(The antediluvian computer is called the Tomba 5000, because the monitor is trimmed with pink fur. Don't even ask. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Actually, most of the fur has fallen off by now. All the non-screen surface area of this monitor is sort of greyish brown and sticky. But it will always be the Tomba 5000.)

Somehow, D and CJ were talking, and it turns out the Tomba 5000 still has a bunch of games no one has seen in about 40 million years. Any recent computer would look at these games as if they were Indian arrowheads or something.

"Ah, yes. Very quaint. 20 MB of disk space. How amusing. Wait, you want me to actually run this piece of crap for you? Here I am, brain the size of a small planet, and you want me to play a game with graphics like that? I'm sorry, but I just can't be that stupid for you." According to CJ, the games are simply not advanced enough for a reasonably up-to-date computer to comprehend.

CJ took the Tomba 5000 home with him. He's got a spare monitor, and he wants to spend a few days living in the past.

There is a point to this story, I swear. I'll be getting to it any minute now.

While I was trying to figure out how to disentangle the Tomba 5000's cords, I discovered it was attached to a printer. A printer?? I have a printer?? When did this happen?

(There is also a printer attached to the current computer. It was a hand- me-down from my parents maybe a year ago. About 6 months ago, I finally got around to making it work, and discovered that if there had ever been any software, I didn't have it now. My parents insisted that they'd sent over everything. I sighed, and began my new life with a printer-shaped paperweight.)

So. The Tomba 5000 also had its own printer. I tried desperately to remember if I had ever used it. I was pretty sure I did, at least once. That meant, there was a reasonable chance that I still had software for it.

I found software for a third printer, and two manuals that didn't go along with any of it. One of the manuals was for a dot matrix. Does anyone on the planet still have a dot matrix printer? If you do, drop me a line. I've probably got at least one manual for it.

I'm afraid to look anymore. I suppose that the way today has been going, there's a chance I'll still find the printer I have the software for around here somewhere. Or, I might just find a dozen other things that look suspiciously like printers, but without even a single installation disk among them.

I have given up ever finding a reasonable explanation for this. My home is where old printers go to die. You've heard of the Planet of Lost Socks? I've got the Land of Mismatched Printer Technologies. They just sort of spontaneously appear, spew out of some infernal printer vortex behind the desk. Or maybe George is building random printers and manuals out of old hairballs while we're asleep, for reasons of his own.

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