House cleaning is more fun when you have old newspapers laying around. Take this example of a USA Today (I must have hauled it back from a work trip because I’ve never spent actual money on a copy): it’s from 2004, and we dug it up in a fit of summer cleaning a week or two ago. Added bonus: it’s dated July 30, so we’re coming up on the 6 year anniversary of hiding this little time capsule/archive. How much could the world have changed since then? Well…
If this quick look is anything, it’s a call to retain paper records as a bedrock of society (and a great mine for offhand trivia). Don’t get me wrong, I love me some diginews. But physical archives don’t require any gadgets except the ones in your head and at the ends of your arms to gain access. And for simple snapshots, the odd newspaper page is super cool. Now, it’s time to recycle this paper before it disintegrates. So without further ado:
For starters, the thing is HUGE. I don’t think that USA Today is printed on such huge sheets of paper anymore. At least, compared to the Courier Journal nowadays after a couple of downsizes in size to save paper costs, this rag looks like it’s built for much larger readers (or as a swatter for Jurassic-sized mosquitos)
In 2004, John Edwards was part of the team destined to “restore trust” in the USA and the presidency. These were happy days for him and John Kerry. They were riding out from the convention and ready to oust the bad guys and smile warmly on America. We know how that ended, and we now know that Edwards is a bit skeezier than we thought but that he’s still less skeezy than the dude he was trying to take over from.
Eli Manning? in 2004, he’s just an overhyped kid with an accomplished older bro, but he’s coming into the NFL on a big contract and big expectations. I’m not the football fan around here, so you tell me if it was worth it for the Giants to get him…
USC was just recently on the nasty end of the NCAA stick (the mighty have fallen and all that rubbish). And anyway, More football news? In July, really, more about football?
Wait, Harold and Kumar go where? Oh yeah, they went to White Castle. Shocking news for 2004, though. Was this movie funny? I can’t remember.
Thanks for joining me on this trip down memory lane. See you in 6 years.