Just the other day, my old HP Deskjet 5150 gave up the ghost. The color cartridge ran low, and I replaced the cartridge, and then the carriage stuck, never to move again. And I couldn’t even retrieve the unused cartridge from the old printer.

So I’ve got a new addition to my computer…an HP PSC 1610. One of those all-in-one combination printer-scanner-copier things. I’ve always been of the mind that printers, scanners, and copiers were all meant to remain separate, but this one has the potential to change my mind. Print quality is pretty darn good.

Of course, the thing I’m trying to get used to again is the scanner. I haven’t used one in ages.

Remember back in the day when scanners were all the rage, when they were THE way to get pictures into your computer? You had to make sure the picture was aligned just so, then you had to decide just how many dots per inch to scan the picture at, and then the picture would never come out just right so you would have to fiddle with it in your image editing program…

Then came the digital camera. And getting it into your computer was a matter of connecting the cable and downloading. Or putting the memory card in a card reader. Simple.

My old scanner is taking up space in the corner of my desk…and I never got around to downloading the XP driver.

So, now I’m rediscovering the joys and frustrations of scanning…maybe I’ll go find the old photo albums and try scanning some old baby photos. Maybe.

Man. It’s about f—ing time we had some good news on the anti-terrorism front. And we got a good deal of it in the past week, starting with the anti-terrorism raid in Toronto, and now, finding out that reports of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death are no longer greatly exaggerated.

It’s good news for President Bush, who gets the shot in the arm he needs, now that the anti-gay marriage amendment has been buried for now. Maybe those poll numbers can get back into the high 30s again. Maybe.

But it’s definitely good news for new Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, who was able to score a major victory for his fledgling government. Maybe, just maybe, the violence in Iraq will abate, the Iraqi police can now take control of the streets, and most of our troops can come home.

We’re not going to see changes overnight, but we now have reason to be somewhat optimistic.