It’s that time of the season again. Trees are blooming, the weather is warming, birds are singing, all of which put me in the mood to… buy new toys for myself!
My latest acquisition is a digital photo printer. Yesterday, after coming back from a shopping trip to the Hague Centrum, I glanced at the clock and noticed it was 4:55. I was suddenly overcome with the urge to purchase home electronics, so I frantically looked up the number for the little photo shop around the corner.
“Are yoy still open?” I asked quickly.
“No.”
“I’m just around the corner and I want to buy a photo printer. I can be there in two minutes.”
Sensing my desperate need to acquire new gadgets the guy reluctantly said, “Okay, if you hurry.” That’s Dutch service for you. Beg them to take your money and, if they haven’t got anything better to do, they may consider allowing you to give it to them.
So I ran to the store. It was a beautiful sunny Spring day, perfect for spending money. I quickly looked at the selection. “I want a small one, around 150 Euro.” There were only about three that I could choose from and I spent about forty-five seconds looking at them until pointing to one and saying, “I’ll take that one.”
“Would you like some photo paper to go with that?”
“Oh, yes. Indeed. Let’s see, they go cheaper the more you buy eh? Give em 100.” It was the biggest package they had.
I marched triumphantly home with my new purchase and spent the next hour reading the installation guide, unwrapping components from their plastic (that’s always the best part), burning through the test ink cartridge they give you, and generally reveling in my new toy. It may not be as sexy as Lynn’s new toy, but mine has a very practical purpose. We are going to print out black and white pictures of all our friends and make a collage on the wall with them. We’ve already started, we have fourteen images tacked onto the wall. Ultimately, I think we can cover the whole wall with thirty-cents-a-print postcard sized black and white photos.
If that isn’t worth 200 Euros then I don’t know what is.
3 Comments
Bram R · May 19, 2007 at 9:26 am
Brian, you crazy old so-and-so, how the hell are ya?
The sun beats down in and out of stiff cool showers, and the pigeons grow even bolder. I also bought myself a lovely, techy, practical gift: a shiny new MacBook. My first non-PC, and my first laptop. Yoy, the fun.
Same apartment. 🙂
Cruise around my blog. Save space on the wall for me.
Brian · May 23, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Dude! So good to hear from you. Please, please send me a picture. I would love to put you on my wall of fame.
I know my Macolyte friend Ian will rub his hands gleefully that there is one more Mac customer in the world, but I will pray for your soul. Once you go over to the dark side, you never go back. Why do you think Steve Jobs always wears black turtlenecks eh? Becuase he’s the devil. That’s why.
(Just kidding Steve, in case your demon minions are monitoring this…)
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