end of the day, you have this pleasant oder of dirt, grime, sweat, and cigarette smoke everywhere. I mean, we are just dirty and messy. If you don’t like to be dirty and sweaty all the time, Cairo is not the place for you. Just stay home. I don’t mind it. Its not like the city smells bad, I don’t want to say that because its not true, its just that when you sweat that much, it changes the way your body chemistry works. Try carrying around 20 lbs backpacks through 100 degree heat, with 70% humidity, for maybe 5-6 hours a day and try not to sweat a lot.

We walk a lot. I’m guessing we may have hiked 4-5 miles today alone. Of course apartment hunting is never easy, but there isn’t much to do in the city except for walk a lot, and then sit, and then eat when the sun goes down.

Back to my day. We started early. I actually got up in time for breakfast, which they said was free, but I’m betting they’ll charge our room anyways. Then we took the subway up to City Stars, which is like a huge military compound that is actually a mall, filled with rich people. I have some nice pictures of the Holiday Inn with re-enforced Glass so when the truck explodes in the lobby, the glass won’t become deadly glass arrows. Awesome.

They don’t mess around with safety here. Lots of machine guns… lots of machine guns everywhere. Andrew did make a good point though. There has been more terrorist attacks in the UK in the last few years that in Egypt. Touche.

This mall is like the second biggest mall in the Arab world (and they love their malls). The structure is this towering mammoth endless brick building with endless gucci stores. Weird.

So our plan was to go to AUC, and get our student papers, but apparently during ramadan the bus only runs until 11 AM so we have to get up early tomorrow to catch it (or something like that).

So we went to Maadi instead -- apartment shopping. I believe I’ll elaborate on Maadi in a different blog. Its a weird place man… It just doesn’t belong. If Maadi is Manhattan, Dokki is Brooklyn. Yo.

We then went downtown, wasted some time, looked at some pretty sad looking apartments for the ladies, and grabbed a ticket back home. So… More to come folks, more to come...

Day 2

Sorry, no pictures this time.

Let me preface this by stating that things are getting better.

We have a quazi home in Dokki where our hotel is, we are learning prices (prices for everything in our heads have gone down by basically half) and we continue to improve. Our arabic is bad, and the Egyptian accent is non-understandable, but I will say that we are getting better.

Today, we slept. I've been trying to wake up two hours earlier every day, i think tomorrow my goal is to get breakfast. My roommate is not fairing so well, he still slept until 3.

But I was up at noon, and I went and took a stroll down the main dokki street, el tahirir. My mission? Find some yogurt and some milk. And a wallet (i figure my old wallet for my old stuff, but i need another one for my egyptian pounds).

So, that is the crux of my situation, and down the street I stroll. I find a little grocery store, and lo! They have milk. Its pretty expensive (a little over $1 for a liter), but I figure its worth it, so I pick it up. Wow, it was amazing. I couldn't find any yogurt (I'm still shocked at that), so we'll see what I can find later.

So I stroll home, eat some cereal, and then we chill for a few hours waiting for our friends from downtown to give us a ring.

We went and explored the subway system. Its very nice (nicer than NYC's for sure). It is like the 3rd largest by passengers per day in the world, and its busy. Its one pound for a trip one way ($.17). You just get off whenenver you need to. So we jimmied over to downtown, and walked around, finally found our friends, went to a quazi western resturant (they have semi-english menus if you need them, and its not sit down, in fact there are no chairs, you just stand up and eat). My schwarma sandwich was better than yesterdays. It has this hummus on it. So stuff just keeps getting better.

Its a pretty anti climactic day. We just eat, chill, get some more numbers of new people and take the subway back to Dokki.

Tomorrow, apparently we are either going to AUC for a while, or we're headed to Maadi to meet with a realtor. Exciting. I can't wait for a place to truly call home.

Talk to everyone tomorrow.

Day One in Egypt

Let me preface this by stating that unless you’re actually here, no amount of pictures or words can actually convey what its like. I’ll try.

So I’m in Egypt.

