#479 Mensa Strikes Again, Worse!

Well, I took my little floppy to Office Depot. I did check it out before I left the house. The documents, a brief description of the scholarship program and a fancy 2-page application form, both display from the floppy on my system, and look good in the print preview. Of course, I didn't attempt to actually print, having, um, like, no printer.

Office Depot was able to display and print the shorter "Word" file. I then made 30 copies of it. The PDF application form, however, was a different matter. When they tried to display it, it was just the title, and then two blank pages. The gal who was trying to do it kept zipping past an error message, and on her fifth try or so I made her stop and read the message to me. Something about "unable to extract embedded font". She called over another guy who claimed to know what he was doing, and he tried to tell me that it "must have been formatted on an old system. Nobody much uses these 5 1/2 inch floppies any more." Huh? I don't know much, but I know he was full of bananas. It was a 3 1/2 inch firmie! And the medium should have had nothing to do with it anyway, as long as his machine has a right-sized hole to stick it in! They told me to try Staples.

Off to Staples.

Same problem. But they said there's an internet cafe in the mall, and I should try there. Wow! I didn't know we had an internet cafe. (It's new. They have them on every block in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, but this is the first one I've heard of in this area.)

Off to the mall. Search the mall. Finally find it. Not a cafe exactly, just a bunch of computers and a kid in a tiny hole in the wall that was a nursing uniform store last time I looked.

I described the problem about the "embedded font", and he said he's familiar with the problem and he knows that's not something he can help me with, it's beyond his expertise, but his father will be in tomorrow, and he's sure Dad can get it to print.

I get to go back to the mall tomorrow. Whoop. So everything I wanted to do early in the day tomorrow, I'll have to do tonight.

And this file wasn't a local production - it came from the Mensa national office. The Mensa Education and Research Foundation, to be exact.

Sheesh! I'm really annoyed. This is what I get for trying to do something right.

~~Silk