25 useless facts about The Colonnade
1. The Colonnade was established in 1924, making us 84 years old. We’re willing to bet that we’re older than you.
2. In our Facebook profile, the ugly child that represents us in our picture was found by a Google search using the word combination “Birth Control Glasses.” Feel free to look it up.
3. There are no pre-requisites or requirements to work for the newspaper. All that is required is a commitment to reporting the news, and that you attend our weekly meetings held every Monday at 5 p.m. in the MSU Lounge. Oh, and we have pizza every week. You know you can’t resist that.
4. Our office is located in MSU 128 in the lower levels of the building, across from the MSU lounge. There’s nothing that makes us happier than on Wednesday nights when there are bands performing in there.
5. Despite claims by Colonnade editors past and present, there are not shackles that keep them chained to their desks.
6. We actually have more people in the office on Wednesday nights than we have desks for, so many of them wind up on our two couches working on their laptops. We thought this was worth mentioning because the editor writing this is sitting on one of them right now.
7. All the computers in the Colonnade office are Macs. We’re not Apple product elitists (except our Web Editor, that jerk) but we do like the stuff we have, which is fortunate considering how many hours we spend on them every week.
8. On that note, we start each Wednesday at 5 in the afternoon and usually don’t put the paper to bed (read: finish the thing) until somewhere between two and four in the morning. (and sometimes 7 or 8 a.m.)
9. On that note, many of us are caffeine junkies, and like any journalists worth their salt, we love coffee. We used to have a coffee pot in our office closet, but after accidentally leaving a near-full pot in there once over the Winter Break, we had to get rid of it for sanitation reasons.
10. Every single issue of The Colonnade ever made can be found on microfilm in the Library. Check them out and see how we looked then as opposed to now. We look pretty good now.
11. We’ve won the Georgia Collegiate Press Association (GCPA) General Excellence award for three years running, and have been notified by the GCPA that we’ve placed in the top three again this year. We’ll find out on Saturday, Feb. 5 whether or not we won first place.
12. You’re still thinking about number nine, we’re sure. Relax. The office is fine now. That happened YEARS ago.
13. Our printer recently exploded on us, but we were able to get it fixed. Which is a mixed-blessing, because several of our editors were really looking forward to going “Office Space” on the thing.
14. As the night progresses so does our level of goofiness…. Weird, we know!
15. For example, we’ve been known to take our rolling-chairs into the hall outside the office and joust later on in the morning. We’re sure the people at Public Safety watching on the security cameras are more than a little confused.
16. The Editors in Chief through the years have passed down a foam baseball bat that they carry around the office while they work. The theory is that it fulfills the primal desire to have a blunt object to hit things with when the computers screw up.
17. If you see us on Facebook on Wednesday nights, it’s because we’re using it for research. Seriously.
18. We use Adobe InDesign and Photoshop to get most of our work done. We use Microsoft Word for the editing of words. We use a program called Adium for receiving our Vents (send them to ColonnadeVent on AIM!). We use Safari and Firefox for our Internet browsing.
19. At least once a month our Web Editor (that jerk) will change the icons on our desktop to play Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” instead of launching the program it is supposed to. This is why we’re having so much fun lambasting him in this note.
20. The Rainbow Pinwheel of Death (the Mac equivalent of the Blue Screen of Death) has been known to make us use series of words that would make a sailor blush.
21. On our Web site (GCSUnade.com) we have message boards that see less action than our Editor in Chief (this entry typed by a vengeful Web Editor). So go online and check them out.
22. The Distribution Manager is the dude who delivers the papers to the campus on Thursday afternoons. He has a driver’s license, even if you can’t tell to see him drive the golf cart.
23. One of our staff members, who has worked for us since he was a freshman, and was lame enough to keep count, has spent a total of 99,060 minutes in the office. For those of you keeping score, that’s about 1,651 hours. Or 69 full days.
24. The hardest thing to do every week is to write the voice, and fill column space (like this) when we don’t get material. The poll question is a pain too.
25. Who the hell wrote entry 21?!?
So there’s 25 things about us. We’ve tagged you, so be sure to let us know about yourself, and what you want to see from us. e-mail us at colonnadeletters@gcsu.edu and let us know!
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Feb 6 2009. Filed under Opinion.
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