Cairo actually, in the dokki neighborhood. To the west of me is the nile river, and in the middle of the river, the island of Zamilek, which is also one of the “neighborhoods”. When you cross Zamilek, and get to the other side, you’re in the “downtown” district. Go south from there and you get to Maadi.
http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en&q=cairo+map&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&ei=wEyQSt37I4mOmAOJ3_ymAQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1
We got in CAI at 2 in the morning, got in a taxi by 3:30, and got in our room by 4:30, asleep at 5 (all local time). So… What else is there to do? Sleep. It was the best nights sleep I’ve gotten in months, I was so exhausted. So, we wake up at 3, and start walking down the main dokki drag - El Tahir. Its easy to see why its such a cool place, just looking at the apartments explains a lot.
In the US, everything we do is planned ahead of time. The work is done by machines, and its precise. Helvetica. Lasers. Robin William fake tit nazis. But in Cairo, this is where people live and work together. Everything is custom here. In the US, all the sidewalks are the same size. Not here, it varies, some are only two feet wide, others are huge. The apartments were not built with most of the electrical “pre-planned” or internet, so there are cables jimmy-rigged everywhere, and hundreds of satellites pointed from rooftops. There is a good reason that people from poorer countries become engineers and electronics majors; you gotta be good at it or you won’t cut it here. The poorest cafe owner knows exactly how to set up a wireless network and change the passcodes every day or so, and throw up WPA protection because he can get more money by charging stupid westerners 30 LE to get wi-fi.
But it is a learning experience.

So first, things were going swell. We walked down the main drag, got a wiff of how things worked (stray cats are everywhere, just everywhere, its great, i love cats). We found a vodafone, or someone who sells vodafone stuff, and I bought myself a cell phone (i’m still trying to figure out how incoming calls work, so if you ask, i’ll give you the # but i’m not sure if I can get free incoming yet, or whats the cheapest way to call to the states, i have a few ideas).

So we decide to visit our other WI AUC friend Alison over at the Hotel Isis near downtown. So we hitch a cab. After paying (in hindsight) the cost of six cabrides to downtown from dokki, we get out and chill. Now, i’m never like this, but maybe I was frazzled by the trip, or maybe it fell out, but somehow, my brand new phone (150 LE phone, 25 LE SIM card, 100 LE prepaid on the card) was left in the cab. So I am pissed. We call the phone, trying to get hold of the cab driver. I’m about to buy a whole new package (with a guy who got pissed at us), but just then, the cab driver calls back. So he’s coming to “drop it off”. After some haggling (we’re getting much better), i pay him 50 LE for the phone and his troubles. That made me happy. I’m glad I asked for a cheap phone. Its great, and cheap, and monochrome, and just works. Well, now we are wiser, and I’m happy to have my phone back, and so we start wondering around in the far north side of the “downtown district” if we were even still in it. There are lots of interesting “suuuk” - marketplace - all scattered around in these weird back alleys (if you think of the typical back alley marketplace scene in your standard movie, its like that except it smells more interesting, not bad, interesting).

Once again, the buildings were not built for their use, so there are “shops” scattered rather willy nilly in living complexes, or just out in the middle of no place in particular. Its hard to tell if an “entrance” is a throughway, or a private entrance for living. We try to stay on the roads and look for a restaurant. We found one. Its very american, and expensive for Cairo because of that (my buddy says he lives modestly on $1 a day for food). My schwarma sandwich and a big bottle of water ran me around $3.

But we get to eat outside with the cats, and the weather is perfect.

After that we wonder back towards the “main downtown” where the museums and government buildings are located.

We spend a while trying to find our friend, but we do eventually meet up and wonder around. Its the first day of Ramadan, and its setting sunshine, so soon people should be running out into the streets, but everything still seems pretty quiet. He tells us some war stories of him in cairo over the past few months, my favorite is when he has to barrel-roll off the hood of a car (which btw, if you can avoid doing for a few months is amazing, i’ll get to that).

We’re really tired so we treck it back to Alison’s apartment where the internet is. Soon after we catch a cabride back to our hotel (for about 4x cheeper than the first time, and we’ll get it down yet).

Back to crazy cars.

So the driving down here is fairly intense. The most wicked part of it is not the cars driving, but its the pedestrians, or lack of pedestrian walkways. There are lots of sidewalks, but no places to cross streets. Remember in the movies when the hot business dude is racing after the hot babe’s taxi in NYC, just to tell her to not go to the airport? Well. Thats everyday life here. And when that taxi almost runs into him and he spills his briefcase of papers, and the guy yells at him, yeah. I felt like frogger this morning. I actually see people cross 4 lanes of traffic (one way), almost bumper to bumper, and they run out across one lane, then have to stop IN BETWEEN LANES, on the white lines as huge busses wizz by on both lanes. They actually have to turn sideways to avoid being hit. Oh, and all the cars are going about 80 km/h too, so that makes life interesting. Madison has made me much better at it though, you just have to be fearless and the cars will swerve around you.

I could never drive around in this city. Wow.

So, thats it for today. Tomorrow’s tasks include continued apartment figuring out, taking the subway somewhere, learn about food prices with Luke, and maybe finding another WI AUC’er.

