More acquisitions Yesterday it was a case of digging out my cashless wallet from the underpants drawer and heading for Officeworks in Fremantle to engage in a spot of electronic transferring. My wife and I had been there last Tuesday looking at filing cabinets and had been on the verge of buying one when a staff member hinted that Thursday would have better feng shui.
A nod was as good as wink to us and sure enough a sale started yesterday. The filing cabinet we had been looking at was "reduced" from $229 to $149. While we were there we noticed a large stack of Brother MFC425 colour multifunction units for $89, that seemed pretty cheap so we bought one of them too. These gadgets act as photo copiers, scanners, and printers, and being colour are able to print photographs.
We have had good experiences with Brother equipment, but the cost of replacement cartridges is the let down. At Officeworks a full set for the unit we bought yesterday was priced $2 less than buying a new printer.
The unit came with all the software and it installed and immediately worked on both my Mac with OS 9.2 and the other one with OSX. However there are so many permutations of paper size, orientation of image etc etc etc etc that I have yet to get a handle on it. I'm sure printing photos at home could be a lot simpler than this.
Alas, the filing cabinet was not so workable. What could possibly go wrong with a filing cabinet? It looked perfect when we loaded it onto the ute with the help of one of the staff. But at the time I did notice a bit of a rattle from inside.
When we took all the packaging off at home, it was clear that the four drawers had a relaxed look about them. All the ball bearing slider rollers on one side had popped and so there was no more slide. My guess is the unit had been dropped from a truck and inertia had done the rest.
So it was back to Officeworks with my purchase. There were no hassles. They swapped it straight away. The young man who helped me load the replacement revealed they had a bit of trouble with this type in the past. "They are only a domestic unit." he said. Hmmm.
Of course a new filing cabinet demands new suspension files - $29.95. This was a pain because I gave away a box of them a couple of years ago in the belief we wouldn't need any more.
So no we can organise things a bit better. As the kids grow up they attract all sorts of documents which need to be looked after. There are far too many school reports, certificates and whatnots for my liking, but that's part of the deal for being a member of Club Australia.
There is a birthday here today - another one. Son number six - I had to use my fingers to count - has turned eleven. There was much commotion this morning as presents emerged from hidy holes. From Mum and Dad he received a book titled
Wizardology - The book of secrets of Merlin. There has been a recent wave of these type of books. They are full of stuff which can be manipulated. Secret sleeves, pop ups and so on. A lot of Australian kids will receive the same title at Christmas. The great piles which were in the local shops a few weeks ago have almost gone.
A range of items came from his brothers and sisters. Quite a few other books including a series called
Wicked, parts 1 to 6; and a boxed set of
Goosebumps. I'm sure the latter has been here before, but for this son they are new. I see too there is a box of Bart Simpson jellied sweets. The picture of Bart on the outside looks mischievous, which is appropriate, given the nature of the recipient.
One of his adult brothers presented a copy of the Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise remake of
War of the Worlds. There is a picture on the cover of planet Earth being incinerated while being held by a giant reptilian-like alien hand. I suppose Tom Cruise will save us.
This movie has a label on its box saying "Moderate Violence" which means lots of anonymous extras are going to get mangled by the aliens. The blurb on the back says the movie is "one of the most awe-inspiring cinematic experiences of all time." Hmmmm - Zzzzzzzz! - stay tuned. I might get around to watching it, but I'm not sure if I can stand Tom Cruise. I saw him out of mufti in a TV interview last week. He appeared to be a bit manic - weird even.
The family's newest plumbing apprentice, son number five (16) got a present from his older brothers last night. A box of specialised plumbing tools. The best ones come from a US company called
Rigid and are expensive. But this month the distributors have had a deal going for the trade where a selection of the most useful ones, tube benders, tube expanders, tube cutters and so on, have been available substantially reduced rate in a large cardboard box for just under five hundred dollars - a bargain. This is the second set of these to arrive here this month. The older boys gave the first box to the other apprentice in the family, son number four.
I have put a "plug" for them on a preliminary web page facilitated by our new ISP. It should be available by clicking
here.© MMV Paul R. Weaver.
About the writerCheck out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days.
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