Bleeding Ink

So when we came to Bangkok, I bought an Epson printer (yes, I know, but I was naive). I've been becoming gradually more astounded by its increasing ability to drink ink. And the refills are ludicrously expensive, even here, in the land of cheapness. The final straw came when one of the separate colour cartridges ran out, and it took that as permission to completely refuse to print a black-and-white page.
Determined to fund Epson's greed no longer, I purchased a Defeat-Epson pack from our local mall. Now, I'm not sure of the legality of this - Epson certainly make it tough to crack their system - but I'd had enough. In the pack you get refillable cartridges, a battery-operated chip reprogrammer, hypodermic syringes, and a year's supply of ink. And all for less than an Epson cartridge.
It's all a bit involved - you have to prise the chips off a genuine Epson cartridge, reprogram them, insert the chips in the new cartridges and finally fill with ink. Not being a medic or a drug-user, I'd never really used hypodermic needles before. But one thing I can attest to - they are sharp. Luckily, the needle accident involving most significant loss of blood occurred as I was filling the red cartridge, so print quality shouldn't be degraded too badly.