So, I am in college now, and that means i spend a lot of my time eating. And I mean a LOT OF TIME eating, or at least in the vicinity of food. So I have come to love the value menus in any eating establishment. Recently, I have grown rather fond of snack wraps. They are one of the best things out there for someone who is hungry, but has somewhere to be. The traveling eating man, if you will. Pretty much a sandwich, but smaller, and usually has a cooked meat, rather than a deli meat and is in a tortilla rather than bread so you can eat it easily with one hand. Or at least that is what they are when I buy them. There might be some out there with deli meats and regular bread, but I’m not talking about that in this post. When I do write about it in another post, look for the title “Sandwiches: Ancestors of the Snack Wraps.”

My first experience with a snack wrap was (to be honest) a bit depressing. I got a wrap from McDonalds. It cost me around $1.50, which was pretty much all the cash I had on me at the time, and I remembered my friend mentioning that they were pretty good, and filling. Of course, he was talking about a real restaurant, not the road-warriors version of a fine dining establishment. When I received the snack wrap, I was pretty mad at my friend. I could of probably eaten my dollar and gotten more filled than I did when I ate that tiny tortilla wrapped creation. Then I realized, it wasn’t my friends fault, it was McDonald’s that skimped out on it. He doesnt own McDonald’s corporation (as far as I know) so he has no way of controlling what portions are given. So from then on, I decided to not get snack wraps ever again.

It was in the Chandler Gilbert Community College (CGCC) cafeteria when I was re-exposed to the snack wrap. And this time, it was done right. I (once again) only had a limited amount of cash on my person, and I was HUNGRY. I just finished 2 classes, and I had no breakfast, so I wanted to eat, and I wanted to eat now. So I looked at the value menu (I told you, greatest invention ever) and saw snack wraps for $1.25. Realizing this was cheaper in price than the McDonald’s snack wraps, I wasnt expecting too much. The term “you get what you pay for” kept on playing in my head like a song stuck in a loop. So I bought 2 of those, and some chicken nuggets as a safety net. This was not needed (but still quite tasty) These sack wraps were not like the ones of the past. These snack wraps had plenty of crisp lettuce, fresh tomato’s, and a strip of chicken that didn’t look like it came off of an anorexic chicken. I ate both wraps, and my 5 nuggets, and now I am quite full. And the total was around 5 bucks before the drink. So if you are on a budget, and you want to eat, remember 2 things

1. Value menu’s are your friend. Plenty of good food for cheap.

2. Snack Wraps are a 50/50 shot. You might get a bad one (fast food) but if you go to a place where the word Big Mac or Whopper aren’t on the menu, then chances are, youll get a good one

Also remember these mathematical equations

1. 1) 1 snack wrap = snack

   2) 2 snack wraps = light meal

   3) 2 snack wraps + 5 chicken nuggets = meal

So next time you go to a faster food place, remember snack wraps. They often don’t get the attention they deserve.

See you next time.

It is this kind of thinking that let Vista be released, and lets Mac exist. Don’t get me wrong, i love Macs. I love the way they look. But i just cannot seem to get the “control” that I want with a computer; I definitely do not love the price. I mean, its around a thousand bucks for a laptop. COME ON! I can get a net-book, that has a 9 hour battery life for around 350 dollars, while you charge 800 for a larger laptop that has a “revolutionary” 7 hour battery.

Vista just fails. I like Windows o/s (operating systems) because it lets me control a bit more, but it has a lot of “sharp edges”. Rather, it doesn’t look good. I’m a simple kind of guy, but I like having the ability to get my hands dirty, and get into the technical part of things. Their new computers/laptops are significantly cheaper than any Mac I have encountered. Even a high powered PC would cost less than an iMac. But there are also around a gazillion viruses out there for windows operating systems. I don’t want to think I’m downloading something safe, then all of a sudden, one of my 3 antivirus programs start going off like an ambulance, alerting me of Trojans, spyware, adware, malware, the list goes on. These programs also love to start their scan all at once, and usually while I’m in the middle of a video game.
Then i discovered Ubuntu. At first, it doesn’t look good at all. its brown all over, and there is nothing at all. The background is… honestly, I don’t even know. But after a bit of superficial tweaking, you can make it look like a Mac, IF NOT BETTER THAN A MAC. Also, you control EVERYTHING about the computer. I even control how fast i want the computer to go (for techies, i control the processor speed). So i have the aesthetically pleasing interface of a Mac for significantly less than a Mac(what is the price of a hand me down laptop?) And I get more control than a Windows operating system, without the need for antiviruses, because Linux operating systems (which is what Ubuntu is) do not have viruses. So no need for those resource hogging programs running constantly. It is faster with Ubuntu than when it had Windows XP on it. It is safer (no viruses, and you cannot crack into a computer with Linux easily) It is more powerful also, seeing that you can control everything about the computer. The only issue that I have with Ubuntu is the lack of support for video games. But whos fault is that? The video game industry kind of turns a blind eye to Linux users as a gaming platform. I dual boot Windows and Ubuntu. The only reason I ever use Windows is when the situation will not let me use ubuntu in any way, shape, or form. However, they do have something called WINE. It is a Windows Emulator of sorts. I have played Starcraft on Wine, I have been online through Wine, and I have seen people play games such as Left 4 Dead, Counterstrike and World of Warcraft. My laptop isnt powerful enough for that (its a 4 year old Gateway.) but its good to know that if I get a new laptop, I can ditch windows altogether, and put my lovely o/s on it, without fear of missing anything.

Ubuntu isn’t just about looking good, and being useful (although that is very important!) It is a part of something called the Open Source movement. Ubuntu is free of charge, and free to use, and you are free to use it anyway you want. When I say free, I mean it in 2 senses of the word. Free as in free beer, and free as in able to do whatever you want, without fear of consequences. In fact, you can go into the coding of the operating system, and edit it if you would like. You can order CDs from the Ubuntu website for free, delivered right to your door(forgive me, I cannot remember the URL for the life of me). You are promoted to edit programs, and make your own, and submit them to the Ubuntu Developers, who will verify the program is useful, and wont harm the computer, and they will add the program to the list of free programs you can download.

Ubuntu is not the only Linux operating system. There are thousands of others. They are called Distros. Red hat, Fedora, Damn Small Linux, Kubuntu, Puppy, there are a lot out there. So if you try Ubuntu, and it isn’t your thing, you can try one of the other thousands of Distros out there.

I, Steven Inglese, have reached Nerdvana, with the help of Linux

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