Slow, gray day

Yet another slow day, gray day here in NE Ohio. I am in a holding pattern on my work projects, it is wet & yucky outside. At least it is not snowing yet. Plus my Windows Media Player is choking. Maybe someone is accessing my SQL server.

After last week's break down of my car, one of the results of the diagnostic they did was that my brakes needed done. So today I got to take my brother's truck to work. This is a 91 Ford Bronco with the big-ass tires (an industry term) that gets something like 3 gallons to the mile. Ok, it just seems that way. I have a 30 mile one-way drive to work (he has about 3), so it really sucked down the gas. My hope is that the brakes stay to under $400. On the upside he has a great CD player in his car.

Yesterday while looking for my SanDisk Cruzer Mini (if you don't have one of these little memory things, get one. WAY cool & convenient.) I was back in my office looking at the tangle of wires. Now I have not been using my office since I got my laptop over the summer, so when I wander back there I tend to forget just how bad the power is around my computer.

Now I do not consider myself unusual, and I am sure many of us are in the same situation. We all went out and got a six-strip outlet for our computer stuff, yet it seems that I do not have room for all the stuff I need to plug in that is computer related. Oh, did I mention I have 2 six-strip outlets?

Allow me to explain. Now my old computer & monitor (2 plugs) were not too bad, and if I had my laptop back there that would only take 1 of those 2 slots. However it is all the other crap, err computer hardware, that is the problem.

Now, like many others, I have a printer, a Palm (Tungsten T3), a wireless router and cable modem. I also have small Brothers label printer and a Bluetooth master unit for my printer. I have not hooked up the Zip drive to the new machine, so at least I am getting a little relief.

Now my cable modem has the right idea - the transformer is small and is a little bigger than a standard plug. My laptop also has the right idea - there is a short line running between the plug and the transformer so it only takes up 1 spot. Contrast that with my HP 5550 printer. The plug & transformer are all one unit that takes up 4 slots on my one strip. It plugs into 1, blocks 2 others with the transfer and 1 other with the wire. Likewise everything else pretty much takes 2 spots, or at least requires some creative use of the 1 outlet items to get everything to fit in.

Now, realisticly, how much could say 3 foot of electric cord and a plug cost? Let's be generious and say a buck. How many of us would be willing to pay even an extra $3 or $4 for this? I would. Hey, if I am already spending around $100 for a piece of equipment, and extra $3 is not that bad.

Maybe someday we will figure out how to beam power wirelessly. Until then we are stuck with a jumble of wires.

Also, the next person who suggests using a generic power supply for a printer (or whatever) should be hung by his own intestines. Come on - print the name of your company on the damn power supply people!