Apparently, we collect printers

About two weeks ago, after four faithful years of heavy service, my PowerBookG4, of beloved memory, bit the dust. It refused to boot up. One frantic phone call to Daniel at work and 15 minutes later the computer was plugged into the MacMini and booted up as a removable drive. A couple hours later, all 45 GB was copied over, except a few minor things that refused to copy because of bad sectors. So, the work is safe. *whew* Today it went in to the Apple Store, since there is miraculously still one month left on its AppleCare Plan. The machine isn't really dead, only flakey. In fact, it booted up fine the day after the problem and has run normally since. But I still don't trust it, especially not as I begin working on Big D. I'm having the Apple guys run their diagnostics on it, and then we'll reformat or get a new drive as necessary.

But in the meantime, I needed to get back to work on a non-flakey machine, so as of 10 days ago, I am now the happy owner of a 2 Ghz MacBook. I love new computers, but they also stress me out. It took the better part of the last week to re-install everything, set it up exactly the way I like it, and put it through its paces to make sure I'm not missing anything crucial before the old computer went in for service.

I also got a printer - a Canon something-or-other that can print/scan/copy. I've wanted a printer with a copy function for a couple years, and what could I do? It was an extra $30 (after rebate) with the purchase of the computer, providing I remember to send in the stupid rebate thing.

Here's the funny part, though: we already have a scanner and three other working printers in the house, not counting the old dot matrix in the storage area. All the printers serve a different function. The middle-aged, cranky laser printer (it needs a serious cleaning right now) for cheap & quick non-inkjet, the large format colour for, well, large format colour and card stock, and the tiny colour inkjet that can fit in my backpack with the computer when I'm on the road. Because I am paranoid.

See, this is what happens when two desktop publishing geeks live together, get married and have no children. A proliferation of printers.