I own a Canon PIXMA iP4500 printer. It’s been one of the better printers I’ve owned in my lifetime.

Wife was printing some things and was getting new and interesting errors from the printer. I toyed around a bit, looked up the error code, and it seems the print head is kaput. I tried some tips I found online for cleaning it… figured there’d be no harm. No luck.

So I need a new one.

But I can’t get a new one.

I can’t find any for sale anywhere.

Reason? It appears all the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan have (naturally) destroyed the supply chain. There’s of course no telling when life in Japan will return to “normal”, and thus I could get a replacement part.

It seems I may have to buy a new printer, but… what prevents the same problem there?

Shows how fragile and interconnected we are, doesn’t it?