An Open Letter to Tropicana Juice Company

Posted on 31st January 2011 in Something Daily

Dear Tropicana,

Let me begin by telling you that I am not writing you for any reason other than to explain my love of your juices as fully as possible. I’ve been playing with the idea of telling the creators of my favorite things how much I appreciate their work, and I feel that your orange juice is too important a part of my life not to deserve a written congratulation and thanks.

Topicana Pure Premium no pulp orange juice has been a staple in my incredibly well-balanced diet for years now, not only at the breakfast table, but at the lunch, dinner, dessert, second breakfast, elevensies, and snack tables as well. I’m not claiming by any means that I drink nothing but Pure Premium; I’ve been known to enjoy the occasional iced tea, the incidental root beer, and the rogue Snapple from time to time. Tasty and wholesome as these beverages may be, their prevalence in my diet is simply dwarfed by the quantity of Tropicana that I drink. I typically go through a gallon in four to five days by myself, a time which is often shortened (to my chagrin) by my sip-stealing college roommates. To further elucidate my love, nay, obsession with your juice, I provide this helpful graphical aid:

My Beverage Consumption

As this graph clearly indicates, my typical daily intake of vitamin C is probably dangerously high (if such a thing is possible – I wouldn’t be surprised). In my college dorm environment, where supplies and money run scarce, I am often territorial with regard to my orange juice. I see Pure Premium as a life force, so when I witness my roommate wantonly sloshing the juice I (which I paid for) out of his glass and onto the floor, it is sometimes difficult for me to contain my frustration. To see another person throwing away the very source of my power as if it was nothing can be trying. To safeguard myself against future travesties of a similar nature, I plan to effect the stockpiling of as many gallons of your fine juice as I can in a secret location. I know that some of the meals I mentioned earlier aren’t actual meals, but I really do drink a crazy amount of Tropicana. I once got some kind of stomach ulcer thing from drinking too much at once (because it’s very acidic, did you know that?); I’m not ashamed, though. I wear my obsession with pride.

I’ve gotten to the point in my orange juice drinking career that I can taste the differences between the various popular brands. Eating breakfast at restaurants is typically a slightly disappointing experience, as I can often tell that they use a second-string brand of orange juice; tasting Simply Orange when I wake up just doesn’t cut it for me. It doesn’t have enough body. Florida’s Natural is pretty good, so good that the first time I tasted it, I considered the possibility that I could have found my new favorite juice. The one test that Florida’s Natural could not pass, though, was the test of time, as I quickly grew bored with its softer, fuller flavor. I drink Pure Premium above all others for several reasons:

  • The kick
  • The body
  • It tastes like an orange exploded in my mouth

The problem with the other brands I mentioned is that they can’t claim all of those things. Florida’s Natural has a great richness, and Simply Orange does in fact taste like a real orange. But Tropicana stands alone at the pinnacle of juicing with all three of these traits. Thus, when I taste that my breakfast restaurant has poured me a glass of Pure Premium, I often thank the waiter on behalf of my taste buds. This is, unfortunately, a bit rare, but I look forward to it all the more as a result. My typical (i.e. every single day) breakfast consists of nothing more than a bagel with cream cheese and a towering chalice of Tropicana Pure Premium, because that’s all I need to start my day. I often incorporate the towering chalice into other meals as well.

In summation, I’d like to thank your company for creating this juice without which, I firmly believe, the quality of my life would be severely diminished. Your orange juice brings tears of joy to my eyes. Thank you, and please never stop making this mind-blowingly fantastic juice. I’ll cry if you do.

With much sincerity,

Emmett Butler

Bagel MIDI

Posted on 4th December 2010 in Something Daily

My recent weeks have been marked by a marked lack of concern for the impending wave of school work that’s going to come with finals week. The projects that I have to do by then have been weighing on me slightly since before thanksgiving, but I haven’t been worrying about them too much. Specifically, the Recording Tech project of recording a “Get Low” cover, the Audio for Video postproduction sound for a film, and the Electronics MIDI controller are the big ones that I haven’t been freaking out about. I woke up this morning and realized, though, that while my audio projects are far enough along now, the MIDI controller wasn’t really started at all. I still haven’t even bought all the parts I need for it, in fact. But at least I woke up this morning wanting to get something done. I spent about two hours configuring everything needed for MIDI transmission and reception with the Arduino, successfully generating MIDI output from the Arduino with a series of potentiometers that determine repetition speed, MIDI note, and note length, and then playing MIDI notes in Pd. So it’s going quite nicely as of now. I’m going to try and incorporate the multiplexer into the design a little later to allow for more comtrols. This thing is going to be bristling with knobs. I need a creative case idea though. Last year my compressor was inside a darth vader lunchbox, and I need something equally awesome this time. If I had that project here with me, I’d totally take a picture of it, by the way. It’s fantastic.

Here’s the MIDI controller project right now.

So that project is due in less than two weeks. Honestly though, I think I’ll be done with it by tomorrow evening. At least the design part. Soldering is another story. Which reminds me my soldering iron is a piece of crap! It’s Craftsman, so you wouldn’t expect that. But the tips it came with are slowly melting under the heat of the iron. When I was making the compression circuit last year, every time I touched the tip to a bit of metal, part of the end would just slough off. Now there’s a little horseshoe shape in the end of my once-square iron tip. Lame! But I used it today and it still works, it’s just a bit of a different technique now. So yeah, I’ll try to modify the code for the multiplexer tonight. But right now, I’m playing Nintendo 64 with Eric. Mario 64 and Ocarina, namely. These games will never get old even though they’re two of the first I ever played.

On an unrelated note, today was the first day that I bought breakfast food from Food Emporium in about two weeks. I’d been subsisting on Dunkin’ Donuts bagels and paper-tasting cream cheese for that interim period, and it’s amazing not have to do that anymore. And real orange juice! Tropicana Pure Premium forever.