Plug and play this

So I bought a printer for the ol' iMac.

It's an HP 2600n. I bought this because it's a color laser that's really cheap. $238, including free shipping.

I saw this advertised on Apple's Web site for $399. I thought that since it was on their site, it would work well with my computer. So I went to Amazon to see how much it was there. $241 + $11 S&H. But they stupidly say that it's going to come from Beach Camera. So I went to the Beach Camera site and well, it's only $238 there with free shipping.

It arrived on Friday afternoon.

Three hours after opening it and connecting it, it still wasn't working. If it wasn't for the nice weather and Asim's great smile, I would have thrown this thing out the window. The Mac simply wasn't getting along with it at all. Didn't show up, wouldn't print. Some test pages came out, but other than that, nothing.

When the hell did hooking up a printer get so hard? Isn't this supposed to be plug and play? My iPods were, my cameras were, and now my printers aren't?

I called HP support on Saturday to find out that the unit is a commercial one. So I'd have to call back during the week. I'm not doing that.

I poked around and queried on Apple's forums and got nudged this way and that on help. Nothing has worked, though. I've sort of gathered that maybe HP's updates are lagging behind Apple's OSX operating system.

Here's the strange part, though. When I went back to Beach to see what their return policy was, I noticed that the price had gone up! And they are now charging for shipping and handling. Incidentally, their restocking fee is 10%.

Thus, I will just sell it back on Amazon and hopefully break even.

As per having a printer ... well, I wasn't exactly hard up for one. I just kind of wanted to print out some random photos, blah, blah, blah. So not having one isn't a big deal. I think what I will do is go to the Apple store and see what they have there ... and make them prove to me that what they've got there works with OSX 10.4.9.

In other news, we went to a park near our house on Saturday for Asim's first barbecue. They have those nice outdoor grills that you chuck your own charcoal into. Although it was windy, things eventually worked out, and we enjoyed some nice weather and burgers. There will be some photos of this up soon on the Flickr ...

Also, I haven't given any love to the Diesel Jetta in a while ... so here goes ... this morning when I filled up I set a new record on 14.5 gallons -- 702 miles. The light was on for nearly a half hour and I was getting a little bit nervous. But I think the reserve is 2 gallons. I only had about 40 until the gas station ($2.65 for diesel!).

For my birthday weekend coming up, we'll be heading down to Louisville to hang out with my brother as he house hunts. Memorial Day is a nice long road trip to Lancaster with a possible stop in Pittsburgh if we feel like it. Asim hasn't been, so this might be a good time to show him where he'll be going to school.