Something Random

[Mercutio]

Reviews on Amz are terrible for almost any brand, model and type. The new one I got had good reviews for a change, and my personal experience confirms it.

This is because every printer is fucking terrible.
I've had better experiences with Brother, so they're what I recommend and support. I don't even hate Brother MFC inkjets very much. Truthfully, I think the best way to print is to use whatever network printers you can use over a VPN to someplace you were meaning to go anyway. This works extremely well for me.

One of my customers had a giant stupid made in 2011 Brother 9970CDW that had printed less than 400 pages since 2011. They asked me to recycle it, so now it's my very own place to stack clothes that aren't dirty enough to put in the hamper.

 

[sedrosken]

Turns out the LaserJet I have did some hours -- it's from a lawyer's home office, but really all it needs is a good can of air let out inside it and a fresh set of toner cartridges. Although it did seem to clear up the yellow dots in the printout after a few test pages printed.

It's from 2016 so it still has the very spooky mid-2000s looking web UI for configuration. It does do PCL/PS -- PCL5, in fact, the best driver I tried without it actually being the intended driver was the Color LaserJet 8550 PCL driver included with XP, at least with SP3.

Being as old as it is it actually stands a decent chance of not freaking out over third-party toner cartridges, although HP was experimenting with this at their low end at this time, this was a high end "prosumer" product as far as their range went -- the MSRP was $629.99 in 2016.

I will likely keep the Brother around in case this thing beefs it. The lawyer I got it from (for free, I might add, I wouldn't pay money for an HP printer unless it was at least 20 years old, myself) never really told me why they replaced it. The weird issue with the yellow toner leaking may have started because it got moved or something and the printer's actually just fine.

 

[mubs]

I bought an Epson Perfection 2480 Photo scanner from Staples for a very good price in 2004 when I was living in the US. It still works great, I still use it quite a bit. Only downside was, it came with software that was W98 compatible. So I ran W98 in a VM and continued using it.

When I built my current PC, just couldn't install W98. Kept erroring out during install. I must have spent hours trying to solve this, researching the web. Eventually found out the the CPU was too fast for some sub-routine which was blowing up. I tried the Epson software in Win XP; it worked, so now I'm using it in an XP VM.

Ditto with Calendar Creator Plus. Version 2.0, 1987 - 1993. I did purchase subsequent versions, but they were crap. Amazingly, this version, purchased in 1992, continues working correctly after Y2K. We used it to track birthdays, anniversaries, etc, but don't anymore after the rise of smartphones. I think this originally ran on Win 3.1. I continued using it in VMs. Currently installed in the scanning Win XP VM, but not being used.

These older products were built to last, unlike the "replace every two years" crap being made today.

 

[Mercutio]

You may be interested to know that someone did ultimately buy the Calendar Creator code base and there's a new version as of ~2021-ish. There was for a time an incompatible release when the source code couldn't be found, but the most current version is based of the old Broderbund code and is fully compatible with Windows 11. One of my customers is a big fan of it. I probably even have the install files on one of the thumb drives in my pocket right now.

I have a friend staying with me the remainder of the month. This friend has an 18 month old. I've never given any particular thought to child proofing my home and we had to go buy a playpen at 11PM because apparently my place is nothing but sharp edges, monitors at exactly the end of arm's reach and long cords that are all ways to hurt a baby. Even my mission-style furniture is scary to somebody who hasn't been walking all that long. My cats are utterly terrified of this child, none more than my 8lb long-haired girl cat, who has been puffed up to double her normal size since the second the toddler came in the door.

 

[Gödel]

I have a friend staying with me the remainder of the month. This friend has an 18 month old. I've never given any particular thought to child proofing my home and we had to go buy a playpen at 11PM because apparently my place is nothing but sharp edges, monitors at exactly the end of arm's reach and long cords that are all ways to hurt a baby. Even my mission-style furniture is scary to somebody who hasn't been walking all that long. My cats are utterly terrified of this child, none more than my 8lb long-haired girl cat, who has been puffed up to double her normal size since the second the toddler came in the door.

That gives new meaning to the phrase "curiosity killed the cat."

 

[mubs]

Thanks Merc. We've pretty much stopped using CC. Even the ancient version did wonderful things like calculating the wedding anniversary, death anniversary, age as of this birthday, etc. Very, very thoughtful design; brilliant, actually. Subsequent versions broke a lot of things. I'll check for the latest version.

Poor kitty, I can fully understand her predicament. And you'll be amazed at just how unsafe an adult's home is for toddlers.

