I Hate Technology!

I hate tech!

I may not have mentioned this before, but I hate technology!  Especially today's modern technology.  You know, the stuff that makes life easier, quicker, and smarter, and doesn't!

The colour toner runs out, I insert a new troublingly expensive colour toner, reset everything, insert proper cables, click on the letter with colour pics I was scribbling for the niece, and start to print!

Nothing happened.

I reinsert the colour toner, it goes through the rigmarole again, and settles down.

Click to print.

Nothing happened.  

More fiddling, more clicking, more nothing happening.

Bah!

I walk off through to the west wing.

I fume, I cogitate, I mutter to myself.

Then I hear the printer printing!

Several items are printed, one after the other.

Hooray!

Hold on.  They only print, faintly in Black and White, where is the colour?

Now I also realise the Black is almost out.

A search has to be made 0 for B&W toner, and see what happens.

Ha!  Found one in the never used drawer.

Quick fight with the wrapper, clearly this one fell out of a 2-pack earlier, and ready to insert.

Hold on!

This is a colour one!

Fool!

So, it is reach for the 2-pack at the back of said drawer, open the plastic wrapping, using a rusty 'Stanley knife,' fight with the carboard box that does not wish to open, then struggle to open the wrapper around the B&W toner, well Black actually, and then prepare to insert.

Finally, after strong coffee, new rude words, and a minor migraine all is set.

Printer runs through proper sequence and all is ready.

Test print, set it up, click print and wait.

And wait, and wait, and hit 'resume' hopefully, and wait.

Switch printer off, resume rude words.

Switch back on, wait, press resume, and it works!

Fabulous, it prints in faint Black only!

Bah!

Now, urgently, and not too gently, remove colour toner recently inserted, insert, once it is out the wrappings, new colour toner, also dated May 2021, slam shut door, allow sequence to run, click print on test print, and , glory be, a colour printed sheet comes out!

Over an hour has been spent on this!  Is this old, new toner bust?  I know not, I dump it angrily, switch it all off and will search for reasons of failure later.  

Is it too early for a dram...?

Like me, you may not have bothered re the solar eclipse passing over us yesterday, but many people did.  Lots of space taken up with comment on this, possibly the media trying to avoid mentioning other proper news, yet lots of folks did want to see this rare event.

It did not pass over our territory, though I do remember a proper eclipse some 20 or so years ago being not as exciting as folks made out.  This time of course no-one here bothered.  

Such events are worth noting, especially if young, and the more the merrier I say, but there again, once you have seen one it is time to seek other pleasures. 

Packaging and Pies

There are 'wars and rumours of wars, famine and earthquakes in various places,' volcanoes' in Iceland, the country not the shop.  There are lifeboat men in high seas, mountain rescue services way up mountains, police and firemen struggling to save lives, and my hardest task today was opening the silver wrapper that surround the refill ink for the printer.

As each day passes I find opening the packets things arrive in harder than installing them.   Everything is the same.  Nothing arrives with easy opening capabilities.  I know many items have 'Cut here,' or 'Pull Here' upon them, but they lie!  Even worse are those which offer a thin line with a picture of scissors upon them.  You are foolishly led to believe that scissors can cut the thing, this also is a lie!

Today, with the aid of a 'Stanley Knife,' I broke into the surrounding thick plastic containing the new ink, fought my way through the cardboard box - eventually, and then spend much time opening the silver foil with the lie 'Tear Here' upon it.

Once that was over I was able to install, quickly, the ink.  

Then followed more checks on the work I was doing, which led to several reprints with the new ink, and eventually I decided enough was enough.  

However, I might have a go at the next bit later tonight..

Struggling to plan my ideal diet I fell into the 'Pie Trap.'  Therefore I ordered more pies, steak and mince, at enormous cost, but at least this gives me something I understand in the fridge for when my own cooking fails.  This, if all goes well, arrives on Tuesday from Forres.  

Work, Work, Work....

This has been my view for the last 48 hours.  I have been doing a bit for the museum which must be in tomorrow, and it is not nearly finished.  My eyes are looking at one another, my mind does not know where it is and I did not catch up on other things till long past the time they had gone.  I am not used to this work lark these days.  
Writing things, when they have to be accurate and right, is not easy as it means going back over it time and again, fixing the mistakes, wondering where bits have gone to and asking why a paragraph is twice repeated in different places!  This is just the revised draft, and two thirds have still to see a preliminary scribble.  
Here I had no interruptions, except when going back and forward to remove that red line that claims I canny spell.  That takes a lot of time I can tell you.  I would like the machine to auto correct misspelt words (Yankees don't like the word 'spelt' either) but this means I would have to go over every word and take out the things the machine puts in wrongly.  
So tomorrow she will scratch my eyes out and grumble "This is not what I wanted," before reaching for the whip.  Not much change from normal for her then...

He thought it funny to sit there and laugh while I attempted to print some pages off.  Not only did it fail as the black ink had run off.  This required the removal of a thousand items to open the printer so as to insert the new one, which luckily was in the drawer.  This complicated operation, once every thing had been returned almost to its place, went wrong as all the pages printed off instead of just the seven I wanted.  I may need a new cartridge soon!  I think that bird may be a Kookaburra and not a Starling judging by the way he laughed at me.

I shot him!

They Have Lost Her

When my mother died early on Saturday morning she had not been in the hospital for twelve hours. Under Scots law this means a death certificate cannot be issued. I am assuming a report is made as we were then told that this would be passed to the Procurator Fiscals office (Google it!) and then a decision would be made whether a Post Mortem was required or if the certificate could be issued.