So fun, I’ll keep writing. More pics on facebook. Take care you crazy cats.

In Amsterdam

Let me preface this by stating that this is my first experience outside of the North American Continent.

So I’m excited.

We landed in the Amsterdam airport today and its been great. I almost held my breath when the plane touched down here, but it was awesome. Amsterdam looks a lot like MN. Is that strange? I suppose. But trees and farmland are trees and farmland.

The people here are really cool. Even the ugly women are good looking here, just something amazing about the scandinavian gene pool. Ha. Lots of indie girl rockers sporting lots of flannel. Of course, we just chilled in the airport for a few hours. In fact, I’m writing this offline, because getting wi-fi in here costs $$$ so I have to live with writing offline and then I’ll convert it later. So thats exciting.

I kinda can’t believe I’m going to leave this cute little oasis and go to Egypt. Europe seems like a cool place. I wouldn’t mind living here for a while. People seem nice. I got my first little be of shock when on the plane from MN to Amsterdam, the guy sitting next to me was named Muhammad and was from Saudi Arabia. He spoke almost no english, and my arabic seemed to be better than his english, so we had sort of jostled conversations about the US, and is family in the twin cities. When I asked him “Ei madiina?” (which city), he was all happy and impressed that I knew any arabic. So I guess this reaction is twofold. First, I obviously look American, and therefore knowing arabic was surprising to him, but secondly, that it doesn’t take much to impress these people. It may be different in Egypt. Les just say I won’t be passing as an Egyptian.

My arabic is still pretty bad.

Other interesting notes -- there is a weird store that I’m staring at over my lounge seat. The Danish are very straightforward in their labeling. I like that about a people. Donm’t beat around the bush. For example, this store I’m looking at is basically a store for vices. In huge letters outside it reads “Liquor, Tobacco, Chocolates”

Very nice. One problem I am having is the lack of milk. I brought cereal, and my thought was to simply buy some milk at the airport. While you can buy a brick of cheese for 2.40 euros, a pint of milk will run you 2.60. Its strange. I figure for another 2 euros I can buy myself a sandwich, which I’m sure in a short while, I will do so.

Since IDK when I’ll be able to upload, I’ve decided to make this podcast about a few different topics. If anyone out there owns a macbook pro, and you are having problems with the keyboard cutting out at times, or the trackpad not working, here is the secret. It is now a very famous cure in the macbook community -- get a posted note. Fold it 4 times, and lay it oh so carefully over the orange ribbon cable under the battery. a bent wire in that ribbon cable can destroy your laptop experience, the posted note fixes the problem by flattening out the wire. Crazy, I know. Its working for me!

The other two members of my posse are sitting in chairs attempting to sleep the day away. I gave up on sleep a few hours ago. I’m damn tired, but there isn’t much I can do about it. Power through I suppose. I’m going to be very tired. Its weird, just the way our flights are planned, it means we should be asleep during the day, but then we have to catch our flight, and its really hard to sleep on the plane because its so uncomfortable. So When we should be sleeping for cairo, we can’t. It doesn’t help that we get to Cairo at one in the morning, so we can’t get used to the sleep schedule until we get there. Oh well. Hopefully in Egypt I’ll find some good internet. One can hope, but I sort of doubt it. It’ll take some searching.

Alright folks, I’m going to sign off, its been real, and I’ll try to write when I can. Enjoy your day.s

Cairo

Let me preface this by stating that I am going.

Away.

Far.

Away.

Yes, as many of you undoubtably know in a few short days I will be going to Cairo in Egypt to study at the AUC for a semester. AUC is a western style university, with classes in english, and tuition costs more than I can bare to state. Still, in less than 48 hours I shall be boarding a plane and leaving.

My first plane leaves central wisconsin, and heads to MN, where I will meet my friend and future cairo roommate a Mr. Andrew Voxman, which is the coolest last name I know. From that great city our plane leaves to Amsterdam. We have an 8 hour layover and meet another of our compodrys, a Ms. Alison.

Our trip then takes a bit of a Motion City Soundtrack Detour ("can't sleep on the KLM again"). KLM from Amsterdam to Cairo. We'll be arriving approx. 1 A.M. local time. The plan is to get in a taxi and go to a hotel somewhere in the city. Speak some arabic to the cab driver, be scared shitless, and excited. Get to the hotel, not sleep for a few hours, grab some winks until daylight. Then its apartment shopping. We want to find a nice place to live. Will that work? Yes, eventually.

