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Rimage 200i
hunger, bravery, or curiosity drove one of our ancestors to eat a creepy, alien sea-bug. Thanks to that person, we're quite comfortable when we find ourselves confronted by surf 'n' turf, the leg of a king crab, or a slab of urchin atop a sticky wad of rice and mustard. There was also that person, deep in the Amazon Basin, who licked a toad's fundament, thereby discovering the most powerful hallucinogen this side of rock 'n' roll stardom.
The great thing about the Toad Licker is it cannot be dispelled in the face of technology; there's no ragged old trickster or stick-figure paternal imago in his company. In fact, it is technology and invention, the spirit of science-inquiry and discovery. So, in the name of science, I lick a lot of things (one thing not to lick is an iguana-I got really sick doing that). Today, when I licked the first disc printed in the Rimage 2000i, I expected it to blur beneath my tongue, causing me slight stomach upset. What else would you expect from fresh ink on a disc? Maybe inkjet technology is more lick-proof than I imagined, or maybe there's something to this Thermal Ink Transfer, the notion behind the new printer upstairs (it's the 480i, Rimage's new 4800dpi model boasting 3-picoliter droplet size to wow the Visine crowd), Is it really a thing apart from "traditional" inkjet? Opinions vary, clearly, but as for the lick test on the 2000i, I'll say this: The ink does blur, but only after licking a disc and rubbing your index finger hard and vigorously across the ink.
That's one of four problems I had with the Rimage 2000i, and it doesn't really count, as I imagine most of my readers aren't pure scientists like me, preferring neither to lick a disc nor get sick from it. The other three problems don't really count either, so let's get those out of the way and get on with the glowing review-truly, the Rimage 2000i is the coolest thing to roll through McDaniel Labs in at least two years. Problem two: it's heavy and I'm old, almost as old as Steve Nathans, but whereas he kicked the Chef Boyardee and took his dietary and vitamin supplements,...