The Pio is back with another liveblog!
4:15 p.m. I arrive in the office after a long day of interviewing political candidates in Walla Walla. Production Manager Sean McNulty is hard at work on this week’s wine map.
4:35 p.m. I head to a meeting with the ASWC Nominations Chair to report on the Pio’s progress for the semester. Several of my staff interrupt our meeting in the ASWC office to see if Andrea Kelly is in her office–I’ve made the mistake of telling them that their stipend checks are ready for them to sign.
5:05 p.m. The web team meeting gets started a little late. Ben and Blair have successfully edited our staff page so that we have editor photos and bios online. We all look so pretty!
5:50 p.m. Feature Editor Adam Brayton attempts to sell photographs of himself for $2 to raise money for Mr. Whitman.
6:00 p.m. Web Editor Blair Hanley Frank returns from getting dinner and reports that Bon Appetit has finally corrected “Taste of the Mexico” to read “Taste of Mexico.” I am skeptical, since Bon Appetit at one time had both “Taste of Mexico” and “Taste of the Mexico” operating in the Reid Cafe. But I’m also a senior who’s never eaten Taste of, so my expertise on the topic is somewhat questionable.
6:03 p.m. Alex Brott reports to a friend on the phone that he’s “about to finish the Pio hella on time.” He then refers to Blair’s dinner as “taste of essentialism.”
6:04 p.m. Blair: “What are you laughing at?”
Marie: “You’re rolling your burrito on a laptop.”
Blair (indignant): “It’s a flat surface!”
6:24 p.m. Three sections (but 5 pages!) are ready for copy edit. Go team!
6:34 p.m. Unsuccessful attempt to candy raid the ASWC office. Libby and I interrupt a serious meeting and are told that we can’t take the candy because “we’re trying to cut out candy budget. Come on, guys.” We leave feeling ashamed.
6:45 p.m. I leave for senior seminar. The liveblog is now the collective duty of Libby and Blair, both of whom have told me that they’re too busy to update it. 🙁
7:22 p.m. Take note: the liveblog is being updated! Bon Iver gets us through a chill evening in the office. A drop-dead gorgeous sunset (think rainbow cotton candy, but way more delightful) has now faded, and we are working in our brilliantly lit room, pretending it’s still daytime.
7:56 p.m. Feature is ready for copy edit! In the words of Alex Brott, the Pio this week is “hella on time.” Let’s hope that trend continues.
8:13 p.m. Blair takes the live-blog reins after an hour-long break from production in order to attend an English department lecture.
8:14 p.m. After some confusion regarding this week’s Voices from the Community piece in Opinion, Copy Editor Matthew Nelson says: “I feel like everyone at this school looks the same.”
8:19 p.m. Adam continues to aggressively sell images of himself.
8:33 p.m. Adam departs, leaving behind his Shake Weight.
8:34 p.m. Chief Copy Editor Marisa Ikert reveals she has never seen “Gangnam Style.” The newsroom is stunned into silence.
8:47 p.m. Advertising Manager Hannah Bauer arrives to clear up some issues with the plethora of ads we’re running in our GIANT 12-PAGE ISSUE.
9:10 p.m. I accidentally schedule this liveblog to publish tomorrow morning, rather than the column I was hoping to schedule. Whoops.
9:42 p.m. Blair, who really should be scheduling articles, and Libby, who really should be working on her thesis prospectus, instead join forces and belt out songs from the RENT soundtrack. This makes them very happy.
10:20 p.m. The extended renditions of broadway musical songs is cut short by Sean, pleading for the sake of his head that we stop the madness. We hang our heads but understand, shut up, and get back to work.
10:25 p.m. Rachel loudly proclaims that politics is objectively the best major on campus and that she will fight anyone who disagrees.
10:37 p.m. Emily and Allison, our news editors, lament the slow chunks being taken out of an inside news article to be stuck on the front page. They fight to keep as many words as possible.
10:40 p.m. Enter Spencer! Claiming that he had actually been hovering this whole time in the hallway, listening to our musical display.
10:41 p.m. Rachel checks Whitmanencounters.com to see if she needs to make a fact intervention in any misguided threads of conversation, and finds that somebody has mentioned the Pio on it! Happiness ensues.
10:49 p.m. Allison, putting together the wine map, begins swearing at it to the point that Rachel questions her sobriety. (Note: Allison is actually 100% sober and 90% frustrated.)
11:00 p.m. Blair and Spencer, simultaneously, while looking at a computer screen: “TARGETING THE FLUNKIES?!” (Context unknown.)
11:04 p.m. “He grabs my brimstone volley, and that’s bad news bears.” ––Blair. WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.
11:16 p.m. Rachel goes through the staff page and admires the head shots of all the editors. She wants to cat-call some, but is unable to whistle. Fail.
11:30 p.m. Rachel begins laughing hysterically at, apparently, nothing. When pressed for answers, she explains through giggles that Emily had swiveled her chair and suddenly looked like an owl. In other news, Sean is making real progress
11:34 p.m. Rachel proves how spectacularly inept she is at eating bread. The newsroom is getting extremely full of snark.
11:40 p.m. Blair and Spencer are singing Dr. Horrible’s Singalong again! Hooray!! (A Man’s Gotta Do.) Upon finishing the song, Blair takes his leave for bed.
12:27 a.m. Pages are all copy edited and we are ready to PDF almost everything! Gangsta rap is keeping us lighthearted and moving. Also, Sean is a hero for putting together a 12-pager.
12:38 a.m. The first PDF has been made. Gagnam Style entertains the four of us that are left here.
12:44 a.m. While picking at Adam’s ukelele, which for some reason stayed in the newsroom, Rachel announces proudly to the general public-Spencer, Sean and me-that she can play the first four notes of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the violin. (“In any one of the five forms prescribed by Suzuki!”)
2:20 a.m. PDFd and done. Computers take too long to shut down. 12 pages, baby! Rachel, Spencer and Sean leave while I stay to finish up this darn prospectus that somehow hasn’t completed itself…
