The Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv2810us notebook

Not only what I would consider a good deal, the Hewlett-Packard Pavilion Laptop series, in my opinion, has been consistently the best, low-to-medium priced laptop series on the market for the past few years. Don't have 2-3 grand to drop on new laptop? Check out the Pavilion series. Last break I purchased my second Pavilion series and much like the first, it offers specs, features and performance found on it's higher-priced brothers from another mother.

My first Pavilion was the flagship 17" dv8000 model, prized for it's 17" ultra-bright widescreen and cherished for it's full keyboard and Quickplay (tm) buttons. It crunched numbers with a respectable (for the time) 1.83 GHz processor, had a ton of USB ports and came with a little media remote control that had it's own garage in the side of the laptop. My laptop came with a fucking garage and my house didn't! All this for well under $1,000.00.

Despite a few operational headaches (what computer is headache-free?) and the DVD combo drive burning out on me after 2 years, I immediately went back for more, this time around. This particular laptop purchase was motivated and restricted by the need for a lightweight and compact machine due to weight and space restrictions placed on me when traveling on small, foreign flights and especially the helicopters used to fly on and off my ships. My last rig, ensconced in it's wheeled, carry-on weighed in at a whopping 29 pounds! This, with charger, some CD's batteries, work files, book, etc., but way too heavy when I need to pack for 5-7 weeks and am limited to a total of 34 pounds. That doesn't leave much room for socks, underwear and toothpaste...

So, I went to the smaller Pavilions and liked what I saw at less than 6 pounds. Armed with this knowledge, I employed the awesome might of the Interwebs and Google, searching out every damn laptop under 7 pounds available at a TigerDirect, Circuit City, or Wally World near you. Three grand seemed to be some sort of magic number for ultra-light laptop/notebooks that came properly outfitted. I was not impressed. Additionally, many of these Vista-powered machines sported a measly 1GB RAM. A quick review of any Vista forum will inform you that Vista needs to eat damn near 1GB RAM just to sit there and look pretty. Armed with the knowledge that I didn't want, or need a $3,000.00 anchor, even if I do work at sea, I finally went back to the Pavilions.

I quickly listed a few suitably decked-out models, did some comparison shopping, reviewed the available, um, reviews and even ploughed through a few forums to glean as much helpful information as possible. I nearly settled on a special edition Pavillion that boasted 4GB RAM and a 250 GB hard-drive, but then came up against the reality that I had such a bad experience buying my last two computers online that I didn't have the balls to fork out more than the five bucks I dished out to the Death Chic(k) for this year's deathpool. Even my last Interwebs purchase of flowers for my oldest son's GF (no, I wasn't seducing her-he used my credit card, dammit) was responsible for my credit card being cancelled when the online flower company was hacked for customer credit card information.

This caused me to re-evaluate everything. You see, I live, well, really in the middle of nowhere, or at least in a place that isn't on the way to anywhere and is therefore sort of nowhere by default. Nowheresville has exactly four places that sell computers. Wally World, the pawn shop, a computer service store and an Office Max. Wally World sells 2 laptops, both totally unsuitable for my needs, configured wrong, lacking in RAM and over-priced. The pawnshop did have a hammer drill I wanted, but no laptops this time around. Used computers often come with the most interesting files and sometimes a boat-load of porn, by the way. The computer service store offered to build me a laptop at the same Pavilion specs I wanted- for $4,800.00 and my left nut, which by the way is still slightly swollen from my vasectomy and after that fiasco is worth more than it's weight in gold. Left with Office Max, I can't say I had any hope of escaping the possibility that some Glock toting dickhead with gold teeth was going to end up with my credit card info for the price of a 5-dollar rock and buy an Escalade with it.

Resolute, but disheartened,I made the trek through the wilderness to Office Max. I was more than pleasantly surprised to find they actually had a few laptops and joy, oh joy, several Pavilions, all suitably spec'd. I spent the mandatory 10 minutes politely listening to the sales kid reading off the description card while pretending to know which end of computer he'd like to loose his virginity to, memorized the specs and prices, respectfully replied, "Whatever" to his monologue, then left. The next day I stomped back in, prepared to tell the kid to shut his pie-hole and go get me the damn laptop. He wouldn't come near me and after whispering to another sales clerk, the second guy cautiously approached and asked if he could be of assistance. I asked him exactly two questions that couldn't be answered from the little card on the shelf and when he couldn't answer them, I asked for the damn box and made my way to the cashier.

