No, you don't need to get the subscription for your glasses checked; don't worry, your cataracts aren't acting up. Last week's issue of the Sun Star was blurry.

Maybe nobody noticed, but I sure did.

Almost all of the graphics, from Stephanie Taylor's fun, colorful and inventive cover to the comics in the back were pixilated and blown out.

It's really too complicated to explain what went wrong—the excuse is technical and longwinded and involves a lot of acronyms like dpi, jpg, and pdf, and computer words like exporting and pixilated.

The truth is we messed up. It doesn't even matter what your opinion of the content is, we sent a paper to the printers that was sub par.

And I'm sorry.

You pay good money every semester for this paper and you deserve to be able to read it without having to squint at the pictures.

I want to extend special apologies to our advertisers whose ads were less than crisp and to the Haiku Circus fans (if either of the two of you want to know what last week's enlightened message was, stop by the office any time).

But I don't want to dwell on the negative. I have some great news and kudos to spread around my staff.

The Sun Star is out of debt.

You probably didn't know this, but the Sun Star was in the red—really in the red. When I took over as Editor last semester we had accumulated almost $10,000 in debt to the university.

I don't know exactly where it all went or how long it took us to spend that much money, records from that era are sparse at best. But, if I did my math right (remember, I am a liberal arts major), last week's issue put us over the top making our projected earnings forecast in the positive (I have always wanted to use the phrase "projected earnings forecast"). At the end of the semester we will have money left over in our account.

We get our money from two sources, your student fees and advertising revenue.

My staff deserves a huge round of applause. This semester we have cut back expenses, used recycled paper, done more work with less staff and basically used you student fees more frugally.

Good job guys!

But most of the credit goes to Cynicka Bridenstine, my Advertising Manager. Her salesmanship skills and business savvy have made sure that every issue's printing (including all the beautiful color, which doesn't come cheap) is paid for.

Cynicka, you are the best!

So thanks everyone. Keep up the great work.

Comment on this story...