So I’ve decided what I’m getting myself for Christmas: a netbook!  Also known as a subnotebook or ultra-portable notebook, a netbook is a small, light and compact laptop computer. They usually have a diagonal screen measurement from 7″ to 10″, no optical (DVD/CD) drive, and 3 - 6 hours of battery life.  About the size and feel of a thin hardcover book, they’re ideal for travel and surfing the net plus less intensive activities such as word processing, blogging, and instant messaging.

My behemoth of a laptop, a 15.4″ Dell Inspiron 6400, is old and finicky and quite heavy to haul around.  I’ve been using it as more of a desktop replacement and want something else that I can take out with me while enjoying the great SoCal weather.  I spent hours yesterday reading netbook reviews, scanning top 10 lists and watching netbook review videos.  I’ve come to realize that YouTube is a great resource for product reviews. It really helps to see a video of the product with a person handling to get a better handle on the actual scale.  After all this, I narrowed down my selection to 4 choices:

• Dell Inspiron Mini 9
• Acer Aspire One
• MSI Wind
• Asus EEE PC

Besides the Dell, the other 3 have been a bit confusing because there’s so many different models of them out there with only slight changes from one model to the next.  The major difference seems to be hard drive size.  Most netbooks come with a small solid-state-drive (no moving parts) of only about 4 GB - 16 GB. A few models have an additional hard drive of up to 160 GB!  For my purposes, I don’t need a big drive. I’ll still be using my laptop and my PC for most things.

Another issue among the four was screen size.  The Dell and Acer Aspire One have the standard 8.9″, the MSI Wind is 10″, and the Asus EEE comes in different sizes ranging from 7″ to (I think) 10″.  I saw a video review of the Acer and the 8.9″ size looked very compact and easy to handle, but at the same time the 10″ doesn’t look all that much bigger.  It also seems that keyboard size was a big issue among the reviews. Within such a compacted space, compromises must be made on the keyboard size and layout; some felt that this made it difficult to type on certain models. However, I have very small hands and fingers so I’m not worried about that.

For me, the major issue is price. I don’t want to spend more than $350, and that’s with shipping and tax which really can be a lot.  I liked the Dell, which had a Black Friday special of $299. However, this is just the starting price. After customizing and adding on features that came standard on the other brands (webcam, bluetooth, larger drive) the price went up to nearly $400.

The Acer Aspire One, Asus EEE PC, and MSI Wind can be found for around $299 to $349, depending on the specific model, but what I’m finding is that most of these online retailers are based in California, meaning I have to pay an 8.25% tax on top of it.  That’s about an extra $30, plus $15 for shipping usually, so I’m adding $45 to the price of anything I find… argh!

NewEgg had a blue model of the Acer for $249 with free shipping, but it was an early Black Friday deal and is now sold out. Anger! More research is needed and Top10Netbooks.com has a pretty good netbook buying guide and netbook reviews.

Despite the price and lack of features, I have been leaning towards the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 because, for an extra $25 more, I can get it in red.  “Cuteness” shouldn’t be a factor in my final desicion, but I can’t help it!  I am a girl after all.

Alright, the quest continues…

Dell currently has a Black Friday deal on the Inspiron Mini 9. Me want, but it runs on the Linux-based, open-source operating system Ubuntu and I am used to Windows and Apple.

Ubuntu (oo-BOON-too), however, is a foreign beast to me. What to do, what to do?

I installed it! I’m currently running Ubuntu on my laptop right now—the laptop I’m using to write this blog entry. It was a bit tricky at first. Installation took a while, and then there were several long updates to the installation files, and then I couldn’t get wi-fi to work until I found a forum posting about forcing updates and the downloading of drivers to support my wireless card. After all that, I was sure that I’d end up hating it, but you know what… it ain’t bad at all.

I’ve been having problems for nearly a year now with my laptop and Windows XP. It was slow to start, slow to restart, and gave me the blue screen of death often. I kept getting errors that a new driver was causing issues and to uninstall it, but I haven’t installed any new drivers!  I figured I’d give Ubuntu a try since I didn’t have anything to lose; I did a dual install so I still have Windows and my files on this computer just in case.