Why do I mention the whole buying experience as part of the review? I just like to complain about the seemingly endless line of incompetent mohans (thats "morons" for those of you who don't know LP) that pass for sales clerks and customer service reps that try to tell me things I already know, or completely talk out of there asses about things they know absolutely nothing about. End rant.

I purchased the Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv2810us model. This 14.1", Brightview widesceeen laptop comes spec'd with 3GB DDR2 RAM (660 MHz), (2) 2.0 GHz AMD Turion (tm) 64 X2 TL-60 processors with 1 MB L2 cache, offering 32-bit processing, but 64-bit capable, (512KB + 512KB), NVIDIA GeForce GO 7150M graphics and 1071MB of total available graphics memory, a 250 GB, 5400 RMP hard drive, dual-layer, Lightscribe (tm) combination DVD/CD burner/reader, built-in web cam and integrated mic, 5-in-1 card reader, Quickplay buttons, remote and built-in 802.11G wireless LAN and Bluetooth. It operates under Microsoft's Windows Vista Home Premium and arrives almost devoid of all the freeware/trial version/internet service crap that most computers are completely saturated with out of the box.

Thin and light, it weighs in at 5.3 pounds and about average thickness for the ultra-light laptop crowd. Still, it remains solid and sturdy, boasting an especially stiffly opening screen. The screen is bright and clear, even on battery power, but glare is an issue in certain light. The dual AMD TL-60's offer good speed and should even power some of the higher-end games, but with the installed graphics, high-end gaming is not for this machine.

I love the Quickplay feature with a row of controls that will boot up only the Quickplay software, allowing you to watch DVD movies without powering up the whole box and booting Windows. This, in theory should extend battery life for say, movie viewing on my 39 hours of flying to work:) The little remote and it's garage are also a nice plus. The Lightscribe drives make pretty disk labels and a combo drive is the only way to go until CDs are a thing of the past. This would be the only negative for me, as the DVD drive in my last Pavilion prompted, in part, this purchase, yet here I am again, with the same drive.

The 250 GB hard drive is more than enough space to haul around 50GB music, 40 GB of ripped movies and 100GB of porn, while allowing for a few dozen extra programs and 3 files for work;) Vista runs the whole show pretty well and while I was extremely reluctant to purchase a Vista machine, after a couple of weeks I'm finding it fairly stable with a few useful features such as the software monitor, Defender, and its Network and Sharing Center. I'm used to the differences and quirks and have disabled that annoying "do you want to allow this?" feature.

All in all, at under $800.00 it is a steal of a deal. You cannot buy these specs and features in a laptop that weighs under 6 pounds unless it's hot, or used. I added a two-year unconditional warranty from Office Max, and purchased a back-up, 12 cell battery, which when inserted, jacks the laptop up like a hot rod from the 70's. It gives me a total of over 6 hours of what I would call "plane use", that is multi-tasking, music-listening, DVD watching I do on a plane.

It's inexpensive, reliable, stylish, lightweight and sturdy, with good performance. If this is your bag, then the Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv2800 series should be your box.

The image above, from Hewlett-Packard, makes it look damn nice, which it is. However, this is what it looks like in real life, sitting on my desk.

Dr. Bronner's killer soaps (and some other things)

I found Dr. Bronner and his Magic Soaps quite by accident. Literally. Back in 2006, some of you might remember I spent nearly 2 months in Alaska, working the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. While out there, I accidentally smeared a bunch of grease on my hands in the dressing room next to the sauna. There in the shower stall sat a bottle of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Liquid Soap. I used it to clean my hands and enjoyed the scent, immensely. After asking around, I discovered that one of the Marine Mammal Watchers (people that sit up top and watch for whales, while talking about birds and drinking herbal tea) left it when departing the ship early. A few days later I tried it in the shower after a sauna. Good shit, mon.

Reading the label while showering, I became quite baffled and intrigued. The stuff was the best damn soap I've ever tried (beside those oatmeal orange peel bars you used to get me, honey), but the writing bordered on the truly bizarre. Quasi-religious in nature and at times nonsensical, it seemed the writing of a madman and no explanation was given as to why the entire bottle was covered in dozens of these phrases, crammed all over in small text. Can you read all that tiny text in the blown up image of the label?

