Economy Not That Bad, Calm Down

Andrew Jackson's crisis was worse

Everyone seems to be having a heart attack about the economy these days, and every day on CNN the lead picture on the homepage is another corny picture of a guy in a stock exchange jacket covering his face with his hand to indicate he's panicking/sad/stressed out/doesn't know how he's going to make ends meet. People are like saying that it's the worst financial situation since the shit hit the fan in 1987 or since the Great Depression, but frankly I think there's no need to panic until they say that it's worse than the Andrew Jackson Savings 'N Loan Crisis of 1832, which was REALLY bad according to my 10th grade final.

In any event, just to prove to people that this latest bank thing is not Armageddon and that there are ways around this mortgage crisis crap, CNN had this article about some 90 year old woman who shot herself in the chest when she found out that her house was going to be foreclosed on. When Fannie Mae heard about the attempted suicide, they stopped the foreclosure proceedings and just deeded the home to her outright. So if you're wasting time worrying about your mortgage going up and like not being able to make payments, time to calm down because worse comes to worse you can always shoot yourself and get your place for free.

To Install a Printer

"Easy Installation"

Since I have no job and now can't use my firm's printer to print out my concert tickets and gchat conversations, I decided it would be a wise investment to purchase one for myself this past weekend. So I went to PC Richards, went to the printer section, decided that I needed an LCD screen for my extreme printing needs and bought the most expensive printer in the land along with a pile of paper. I specifically asked the guy at the store if the printer came with all the necessary parts and he replied, "Yes, this printer comes with everything you want" because apparently included with printers these days are the secrets to eternal youth, the Heart of the Ocean, a winning lottery ticket and your family genealogical tree. Anyway, so I go home, ignore the printer for two days and then last night I attempted to install it using the "Easy Installation" instructions that appear in the form of a treasure map. So I spent two hours trying to jam the ink cartridges into the machine and eventually determined that apparently I will just have to throw out this printer and get a new one because there is no way these ink cartridges are fitting.

This morning my dogwalker Greg comes in and I ask him if he can install this printer. So he looks at the ink cartridges and says that Ihave to remove this orange nozzle at the bottom of them and then I tell him that that is false because I have read the instructions ten bazillion times and I didn't see anything about removing orange nozzles but then I re-read the instructions and he was right. The bottom line here is that despite the fact that they have 30 pages of instructions devoted to all the other amazing Canon products that I can buy and warranties protecting the double secret probation warranties, nowhere in the instructions does it say not to install the printer when drunk and had I known that I would not wasted my time and just started installing it today.

In any event, after four hours of Easy Installation this morning, I eventually get to a screen that says something to the effect of the computer does not recognize the printer and that I need something called a "USB" cord. So I spend 45 minutes going through the printer box, throwing over couch cushions and accusing Perry of hiding it and then I re-read the instructions and in very fine print they reveal that the PC Richards guy was lying and that the USB cord is not included with the printer and that I should probably just use one of the 30 that I have lying around my apartment because people who choose the Easy Installation are always working on robots and computer projects and have bags full of USB cords just ready to be used for things that come up. Ultimately I got a USB cord and the printer is working, but if the people at PC Richards could stop lying to me and just tell me upfront that I will need to devote an entire day to installing it and that it may or may not include all the parts I will need, that would be great so at least I can know in advance to call up other people and get them to install it for me or get a head start on making tin foil antennas.