Milk Madness
We can land a man on the moon, spray cheese out of a can, and nearly eradicate Smallpox from the face of the earth... Yet, we cannot develop a clean 1-gallon milk delivery system. Is it that hard to create a gallon container with a spout on the front? Apparently, it is.
Instead, we're left with the imperfect plastic jug method. Oh sure, it sounds great: Plastic is recyclable, it has a handle, and you can recap it in between servings. But underneath this cuddly plastic layer is a demon. A demon just waiting to make a mess of your refrigerator and countertops. I speak the truth!
First, let's take a look at the non-spouted circular opening at the top of the jug. This horrific abomination is the cause of dribbling! You know what I'm talking about. You tip the jug forwards to pour milk into your favorite cereal and everything is going fine. But, when you move the jug back into the upright position... BAM! A few drops of milk dribble down the front of the jug. Now your cereal is getting soggy while you mop up the front of the jug and clean up your countertops. After all, it's milk. You can't just leave it. You'll end up with white crusty crap all over your counters and the outside of the milk jug.
And that brings us to point two. After pouring from the container, you slap that cap back on the top. "Yes!" you think, "I'm sealing in freshness!" HA! Sure, that might be the case, but you're also bringing the cap into contact with wet milk that has collected around the rim. The gallon of milk goes back in the refrigerator, where it's left for a number of hours. When you come back to pour yourself some additional milk, that's when the diabolical designs kick in...
The once wet milk has dried around the rim! You now have crusty dried milk in and around your precious resealing system. As soon as you crack that cap, you're inundated by a cloud of dried milk particles. It's everywhere. Chunks fall on the counter, fly onto your clothing, skid onto the floor, and sometimes they even fall into your glass or cereal. This happens every single time. There is no escape. It's severity is only dictated by the fat content of your milk. Skim milk is less likely to create large volumes of milk dust, while whole milk condenses into prodigious piles of potentially pollutive particles.
I now ask you... Band together. Let us stop this milk madness. If enough of us write our local dairies, we may soon see the dawning of a new age. An age free of the horrid 1-gallon plastic non-spouted jug. Someday, we may all pour milk into our Cocoa Krispies, free from the shackles of mental anguish and reassured that future pourings shall also be as such.
It is the right way. The only way. Let us make our cow brethren proud. I feel confident that they will be moo-ved by our resolve.
A Tchaikovsky I'm Not
In another one of my "quest for knowledge" moments earlier this week, I decided I'd try to learn to play the piano. I picked up some books and read those while I waited for a keyboard to arrive via mail order. Seeing as how I have absolutely zero previous music experience, this should be a real joy early on in the learning process. I can't read music, I don't know chords, all piano keys look alike to me, and I've never seriously attempted to play an instrument before. At least I'm not tone-deaf. That's a plus.
I picked up a Yamaha DGX-203 keyboard and a stand yesterday, and I promptly set it up against the wall in my dining room. After dealing with the learning curve of the keyboard itself (the amount of buttons and functions on this thing is ridiculous), I set forth on my journey to figure out what the hell I was doing from Alfred's Adult Piano Course.
I ended up playing for about 3-4 hours yesterday evening. I still have no idea how to read music, but I can sort of play a staggered version of "Jingle Bells" by looking at how the notes are positioned in relation to each other. Making my hands operate independently is the real challenge. My respect level for pianists has gone through the roof in the past 24 hours. How the heck can you be hitting three keys at the same time with your left hand, while your right hand is tapping away on 2-3 other separate keys? I think this answers the question as to whether or not I'm naturally ambidextrous.
But, there is some good news: I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance.
No, wait... That's not it. Damn those Geico commercials. The good news is that I've been researching how other self-instructed pianists have been progressing on the Piano World forums. It looks like I can expect to play a semi-respectable piece about a year from now. Yep. Just 365 days... Looks like I have some work in front of me. But, hey, as long as I'm having fun with it, I could care less.
