Twixmas Part II - Canon can...........

And so the limbo period between Christmas and New Year limps on, and with it, that strange lethargy which pervades the air at this time of year.

In an attempt to dispel the urge to simply curl up on the sofa with either a book or the TV remote control, we have been setting up our new toys.

Actually, mine isn't really a toy. More a business necessity, bought the week before Christmas and which has been languishing in its box in the workroom waiting for a window of opportunity to install it.

A brand new printer!

It's sitting on the desk in front of me right now. All black and sleek and shiny, patiently waiting for me to request it to print. Which it does first time, every time, smoothly and quietly with absolutely no fuss or messing about.

But best of all, it's connected directly to my laptop so I am freed from the huffs and sulks of the main printer, which I have to access via a wireless network and which can take up to five, finger-drumming minutes to decide to cooperate. The main printer and I have never really seen eye to eye. It is an all-in-one effort, with scanner/copier/printer functions.

Well notionally anyway.

I can only ever get it to print, unless I laboriously unroll a 3 metre long printer lead and connect to it manually.

And even then it's touch and go.

I will still use it for basic printing - letters, invoices and the like. But I just know that it regards the usurper as its mortal enemy, so the fact that I am flirting outrageously with it will mean that the old printer will probably revoke all my network printing rights and sit sulking and shuffling its ink cartridges when I attempt to send anything to print. I just know that anything even remotely complicated like double sided printing will be a complete no-no and I will have to persuade and cajole it for ages, and even then it will mess up and spit sheets of paper at me in a vitriolic rage.

So the plan is that the new printer will be kept for best. Special printing, high quality stuff for games and toys etc.

The old printer is a jack of all trades, master of none.
The new printer is supremely good at what it does. Printing pure and simple.

It was recommended to us by several graphic design people who know what they're talking about, as being in a class of its own for print quality. It has not two, or even four, but 5 ink cartridges, which it doesn't feel the need to shuffle around every few minutes like the old one.

I am smitten.