Check this out:

From left to right, that is Aunt Shirley, my cousin Joyce, and my cousin (at the time) Judy. Not pictured is Denise Richards.

That there is a scan from a 35mm slide, scanned by my brand new Canon CanoScan 8400F! The slide was taken in 1980.

“Whoa there, Dave!” you’re saying. “As a longtime reader of this site, I happen to know that you HAVE a scanner already! Specifically, you have an HP 4670 that you conned your dad into buying for you!”

Well, Narrator McExpository, you only know half the story, because I only told half the story! In this issue: Untold Secrets of Dave’s Scanner!

The short version is: the HP 4670 is crap. You can barely see them in the scan in the post I linked to above, but it kept scanning with vertical bands through the picture. And the slide scans were just awful. I tried everything I could to no avail. I let HP take a crack at it, and they sent me a replacement scanner — no dice. An online search revealed many people having this problem with the HP scanner. So I ultimately just boxed it up and sent it back to Newegg, who refunded my cash without even a stupid restocking fee!

I then asked around at work and elsewhere for recommendations and got a tip on the CanoScan. This time I dug deeper, found only rave reviews, crossed my fingers, and ordered. It came yesterday, I hooked it up last night, and I’m pleased as extra-pleased punch with the results. It even scans four slides at once!

So yay, new scanner! At last!

Incidentally, regarding the title of this post, I wanted to make sure I was referencing the book correctly, so:

08:00:28 [legomancer] it is with some trepidation that I now do a Google search for “scanner dick”