FYI, offsetting your "carbon footprint" is absolutely stupid. If you want to plant a tree go ahead, if you want dell to plant a tree for you, that's fine. But the fact that they put crap like this out there so people can feel better about themselves sickens me.
Me and two other dudes, Chuck and Adrian are going to be doing a podcast in the near future. MBP = Most Ballerness Podcast... following in the naming footsteps of TRS... the Totally Rad Show. The content is not set in stone, and we will see where things go. If people out there actually read my blog, you can put your ideas in the comments.
I am sitting here in my room, with a glass of Jim Beam on the rocks in a low ball glass. To start I'm not much for complicated mixed drinks that end up being the same alcohol percentage as beer, but contain lots of sugar and taste far worse. I prefer the taste of whiskey (or whisky) untainted by sweet carbonated beverages. This philosophy carries over into other alcoholic beverages, namely the Martini.
For the past few years I have been complaining about my friends, acquaintances, and drinking establishments *cough* The Library *cough* who believe for a drink to be classified as a Martini, all that is needed is for it to be served in a Martini glass. (A sidenote, it is approproate to call a Martini glass a Cocktail glass.) Ok now let me debunk this assumption. Lets say that I mixed up a Long Island Ice Tea into a beer stein, and handed it to you, would that drink now be considered beer? No, not at all. So we are in agreement, the glass that a drink is served in does not determine the name of it's contents. If this is true why are people taking their cocktails and masquerding them under the name "Martini".
A Martini consists of gin and vermouth, and can be garnished with various objects, including olive, onions, and lemon twists. Although I am not a fan, a Vodka Martini, is a proper and approproate name for a drink because it is exactly what it describes, a Martini with Vodka in place of the Gin. While a Vodka Martini is not a true Martini, not everyone has the palate for Gin.
My disappointment came to a head when I was in a bar and asked the bartender for a rail Martini; they asked me if I wanted vodka or gin. The sad part is that it's probably not the bartneder's fault, I would guess they make far more Vodka Martinis and cocktails called Martinis than the only true Martini. Gin and vermeuth.
I will leave you with my recipe for making the perfect Martini and a Quote from B.F. Pierce(a character from the TV show M*A*S*H)
-Fill a cocktail shaker with ice
-Take 1 to 3 oz of dry vermouth and pour it into the shaker
-Shake violently 4 or 5 times
-Drain the vermouth from the container into the sink... Whatever sticks to the ice cubes is the perfect ammount for your Martini
-Add 5oz of Gin
-Shake about 5 times, it is not necessary to overdo the shaking, it will just water down the Gin
-Strain the contents into a Cocktail glass
-Garinish with 0 to 3 green olives on a toothpick
-Enjoy
"The only green vegetables I get are Martini olives." --B.F. Pierce (M*A*S*H)
1. Elton John - Levon
2. Joe Cocker - With a Little Help From My Friends
3. Rod Stewart - Maggie May
4. Buffalo Springfield - For What it's Worth
5. Bad Company - Feel Like Making Love
6. Bob Seger - Against The Wind
7. Foghat - Slow Ride
8. Van Morrison - Moondance
9. Chicago - Saturday in the Park
10. George Througood - Bad to the Bone
11. Van Morrison - Into the Mystic
12. The Cars - Let the Good Times Roll
13. Credence Clearwater Revival - Down on the Corner
14. Bob Seger - Old Time Rock and Roll
It's a pretty mellow CD, I listened through it at work today, everytime the next song comes on I say in my head "oh man this is a great song"... That's how I know the CD is good.
I finally received my Dell E4300, after weeks of waiting for it to release, and waiting for over a week for DHL to get it here, I have it. First impressions, the brushed metal exterior looks stunning, and the build quality seems to be top notch. Everything uses Blue LEDs which look awesome, including the power adapter. It's a nice change from the green LEDs Dell use to use. The keyboard is about the best I have ever used in a laptop, and the keys don't feel all plasticy. My biggest disappointment so far is the battery. Before ordering the laptop, I called Dell and specifically asked if the 6 cell battery would change the foot print of the computer, they said it would not. Then I restated the question, and asked if the battery would stick out of the computer, they said it would not. Well guess what, the battery changes the footprint of the computer, and freaken sticks out. It would be nice for laptop manufactures to be truthful when you are ordering your computers, and tell you that it sticks out. The same thing happened to my friend who ordered a Dell D430 with a larger battery, he was unaware it would be change the footprint of the laptop. The 6 cell option was only 20$ more than the 3 cell, and I wouldn't mind the extra weight, but because it sticks out it makes the laptop look ugly and is less portable.
Next, the balance of the laptop is great. It doesn't feel like it's going to fall off your lap, it's balanced left to right and front to back. Great design. This is something I feel laptop reviewers don't talk about enough. I have used some laptops where the battery is on one side, and it makes it impossible to use on your lap, because it always wants to fall on the floor.
