©1996-2009 Roedy Green, Canadian Mind Products
I dropped a package containing a pair of 3M
ScotchBrite microfibre cloths into my shopping cart, and was horrified to
discover they cost about
. However, they are worth the price. They clean glasses and screens many times
faster and better than anything I have ever used. Further, they are soft, they
don’t scratch and they are reusable.
All you do is add water when it tells you to, and add two nutrient tablets when it tells you to. It turns its lights on and off automatically. It circulates the water with a small pump. My first attempt failed. The plants browned and died. The Aerogarden people explained that the nutrient tablets had become warm and damp and sweated out one of the micronucrients. I tried again, this time being careful to rinse in the residue on the fertilizer packets, and this time the plants are growing fast enough to see the difference every day. The instructions say to add water when a light comes on, but I find you must actually add water every second day or the plants will start to droop.
Even with its artificial light, it produces only about half the carbon of a comparable amount of food grown and shipped from field to home.
The surprise is how much fun this thing is. It is like watching a magic trick. Out of water, some small tablets and air materialises living vibrant little plants right before your eyes. Watching over a period of days you can watch the plants competing for light. You can compare their different life strategies. It is, oddly, like watching small animals.
The is something very satisfying and supremely delicious about eating chives or basil you grew mere seconds after they were picked. I was expected only a token harvest, but the unit produces enough so we can eat fresh herbs in salads, sandwiches, on pizza, in soup every day. The Italian Basil grows so fast I have to prune it back daily to keep it from overpowering the other herbs. As I type, a wonderful odour is wafting from the oven. I beefed up a store-bought frozen McCain pizza with a selection of fresh herbs.
Its lights are very bright. Most people could not sleep in a room with it, though I do.
The smaller Aerogarden 3 unit is not just a half-sized version. It has no water pump. It uses a noisier vibrator-style air pump to circulate the water. The vibrator gets even noisier when the water is low. There is no flow of water over the plant cups. The cups dip into the water. The light is even brighter and plants, especially the roots, appear to grow even faster than with the full size unit. You cannot vary the number of hours a day the lights stay on. It is fixed at 17.
I talk more about Aerogardens in my essay on marijuana and my automated greenhouse student project.
TeFal is a French company that makes non-stick cookware. I am impressed. The surface truly is easy to clean. It is durable. The large pan I have has a nice solid look and feel. It was not even that expensive.
Sonicare makes an electric toothbrush that gets your teeth cleaner than anything else I have ever used. It lets you use any toothpaste you want. Some other electric toothbrushes make you forgo toothpaste because it wears out the gears. The Sonicare has a timer that keeps you honest. The brushes last six months. I am on my third unit. There is very little to wear out other than the rechargeable batteries. It works at sonic frequencies, much faster than other brands. Going back to a manual brush feels like using a tree branch in comparison. The brush itself can get clogged with toothpaste. Clear it out with some dental floss or a toothpick and it will became re-energised. If it saves you even one cavity it has more than paid for itself.
You swish Plax around your mouth before you brush. It contains sodium benzoate which dissolves the glue that bacteria use to cling to your teeth. It makes quite a difference in how clean you can get your teeth. I find the green flavour is the most palatable. The red is pretty disgusting. You can buy generic equivalents cheaper.
The Braun multimix hand blender is so convenient to mix up a batch of Gatorade or orange juice or my morning smoothy. It can even do an number of other chopping jobs. You can make perfect Jello with one by mixing with two cups of hot water instead of the usual one hot, one cold. They are dirt cheap, durable and easy to clean.
I thought the three blades were just so much marketing silliness, but when I tried them, I discovered they are just great. Mach 3s cut your beard quickly. You can’t cut yourself with them even if you try. You get a close shave. They last a long long time without going dull. They are relatively easy to clean. They are very expensive but given their durability, they are probably cheaper than other brands. Most stores keep them in locked cabinets to discourage shoplifters. If you don’t see them on the shelves, ask the clerk. The head is a little on the big side, like manoeuvring a barge around your face, but other than that, I consider this is by far the best razor I have ever used, and I have tried pretty well everything.
Originally I was attracted by the handsome male models in the ads, however, I’m not the only one who likes the blades. I told my sister about them and she said she had on multiple occasions heard men extolling their virtues in the super market line. That normally only happens in commercials.
You have to press fairly hard however, or the hairs can lie flat and escape the blades. To avoid that problem, check the shave by wiping your hand against the grain all over your face.
Gillette has now come out with a 5 blade version and a vibrator called the Fusion. This is just too ridiculous. I am sticking with my Mach 3.
Febreze is advertised to take odours out of fabrics. Amazingly, it does. It works by trapping smelly molecules in little molecular tube cages. It does not really get rid of odours, it just traps them. It gets oil odours out of massage sheets which don’t come out even with repeated launderings.
However Tide with Febreze in the formulation makes clothes too itchy to wear.
The Kinesis DSK Keyboard is outrageously priced, but it pays over and over in increased speed and reduced wrist strain. To read more about it see my essay on it. It comes in both QWERTY and Dvorak versions. It is so different in feel from a regular keyboard, you might as well go whole hog and get the faster Dvorak version.
The SMC Lumbar Extender is a very simple sturdy device that works almost like magic fix a sore or cramped back. You just lie on it and relax gradually and you feel a few pops, and suddenly your back feels fine. I slide it to a about three different positions and repeat. It is a bit overpriced. It works quite a bit better than a log or chesterfield arm. The secret may be the gap down the middle. It takes quite a bit of strength to assemble.
Nielsen-Massey make a line of organic extracts including orange, vanilla, almond, coffee … These of amazingly good quality. They are extremely concentrated and utterly delicious. I like to use them to flavour coffee. The biggest problem is avoiding using too much. A moistened finger around the rim is usually sufficient. They really should come with an eye dropper.
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