“Do you take an aspirin every day,” my mother asked. “You have to take one every day.” She had just told the sad story of a 43 year old neighbor who died last week of a massive heart attack. I assured Mom I do take a 81mg “enteric” aspirin and a multivitamin daily. Overall my health is good (insert mental health joke here…), but I’ve got to crank up the exercise regime soon.

Speaking of cranking, you know that noise a washing machine makes when you’re setting it to “Regular,” “Heavy” or “Permanent Press?” Well, actually it’s the older top-loading versions that make that distinct noise, so when mine went silent last Saturday I had to act fast to avoid a Laundromat encounter. “Joe” arrived punctually at 8:00am this past Friday morning and perfectly leveled my sweet new “Energy StarGE front loading washing machine. I couldn’t have been more excited to do laundry. It doesn’t rock, but man, it rolls! My preliminary testing shows it:

  • operates nearly silently
  • uses very little water per wash
  • spins out almost all water at 950RPM
  • is just really cool to stare into

A full load of sheets and pillowcases was so dry post-spin, they took only 15 minutes in the dryer! I’m very happy with all the energy savings this bad boy provides. Sadly however, my excitement has officially sud-sided and the activity is relegated back to being “just laundry.”

Imagine if you will, this playing live continuously in your dwelling. Yes, the “distant chromatic rumblings of a double bass, gradually coalescing into the droning march for the shark, offset by dissonant seventh chords.”1. Exactly. Well, the lovely and talented Jessica taught her brother Kyle to play those deep strings on his new Yamaha keyboard. It’s a very cool unit and has been added to the home repertoire to allow the young maestro to create…

Any regular visitor to this corner of the Internet knows Kyle loves music and singing. Gladly, I captured his holiday performance, but the JVC Everio HDD recorder I purchased for the occasion fell far short on video quality and is now probably on eBay after a return to Best Buy for a $75 “restocking fee.” Hey, twenty five bucks a minute for that moment in time was well worth it…

Ok, just one more product plug… I recently received my W2 and other tax-related documents. For the past several years, I’ve used TurboTax to prepare my taxes. How do you do your taxes?

1. Copyright 2000 by Andrew Drannon