Also, speaking of using it on your lap. Lowest heat output of any laptop I have used in the past 5 years. Laptops keep getting hotter, and nobody seems to care that much. My brother's Macbook Pro burns your fingers, and is unusable when playing games. I was running BOINC on my machine (both cores at 100%) and the laptop just kicked the heat out the side, no big deal.
Since I've had the laptop for about 24 hours now, I found some things I don't like. The keyboard and case really absorbs fingerprints. My fat McDonalds fry eating American fingers really do a number to the laptop. Also, if you tap your finger on the front palm rests of the computer, it clinks a little bit. Not noticeable in everyday situations, but a sign of not perfect build quality.
On to the nerdy stuff. Mmmmmm. The LED backlit screen. If you are buying a laptop and you don't think it's worth it to spend a hundred dollars or so on a LED backlit screen, you are wrong. It looks awesome and is worth it both for the battery savings and the look. The resolution is slightly disappointing at 1280x800 (note the 12.1" E4200 has the same resolution... which I think is awesome), falling a little short of the Lenovo x300 and x301, but it still looks great, and is useful for most things. Next it has DDR3 memory, which is more expensive, but the ram in my laptop is almost the same speed as the ram in my desktop. It's got the new Intel GS45 chipset. I opted for the cheap integrated Intel graphics chipset. I presume that it will save battery at the sacrifice of 3D performance, which I don't really care about because I have a desktop for gaming. The laptops have an option for a fingerprint reader and a webcam, but neither of these interest me so I opted out. It has the "Dell Lattitude On" technolgoy, but they have yet to deploy it. What they say it will be is a linux operating system running on an ARM processor that w
ill give you instant access to web browsing and email. Sounds interesting, we'll see how it works when it releases in November (hopefully). One interesting thing is that the laptop has an ESATA port shared with a USB port. The ESATA allows extremely fast transfer speeds on an external hard drive, the speed is the same as if the drive was internal to the computer.
That's about all the writing about my laptop I will do for today... But I'll leave you with the specs on the one I ordered.
Latitude E4300, Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300, w/ Latitude ON 2.26GHz, 1066MHz, 6M L2 Cache Dual Core
2.0GB, DDR3-1066 SDRAM, 1 DIMMfor Latitude (will probably upgrade this to 4GB soon)
Internal Backlit English Keyboard for Latitude E4300
Documentation (English) Latitude E-Family/Mobile Precision
Mobile Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD , Latitude E4300
60gb SSD (replaced the 4200rpm 80gb HD)
Black Wide Screen WXGA LCD Panel with Latitude ON with WLAN AND WWAN
Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth Module, Latitude E4X00
Dell Latitude ON Reader Latitude E4X00
90W 3-Pin, AC Adapter for Latitude E-Family
US - 3-FT, 3-Pin Flat E-FamilyPower Cord for Latitude E-Family
8X DVD+/-RW, Black, Latitude E4300
WWAN Capable without card for Latitude E4300
Dell WLAN 1510 (802.11a/b/g/n 2X3) 1/2 MiniCard for LatitudeE/Mobile Precision
6-Cell/56-WHr Battery for Latitude E4300
Neoprene Sleeve 13.3 inch for Latitude E4300
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
Dell Hardware Limited Warranty Plus Onsite Service Extended Year(s)
Dell Hardware Limited Warranty Plus Onsite Service Initial Year
CompleteCare Accidental Damage Protection, 4 Year Info, Complete Care
US - 3-FT, 3-Pin Flat E-FamilyPower Cord for Latitude E-Family
65W Additional 3-Pin, AC Adapter for Latitude E-Family
Latitude E4300 Color - BrushedMetal Black
Oh Hardees... When you feel like you don't want to compromise on a breakfast sandwich, Hardees is there to save you. The Monster Biscuit, with bacon, ham, sausage, eggs and cheese. What more could you want?
What is even better is that it looks the same in person as it does in this delicious picture. Hardees if you are reading this please send me coupons for free Monster Biscuits, cause I could eat them every morning.
In case you haven't read the news in the past 2 weeks, I'll give you a 1 sentence rundown of what's going on. The investment banks and the economy are tanking and the government wants to take away $700,000,000,000 from the tax payers and "fix" everything.
On a side note, I feel the we are jaded because we just keep reading "700 Billion dollars"... 700 Billion dollars includes lot of zeros, and I think we should have to use numerical notation.
On to what I think. If you can't already tell, I am completely against this bailout, and what sickens me even more is that the party that I affiliate myself with is supporting this, namely the President. There is no way around it, this is flat out socialism. The government has decided it can handle your money far better than you ever could.
Ron Paul says it best with this Quote from a CNN opinion piece "Using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase illusory short-term security, the government is actually ensuring even greater instability in the financial system in the long term."
The government is trying to put through a policy that has the potential to cause another depression of the economy.
And on a less serious note, an 11 year old kid was suspended for wearing a shirt that said "Obama a Terrorist's best friend" -- (I realize this is a first amendment thing, and can be important, but I saw humor in it more than I saw social issues.)