Tag: Tech

I hate printers… but

DnD

I hate printers. I really, really do. I have a stack of old tech that I need to take to FreeGeek to donate and get it out of my house, and the stack has been in the hallway at the top of the stairs for almost 6 months now. And until this weekend, two printers were in that stack. I’m adding my most recent printer, a gift from my friend Tracy that I just couldn’t get to work. I am immensely grateful for Tracy’s friendship and generosity but this printer is a malfunctioning piece of designed-by-committee-for-profit tech that is essentially a scam designed to sell ink cartridges.

I hate them. But I need a printer. What should I do? I decided I would follow Nilay Patel’s advice and just get whatever Brother printer was on sale. It’s shipping to me even as I type this. It was a bit more than I wanted to spend, but my last two printers were free; it likely all evens out over time. Brother printers apparently do not do that thing where they only accept official Brother cartridges and have hard-coded deadlines beyond which they will not print until you buy new cartridges (I’m lookin’ at you, HP) so that’s a relief.

One of the reasons I want a printer now after having no working printer for a year is because I want to print maps and things for my upcoming in-person D&D game. Have I talked about that yet? Several folks in my group are coming in to town for a long weekend of nothing but games. Old men pretending we’re young once again. Playing all night like we did when we were teenagers. I am so very excited.

But also, I’m anxious. This weekend is going to be a big deal, or should I say, A Big Deal™. As the (one of the) Dungeon Masters it’s my reponsibility to present cool ideas and plots and characters. When we play online I only have to create digital maps and images, and there are enough tools out there that let someone who is more of an ideas guy create decent pictures. In-person means physical maps, actual minatures, physical props. I’ve got just over 3 weeks. What can I do in that time?

If I had a good printer I could print out some of the digital maps. Out comes the credit card, and by credit card I mean transfer from savings because I don’t have a lot of available credit. One problem, solved.

But miniatures? That requires purchasing them… or 3D printing them. Who do I know that has a 3D printer? Unfortunately, the first people I know with 3D printers are my players. They are all nerds like me. And they are all gainfully employed and have been for a while. I am certain they would be willing to print things for me; however, it would spoil the surprise.

Another option is buying one, but since I just bought a regular laser printer, I’m somewhat cash poor. Don’t have the cash flow for that.

Another option is using Multnomah County Library’s 3D printing service. However, printing an army of miniatures feels like abuse; it’s a free service after all. And some of the things I want to print might just possibly be copyrighted and trademarked material (no spoilers) so it’s likely they might deny my request.

I kept asking around, though, and I asked a coworker if they’d be willing to print some things for me. They’re counter-offer was to just loan me the printer! I about fell out of my chair. That’s incredibly generous. They said they rarely use it, and it would clear out some closet space. Looks like I’m going to be able to print whatever I want in the three weeks until the game.

Printers. I hate them. But they’re so very useful.

Marie Kondo but for bookmarks

Joy

In my browser (I use Edge, don’t @ me) in the bookmarks bar, I have five folders, left to right: Weather, Tshoot, Money, Funtimes, and Other favorites, pinned to the far right.

Weather is rarely used; it’s not only got weather sites, but sites for reporting the Air Quality Index and smoke from fire, since Portland and the Pacific Northwest now has a Fire Season.

Tshoot has links to my network router/cable modem, my Synology, and a bunch of bookmarks for collecting network information and troubleshooting Windows and Mac computers. I use this more often than the ones in Weather but not as often as the rest.

Money has multiple sub-folders but they’re all related to my budget, my bank and credit cards, utilities and bills, memberships and subscriptions, healthcare costs, paycheck calculators, you name it. The top bookmark here is to my budget spreadsheet.

I use this folder a lot, and I mean a lot. I’m opening something from here multiple times per day if I’m sitting at my computer. It might be unhealthy, how often I’m using something from here. I’m using it more now that I have a job and income, to help plan out paying down my debts, than I did when I was unemployed and had no income in-coming.

You can kinda sense a theme in these three, right? They’re informational or related to responsiblities and duties I have. There’s very little joyful about figuring out if the weather is going to kill me or not, or finding out why my Xfinity connection has dropped again.

Next one up is Funtimes, and it’s where I put links for entertainment sites, time-killers, social media, as well as sub-folders for running my online D&D game, or other gaming-related sites: wikis for games I play, that kind of thing. You would think that this folder is full of nothing but joyful things, right? It’s there in the name: Fun Times ahead, all ye who click here.

You might think that; you’d be wrong. In fact, the observation that kicked off this whole post was when I opened that folder this morning. I saw that the top folder in there, the first thing my mouse cursor hovers over when scrolling through the links, is “Site Management”. That’s where I put links to login to this blog, the hosting site, the Analytics page, domain renewal, DNS, that kind of thing.

I’m the one who put it there but I couldn’t tell you what that has to do with fun times. I do enjoy writing but I admin my blog as basic maintenance and upkeep. I like having a well-maintained blog but it’s not joyful, y’know? Seeing that today, realizing what it means, I moved that folder over to Tshoot, where it fits better.

Below that folder is Creative, and it’s full of folders. The top one in Creative is Writing Tools. In here lives a link to my favorite online text editor, Writer from Big Huge Labs, which is where I draft all my posts. This is joyful. If I’m writing in here (as I am now) I’m freely putting down words to express an idea, and that is joyful.

The rest of the folders in Creative are for drawing and art programs/pages like Inkarnate, which is joyful for me to use. Also a folder for Generative AI links (yes, I use these, but sparingly, as I’ve explained). Still looking for more ways to add joy to my days.