Rube Goldberg for Regulation Writing or doodle from long meeting

All kidding aside, I love to doodle. Perhaps I am in training as a tattoo artist for a future life. Something about fluidity and lines. A long weekend ahead and I am looking forward to a purchasing a new printer. I am excited. I am going to buy a photo printer.

I have been looking at bottom of the line photo printers; one for photo hackers like myself. I generally use a commercial service for photographers when I print "real photos"; they give me beautiful photos for a great price. It's just every now and then, I want to print something at home, or I want to print something in a large format, something larger than 8.5" X 11". I have found that wide format printers are rather obscure. I have a budget of $200 to $400 dollars for a printer that works; that is not a 12-month throw away printer. I want a printer work-horse. I have been to Best Buy, Fry's Office Max, Office Depot, Wal-Mart, Target, and the out to the World Wide Web. I found a plethora of great multi-function printers. They print, fax, scan, phone, copy, and brew your morning coffee. Virtually null, that does one thing really well. What I need is a heavy duty photo printer; one that print photos and on paper (either roll or sheets up to 13" X 19"). I am leaning towards the Epson Stylus Photo 1400, not that I had many choices for this type of printer, perhaps in my price range 2-4 printers. You can get a multi-function printer/ wizard/ coffee-maker for $ 79.00 at any super mart-yet it is damn near impossible to get a wide format photo printer for less than 400 dollars. There is an inherit expectation in our society that more is better. I am not so sure. What has happened to the art of specialty? The art of doing one thing exceptionally well? I have owned 3 printers in the last 5 years, all "photo quality" all multi-function(one even capable of 8.5 " X 14" prints). All crap. All worked great out of the box, all needing band-aids within a year of purchase. I am tired of throw-away printers; I find it offensive that the life expectancy of these devices is so short-lived. I can remember when you could purchase something that did one thing exceptionally well for a lower price than a multi-function device. It's not just printers, its phone, its computer, its cable. It’s an epidemic. I have always defined myself more of a jack-of-all trades; master of none sort of person. I want to know what has happened to the masters. If you find one ask them to build this jack-of-all trades a printer.