Just as I was about to go to bed last night, I had an epiphany. Well maybe not, but I did suddenly remember I still had an old HP Deskjet 500C sitting in a closet. Since my Canon BJC-5100 is MIA, maybe I could ressurect the old beast for one last kick at the can. After dusting the large, dusty thing off, I had to tear apart my apartment searching for the power cord. Finally found the strange doohickey. It's a long, thick cord with a massive brick right in the middle. It terminates with a bizarre right-angle plug, that inserts into the bottom of the machine! Who the hell designed this thing? I just unhooked the parallel cord from my dead Canon and it fit into the HP. Installing drivers was a breeze. Then I spent a few hours trying to get some old cartridges working. No luck, so I went to Staples again today, picked up a cheaper knock-off refill cart and voilà! I can print! [ugly, low-rez printing, but hey]