I did something quite uncharacteristic for me yesterday. The new printer I ordered was delivered yesterday afternoon. That’s not really the uncharacteristic thing – though I’ve had the old one since about 2001 or so. Imagine that. A year that was once the epitome of the concept of the “future” is now far enough in the past to have become somewhat murky in my memory (though, let’s face it, last Tuesday is kinda murky in my feeble little mind). I mean other than you know what, I don’t really remember much about 2001.

It (the printer) wasn’t exactly new even back in 2001. It was an HP LaserJet 4 that came with both the standard paper tray and a second high-capacity one that could hold a full ream of paper (plus it had a network card in it – a pretty expensive option back in those days – so I could just plug it into my home network and print from anywhere). They were “surplussing” it at the Law College and I got it for $25 (including full paper trays and a brand new spare toner cartridge for when the one that was in it ran out).

I think it was about 8 years before I had to change the toner on that sucker, and it printed a lot of stuff for me – not the least of which was a few hundred “lost dog” flyers when Siggy went missing way back when.

Of course it was big and heavy and really cranked out a lot of heat, which was OK in the winter but kinda sucked in the summer.

Unfortunately after a few years I started to notice my computers making surging (or whatever the opposite of surging – declining maybe) noises, and upon further inspection I found that, with the printer turned on, the voltage in my office outlets was swinging down and up quite wildly. So from then on, I didn’t turn it on unless I was going to actually print something (which probably saved a lot of electricity, considering this thing wasn’t exactly Energy Star compliant).

Still it was quite serviceable up until the past year or so when it started insisting there was a paper jam when the HC tray was in.

And then finally in the last couple of weeks it just scoffed at any print jobs I sent to it.

So, sadly, it was time for a new printer. One thing I really didn’t want to mess with was an inkjet, so I resigned myself to paying out the ass for a new laser printer. Much to my surprise, the damn things have gotten pretty darn cheap.

I don’t print all that much and have no real need for color (I can do that at work if I really need to), and I wound up getting a nifty little monochrome laser printer that has both Ethernet and Wireless, will do (it claims) 27 ppm and automatically duplexes for $99 (plus it’s black and fits nicely on top of the little black “retro” fridge I have in my office). Can’t beat that.

It came with a “starter” cartridge that’s supposedly good for 700 pages, and I sprung for a “high yield” one that claims to have an expected life of 2,600 pages.

I’m pretty sure they’ll be able to print my obituary out using that sucker – at least, assuming the printer itself lasts a few years.

Anyhow, the part that was actually uncharacteristic was that as soon as I got the sucker hooked up, I dragged the old one (all 500 pounds of it) to the Town’s electronics dumping area and got it right out of my life.

Granted, part of that was because it was a good excuse to stop at the store and buy beer but still, normally I’d have kept the thing around intending to fix it or get scrap parts off it or just in general kept it sitting around and in the way somewhere for a few years until I got bitched at enough to motivate me to get rid of it.

So I’m pretty proud of myself. I know it aint much, but, hey, for somebody who can barely walk….

It’s actually been a thoroughly productive weekend here. My new sump pump came on Friday (the old one had a bad switch and wouldn’t stop running). Fortunately it was in the sump pit (got three of ’em in my basement and with the snow melt and rain, those puppies are really humpin’) that has a backup pump in it, or there would have been a great deal of urgency in replacing it. My rather conservative estimate is that this one sump alone is pumping about 2,000 gallons of water an hour.

So, anyhow, that came on Friday afternoon and I installed it after work (now I need to see if I can find parts to fix the old one – pump’s fine, just need a new switch).

Yesterday morning, the DB upgrade at work apparently went fairly smoothly, but the stuff I’m responsible for wasn’t working. Turned out they’d set up a new DNS alias for the new DB server (so that the old name would now point to the new server’s IP address). It eventually dawned on me that our server no doubt had the old information in its cache, so I flushed it (so to speak), and all was well.

Made me feel as if I was worth the extra money they weren’t paying me to work on Saturday.

Then yesterday my wife was kind enough to go out and get me new curtains for my office. Did you realize they expect you to iron the folds out of those things? I mean, shit, for the price of them they should be wrinkle free (roll ’em up and put ’em in a tube or something). It was really difficult having to watch her sit there and iron them (so I didn’t – I used the time to set up my new printer, ditch the old one, buy beer, and then watch a few episodes of “I Hate My Yard” on DIY). Took her forever.

Turns out you can only get them in, like 63″ length, so, being the talented seamstress she is, when she got done ironing them, she had to shorten them up for me, too.

I’ll tell ya, I’m tired just thinking about it.

As if all that wasn’t enough, I finally went over my taxes one last time and clicked the button to file them. And I figured I might as well go ahead and print them, too. I mean, what with the new printer and all.

Now where’s my damn refund?

And now tonight is a big old teevee night, too. It’s the season 4 finale of Shameless, which I am gonna miss (not to worry, there will be a fifth season). But Nurse Jackie starts up again next week, so that will help fill the void. Some.

It’s also the season premiere of Game of Thrones, which I am most definitely geek enough to really like. Have to watch that one on my own, though, as it’s too violent for my wife (she should read the books – the show is pretty tame by comparison).

On a lighter note, though, VEEP also starts back up tonight. I just can’t get over little Anna Chlumsky all grown up. Plus there’s a new show starting tonight called Silicon Valley, which I don’t know much about and don’t have high expectations for, but, hey, it’s HBO and it’s another geek show, so I’ll give it a shot.

With all this going on, it’s a damn good thing I’m off tomorrow. I’m gonna need the rest.