Gutenburg and Me.

When many of us hear the name Gutenburg we think of a shepherd of the elderly-- the fun loving, furry white guy from every movie made in the 80's. You may say: wait JT, the Gut wasn't in every movie from the eighties, what about ____? To that I answer any film from that era was covered in Gutenburgishness.

This article is not about the Gut, but the Gut. Pronounced Goot. But if it helps, let's imagine the Gut being the Gut, and also imagine synthesized keyboard solos busting out between sentences.

Johanes Gutenburg was the inventor of the printable press. So, that copy of Underwear Drawer Organization for Dummies you're reading is all thanks to the Gut.

The Gut (Circa 1398-1648) wasn't happy with old school publication processes.

In his life time, around the 1400's, only the clergy and royal classes were literate in European society. So, your local Bishop could say: "The bible tells you to give me all of your goats and cash on hand, and if you don't your face will literally fall off," and people had no choice but to believe. The Gut said nun-uh, and created a system where a drill press could be used to reproduce thought and ideas. The Gut got the gospel to the people.

Some of his works are still around to this day, which is pretty amazing considering the sheer amount of times I've had to replace my driver's license. There are still 48 original Gutenburg Bibles in various locations. One is even housed at the University of Texas down the street.

During the Gut's time the Renaissance was getting underway, and the Gut's printing press lit a fire for getting the printed word out to the masses, so that they could become literate and eventually write crappy blog posts.

The printing press was invented around 1439.

The Gut is seen above being happy about his nifty newspaper he printed, but bummed the Far Side hasn't been invented yet.