All In One Overkill.

I bought myself a little Christmas present this year. Namely a Canon all-in-one printer, fax, scanner, photo printer, copier monstrosity that is now sitting atop my shelves, daring me to find a reason to use it. I had to transfer my health insurance and was able to print the necessary forms out to sign. I also printed out my citizenship application and signed that. But now I fear I will run out of everyday uses for my new personal Deep Blue, and it will rapidly collect dust.

In order to fax anything, I will first have to get a land line, which isn't happening anytime soon. I might as well get a cassette tape answering machine with a pre-recorded California Raisins greeting and a 500 baud modem while I'm at it. I don't see a lot of potential for the scanner, either. I could go through my photo album and find a few ancient gems for a laugh, but I can't keep up with posting the damn digital pics that are piling up. Anyone who really wants to see what I look like wearing diapers can frequent some of the local swingers clubs. So again, not very likely.

The copier will be good for building management duties, like duping leases, invoices and the like. And there's always the chance I'll have a guest over some day who wishes to photocopy their behind. But why couldn't they just take a digital photo of their buttocks? Or scan them? Or take a photo of their buttocks and then scan that? And then maybe never be invited back.

I think the problem here is that I have too many methods at my disposal by which to accomplish the exact same thing - the transmission of a document. It's frustratingly hard to choose. Perhaps I can webcam my tax return this year, take a freezeframe which I can then print onto photo paper, scan, and then fax to the IRS. Or I could get a pen and some stamps.