Sunday, January 5, 2003
Our inkjet printer stopped working today. Well, not entirely. The black ink is streaked with failure to deliver ink to the page, even with new cartridges. I got out the rubbing alcohol, paper towels, and q-tips and wiped off the contacts to the cartridges and other parts inside the printer that were covered in black gunk. It helped, but not enough to make a huge difference. Printing on the "quick print" setting is still mostly illegible. I realized I don't know how old my printer is. A Lexmark 5700—it could be as much as 9 years old. I said to Patrick, "Maybe it's time for a new printer." Glee overcame his face, and he shouted out, "Laser printer!" since I'd suggested the possibility a while back that we might get one, at which I shouted back, "Advance!" to suggest the possibility of where we might get funds for such a purchase—the book advance for his first novel, currently being shopped around by his agent. We worked around the problem by printing on "high quality" in order to get acceptable quality. Patrick went to meet Aaron while I stayed home and shopped for a laser printer.