I Need New Stuff

I Need New Stuff

I’ve just come to the awful realization that my color inkjet printer is nearly nine years old. It’s a Hewlett Packard DeskJet 855C, and when my mother bought it, it was the best in its class and cost about as much as its model number.

It prints at 300 dpi, and you can clearly see dots in each print, as though paper white was one of its inks—not what I use in the prints I sell online, let me assure you. It is so unlike printers today; for less than $100, you can get yourself a nice little Epson with a resolution of at least 1440 dpi and smudge-resistant borderless printing. One-eighth the cost, and eight times faster and better—color me green and paper white with envy.

I also have a black and white laser printer. It’s a LaserWriter Select 360 by Apple. They don’t even make those any more, and I think it runs on coal. It actually whines if I leave it on too long, and it gets so nice and toasty that my cat likes to sit atop it and shed. It’s a wonder it hasn’t choked already on the numerous hairballs.

My computer doesn’t have an OpenGL capable video card. What this means: I have lots of wonderful graphics software that I’ve won or gotten free on magazine cover CDs, and I cannot for the life of me use them. It’s like having DVD movies and no DVD player; you end up breaking your VCR when you stick the DVDs in it and fish them out with tweezers.

And this internet thing. Really. I cannot log onto it with my PowerMac G3 as I’m still on OS 8.6 and therefore don’t have the required version of what I think is called OpenTransport. Not that it matters. Everyone knows I sign on using ESP, and when my ESP fails—yep, you’ve read my mind—all I need to do is hook each end of a long piece of string to a paper cup, attaching one paper cup to my phone line and another to my motherboard, and zip! Away it goes. I don’t think I need to tell you that styrofoam cups don’t work nearly as well.

Clearly, I need some new stuff, and believe me, I’m working on it. I’ve already tossed a few pennies into the wishing well, and now it’s only a matter of time.

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