The Trouble with Fonts

Before the advent of the printing press, the vast majority of the written word was passed on in books skillfully written by the hands of monks working in the many abbeys across Europe. These men did not have the happiest of lives, forced to live in poverty and chastity. They were not allowed to own robes of different colours, had to pray twelve times a day, and as a final insult, had to walk around with funny looking haircuts that villagers and serfs made fun of whenever they went into town to see the latest hanging or witch-burning.

So, you can imagine the rage and anger that one of these devout men of God would have had if after weeks of painstakingly writing a thousand page Latin text by hand, their abbot were to come waltzing in and say, "Brother Giovanni, you wrote this text in Lucida Grande, I explicitly said VERDANA!!"

When I first started using a computer for word processing, I used a computer with a green and black monitor - different font options were certain to be a thing of the distant future. Yet, less than two decades since we made contact with fellow humans over the Internet, my new version of Microsoft Word has over 1600 different font options that I can use to make my documents look pretty. Well, actually it's a bit less than 1600, but I usually stop at Arial because I get bored looking further down the list. I like my documents to look as sharp, polished, and professional as the next guy, but is this really necessary. Lately, it's been taking me more time to figure out what font selection to use than to type up my document in the first place....and trust me, at this point in my life...anything that confuses my 35 year old brain is an abomination, a scourge that must be destroyed whatever the cost.

Let's put this in perspective for a minute - not only do I need to choose fonts for my Word documents, I have to choose them for my blog, for Windows, for my Playstation 3, for my DVD player, even for my stupid cell phone. The time that I have spent selecting them is time I'll never get back! Sure, my text messages are easier to read, and my PS3 does look kinda cool, but by the time I get things where I want them, Microsoft will just roll out a new version of their software, my cell phone will get flushed down the toilet, and my PS3? Well, nothing will come between me and my PS3...heh heh. Heh heh...err...what was I saying?

I still this is an issue that begs to be discussed further, but in the interim, please gaze at the Playstation 3.