Right now though, I’m liking how fast Ubuntu has been, I like their dual workspace/desktop option, and their panel system. I also like the cool though unnecessary effects as I drag and resize my application windows. I was also pleasantly surprised by all the software it came with, especially Pidgin and GIMP, though I’m not sure if I can settle for GIMP when I’m so used to Photoshop. Is there a Linux version of Photoshop?  Well, first things first, I downloaded all my must-have Firefox extensions (Colorzilla, SearchStatus, Download Statusbar, Web Developer, Forecast Fox, and of course, AdBlock Plus), customized my Firefox theme, and loaded my bookmark. Now it’s time to go find my software programs and hope they run on Linux.

Fingers crossed.

It’s bright and sunny out.  But it’s also less than 75 degrees, so it’s cold!

I’m on the couch with Penny pressed against me wearing red Christmas pajama bottoms and a navy hoodie. The radio is on, currently blasting “Sexy Can I” and the apartment smells like food.  We’re getting ready to have lunch, which is actually our Thanksgiving dinner.  After eating out yesterday and lounging around watching movies, we just didn’t feel like eating a big Thanksgiving meal, but now, mmm, we’re ready!

The turkey came out great, albeit a tad salty. I think it’s because I used salted butter, and although the original recipe didn’t specify, I think it was calling for unsalted butter. The skin was the salty part, but it was also very crispy and delicious, and the meat was juicy and moist and reminded me of quality deli turkey, which I love. Our turkey is definitely way too big for the two of us; there’s so much meat on that bird.  We cut it up and put it away. The dark meat will be made into soups and stews.

So for lunch today, I’m gonna be having some juicy, flavorful turkey white meat, mushroom gravy, Jimmy Dean sausage stuffing, sauteed Italian squash, garlic mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. What a lunch!

I’ve been casually browsing Black Friday deals online. No way in hell am I going to the stores today. This morning a Walmart worker was trampled to death at a store in Long Island. What the heck man! Isn’t this the season of love and giving? They say even after he fell, and even after emergency workers tried to save his life, people kept rushing in. So tragic, stupid, and preventable. Sometimes, I really hate people.

But anyway, I’m thinking about getting a new digicam or a more portable, smaller laptop. I don’t really care about screen size or having all the bells and whistles; just something light with a keyboard that I could take out with me and get online with.  There’s a few deals online, but I need to do more research.  Stores I’m checking are:

• NewEgg
• Tiger Direct
• Target
• Amazon
• Best Buy
• Circuit City
• Walmart
• Dell

Maybe at some point today we’ll go out for a fresh-cut Christmas tree. Until then, it’s time to eat and get back to the “shopping.”

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There’s so much turkey left. Actually, most of it is left. We were still stuffed from lunch at Palms and just didn’t feel like eating anymore. We’re planning on having our “Thanksgiving meal” tomorrow instead.  Tim did make his pumpkin pie which we each had a slice of tonight.  We spent the day lounging around and watched the series finale of The Shield. Oh man, I can’t believe it’s over. ;-(  Thankfully, the ending was pretty satisfying.

We went out in the evening to walk the dogs and then watched Love Actually staring Hugh Grant, Kiera Knightley, and Emma Thompson among others. It was a really good movie that wasn’t as saccharine as most romantic comedies. We have two more movies from my Netflix queue to get through over the next few days: I, Robot and Fracture.

The apartment smells like turkey, pumpkin pie, and crisp apples. Not a bad mix if I do say so myself. Tired and sleepy now. Time for bed.

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The turkey came out great. Skin was crispy; flesh was juicy and moist, falling off the bone. More later.

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It’s 3:20 in the morning. Technically, it’s Thanksgiving Day now so Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m going to bed soon. I just finished preparing our turkey to be cooked tomorrow, uh, I mean in a few hours from now.

