output :[

How did I end up at this place? A keyboard snob? An elitist? In the early 90s my Mum gave me her IBM Model M keyboard from a previous job. A mechanical marvel, an engineered masterpiece. I couldn't fully appreciate it at the time, perhaps I was young, but more likely we just had no idea how crappy keyboards would become over the next two decades. I spilled orange juice into the Model M, and although a little sad, I moved on.

Years later, despite getting mild RSI at work I persevered with crappy bottom of the line HP keyboards in the office. My Mac Pro was delivered with the horrendous A1048 keyboard. I replaced this with the 'funky' aluminum mac keyboard - hey did I just pay good money to give my Mac Pro a laptop keyboard?

DSI Mac Mechanical Modular Keyboard

Finally I lost the plot. From Fentek Industries I bought a snappy DSI Mac Mechanical Modular keyboard. The idea is that it is expandable in various ways, but I was happy to get a tenkeyless keyboard and save on desktop space. I also wanted a mac-specific keyboard layout, and there really aren't any alternatives. The DSI Mac Modular has the option and command keys in the mac positions, and no context-menu key. Additionally, the Mac Modular supports volume up, down and mute, and has an eject key. This is all well and good, but I would love to have seen support for pause/play/next track for iTunes - really more useful. My only other minor quibble with the keyboard is that the compact layout is a little dense. Using a Windows layout at work day to day, I get a little disoriented with cursor keys, page up/down etc jutting right up to the regular keys.

The typing action on this keyboard is great. I have the one blessed with brown Cherry switches, blue are also available. Despite using the 'quieter' brown Cherry switches, you will get a very distinct mechanical keyboard noise from this keyboard. Drives the wife a little crazy. Doesn't matter, I'm in my own world churning out wpm on this baby.

My keyboard seems to have a weird issue with USB - it just stops working after some period of rest. Not sure if it's the keyboard or my computer, but I will contact DSI about it.

I would definitely recommend this keyboard for any Mac user desiring a quality keyboard with a Mac specific layout.

Realforce 87U Keyboard

Now, the real new darling in my life is the Topre Corporation's Realforce 87U keyboard. The typing experience on this really is fantastic. The keyboard's reputation of being the best you can get is well deserved. Topre's capacitive switch technology is really unique. It doesn't feel like any mechanical switch I've used. The keys do not bottom out in a hard, clunky manner. Instead they seem to offer some gentle deceleration before they hit the end of their travel. They are also quiet. The sound is satisfying, but not clacky like regular mechanical switches. The layout is great - a standard Windows layout with everything in the expected location, perfect for programming. The tenkeyless layout keeps the mouse close to my right hand. It's appearance is totally ninja with black text on black keys, which looks cooler than blank keys and also lets non-typists hunt and peck, should you allow them to touch your keyboard.

Kapow! I decided to power up from the regular understated black escape key to the red one.

Navigation keys

Numeric keypad

The Realforce keyboards are also customizable. I have switched my left [ctrl] and [caps] keys, putting the left control key closer to my pinky. You can also deactivate the Windows key and the Numlock key.

Beautiful blue glow...

To support this, you get alternative sets of [capslock] and [ctrl] keys. You also get an additional red [esc] key (as pictured) and some pretty funky blue WASD keys - for gamers I guess?

Scouring the web, you'll no doubt encounter many personal dilemmas about shelling out so much money for just a keyboard... wait... just a keyboard? I use a keyboard every day of my life. I use a keyboard to earn my living. Would you expect a carpenter to use a rusty old band saw? Would you risk your well being with poorly fitting shoes? It is utterly worth it. If I lost this keyboard, I'd absolutely buy a replacement without hesitation. Once you lay your hands on one of these, you'll know exactly why you bought it.

So again, winter is upon us, and the challenge is to find vegan wares to meet the cold.

When I was up in Montreal, I picked up this 'Delahaye' sweater for the office.

I also picked up this jacket, from 2 Die For. Not sure about the name, but I guess it's good enough for a vegan coat :)

The lining has added awesome words of awesomeness, such as 'dare your survival' and 'one in a million'. Apparently it's also edition 235 of 500, so not sure if that is a contradiction or not. http://2diefor.it

The beanie is a North Face acrylic 'Caden' beanie. I'm a huge fan of North Face lately, but whatever, don't ever buy Columbia gear, they use fur in their gear.

I also picked up the white 100% cotton Ralph Lauren sweater at Paragon sports in NYC. I'm not sure why, but couldn't for the life of me find it in an actual Ralph Lauren store (is the cotton one too cheap for the high profile stores?)

You don't need to say it. I know I am sexy.

On a more positive note, I managed to score a new old Dahon Hammerhead 7.0. Here's some pics:

Hmm... So as I was going about my business this evening, Fox was blaring away in the background with asshole extraordinaire Gordan Ramsey and his new show Cookalong Live. Alyson Hannigan appears on the show, spouting how she was a vegan, but craved meat during her pregnancy. Fair enough, people crumble, crave, whatever, I get it. But she then goes on to say she's now a... "cutarian". WTF!?! "I only eat things I wouldn't keep as a pet." Oh okay, just like a fucking regular person then - cat is off the menu. Good to see that there is a clear moral division about what is acceptable to eat and what is not. Such precise reasoning skills. What a fucking idiot.

I've recently become a Jonathan Safran Foer addict. His writing is exhilarating, personal and touching. Although I had seen the film of Everything Is Illuminated, I think he really came to my attention in NY Mag by bagging conceited dipshit Anthony Bourdain. His latest book, Eating Animals is one of the most incredible books I've read. As a vegan, it's always hard not to be a crank spouting facts at meat eating friends, which usually is only helpful in starting religious wars. But when one of our times' great story-tellers approaches the difficult subject of modern day animal agriculture from anew with an open and honest investigation, the result is a much more enjoyable read, yet an astonishingly important and comprehensive work. A must read for everyone.

Foer opens the book with 'Storytelling' - a binding and familiar tale about his Grandmother's cooking. The way we eat is such a large part of our culture, our family traditions and habits, our identity, that it overshadows what may normally be easy, clear-cut decisions. After years of coyly courting vegetarianism, Foer is jolted by the vastly more significant responsibility of making decisions for his soon-to-arrive son.

So rather than cranky veganism or environmentatlism is instead the story of Foer's conflicted but philosophical journey. A journey which sees him sneaking into a factory farm, visiting family farmers striving to provide "ethically raised" meat products, including a vegetarian rancher (not to mention the vegan slaughterhouse architect), talking with the employees of factory farming operations and slaughterhouses, and not least of all distilling the ocean of data and statistics to provide us with frightening glimpses of the scale of it all.

Given the gravity of the topic, most reviews easily forget to mention the brilliance of Foer's penmanship. The book resonates so deeply and is so successful because of Foer's storytelling ability, relating us all through our common experiences with food and tradition, and the decisions, queries and self-doubt we've all encountered. Foer is not here to beat you up, instead he wants to discuss the difficult topics, get past the convenient excuses, look into our traditions, look at the discrepancies between what we believe and what's real, our ethics and our actions, what is visible and what is hidden.

Eating Animals is one the most utterly important conversations we need to have right now, you need to take part. Read this book.

A useful video interview with Foer is here on Amazon.

Added 31-Dec-2009

• JSF on The Ellen Degeneres Show
• http://eatinganimals.com/