Ten Ways to Celebrate International Print Day

Today is the first International Print Day, when lovers of ink on paper are taking to social media to share cool printed projects, success stories, and helpful information.

It's very early morning (U.S. Pacific time), and I'm already seeing more than one "#IPD14" tweet per minute, most of them with relevant links.

But we here at Dead Tree Edition headquarters have our own way of honoring special days (like wearing all-natural condoms to celebrate Earth Day). So here are our 10 suggestions for making this day really special:

Nice Frisbee you've got there.

1. Moon the next bank that sends you a "Go Green, Go Paperless" message.


2. Hand someone’s tablet to her three-year-old child. (“No, Mr. iPad does not like to be dropped. Can you say “ouch”? Can you say “cracked screen”?)


3. Calculate the percentage of emails received today that you don't read; be sure to check your spam folder. Now compare that to the percentage of mail pieces you receive today that you don't look at. 


4. Tell the IT department you want to include a scratch-and-sniff promotion in your next email blast. “C’mon, I saw something like this in a dead-tree magazine. If those geezers can do it, you can too, right?”


5. Mail a handwritten note to someone you are trying to impress. And have the rescue squad on standby in case the recipient can’t take the shock of receiving personal mail.


6. Visit your "Print is dead" friend, go into his pantry, and tear the labels off all the cans and packages. Just think, you'll be helping him realize his dream of going paperless. (While you're at it, maybe you should remove all the paper from his bathroom as well.)


7. To the tune of “YMCA,” sing “C-M-Y-K,” and make up new, print-friendly lyrics. Don’t forget the arm motions. Take a selfie when you’re doing the “K” and post it to your Facebook page.


8. Use your Kindle as a Frisbee.


9. Watch the Viagra-in-a-printing-plant TV ad and think of the suggestive, print-related sweet nothings he’ll whisper to his wife when he gets home. (“Hey, baby, let me get rid of your PMS by converting it to process colors.”)  


10. Buy a book. Not an e-book, which can only be rented (regardless of what the sellers say). A real ink-on-paper book. And read it.

A Lesson in Magazine Printing from the Ghost of Robin Williams

Surprise, surprise, there were no takers for the copy of TIME magazine purporting to show the ghost of Robin Williams.

Despite the Dead Tree Edition article being picked up by the Naples (Florida) Daily News and several web sites, no one could scare up $10,000 and enough gullibility to bid in the eBay auction that ended Friday.

But those of you with more dollars than sense and a passion for printing errors need not despair: Almost immediately, the Kennewick, Washington-based eBay seller "warnecathe" relisted it, again with a minimum bid of 10 Gs.

Williams' ghost reportedly showed up at his mansion a month ago, but the scores of printing and publishing geeks who commented on the TIME cover were not fooled. The consensus was that the cover, along with the back cover, was simply printed without enough black ink.

A few correctly pointed out that I was wrong in saying the cover could not have been printed shortly after the press started up. Newsstand copies of TIME are bound before the subscriber copies, but the covers are printed at the same time.

Several commenters guessed that the copy was printed just after a blanket wash, a process for cleaning debris off a press in the middle of a printing job.

A blanket wash causes paper going through the press to get little or no ink, so the paper coming out of the press is supposed to be diverted to the waste stream until the color returns to normal. But in this case "the pressman was just a little too quick in deciding where the waste stopped and the good sheets started," wrote Tom Kenny of Pictorial Corporation, on the LinkedIn group Print Production Professionals. "We wouldn't be discussing this if the error didn't produce such a metaphoric image. It's the ghost in the machine."

In the blink of an eye
Another one of the 34 comments in the PPP group provided more detail: "The black ink is way way down, the magenta and yellow are down a bit, the cyan a hair more than the magenta and yellow," wrote Eric Eliel of e2 Communications. "Looks very much like they just washed the blankets and the press was coming back to color."

"Keep in mind, the speed at which modern heatset [press] webs run, at 2000+ feet per minute, translates to about 17 copies per second at speed. The presses should come back to color after a washup in about 50 to 100 copies, which is about 3 or 4 seconds. This 'color' issue could occur in a blink of an eye, literally."

Sandra Jones of Best Version Media explained why the faulty cover couldn't have been noticed and pulled out during the binding process: "Being a subscriber copy, it would have come off the stitcher already buried in a postal bundle."

And no one disagreed with the assessment offered by Grace Savides of Independent Printing: "Wow, that eBay seller is quite the opportunist. It's amazing how little shame some people have. Glad no one's put a bid on it yet."

12 Telltale Signs That You Are A Printing Geek

You may be a printing geek if you:
1. Hear “PMS” and think first of ink. (And you’re a printing supergeek if you hear about a woman having PMS problems and think, “I wonder if she’s just tried using process colors.”)
2. Know that dot whacking in public won’t get you thrown into jail.
3. Realize that a debarker belongs at a pulp mill, not a veterinarian’s office.
4. Cringe when someone says “red ink” and find yourself reflexively responding, “It’s magenta.”
5. Don’t snicker when someone refers to blow-ins.
6. Are aware that commingling isn’t something you do at a networking function.
7. Understand that there’s nothing intelligent about the Intelligent Mail barcode.
8. Know that “too much showthrough” does not refer to a black bra under a white blouse.
9. Realize that dot gain has nothing to do with that weight your Aunt Dorothy has put on. (And you’re a printing freakazoid if you insist on saying “tone value increase” instead of “dot gain”.)
10. Know how to spell “supercalendered” even though spell-check keeps telling you “super calendar”.
11. Reply “Additive or subtractive?” when your child asks about primary colors.
12. Assume a woman worked in prepress if she says she’s a retired stripper.

Believe it or not, this article was inspired by an excellent -- and far more serious -- guest column called "You Know Print Buying Is Your Passion When" that was posted at Bostonprintbuyers.com but is no longer available. But if you’re really a printing geek, or aspire to be one, you are probably already a regular reader of “Margie’s Print Tips” at that site.

Other humorous articles at Dead Tree Edition include

• OMG! I Was Only Kidding, Not Psychic : Twitter as Person of the Year?: I've got my own candidate for Bird of the Year and look back fondly on Rosie O'Donnell's infamous bird of the year in 2001.
  
• Re-Righting The Bible: No More Namby-Pamby Peacemaking: What if prominent conservatives re-wrote Bible passages to rid them of liberal bias?
  
• Playboy and Virgin Fail to Hook Up: Headline writers are still in mourning that this deal didn't occur.