Happy Friday, everyone.
First things first, the editorial meeting for Maggie 2 went great. We are given green light, but we do have a ton of work to do before September 1st.
They are not asking us to cut for length. ::pauses:: They actually ask for more stuff. This book will be the size of the Subterranean Innkeeper edition.
We will be starting tomorrow with a short story that will kind of lay some foundation, and then we will be moving straight into the edit. But that’s tomorrow.
Today I have a cup of the delicious Sencha tea, and I have time for a short personal post.
Have you noticed how the things that make you happy change in adulthood? When you are an adolescent, a cool outfit can make you ecstatic. But when you move to adulthood, you get excited by things that make your life easier. Sometimes they just have to work and that alone is enough for a dopamine hit.
When we started filling the vellum orders, I asked Gordon to bring the printer from the office into the house. If you are new to our blog, we have a separate building on the property, which has a garage and our office room on the first floor and a tiny apartment above it. The apartment was a huge plus for us, because at the time we bought the house, our kids were old enough for their own space but not quite ready to move out completely.
Anyway, Gordon went to get the printer. It is HP Color Laserjet Pro MFP m283fdw, which is huge, and it weighs about 45lbs. I made the mistake of offering to help and was given the official Man Look of No.
The massive printer was installed in the study on a side table sturdy enough to support it.
Me: plug USB cord into the giant printer. Plug USB cord into PC. Turn printer on. Access Printers on Windows. Click find printer.
Windows: Nope, not there.
Me: plug into different USB slot.
Windows: Still no.
Me: Turn printer off. Turn printer on.
Windows: Naaaah.
Me: Turn everything off. Reboot PC. Reboot printer.
Windows: What is printer? Does anyone know?
Gordon: Have you tried doing it over wireless?
Me: I have and it constantly loses the connection. It has a damn cable. There is a literal cable connecting to to PC. I don’t understand.
Me: Download HP utility app.
HP app: No printer found!
Me, to Gordon: I swear, this is about to turn into a sequel to Office Space. I’m going to drive to Best Buy and buy a f*cking new printer.
Gordon: I will get the keys.
Me: Give me like ten more minutes.
Me: Reboot everything one more time.
Windows: Oh wait, there it is.
Anyway, after about an hour of screwing with all of this, I was able to print the first batch of labels.
Because we are filling orders in batches, the massive printer had to stay in that spot by my desk. It is seriously messing with my ability to relax. I like to have a neat work space, and the less stuff around me, the better. The study is where we spend majority of our time and now there is a giant printer in the middle of things. To make things extra difficult, Tuna became horribly upset because his raised bed has been moved away from my desk to make space for said printer.
After a week of printing labels, the printer stopped.
Printer: You are out of ink!
Me: Okay, fine. How much is an ink cartridge for this thing… $285? Is it gold? Will it clean my house and make me lunch?
I order the new cartridge, and while I’m waiting on it, I see a video on Instagram. It’s a video of a tiny pink printer and that printer is printing labels. And the caption says, “No ink required.”
What is this sorcery?
I google the tiny pink printer, I watch more videos, and I show it to Gordon.
Gordon: Buy it.
I bought it and 24 hours later, I unpacked it.
Here it is, with Gordon’s iPhone for scale on the corner of my desk.
This is how small it is. This is how fast it prints.
It requires no ink. It prints on special thermal paper. And it connects via Bluetooth.
1,600 regular labels cost me $73. 1,000 thermal labels cost me $24.69.
Look, it prints cheap stickers.
Okay, so the stickers are not of amazing BDH quality, but if I wanted to slap them on the back of an envelope or something, they work. Basically, it prints any black image onto a variety of thermal paper.
Gordon took the massive printer back to the office.
I am so happy. So happy. I know it’s a small thing, but I feel like I have my desk back. And most importantly, Tuna can resume his vigil, hehe. It probably makes me a dinosaur, but I had no idea thermal printers existed.
If you want your own tiny printer, this is Phomemo PM64D. You can find it on Amazon. It’s not an affiliate link.
Now the next challenge will be buying a printer that can actually print small scale sticker batches of good quality. I’m eyeing Epson Ecotank 8550 and a cutter.
Well, I am going to go print more labels. I will see you on Saturday or next week. I had fallen off the wagon and bought yarn, so there will be pretty pictures.
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