I've been involved in an office move so haven't been keeping up. People (not me) collect a lot of crap after being in their offices for 20+ years. I've only been here 10+ years, and I'm not much of a packrat at work. The whole thing has been surprisingly stressful.

Plus, now I have to drive to work instead of walking. *sigh*

Neither. I worry about old school video game sex. This surprisingly work-safe link brought to you by my utter boredom. Come on, guys, you have to post more--if you don't, I will, and no one wants that.

I'm also post-70, pre-79. OK 1971. Oh, and I found the best political t-shirt of the season so far at... This place

1) Hey, I'm pre-1979 too (but post-1970), and I feel terribly old. And I remember, no, still own a matrix printer.

2) As for ParU's suggestion to ask the resident nerd for help (with KtG's printer): that might help, but please remember to treat such a nerd as a person not a commodity. I am a resident nerd at my dorm; when people started asking me to fix their other electrical appliances as well and repeatedly became angry with me when I was out of my wits or didn't have the time, I began to suspect that many sympathies for my person were purely pragmatic. Which is a baaad thing(IMSBADO).

Inkjets must die. I had 18 of the little buggers in our building 1 1/2 years ago. And since all 18 were not bought at the same time we had about 12 different models taking 9 different cartridges.
I ordered 18 Lexmark E321s for all those desks and a Networked C750 color laser that I dropped in the General Manager assistant's office. Complaints lasted for about a week that they had to walk across the building for color, then they just stopped printing color. When they do need to print a presentation or something, the 2400dpi laser does a very nice job. Including the cost of printers and toner cartridges I hit the breakeven point in cost savings over the inkjets in 8 months.

At home I have a Lexmark E210 laser that cost $150 two years ago. It was hard to convince my wife that it would be that much better, but she acknowloges that I was right in this case. My local toner remanufacturer replaces a cartridge for $42 which usually lasts me about 9 months (4000 sheets). I have a cheap deskjet that I keep for printing color graphics; I never use it.

For the floor of the warehouse though, I swear by the Okidata 320 series Dot Matrix. They are pricey at more than $300, but ribbons cost almost nothing and the printer is built like a tank. I've never had one of these wear out. We have some that have been in use for 7 years without a hiccup. The only ones we've had to replace were dropped or had something dropped on them.

OH, and the house is under contract! Yeah!

Number one, Cebu and I were both born in the earlier than that 70's. I'd venture a guess that, though there are a few who were born 79 and up, the majority of us were born earlier and are older and closer in age to the man who calls himself "Dad".

Two, dot matrix printers, while harder to find in the last few years, weren't obsolete when I went to college. Annoying, sure. Especially when somehow the paper would jump off the feed and get trapped and twisted like it thought life wasn't worth living any more and it may as well just jump to its pitiful twisted death. REALLY annoying when, like me, you leave writing your papers until at the earliest the night before and have five minutes to print everything out and run to class. Happened EVERY TIME.

And thirdly, I defend some printing of e-mails. I tend to write what amount to journal entries in some and want a hard copy record of the brilliance or angst or complete and utter silliness contained therein. Especially since I haven't had the same computer for very long in a row and have changed e-mail addresses periodically so otherwise I wouldn't be able to save them. It's a concrete memory, a simple way to time travel, if you will. Printing out a chain letter or excessive forward however? yeah, that's kinda dumb.

I love Mike!

I have a mostly-new printer, just a year and a half old. It's an HP. It worked so well for so long.
And now it won't. And I don't know what's wrong with it. The little thingy with the ink cartriges on it doesn't roll across that metal bar.
Gah. All I needed was to print some emails. *grin* kidding! Really I need to print things like papers for school...wish I lived in a real town that had some kind of PC repair shop. I guess I could go chat up someone in the tech dept, though. I keep thinking maybe if it sits here long enough, the problem will take care of itself. heh.

I'm another born before '79. Not ages before, mark you, but a few years.

My favorite printer at work story (in the 'Office Space' style) was when a person was printing a seemingly endless document from across the building. I looked at the printer queue, my first line of defence, and noticed it was over 100 pages long. When I looked at the offending document, I saw that it was printing a spreadsheet like so:

page1: line of text
page2: blank
page3: line of text
(ad absurditum)

Yes, it was page-breaking for every blank line on the spreadsheet. When I pointed it out to the person printing it, she didn't give a ****, even though it was preventing anyone else from using the printer.

Another reason why I like my latest job better - people who actually fix problems if they caused them.

Printer problems, hands down (opposable thumbs and all). Social Security is merely a lost cause, but printers are the root of much that is evil in the world. In my experience, anyhow.

Social Security sounds to me like something that you'd hear in a 2AM Barstow infomercial for some anti-anxiety snakeoil. "Stop stressing! Improve your social security! Enjoy life more!"

The only thing Social Security seems to really be good for is a short burst of low-level amusement whenever I get those updates in the mail telling me that my next-of-kin will get a "one-time death benefit" of $255 should I walk in front of a bus tomorrow. Woo-hoo, that'll keep my pets fed for a month or so.

Cheers

*********
"Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit." -- Edward Abbey, Vox Clamantis in Deserto

i second matt's comment. if by some miracle i get a s.s. check, i'm blowin' it all on booze and loose men. medical bills? thaaaaaaat's what your 401k is for, folks.

Printer problems!

I have no illusions that Social Security will be around when I'm old enough.

Speaking of which, I've now sent back 2 (two) Epson Stylus Photo 2200 printers, rated by CNET as the best inkjet photo printer available.

Third time's the charm?