If files don't exist, can I drag them out of a folder and throw them
away?

As the weeks roll by and I am still unable to find a solution on how to
kill the Brother file hl1650lpr, I take solace in the fact that this
problem and its subsequent error messages have been around since at
least August 2005!

Variations revolve around "E: The package WHATEVER
needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an archive for it."

So, wasting a few more days, I finally found some files
in /var/lib/dpkg/info

hl1650lpr.postrm a 63 bytes shell script

hl1650lpr.prerm an 86 bytes shell script

hl1650lpr.postinst 115 bytes shell script

hl1650lpr.list 11 bytes plain text document

hl1650lpr.conffiles 0 bytes plain text document

Attempting to uninstall them using dpkg doesn't work because the files
were never installed.

OK that makes sense. Using force isn't going to help.....

Attempting to sudo rm the files doesn't work because there is no such
file or directory.....

Well, I have the files, and I traced the directory
to /var/lib/dpkg/info.

Using Apt-get sudo apt-get remove any of these files
[sudo] password for accidental1:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: The package hl1650lpr needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an
archive for it.

So, can I attempt to drag the files to the trash, or will that act make
my Ubuntu even more VISTA-like?