gosh, i'm so annoyed today! some time ago we acquired a lovely A3 Epson flatbed scanner: a bit of a beast, as it goes. she was worth nearly as much as our car back in 1997 (ah, the good old days!). with assurance from our benefactor that she is in working order, we set about finding her a new home on the carpet of the landing, where through the ensuing five or six weeks, she acquired a coarse layer of household dust (coarse because it consisted of identifiable items like pet hair and specks of cat litter... nice). but she was always in our view, as she was camped expectantly outside our bedroom door, much like her new compatriots, daisy and rufus the cats. (only difference is that the scanner did not claw at the carpet as soon as we stir in the mornings, begging for affection: she had written herself off long ago, 'neglect' being the place she had resigned herself to five years earlier).
it's hard to ignore a 25kg hunk of office beige metal outside your bedroom door for too long (we tried), but there was little point of introducing her to her adoptive mother, as she was missing an umbilicus: it would be cruel to place them together with no means of communication and electronic sustenance. at least in the hallway, she was cushioned with carpeting.
we duly acquired the necessary cable to unite scanner and cpu: like a nearly-fledged cuckoo chick she is far larger than the adoptive mother from which she will feed.
the preparation is complete: cable attached, power lead inserted, scanner driver downloaded - even instruction booklet downloaded and glanced at! (caring parents indeed!). the scanner comes to life! she hums and whirrs and even emits light to prove she is ready. yet she has been cruelly rejected by the computer. "there is a TWAIN error" (code for "i do not want to know - you already have a scanner, we don't need another one: i have already two printers connected and many obsolete printer drivers and god knows what else cluttering up my addled brain - i'm tired! leave me alone!").
we will leave her alone for tonight. we have tried everything including the classic restart option. i plan to mount a surprise attack some day next week when she's not expecting it - maybe when she's had some rest.
and if you think i'm guilty of anthropomorphosising my computer hardware, wait to you hear the conversations my cats have with each other!
following my return from a wonderful break in cornwall, where i was lucky enough to see some cornish choughs in the wild (see photo), i have resumed my work on the drawing of the amur leopard.
i had previously let this go by without mention, but since my taking part in amateur dramatics forms a significant part of my creative persona, it would seem amiss not to say something about my having played the part of cinderella in a pantomime last month! it was rather fun and presented me with my first acting role since i was a child. it's been great for building my confidence, and now i'm looking for a bigger challenge by trying to get a role in a musical. here are a couple of photos of me as 'cinders'.
well, here's the finished drawing - scanned at a local print shop and darkened slightly at home: this is as close as i can get it to the tones of the original (previous scans below are a bit lighter).
