Simultaneous Bad Luck and Good Luck (Geek Content)

So, I’ve just built up a new computer (yesterday). It rocks, and everything came together without a hitch. Until today that is. I awoke to this “click… click… click…” sound that seemed to coming from the direction of the new computer.

Closer investigation revealed that it was the computer, or, more specifically, one of the brand-spanking new 160G Western Digital SATA-II hard drives. Here’s the lucky part; it’s not the boot drive which I just spent much of the night installing software on, it’s “just” the scratch disc.

So, I go to WD’s website, it suggests I try starting the computer up with the data cable disconnected from that drive and seeing if it still clicks. I do, it does, bingo! Bad drive.

So, I call Western Digital, spend a little too much time on hold being force-fed bad jazz at an uncomfortable volume level, then finally get a guy on the line. I describe the sequence of events and he says “Yep, bad drive, we’ll need to replace that.”

The cool thing is: They have Advance Replacement. They ship the replacement to me, enter an authorization on my credit card, I ship the dead drive back (in their packaging) within thirty days and the authorization drops off.

I’ve always had good luck with WD drives (I had 4 providing years of trouble free service in other computers when I got the new comp.) A bad drive happens every now and then, I suppose, and at least they make the replacement process as painless as possible.

Western Digital gets Crazy Greg’s Seal of Approval!

Peppermill (Crazy Greg’s Product Review)

So, a few days ago my lovely acrylic and stainless steel peppermill fell from the shelf above the sink and dropped all of 18 inches into the sink. I didn’t think much of it, put it back in its place and went about my business. Imagine my horror when I next tried to use it only to discover that the grinding mechanism had broken free from the body and it was beyond repair.

Anyway… I did some research and according to Cook’s Illustrated (From America’s Test Kitchen) and Alton Brown (who has never led me astray in the past) Unicorn’s Magnum Plus is the absolute zenith of peppermill functionality.

I was somewhat non-plussed by its appearance (a big black plastic cylinder… I was hoping for something in stainless steel or copper), but it has a lifetime guarantee, and according to the experts it excels at what it does.

So, I went ahead and got it and let me tell you, this thing rocks! The coarse/fineness is infinitely (and easily) adjustable, it holds scads of peppercorns, and it cranks out an insane amount of pepper per twist.

One of my other concerns was that due to its design, you can’t do the old “remove the top and attach the cordless drill” trick (à la Alton Brown), but as it turns out, it grinds so much more efficiently than any mill I’ve used before I can’t imagine this ever being necessary (quite unlike my recently departed peppermill, which ground so slowly that I frequently resorted to this technique).

So, if you are in the market for a peppermill, or you’re just tired of cranking endlessly to deliver the appropriate dose of pepper; the Magnum Plus gets ‘Crazy Greg’s Seal of Approval’.