The packing has gone smoothly. I've been smart and done it in steps. When I moved out of my house in Madison I separated half my stuff into "stuff I don't need" and "stuff I might need". When I left my appt. in Houston I separated my stuff mostly into "stuff I need" / "stuff I don't". Now at my house I just have to kinda go through some stuff I didn't get around to figuring out yet. I'm about 80% packed at the moment. One interesting aspect of this trip is that I have to pack light. Extra suitcases cost $$$$$$$$$$$ so my goal is spend as little as I can. More money for sightseeing.

Besides -- cairo is a city of like 14 million. I bet I can find whatever I need there.

To my devoted following -- as expected, I shall be blogging about my adventures in Egypt hopefully on a regular basis (internet connection permitting). Many pictures will be uploaded to facebook, and I'll try and "document" the experience for all those living viscerally through me. Its ok. I encourage you to go do something stupid right now -- like call someone who digs you, but things fizzled out.

Its almost 1 in the morning because I'm trying to "train myself" for Cairo by sleeping on Egypt time here in the states, or at least getting closer. BP was hard to adjust out of. up at 6:30 or earlier every workday. I wake up at 7 every morning without an alarm clock still. Its weird.

At least I'm dreaming a lot more. I think its because I'm freeken tired.

So folks, I'll keep you posted! Wish me luck! If I die in a horrible plane crash, well, that sucks for me. Go do something cool for me. Sad. Thats what I get for my iTunes to switching to Joshua Radin (who's CD I bought the moment I heard the song on the Scrubs episode, I knew about him before a lot of people and now he's all big and popular -- booo on that, because everyone things that he's "their" special secret, no, you heard him on ellen).

Thanks,

Guthrie

Helvetica

Let me preface this by stating that this blog post will not be written in Helvetica. I'm fairly sure that you will see it in its devil not as nice sister font -- Arial.

I recently watched an interesting documentary about the font, creatively called "Helvetica". The font itself means "the swiss font", because it was created by the Swiss. In the 1950, typography was going through quite the remarkable transformation. In the 40's and 50's, companies would advertise using these hand-scripted fonts. Ads would usually involve a cartoon, with a big long paragraph about how when you're at the beach, don't you and little timmy want to just have a big coke for that shiny nickle?

Well, in the late 50's, and 60's, the sweeping trend that was started in WWII was brute efficantcy, and scientific precission. Think laser etchings. So as soon as Helvetica began to take off, it would forever change the world. It worked so well for business that even today, well over half of all business logos use the font.

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/03/40-excellent-logos-created-with-helvetica/

Its a long list, and it doesn't stop there. Why you may ask?

The reason for Helvetica's success is its neutrality. Out of all the fonts in the world using roman letters, Helvetica is decidedly the most neutral. It doesn't have any personality, or bias. It displays the message without being part of the message itself. Another great example is that all safety equipment, or "in the background" signs, like street signs, or speed limits, or exit ramps, or safety instructions, or "slippery floor signs" all use helvetica. It is soothing apparently.

Some typographers even go so far as to say that Helvetica is perfectly balanced as a font. That... it is the perfect font (many other argue that perfect fonts do not mean the best font, and a large war brews among typographers) , and it is hard to disagree with them. Helvetica has been the champ for 50 years, and there hasn't been a decade that really has dethroned the king of font families.

One thing that all PC users should be wary of is the HORRIBLE job that windows does on fonts. Mac's have been the go to software format for typographers for YEARS, and for good reason. There are many cases when Microsoft office incorrectly displays fonts.

So if you are in doubt, use a mac. Or just don't use office. There are some great open source programs out there to make sure what you are typing is good.

I use one on my mac, which I can't remember the name to right now because I'm typing this on a PC.

My favorite thing about helvetica is the power it can give to powerful words. What I like to do is print out a single word that contains a lot of meaning and emotion in itself -- love -- and print it out in Helvetica font. No capital letters, and if I'm feeling frisky I'll ad a period. The effect (in my mind) is cool. Here you have this very neutral and non-emotional typeface displaying a word that conveys a ton of emotion. This can help a person "feel" the emotion even stronger than if someone uses a non-neutral typeface. This, I believe, is because without a logo, or a typeface to "clue" your brain into what you should feel when you see the word, the only thing you can see is the meaning of the word itself, and then your brain has to figure out all the conotations that are associated with that jumble of letters. In its simplicity, you can find a lot of power.

I would encourage everyone to check out http://typophile.com/ as it is a great place to learn a bit more about typeface. Its fun. I swear.

BTW, feel free to leave me some comments, I can see that there are visitors to the site, but IDK if they are random clicks, or if people are actually reading. I don't mind writing these thoughts as a diary, but if you'd like to leave feedback please do.

Thanks,
Guthrie