Long ago folks here used to post pics of their pets. Please do so now.

 

[sedrosken]

Unfortunately, I've come to the conclusion that neither can I afford a pet (food/litter is one thing, insurance/vet visits are another) nor can I justify having one around because I live alone and I'm simply not home enough. It wouldn't be fair to them.

 

[Mercutio]

Spatula came from a hoarding situation involving a dozen blind and deaf Great Danes. He is frightened of every single thing except me and sometimes his brother and can most often be seen slinking or lurking under my bed.



Kitten, AKA WAP, belonged to an occasional roommate of mine. Kitten is tiny even by cat standards and earned her nickname by not really paying attention to when she could or could not jump on top of the toilet seat. Kitten wants to play, for an extremely narrow definition of play that mostly involves biting things.


Nadia, while not a pet and not currently living with me, is nonetheless frequently referenced in my posts.


Nadia's hostage in the previous image is my youngest, Spork. Spork is the curious, friendly doofus who mostly wants to follow somebody else around and then use them for furniture. If a human is not available, he'll use Spat. The main reason I have Spork is that someone pulled up behind me at a gas station and asked me if I wanted a kitten. When I said sure, she partly unzipped her coat and handed Spork to me. I'd lost my oldest cat only a few days before and it felt like a sign that I was meant to take him.

Obviously, my next cat will be called Spoon, but we decided it would be unfair to make Kitten learn another new name.

 

[jtr1962]

Here's Fluffy. I got him from my brother for my 60th birthday. He was a stray my brother took care of from when he was a kitten. He was roughly nine months old when I got him.

 

[ddrueding]

Thanks for sharing all, I'm looking forward to a time when our life situation is stable enough to be responsible cat parents.

 

[Mercutio]

Here's Fluffy. I got him from my brother for my 60th birthday. He was a stray my brother took care of from when he was a kitten. He was roughly nine months old when I got him.

View attachment 1779

This is a good kitty

 

[mubs]

All beauts! . Thanks so much!

 

[mubs]

This is Goosey. So named because she was being silly, we called her a silly goose, and she responded to that. At the vet, she was registered as such. A cat named Goose! She came to us in June 2013 with two teenage kittens, one of whom presumably died. The other, Jude, became a body builder; he was big and strong, but had the courage of a mouse. Another male, half his size, terrorized him, and Goosey has raced out numerous times, gotten between them and driven the other male away. Goosey was an in and out cat. Jude visited once a day for food, but vanished after a year. Goosey loved to play even at an older age, but hated being carried or cuddled. Scratching was ok. A few times in December, she cuddled up to me, slept on my chest while I was sitting on the sofa, and then vanished She was very dignified; if scolded, she wouldn't eat and wouldn't visit for a couple of days.

 

[mubs]

This is Chingu; a name my daughter gave her. She's from the first litter Goosy had after Goosey came to us. Chingu's special becuase she's orange and a girl; almost all orange cats are boys. Like hher moher, Chingu was an in & out cat (Goosey trained her well in hunting and avoiding the many stray dogs around). I used to say Chingu is 40% cat, 30% donkey (she loved to kick) and 30% monkey (she kept getting into trouble). She's a legend at vet (he made a lot of money because of her) becuase of the numerous bones she's broken. She broke her hip (vet wanted to put her down, I said no), her lower jaw (it was hanging by the skin), etc. She pulled through every single time. She waited 2 weeks for her mom to return, and when she didn't, Chingu left too.

 

[mubs]

The last one is Pari. After the heartbreak of losing two cats, we didn't want any more. Fate decided otherwise. One rainy day my daughter heard pitiful meowing nearby and brought home a scrawny ugly duckling of a kitten. We tried to find out where it came from to return it to its mom, without success. That night we kept her on our bed and she bonded with us immediately. Humans make lousy parents. I tried to take her out and show her how to come and go, but she was terrified. She thought she was a human. Then she saw a stray teenager cat and wanted to go out and meet it. I let her and had to rescue her when she couldn't get down the tree. The stray was street smart; Pari wasn't. One morning Pari went out and didn't return. I guess the stray dogs in the streets outside got her. When each cat disappeared, I've spent days wandering around calling out to them like a madman. Pari was with us for about 2 years. Since then, we've moved from the first floor to the 5th, and it is near impossible for a cat to come back home; they lose count. We also didn't travel much when we had the cats, but now are, so it would be hard on the cat(s) as well.