Pat the grumpy

[mme_hardy]

Look, look, Lucinda! Come and see! It is an enrollment form for a lace-knitting class,  offered at my favorite historic-needlework shop! Let us sign up!

Is the enrollment form a Webstore link? No, it is not a Webstore link.^*
Is it a prefilled Paypal form? No, it is not a prefilled Paypal form.
Is it an editable PDF? No, it is not an editable PDF.
Is it a PDF at all? No, it is not a PDF at all.

What, then, is it?
It is a JPEG. Look, look, a JPEG that one can print out, write upon with a quill pen, and mail to the store.

Has this form fallen into a time warp in 1994 and surfaced mysteriously in 2017? Yes. Yes, it has.
Can it warp me back there? Sadly, no.



^{* Note: Lacis does in fact have a Webstore.}

Comments

[movingfinger]

Lacis are innovative leaders in failing at customer outreach!


ETA: Give them credit, it's not a malware-riddled Microsoft Word document.

[rushthatspeaks]

Okay, that is amazing in its sheer and total uselessness. Wow.

[garpu]

They often have some weird lace items you just can't get elsewhere. That having been said, they are distinctly shooting themselves in the foot for not having things such as a basic web form to fill out.

[mme_hardy]

Oh, I couldn't live without them. But they are run by their creator, a very crotchety old man (their newsletters are a trip, with a certain amount of Kids These Days), and it shows.

[garpu]

Oh dear. Some reason I never got on their mailing list. I wasn't thrilled that the Niebling pattern I bought from them was essentially an off-center photocopy. (Legible, but was expecting an actual print.)

[mme_hardy]

That's really annoying. I wouldn't expect actual originals from them, but usually their reproduction books are cleaned up, at least.

[armiphlage]

I just had to sign up for electricity service for a house in a Canadian city of 80,000 people.

I had to print out four non-editable forms, fill them in, scan them, and e-mail them as attachments. Someone then had to manually type in the information. In 2017.

[telophase]

Hah! That's much more retro than my favorite online map store, which has an online form you fill out (accessed by a button proclaiming "SUBMIT THIS ORDER on the SECURE Server!!") that exhorts you not to hit Enter when writing in the Notes field, for fear of accidentally submitting it. It goes through a CGI-bin which, I suspect, probably just emails your order to them, to fill manually.

[sabotabby]

Ohmygosh that is so quaint and delightful. You should fax it to them.