Even though it’s been in the fridge since Sunday afternoon, it was still pretty frozen come Wednesday evening. Why didn’t our turkey defrost? Most sources do say it may take 3 - 4 days though so I guess we needed another day.  Since we didn’t have another day, we had to do the speed water defrost method.  This involves soaking the turkey, in its packaging, in cold water for about 30 minutes per pound.  That’s probably another reason our turkey didn’t defrost—we have a 17.5 lb turkey!  It actually was one of the smallest ones they had.  Seems like grocery stores don’t stock smaller turkeys.

Anyway, around 9 PM, I put the bird under water.  Thankfully, I had a giant tupperware bin that we use to store rice (yes, we eat that much rice).  I put the rice in something else for the time being and it became the perfect working container for the turkey.

Thanksgiving Turkey Defrosting

I left the turkey bobbing in the water on the kitchen counter.  I could have done it in the sink, but I didn’t feel like cleaning out the sink.  Since the turkey had already partially defrosted in the fridge, I figured it only needed a few hours and shouldn’t be left out overnight.  Tim was out and I knew he would be home around 2 AM, so I decided to just go to bed and check on the turkey once he comes in and I wake up.

Well, that was about an hour and a half ago.  I got up after a few hours of sleep, not tired at all and completely excited about checking out the turkey.  It was no longer frozen!  Now it was time to prepare it according to the salt rub recipe I mentioned earlier.  One thing I wasn’t expecting was how difficult it is to handle a big, bulky, and heavy bird!

I cut open the packaging and shook off the excess blood/water that came off the bird.  There was a metal bracket like thing that was holding closed the turkey’s legs.  It was a bit tricky, but I ended up removing it by squeezing it first to release the pressure and then sliding it out of the turkey.  Next, I removed the turkey neck that had been stuffed inside the cavity.  It was a bit frozen still and had a big chunk of ice stuck to it.  The inside of the the turkey was very cold and it hurt to keep my hand in it for long.  The turkey flesh itself though was soft and not frozen, thank goodness.  After the neck, I pulled out the bag of giblets that had been stuffed in the other end.  The pointy flap of the turkey’s “butt” was also dangling off the bottom so I just sliced it off.  All this will be saved to add to the gravy and to fry up and give to the dogs, especially the giblets.

Thanksgiving Turkey Neck, Giblets, and Butt

It got messy at points with pink turkey blood and juice running all over the counter! Yuck.  After I removed the “extras,” it was time to rinse the turkey inside and out.  Man, it wasn’t easy holding the heavy bird under the faucet and washing it, but once that was done, I sat it up in a colander in the bin to drain for about 5 minutes.  Next, I plopped it down on a cutting board and started the salt rub which is just as the name implies: rubbing the turkey with salt.  The recipe called for 1 teaspoon of salt per pound of turkey, so I measured about 18 tsp of salt, or 6 tablespoons.   It looked like a lot of salt so I was surprised as I was rubbing to realize that it really isn’t much at all compared to the size of the turkey. I concentrated on the inside cavity and breast but made sure to evenly coat all the other areas too.

The recipe said to put the bird breast-side down in a shallow bowl or pan and cover with plastic wrap before sticking it back in the fridge.  Well, I had two problems then: I don’t have a bowl or pan that can hold the turkey (yet, gotta get one tomorrow), and I didn’t have any plastic wrap!

I briefly debated walking the 2 blocks to the supermarket at the corner, but it’s cold and dark and wet out. Then I looked at the oh-so-handy bin I’ve been using.  It was the perfect size to hold the turkey but unfortunately it was too tall to fit in my fridge, that is, until I removed the middle shelf—oh joyous day!

As for the plastic wrap, I cut up one of those clingy, clear plastic bags you put your fruit and veggies in at the store.  It worked perfectly.

Thanksgiving Turkey Salted and Wrapped

I slid the whole thing into the fridge and now it’s ready to be buttered and roasted tomorrow for about 4 hours.  We’re planning to eat around 4 PM, so it’ll go in the oven a bit before noon.  Plenty of time for the salt to work its magic in softening the meat and making it juicy for tomorrow!  Yummy yummy.

Thanksgiving Turkey Waiting

Now, after thoroughly cleaning everything from the counter to the kitchen scissors, it’s time to go to bed. Happy Thanksgiving!

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