Curiosity piqued I hit the Interwebs and found the website and the story of Dr. Bronner-a real, live dude. Except he passed away a while ago. I won't give away the whole story and it's not mine to tell, but he invented the soaps out of a desire to stick to a certain and all-natural method of soap-making and used his money to do some very good things, despite having a slightly skewed vision of the world (in my humble opinion). Suffice to say he was cool cat, who made killer soaps and did some righteous deeds.

I've been using his soaps ever since and have found that while they have MANY uses, I prefer them as soap and shampoo (it not only works great, but saves me room and weight when traveling to have my soap and shampoo in one and CONCENTRATED, to boot). The liquid soaps come in sizes ranging from 2oz to 1 gallon and are also available as bar soap (For my regular readers: as in a bar of soap, not the kind of soap you find in the bathroom at the bar!). You can dilute the soaps and use them for just about anything, including brushing your teeth! For a list of uses and dilutions, you can hit FAQ's and there will also learn about the term "castille", why organic is great, ingredients of their various products and why they are used. There is so much information on Dr. Bronner's website, there is just too much too list.

To wrap this up, I highly recommend all of Dr. Bronner's products as a safe and healthy alternative to washing your hair and body with chemicals you cannot pronounce. They make liquid soaps, bar soap, lip balm, creams, gels and even snacks (though I think you can eat, or drink everything they make. Really) The all-natural ingredients make these products especially safe and healthy for your children and I can tell you, LP LOVES the peppermint!! The company itself is still run by family, is refreshingly concerned about the environment and takes good care of it's employees. They also are actively involved in charitable activities around the world and in general are very socially responsible. Their products are also all reasonably-priced and if not available at your local hippie and eco-warrior supply store, can be purchased online from their website.

For the record, I brought out an 8 oz bottle of Dr. Bronner's Citrus Liquid Soap and had the remains of my last 16oz bottle of peppermint already onboard. As an example, here's the ingredients for the Citrus Liquid Soap:Water, Saponfied Organic Coconut Oil*, Saponified Organic Olive Oil*, Organic Glycerin, Organic Cannabis Sativa (Hemp) Seed Oil, Organic Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Organic Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Oil, Organic Citrus Medica Limonum

And for those you from the toke em up generation, did you notice it's got Indinca's western-hemisphere cousin inside the bottle? Good times:)

UPDATE: I've just recently used the Citrus Liquid Soap I brought out as soap and shampoo. IT ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!! I've also just tried two new uses: First, the Liquid Citrus soap as a shaving cream. Dyn-o-mite! I was much better than the Edge(TM) I always use. Yet another product to be replaced by Dr. Bronner's after one trial use. Next, I tried the Peppermint Liquid Soap as toothpaste! Well, I have to say it did an especially good job, I felt I had squeaky-clean teeth. However, the taste was rather bland, unlike the smell and for some odd reason the aftertaste strongly reminded me of hash oil and it was hard to get rid of:( Nonetheless, Dr. Bronner's is the ticket, folks.

An Unsolicited Review of Keen's San Antonio Shoe

About 25 years ago, my left foot was torn off at the ankle in a construction accident. No big deal, they screwed the leg bones together and screwed the foot on for a few weeks and it stayed there-I still have it, in fact. However, after a few years I developed two conditions. I began to develop the ability to track pressure systems with my left ankle, somewhat painfully. There seems to be nothing medical science, or the retail community can do about it. When a storm front moves in and the pressure changes, my left ankle throbs.

The other condition affects my right foot. It too, was torn nearly off, but no bones, skin, ligaments, or tendons were severed, or broken, according to my doctors. It was just pulled off and laid back against my leg, backwards like the other one, but still somehow intact. We just straightened it out and popped it into the socket, kind of like fitting a torx bit into your bit driver. Anyway, after a few years, certain footwear, especially boots would cause the ball of my foot to alternate between burning, numbness and intense pain. Any type of shoe might cause it, though.

