We show a lot of cows, pigs and chickens in our regular pages, but once a month, that most photogenic of farm denizens - the horse, of course - graces the pages of the Mid-Atlanic Horse.  Here's the front page off the May edition, featuring the photography of editor David Yeats-Thomas. Mid-Atlantic Horse is included in issues mailed to subscribers. Check it out in our print edition.

     
     Suppose you've bought a new refrigerator. Your new fridge has a regular handle, but it locks until you respond to messages displayed on a touchscreen on the door. The first message might be "Why did you buy this refrigerator?" Was it because: a - you liked the way it looked; b - you felt it was important to keep up with refrigerator technology; c - because a friend or neighbor recommended it to you; d - none of the above, please explain.
     My response would be: d - I just wanted to keep my stuff cold. And then the refrigerator might want to know where you bought it (as if it hadn't been there) and did you buy it from a retail store, mail order or from a vendor at a Phillies game? And do you want to buy all your milk from Walmart, yes-or-nor-and-if-no-why-not? And would you like fresh carrots delivered weekly to your door (offer not good in areas of high meat consumption.)?
Are you male or female or aren't you sure? What is your household income? How old are you, exactly. No, really, how old?
     See, that's silly. The kind of silliness I wish computer and software designers, engineers - I'll just call them software thugs - would learn to avoid. I'm on this rant after having spent a week trying to get a two-year-old Vista laptop to work and finally giving up, going to Staples and having a wonderful guy named Rick install Windows 7 on my machine. It was expensive. I also bought the anti-virus Norton 360 (which I installed myself), and a new router, because my old one had problems with Windows 7. And I needed no more problems.
     So I got the computer home, booted it up, got the router hooked up and scooted around some websites and a couple of email accounts. It was wonderful. Vista was like swimming upstream in a strong current. Windows 7 was like floating downstream. I loved it. And then the questions started popping up. Did I want to make Windows my sole media player for life? And my browser? Microsoft's browser? Huh? Did I want any of three-pages worth of Windows add-ons? Did I want Windows to hold my hand when I was troubled? To walk my dog when I was too tired?
     Switching computers and/or operating systems isn't the biggest problem in the world, but it can be one of the most annoying, especially when billion-dollar companies like Microsoft and Norton (which had it's own list of strong-arm queries) try to milk their customers for much more than they've already paid. Just give me the goods and forget about the sales pitch.
     
     Let's put a blankie down for baby, so he can take a little nap. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/baby-creates-chaos-in-time-lapse/1abyzm97g