Photocopy Love

The winner of April's giveaway didn't have a lot of competition when it came to pulling names out of the hat. Perhaps it was an unappealingly geeky skill question (should I change my giveaway entry terms to accepting any comment, like most bloggers do? Comment on this post to have your say). The question was about your favourite invention of the past thousand years. E nominated the soap-filled dishbrush, which I thought was brilliant, but the randomly selected winner is....

Sandy who won the 'Leonardo Da Vinci mirror writing kit'. In her winning comment Sandy said, "I was just doing some photocopying, and thinking what a wonder of engineering the machine was. All those little parts that keep working AND it collates, staples, and hole-punches. It's a mystery and a miracle."

Congratulations Sandy, I hope you and your daughter enjoy the mirror writing!

I wanted to link this post to the Shrine of the Photocopier, but when I went to look for it, the page no longer exists. However, the Sticky Institute in Melbourne (whose site once included the now lost Shrine) promises a Festival of the Photocopier in 2010. The Sticky Institute is home to their newly leased docucenter III C3100 copier, a typewriter pool, badge machines, staplers, and zine love. Their Facebook posts about all the wonders of their new photocopier makes them one of my favourite FB friends at the moment.

I appreciate photocopiers too, especially now that I don't have access to a letterpress printing press (or indeed even a digital printer for my laptop). Many of my book-related ideas these days are photocopier-friendly, since that's the most available technology. However, a good photocopier has been remarkably hard to find in Hamilton. The free or cheap copying I've had access to has all been of such appalling quality that I despaired of ever finishing Happy Bus, my almost-ready-to-print zine. But a few days ago I discovered that as a teacher at WSA I can access a perfectly lovely copier at discounted rates for my personal use! Hooray!