"To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer. " ~ Paul Ehrlich

I'll be the first one to admit that I really don't know all that much about computers. I grew up learning how to type on a manual typewriter and then with this great thing called an IBM Selectric which everyone thought was the pinnacle of technology. And in 1976, it WAS the pinnacle of technology! Obviously technology has grown by leaps and bounds over the past 30 years and typewriters have gone the way of the dinosaurs but that doesn't necessarily mean that technology has gotten any easier. At least not for those of us who sometimes find ourselves computerly-challenged.

I have been having some issues with my printer not communicating with the rest of my computer for the past couple of weeks and have uninstalled and reinstalled the software several times over. However the gremlins that live in my house have obviously decided to invade yet another electronic device as things just don't seem to want to work correctly. The printer will work fine for a little while and then it will go back to its old tricks of not wanting to print something because it can't "communicate". A window will open with some lame excuse such as "the printer requires a USB port and no port is detected" which is ridiculous because the cable is plugged into the exact same USB port it has ALWAYS been plugged into! Neither myself or Amanda find any need to plug and unplug cables from the back of the computer for sport so I'm not sure what's going on there unless the cat has found some other way to irritate me to no end!

Yes - my computer is old. In dog years it's going on 35 years, were it a horse it would have been put out to pasture long ago, and as a computer it's probably older than Methuselah (who, for those uneducated in Biblical characters, is reportedly the oldest man ever to have walked the earth having lived to be 4,757 years old - can you imagine the candles on HIS cake??). I am in desperate need of a new computer, especially considering I now share this one with a teenager who likes to scan in all of her drawings and download music, etc., etc. but there's this slight problem called money.

Despite the fact that I work a fairly large amount of overtime I barely have two nickels to rub together two days after payday has rolled around and considering we get paid once every two weeks rather than every week, it's pretty tricky to even be able to afford food towards the end of a pay period never mind luxuries such as new computers, microwaves, television sets, etc. Translated that means we have to make do with what we have until I either win the lottery or marry a man of wealth. I figure chances are pretty good that neither of those two things are going to happen anytime soon so we're just going to have to suck it up and get by like we have been doing.

However, that doesn't mean that I don't want to throw this antique Compaq PC of mine out of the window on a fairly regular basis! Thankfully I'm well versed in the adage of 'biting off one's nose to spite their face' so the computer remains where it is and mocks me.

Oh well, as Mitch Ratcliffe once said,

“Computers have enabled people to make more mistakes faster than almost any invention in history, with the possible exception of tequila and hand guns”

I'm pretty sure I have some tequila downstairs ...