i heart my doxie scanner (a geeky review).

I ordered a doxie scanner back in mid-August (even though their website clearly stated that the scanner of my dreams was on back order and wouldn't ship until the second week of September).  Going with the "if it's sold out it must be good principle" I decided I must! have! this!.  Geeky, yes.  But I've never had a scanner (not even one of those old ones that is as big as a microwave).  And it's wee, fits in a laptop bag AND HAS BUTTON WITH A PINK <3 BUTTON ON IT!

The notification email that it had shipped came on September 4th (squee!! early!!).  It got to Canadian customs on the 12th (huh?).  Then it sat there for 10 whole days waiting to clear (wtf?).  I checked the shipping status every damn day until low and behold, the US Postal Service website said that my beloved scanner had finally been released from the clutches of whoever it is that sits on shipments at the border (come to think of it they were probably photocopying their asses and then scanning their photocopies with my sweet innocent virgin doxie).  Jerks!

Anyway, when I checked the mail today, there was a notice to come pick up a parcel.  That means one thing - time to pay to get my doxie out of hock.  $22.24 later, she was all mine.  Cam was pretty excited because the box had pink writing on it and a heart over the i.  I'm with her - love at first sight.

While Cam watched Beauty and the Beast, I hooked up my doxie, read the instructions and got to sweet beautiful scanning. The first thing I scanned? Two quilt patterns that I have now purchased twice because I misplaced them which made the fabric I had purchased completely useless. Now that they are scanned, I know I will never lose them again, because that is how things work. Then I scanned a picture of Scott from when he was the same age Cam is now (2.5 years old). When I showed Cam this picture and asked her who it was she said "Cami!". I guess we know which parent she takes after.  (Everybody together now - "awhhhhhh").

I am pleased to report that the doxie lives up to all the hype.  It is easy to use, produces top quality scans and is compact.  Also, for all those guys who are afraid their penises will fall off if they use a scanner that has hearts on it, not to worry - it comes with manly wood grained and zebra print stickers to cover up the ever so cute hearts

Note: I was not paid to write this post.  I am just a really big geek.  But man, if the folks at doxie wanted to say, give me one of these super duper scanners to give away on my site? I would TOTALLY be into that and I NEVER say that.  Lol.  I don't think they need any help from lil' ol' me.

nip and tuck.

I'm a little late to the party on this one (like 2 months), (but I'm not known as one who arrives on time so at the very least I'm consistent). The folks at blogger.com have been busy bees lately, making all sorts of updates available for bloggers like me who couldn't be bothered to move over to wordpress or typepad for additional functionality. The good news, is that now I don't really have to. The only feature I wanted that blogger didn't offer in its off-the-shelf templates was the ability to have static pages and a horizontal nav across the top of your blog. That bugged me because to have an "About Me" type page I had to create a post, which wasn't really want I wanted, so I never did. The other option would have been to start monkeying around with html, which isn't really where I want to spend my time.  I have always stood by the motto "if you write it, they will come".  It doesn't matter how pretty your site is.  In fact, nobody cares about that if the content is top notch.

Anyway, along with the static pages, they added a whole bunch of other hoo-ha. Like colour pickers and new ways to share your stuff through different social media channels. Embedding videos is easier as is uploading and editing images. The one thing they haven't done that bugs me is make it so you can add gadgets on the new static pages. I would love to make a blog roll page, but I'm not about to recreate all my link lists so for now they will stay put in the right margin. 

If you are interested, the header is now updated (thanks Chris!) so the kids look their age (and in Scott's opinion "French").  I have also added some ego booster pages about me, who everyone I talk about is, Max's journey from diagnosis to present, quotes I dig, and my bucket list (and if you have any really cool things you think I should add to that, let me know!).  So, have a look around, enjoy, try the veal, I'll be here all week.