The past is filled with silent joys and broken toys

And with the Chris Webber era, so goes my printer.

It's an Epson Stylus Color 600. I got it in 1998, before USB peripherals even existed. It still uses a parallel-to-USB cable. It's beige. It's big. It's ugly. It's freakishly loud. It's served me in four apartments in three states. My ceiling caved in on it once, and I still find plaster chunks in it from time to time, but it never completely wussed out on me ... until now.

I don't think there's ever even been a proper OSX driver for this thing, but I could always rely on the good graces of open source drivers. They're just not doing it anymore. The old thing prints, but ever soooo faintly. More often I just get "printer not responding' or "printer busy" errors. It hasn't cranked out anything remotely professional-looking in months -- my resumes came out looking like Designer Republic posters, and not in a good way -- but if you needed something printed out, it got the job done. Not anymore.

I had to print out a return label the other day and it took five tries and extreme contrast noodling in Photoshop to get the thing to look like something other than a big gray wash. Now I'm trying to get some name-change documents filled out and printed with a copy of my marriage license (I still have an active NYC bank account with actual cash in it, like I figured it would magically close itself and send me my money sometime in the last two years) but hahahaha, no. I could send these things to TDR and they'd proclaim me Graphic Designer of the Future. They're completely illegible and I can't keep wasting paper on stuff I can't use.

I probably would have gone ahead and splurged on a new printer ages ago but I love this crappy old mess. Look at all the stickers on it! You can't even see the secret hidden *NSYNC stickers on the inside. I've printed out glorious job resignation letters on this thing. Ten-page-long e-mails from the boyfriend who is now the husband. A letter to Eliot Spitzer ratting out my former place of employment for its illegal COBRA procedures. We've been through too much together. My heart can't let it go.

But being able to print things again, that'd be pretty nice. Sigh. I fear the time has come, and I must move on.

Posted by Kim at February 25, 2005 12:41 AM | Non-Moving Pictures | Objectification