Hide the menus. Fixing My Deskjet

So one fine day, I click on "print" to get hardcopy of a spread sheet.  The D4260 whirs and thrashes and out comes a nearly blank sheet of page.  One a single number prints, everything else is blank.  I futz around with Excel's format menu, thinking the maybe the text color had been changed to white-on-white or something. Finally I change the text color to blue, and lo and behold, it prints. 
  Ah, the black ink cartridge must have run out.  So, next trip to Wally Mart, I buy an new one.  Only the new one doesn't match the number on the old one exactly.  It's close and I think it ought to work, so I pay $19 for it. 
  Once back home I am happy to find the new cartridge clips right into the printer, so far so good.  I haven't totally wasted $19 on a cartridge that won't fit.  Then I think I might print a test page, just to make sure the new black ink cartridge works. 
  Used to be, you clicked on Start, Settings, Printer and Faxes, and obtained a list of all the printers and pseudo printers on your machine.  And, there was a check box to print a test page for each device. 
  Not any longer.  You have to right click on the printer, select "Printer Preferences" and then "Features" and then "Printer Services" and then "Device Services" to get to a menu offering to print a test page.  It takes a while to find my way this deep into the bowels of HP's user friendliness.  I hit "Test Page".  The printer whirres and thrashes and I get a test page that is all in color.  No black. 
   This has gotta mean that the new black cartridge ain't working.  Does it not?  I remove the cartridge to make sure I have removed the factory shipping seal over the ink holes.  No joy, the seal has been removed and there is even a little wet ink to blacken my finger.
  I decide not to trust the HP test page and open up Word for Windows and print a short document.  That works.  Hurrah. 
  Sometimes I get nostalgic for the good old Centronics 101 dot matrix printers. 

Gas Tax Hike, WMUR

WMUR had a couple of gas taxers on.  They want a $0.15 cent a gallon hike in the state gasoline tax,  The excuse given is that our roads and bridges are all falling down and in need of money.  The real reason is they want the money to finish widening I93 south of Manchester.  That project is pretty much at a stand still. 
  But we had money to replace a tiny little bridge on Three Mile Hill over the Gale River, to replace an elegant steel truss bridge over the Ammonusuc out by Lahout's with a boring  highway style I beam bridge, and we were able to repave US 302, I-93, and NH Rt 18.  All of this work in just in the last couple of seasons.  Far as I can see our roads and bridges are in decent shape up here.  Far better shape than anything around New York City.  
   Another downside, all the revenue dedicated to the highway fund, whether it needs it or not.  Give 'em money and they will spend it.  There is always something you can do.   We would save money if the highway department had to come to the legislature and justify each project they want to do.  Give our legislature a chance to veto some of the real pork projects. 
Everyone wants earmarked money, money they can count on getting, the schools, the highway, the police, all of 'em want guaranteed money that they don't have to justify to the legislature, the taxpayers, and the press. I don't see why they should get it.

Beat the Press

David Gregory was on air, harassing John Bohner about the sequester.  The usual things were said.   What Bohner did not say is sorta interesting.  Bohner did not say that the sequester was small and he did not say that the sequester was all about fake cuts, after sequester the US government will spend more than it spent last year.  In short, the sequester is about chicken feed.
   So John Bohner is perfectly happy to have a not-very-important issue taking up air time and the limited attention span of TV newsies.  Does this mean Bohner thinks he "won" on the sequester? 

Dr. Suess revival

Saturday Wall St Journal, Best selling hard cover fiction.  We have Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish, Blue Fish, The Cat in the Hat, Fox in Sox, Dr .Suess's ABC, and Hop on Pop. These took places 2,3,5,7,8,10.   The good doctor took 6 out of 10 spots this weekend.  All of these are old favorites that I remember reading aloud to my children back in the day.  Dunno what this means in the larger scheme of things.  AS you might guess, no Dr. Suess books made in the Fiction E-books list.  Which figures, it's hard to imagine reading Dr. Suess to small children off a Kindle. 

Cannon Mt Ski Weather

We didn't get any snow.  Despite Winter Storm Warnings, clever weather maps, endless babbling by TV newsies, no snow.  Its beautiful, sun is out, icicles are dripping, tramway is taking a day off.  But no snow.  There is plenty left on the mountain, but it would have been nice to get that foot of new snow the TV promised but failed to deliver.

Why have they not discovered a "root cause"?

For the lithium battery problem on the 787?  According to yesterday's Wall St Journal, the National Transportation Safety Board doesn't have anyone who knows anything about batteries or lithium, or even lithium batteries.  They are much more complex than those lead acid car batteries whose chemistry we learned in high school.  At least at my high school.
  Apparently both the Japanese and US safety boards have a single charred battery, taken from a 787, sitting on the bench, looking burnt.  The investigators have no clue as the how they came to catch fire.  And that's where it stands.  They haven't taken the batteries apart, analyzed the charcoal for dendrites, molten lithium, or whatever, 'cause they don't know how.
Gonna be a long time before those 787's fly again.

Feds and Staties go after Fung Wah Bus

The cheapest trip between Boston and NYC is the Chinatown bus, fare go as low a $10 one way a couple of years ago.  It's still cheaper than the Hound, Trailways, Amtrak, or flying.  Fung Wah has been running for at least ten years that I know of.
   According to the Wall St Journal, the Massachusetts authorities have petitioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to take 21 of Fung Wah's 28 buses off the road for cracked frames.  The Feds obliged by shutting down all 28 Fung Wah buses.
  Fung Wah says service is continuing using chartered buses.
  Someone made the right campaign contributions.  Or failed to make them.