Monday Rant

I hate MS Office 2007. Like, really hate it. I bought my new desktop at home in January of 2007 and shortly thereafter, realized with much rage that MS Office 98 was no longer available to buy in stores. So I had to suck it up and install the new version, which fills me with such loathing every time I try to type a document at home that I want to go on a shooting spree.

In particular, I really can’t stand MS Word 2007. Normally I use Word a lot, both at the office and at home, and good God, it sucks in the new version. I hate the interface, I hate the dumb Calibri font that is the default (instead of Times New Roman like EVERY OTHER VERSION OF MS OFFICE IN HISTORY), I hate how the first time I used it it took me 20 minutes to figure out where the Print option was (because why would they keep the File menu around? It’s only the most standard dropdown menu in ALL THEIR OTHER PRODUCTS), and I hate how it takes you 612 clicks to do something that in an earlier version of Word took you 2 clicks. Have fun trying to insert a text box, WordArt, or a picture, folks!

However, for all my bitching about the rest of the product, at least I have not yet encountered Clippy the paper clip office assistant who tries to help you while you’re typing (for instance, you write “Goodbye cruel world” and he pops up and says “It looks like you’re writing a suicide note. Would you like help?”) Wikipedia tells me that Microsoft discontinued that feature for the new version of Office, and thank God, because man, do I hate that shit. I have NEVER found the office assistant to be useful, at all. Maybe he would have been helpful back in college if he had popped up to say, “It looks like your stupid drunk ass is writing a Spanish paper at 3 A.M. the night before it’s due, AGAIN. Would you like help finding meaning in yet another disturbing, pointless piece of Spanish literature that makes no sense? Or better yet, would you like me to take you back in time to the day you decided to minor in a language and remove the crack pipe from your hand?” Seriously, you type the word “Dear” anywhere in a document and the frigging thing pops up (taking up like a quarter of your usable screen space in Word, might I add) going “IT LOOKS LIKE YOU’RE TYPING A LETTER. PLEASE CAN I HELP PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE I PROMISE I WILL BE EVER SO HELPFUL AND I WON’T ANNOY YOU AND YOU WILL NEVER REGRET PURCHASING A MICROSOFT WORD PROCESSING PRODUCT AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Seriously every time I use Office 2007 I get more and more pissed off and by the time I’m done typing my document I can barely write a coherent sentence anymore. Does anyone know if I can buy a new copy (legally) of Office 98 anywhere so I can uninstall the monstrosity that is Office 2007 on my machine at home?

Rant over. Happy Monday everyone!