For years I've gone through phases of buying the most expensive and then the most inexpensive footwear on the market. Oddly enough, the most success has been with the cheapest footwear. As time wore on, boots-all boots, became painful. I've yet to wear a pair of boots for more than a half hour without pain that makes my eyes water. During hunting season, you might find me sitting on the ground with my right boot off and my foot buried in a snowbank, crying like a baby. Don't laugh, however, because I WILL be holding my rifle.

In the past couple years, all footwear is now having the same effect. I was down to one pair of painless shoes-a pair of dockers bought at wally world about 10 years ago, that were really starting to hurt my feet a bit, after a few hours. They were just plain wore out. So, I began the search for another pair of painless footwear. I tried on shoes at nearly every place in town. PW suggested a surplus outlet store that I sold shoes, much to my surprise and there, a sales girl introduced me to Keens. (cue the monks chanting in the monastery) They are a little pricey for the wally world crowd, but under a paycheck for most people. To be totally honest, I don't remember what I paid for them, only that I didn't care what they cost as soon as I slipped them on.

The girl gave me the usual story of how the founder descended from the gods and all-knowing, left his job designing Rockports and started his own company, dedicated to bringing quality footwear and enlightenment to the masses. She told me how she swore by her Keens and how they improved her sex life and blah, blah, blah. Somewhere about the time I slipped them on and stood up (cue the monks chanting in the monastery, again) her voice was drowned out by the monks. I was in footwear heaven. I could tell, in an instant, I had found a pair of completely painless footwear.

Since then, I've met an entire family of Keens disciples (you should see their shrine) and wore mine daily for two weeks. I wore them while traveling half way around the world, from the upper Midwest, U.S. of A. to the West coast of Australia and I've been walking around steel ship decks for nearly a week now, during 12-15 hour shifts. They are outstanding. Beyond, painless, they are comfortable, offer good support and actually seem to encourage me to adopt a straighter posture and I swear I feel better in general, for wearing them. I am starting to see how a family can convert from Baptist to Keens.

With an aggressive tread that allows for off-road, backwoods use and relatively non-slip on oily, steel decks, my chosen style shown above, the San Antonio, from the BLVD line, comes in bison, black and army (latte, mulch and avocado for those on the left coast) and works well for any type of everyday environments you want to throw at it. The extra-wide toe box that seemed to be common to all the styles I viewed, adds to the comfort level and the uppers feature a waterproof material.

UPDATE: I've also bought a pair of the Venice H2 sandals and wore them for nearly a week at the water park reviewed above. LOVE them. Same comfort, support and voodoo magic on my permanently screwed-up back. This footwear is damn good!

Finally, a quick review of their company website reveals them to be a progressive manufacturer, creative and environmentally friendly. Promoting corporate social responsibility and environmental consciousness, they are a company you can feel good about doing business with. In summary, I LOVE my Keens and I think you will, too:)

A Natural First Review

While the desire for this site stems from the value I perceive in several other products, which I will review in short order, it is only fitting that the inaugural review cover a series of products I have been immensely satisfied with and are more than worth their price-which happen to be free. I'm talking about all the widgets, bits and bobs that enhance the reader's experience while at this site and yes, Blogger, itself. Say what you will about blogger, but I set up a no-frills website in less than 2 minutes. It functions, it has a fair set of bells and whistles, emails me my comments, and allows me to post via email, so as to minimize my impact on my employers resources and not break any corporate IT rules. It's free, it works and provides exactly what I want, staying functional 99.999% of the time-which is more than I can say about any computer I've ever used to create, post to, comment on, or read a site. Enough said.

Next, the LAST.FM widgets just to the right. I need to listen to music all the time, I have an extensive collection and enjoy passing on music I love. Last.fm offers several ways to do this for anyone with a website. The widgets have worked flawlessly for me, they come in black (my favorite color-can you tell?) and they too, are FREE. Again, enough said.

Finally, for those with a personal, or commercial website, there are untold numbers of statcounters available to track your web statistics and those pesky trolls;) They all have a few unique features it seems, but I have stuck with one since creating my first website about 2 1/2 years ago. While there may be something better out there, having never "shopped around", I have always been very pleased with Statcounter.com's service. It has worked flawlessly for me, providing exactly what I need at the right price-free. Finally, one more time...enough said.

And that wraps up my first ever pirate product review. Hope you enjoy the site, the reviews and of course, the free music;)

Peace