Gateway CX200X
Okay, I promised you a review of my new Gateway laptop/tablet PC, so here it is. If you happen to be buying a new laptop in the near future, this might just help you out.
The Gateway CX200 series laptop is advertised as a "Convertible Notebook." This means it can be used as both a standard laptop (L-shape, with active keyboard) and tablet (single-slab, hiding keyboard, touch-pen interface). This is very handy for people who like to take notes at the office, but wants to be able to type up a document of sorts. But, more on that later.
The model I purchased, the CX200X, is basically a beefed-up version of the regular CX200. The "X" model comes installed with a newer generation of the Pentium M processor, a DVD burner, and a slightly more spacious hard drive. I tweaked my configuration to include a faster processor (1.86GHz), more memory (1gb), and a bigger battery (12-cell).
Out of the box, the computer is a total resource hog, thanks to the ten tons of "bloatware" that Gateway installs on the system. Because I really need America Online, McAfee Anti-Virus: Trial Edition, Microsoft Works, and thirty other programs stealing precious processor cycles. Normally, I'd just reinstall the operating system from the included CD, but this is where I hit another snag. You see, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition doesn't come with a standard operating system disc. Instead, Gateway forces a "Recovery CD" on the consumer and there is no way to deny installation of the included bloatware.
At this point, I was pretty miffed, so I gave Gateway a call and complained for a half hour. The bottom line that they gave me was (and I'm paraphrasing): "Too bad."
I ended up running the recovery CD, reinstalled the operating system, and spent over an hour sorting through piles of unnecessary software on my system. I uninstalled and deleted somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 applications. Thankfully, the laptop runs much faster now.
The laptop performance is pretty darn good for my needs. I'm not the kind of person that runs a suite of benchmarking utilities, nor do I spend an afternoon testing battery life. But, a computer better stand up to my daily rigors (especially my home desktop, but that's another story). Smooth multitasking, effortless wireless connectivity, a quiet keyboard, error-free DVD encoding, quick CD/DVD burning, and stutterless DVD viewing are all an absolute must. I'm happy to say that my configuration of the Gateway CX200X meets those criteria easily.
I'm particularly surprised with the speed of the CD/DVD burner. The burning speeds nearly match the quickness of my desktop computer. In fact, my main problem is finding dual-layer DVD's that can handle the burning speeds this drive can reach. The battery life is also a big plus, as the 12-cell battery nets me nearly 5 hours of constant run time.
Let's not forget about the "convertible" functions. With the single alloy swivel hinge, it's a piece of cake to change from laptop-mode to tablet-mode. With a push of a button, I can rotate my screen orientation to match that of a standard pad of letter sized paper. The tablet pen was a little jittery at first and I think it needed a period of acclimation. Now it's quite smooth and writing on the screen is a piece of cake. It only takes me a matter of seconds to swivel my screen, change perspectives, whip the pen out, and start writing.
Why, you may ask, did I choose to go the tablet route? Why not just stick with a standard laptop? Seeing as how I do quite a bit of writing, it seemed convenient to be able to carry both a word processor and notepad together in one unit. Now I can go to the public library and jot down quick notes as I flip through a book. Once my notes have been taken, I can save/print them, and use them as a reference while I type up an article/story on Microsoft Word. Be advised, however, that writing on a laptop screen does take some getting used to. At first I was relatively worried about putting smudges on my screen, or pressing too hard with the pen. But, the screen cleans easily and is protected by a piece of hard plastic, so it's nearly impossible to damage with the pen. I'd be more worried about dropping the laptop on the floor.
Overall, the Gateway CX200 series laptop is a good bargain. You get quality components for a reasonable price. My only grief is the colossal amount of crap they load onto the computer against the buyers wishes. Gateway, for the love of everything that is holy, please include a primary operating system CD! I don't need no stinkin' recovery CD.
Final Roundup:
Build: 10 (of 10)
Price: 8 (of 10)
Software: 4 (of 10)
Performance: 9 (of 10)
User-Friendliness: 9 (of 10)
Total Rating: 40 / 50 (80%)