This would be passed to my niece, she would then discuss with the undertaker the arrangements, and an attempt would be made to fit in with the minister and the crematorium. Naturally, being our family, things are going wrong. For one they have lost her! The paperwork (a yellow form) has not appeared in the Procurator Fiscals office. They have looked and found none. My niece has not thought of phoning the hospital and enquiring from that end, as some ward clerk is probably still sitting on it, and so we await developments again tomorrow morning. Add to this the minister leaving on Saturday for two weeks holiday! While he is willing to fit in as much as he can, including Saturday morning, it would be difficult to find a place for refreshments afterwards and anyway I for one think this would be a bit of a rush and am opposed to rushing this!

Tonight I attempted to book a flight on Easyjet and with each touch of the keyboard the costs rose even more than I had expected. That is irrelevant as it just has to be done. However, as I planned how to rob the bank or mug old ladies to pay for this I had a problem. The printer, which printed OK the other day, has once again refused to print! I suspect the PC and the printer are not talking to each other. However this means too much work for tonight and I have done what I can.

When my sister informed me that she was missing we considered whether she really had gone missing. It crossed our minds that maybe, just maybe, she had got out of bed the other morning and found another woman to whom she could chat. Possibly the wrong lass has been declared dead and my mum is now sitting amongst a pile of empty cups chatting happily to a woman she has never met before. It was her way. The fact that four days have past would not be noticed by a couple of Edinburgh's finest would it?

How to be an Idiot No. 67

An excellent way to prove your idiot status is the misuse of the shopping talent.
The best example is to find yourself in a state of financial embarrassment then break the printer! A complete idiot first takes too long to replace the ink cartridge, then when that is done, notice the other cartridge is giving problems. With skill this can easily be turned into a right disaster. After vain attempts at electronic engineering, using pliers, screwdrivers, curses and an extremely heavy hand, the experienced idiot will soon be found sitting, head in hands, on the floor gurgling away and vowing to visit the man who developed computers for home use. This by the way would not be a 'social' visit.

As time passes and what little money is available drifts of into the debt pile the proper idiot will then decide a new printer is required. Whatever the financial situation, one must be procured as this machine is part of the finding employment and paying the debts. A trip around local merchants ensues. e.g Tesco and Argos. Tesco are selling a HP F4280 and one or two others for around £30. This looks good. However the idiot is no fool. Jumping in to obtain one of these machines may lead to more debt which cannot be afforded so maybe, just maybe a way to fix the other may be found.

Time passes. The Dole office assessment arrives and is passed. The dole office interview arrives and is, er, we wait and see, and wait, and wait.... eventually an answer. Several forms to fill out and join the waiting list! After this long delay they insist I must hurry as any delay may hinder employment! I consider just sending them a roll of red tape! However I fill in the forms, discover I must send copies of other forms and have no way of copying them as the printer is broken! After an idiot long delay I decide I must buy the cheap one I saw before. Off to Tesco I go, and of course the special price has long gone, as indeed have the printers. There are a couple available starting at around £58. I go home. I scour the Argos catalogue, and decide on the cheap 'Canon' all in one printer. Naturally while in Argos my eye is caught by an HP model which costs just under £50. Knowing HP I decide to go for it.

Here it is installed, working quite happily, copying my documents, which have now been posted safely, and while not as robust as the previous HP model, Chinese workmanship is not what it was, I am reasonably content, until this goes wrong. As pupil Idiots you will of course appreciate that I have paid £50 for the model I could have got for £30 a short while ago. And I wonder why I am now taking money out of the credit card so I can pay off the credit card?

So, Normal Life Returns!

Yes indeed! All around folks are complaining about returning to work. Few contemplating how lucky they are! The dreary round of work, rest and, well work again, has returned. The economic situation being what it is I wonder how many will be employed in a few months time? However the economy in this place took a turn for the worse when I finally decided that the cheap replacement cartridge for the printer just would not work, no matter how many times I fiddled with it. I bit the bullet (where did that bullet come from?) and bought a proper full price HP 57 from Tesco! The annoying thing is that the colour version of the cheapie did not work, but the black version I bought a while ago works fine! Now at last I can print out the application form for a job I will not get and waste time and money sending it off! Isn't it silly that a small thing like a useless printer can bring the world to a halt?



I came across this small but delightful story in the paper yesterday. This small shop sells crockery and a Robin, usually a rather shy bird with people and a bully among birds, began a habit of entering the shop and settling on a mug decorated with pictures of Robins! In spite of the customers it continues to come in and follow the owner into her office and uses her mug, with the robins, as a place to hang around. Isn't it lovely that in this wild and nasty world simple little things like this please us so much? Just before the attack on the Somme in 1916 one group of soldiers were worrying, not about the fight ahead, but whether a blackbirds brood would be able to fly off before they went 'over the top.' There was delight that all birds successfully left the nest before the attack went in! The 'Birdman of Alcatraz, Robert Stroud, was actually the 'birdman of Leavenworth' who did befriend a wounded canary and went on to study them over thirty years. He had time to study being in solitary confinement because of his violent manner and being sentenced to life with no parole! He did spend time in Alcatraz and I suppose that name made for a better film title, even though the acting did not resemble Stroud himself. I must confess I am partial to a bird myself.


The day started with snow! Just what I did not want with the driving lesson. However it was not to bad by the time we started, the biggest problem being the sun shining straight in my face. he took me that way deliberately to get me used to the situation - swine! It was nowhere near as bad as in the photo, but winding roads, black ice, slush and a dustcart right up behind me for miles urging me on as they wanted to finish early, kept me from wearying!