Solution for: #114: Set Ubuntu crontab default editor

Turns out there is another tool in Ubuntu used to set the sensible-editor. In particular:
sudo /usr/bin/select-editor
will change the editor being used by sensible-editor, and by extension, the crontab -e invocation.

Not sure what the relationship is between the Debian Alternatives system and this select-editor util. I'm learning something new every day with these newfangled distros :p