quest for goncharov boots
plus, docusign
We’ll get to the Goncharov Boots in a sec, but first, PDFs.
One of the most important computer things I learned was when OS X added the ability to digitally sign PDFs. The way it works is that you’d write your signature on a piece of paper, and hold it up to your webcam, and it’d map those squiggles into a vectorized imaged that could scale up and down. Then you could drop that signature into any PDF you opened in Preview.
It’s great. I signed one piece of notebook paper in 2009 and it’s stayed with me for more than a decade. Every W-9 I’ve had to fill out between 2010 and now has had the exact same sig. Very cool feature. Now you don’t even need to do that, however, because of e-sign. You can just type in your name on services like Adobe Sign and DocuSign and it’ll put your name in a handwrite-y font and I guess that’s as legally binding as actually writing it with a pen? Weird!
Anyway, I’ve had to e-sign a lot of documents this year. Furlough documents, termination documents, certifications for the FEMA supplement to NYS unemployment funds, agreements related to training for a new career as I start from square one — huh, I hadn’t laid it all out before but I’m seeing an exciting and uplifting trend in the things I’ve had to e-sign this year.
A fun thing you can do when e-signing documents is change the way the scribbles look. There is no reason to do this but I do it anyway. So without further ado…
a definitive ranking of the DocuSign signatures, from worst to best
11.
This one is for straight-up psychos. Upon reflection, I kind of love it? If I worked in bureucracy collating files all day and I saw someone opt for this signature, I would report them to the police. The people who use this font have killed.
10.
This one feels like it was written with a felt-tip pen. Who signs documents with a felt-tip pen? It’s gonna bleed through. The psychic aura radiating from this signature is menacing.
9.
I just don’t like this one. It feels too practiced, and it’s also got a felt-tip vibe. I hate how the capital F looks.
8.
What is this? A signature for ants?
7.
A signature for babies. It’s not even cursive. This is the Zoomer font for kids who don’t know how to hold a pen. It says “I never learned and I don’t care who knows it.” Picking this font may be a flex for some but not for me.
6.
Uh, enormus B much? Same beef with this one but I have with #7 but I do appreciate the exaggeration of the initials. Feels like a signature Fred Flintstone would have — I’m not gonna elaborate on my thinking here.
5.
There’s an authenticity in this one. I appreciate the sloppiness. You can feel a third-grader struggling to pump out each of these letters as their wrist and the thumb muscle start to cramp up.
4.
I hate how meme culture has absolutely obliterated the meaning of the word “chaotic” but this one is… chaotic. Cursive first letters? A mix of uppercase and lowercase letters? Dunno what the mad lads at DocuSign were thinking with this one but I respect it.
3.
I just like this one! I know I gave some of the other ones grief for not being cursive but if we’re gonna do print letters, let’s at least be playful about it.
2.
This one’s just nice!
1.
This one looks the most like my actual signature, particularly in how stupid-slanted it is, and because of that, it claims the top spot.
Goncharov Boots
Look, I need your help. Last month, a user on Tumblr posted these Goncharov boots.
The full label reads:
THE GREATEST MAFIA MOVIE EVER MADE
MARTIN SCORSESE PRESENTS
GONCHAROV
DOMENICO PROCACCI PRODUCTION
A FILM BY MATTEO JWHJ0715
ABOUT THE NAPLES MAFIA
I love it! I must have these boots.
Users on a Reddit thread about the boots figured out that this was likely generated via OCR (optical character recognition, aka a computer trying to process text like a person would) and is based on promos for the Italian movie Gomorrah.
I can’t figure out where the boots came from though. The Tumblr user, zootycoon, ordered them from this site, which shows entirely different footwear and is clearly just a front for dropshipping. (Dropshipping is a practice where I pretend to sell you something but really, I’ve just marked up the price and forwarded your order to the actual distributor. Everything advertised on Instagram is dropshipped)
So I went to AliExpress, which a lot of dropshipping runs through, and searched “boots” and was hit with 392,028 results. I don’t have time to sift through all of them. I also searched “scorsese,” “goncharov,” and “mafia shoes” and came up empty-handed.
So: if anyone knows where I can get some Goncharov boots, PLEASE let me know!!!!
Elsewhere…
Facebook — just terrible! Truly just a bad thing all around. I know it’s boring to keep learning about all the ways that Facebook is bad but I’ll beat this drum regardless.
“the only comments on this youtube video of a monkey that threw up is porn bots”
