Looking for a scanner

I want a scanner and I want one now. I have oodles of pictures that I just feel like scanning for no real reason. I just have it in my head that I need one. Anyways, I was at Best Buy earlier today and was all about buying one until I saw that the cheapest one was $132. I’m kind of a cheap person and I don’t like to spend money on things I don’t really need, and $132 for a scanner doesn’t fit into my spending plan at the current moment. I really don’t need a scanner that will read 35mm film negatives or scan my picture with such a great resolution that I could take it over to Kinko’s and have a full sized poster made out of it. I just want a crappy scanner. I bought a scanner back in 1998 for $96 at WalMart, but technological advances killed my scanner and even after visiting the manufacturer website multiple times and downloading new software for it, it just absolutely refuses to work with any operating system higher than Windows 98. I’m pretty computer savvy too …. Its just dead, and there is no making it work with my computer. I don’t even know where it is anymore. I guess its probably at my parents house somewhere collecting dust.

I also wanted to buy some gadgets that will allow me to transfer VHS tapes onto my computer to make DVD’s. I saw some VHS to DVD recorders in the $200 – $250 range, but if I really want to work on all of my parents home videos I need something that will record onto my hard-drive for editing. Our home videos need some editing. For instance – the time my dad recorded the humming-bird feeder for a whole hour waiting for a humming bird, or the time I was watching home videos with some friends in high school and after the shot of me dancing around the house and making fun of my brother, a clip from a porno came on the screen briefly before switching over to the next home video. Taping over things doesn’t erase them! So .. I need some editing equipment in order to make some quality DVD’s for future generations to enjoy.

Todd talked me into purchasing a battery backup UPS thing today. Actually he has been selling me on one ever since time began, and especially since my computer hard-drive died this summer during a power surge during a storm. I just assumed that my awesome new 3ghz computer couldn’t die. I bought it in February so its only 7 months old … and was only 5 months old when it exploded. So I guess having some backup in case of power-failure is a good idea, even though I still have my broken hard-drive sitting on my kitchen table. Since I know exactly how to stick it back in the computer and run the illegal data-recovery software I found online … well I figured that I could resort to that if I absolutely had to. I just hate spending money on practical things that I can’t get immediate gratification from. UPS = no fun. Scanner = fun!

I do have means of backing things up. I have a cd burner, a dual layer dvd burner, and I think I have Norton Ghost and I could burn an image of everything ….. but alas I’m a lazy fool. I would cry for days on end if I really lost all of my pictures and things I have written, funny IM conversations I’ve had, and the stupid pictures Todd has drawn in Paint. I’m not worried about my programs because they are the one thing I have backed up on CD. Now if I had actually purchased programs I’d have the original installation CD’s but of course everything I have is not exactly legal. Oh well, at least I’m not out shooting people or causing riots.

Todd made hot-dogs on the grill today and they were much much better than my hot-dog from 7-11 on Labor Day. I ate two of them and still feel pretty full and that was hours ago. Not eating sure makes you get full faster when you do eat! At one point I probably could have eaten 4 of them. And over the summer we had lots of cookouts and I would eat a huge hamburger and a hot dog and usually something else. Yes, I’m a piggie. I was also rejoicing in my “I eat beef again” phase since I refused to eat hamburger meat or anything from a cow for like six months. I was on an anti-pork thing for a while too. And unless it is lunchmeat or prepared by a restaurant or Todd, the only thing meaty that I cook around here is pepperoni on pizza or chicken breasts. Or turkey TV dinners! I think that Healthy Choice and Lean Cuisine need to come out with an “Ultimate Thanksgiving” TV dinner. I’d be quite happy if they did.

I’m tired and kind of grumpy right now. I feel weird because I was up until 6am and slept until 1:30pm. Now that is something I haven’t done in a while. Well when I was panic ridden I would tend to be unable to fall asleep until 7am, but usually had to be somewhere by 9am so I’d do my thing and come home and pass out for hours. But since I’ve been working a regular job I’ve been mostly sleeping normal hours and even on the weekends, I’m always up by 11am at the latest. I used to love to sleep in, but now when I do I just feel like I’m wasting my day. I guess I have a new found apprecation for “time” since I realized how little of it there is when you work all day and live in a cave at night. Aahh ….. this has been a great rant.

Bye!

One Response to “Looking for a scanner”

  1. Julie says:

    I had a scanner once in like the year 2000. When I was moving out of my dorm at the end of the year, I just put it in the garbage room. It still kind of worked, but it was old and difficult to install and I didn’t want a scanner anymore since I had a digital camera. Maybe someone found it and sold it.