Earbuds

I guess I'm a rather fortunate individual. Our management allows us to play music in the labs, or even to wear earphones while working at the bench. Since not everyone enjoys the music I do (although really, who doesn't like sea shanties, ukulele-driven pop music, and irish drinking songs?!!), I've tried several times to wear headphones at the bench.

It drives me batty. Maybe it's because my hearing isn't what it once was. Maybe it's just my nosy side. Either way, I can't stand being cut off from the sounds around me. It feels like something of a safety concern, as well. I mean, if someone drops a tank of phosgene, snapping off the valve and flooding the lab with poisonous gas, I want to at least have the advanced warning of hearing the bodies drop, so that I'll have time to collect myself for finding out what it REALLY smells like.

My solution has been to only use one earbud. Let me tell you, this is a sucky solution. That dangling bud acts as a counterweight, slowly tugging the active earbud from the ear. It also catches on things... ID badges... buttons.... flasks full of solutions made from highly expensive and difficult to synthesize compounds... that kind of thing. Really, it's a no-go.

Well, if you've had similar problems, let me tell you that help has arrived. It's the 1-Bud... A single earbud with a special jack configured to play both channels of the stereo into one ear. I've wanted one since I found them early this year. Unfortunately, messages on their site indicated that the existing version wouldn't work with my MP3 player. But a new version was being developed, so I waited.

And the wait was worth it! Nice sound, fits comfortably into my ear, and the perfect length! Sure, the styling is a little "Disco 76" (white with gold accents), but what the hell. And if you're not restricted by having a Creative brand MP3 player, you have a full range of options, including earcuff style, and colors including white, black and "if your skin is really this color, you should probably see a doctor" skin tone. It's $13 plus S&H.

There, now my public service for the month is done. Oh, in case you're interested, these things weren't developed for people like me (talk about your niche market!). They were developed for people with hearing loss in one ear who still want to hear both channels of their stereo. Without the internet, I'd never have learned of these, much less found a source for them. All hail, Mighty Web!

Artificial Wishbones

As friends a long-time readers will know, I'm a vegetarian. As such, I haven't participated in the ritual wishbone competition for many years. But I don't think vegetarians are the only people misisng out on wishbone breaking.

How many people actually roast whole poultry these days? It is my considered opinion (and therefore, true) that among the poultry eating population (PEP), an increasing number of people are opting for the purchase of bird segments (nuggets, "fingers", patties, split breasts, etc.). This turning from the whole-carcas style of poultry dining has left an entire generation of children in the dark as to the generation of luck through poultry.

Thanks to Lucky Break Wishbone, though, America's children can participate in this ages-old custom for less than a 75cents each (figuring 2 children per wishbone and including S&H). And it's not restricted to children of the PEP! Yes, vegetarians, vegans, even fruitarians (!) can partake, because Lucky Break has made their surrogate wishbone without resorting to the use of animals! Check it out. I wanna know why 3 paks of these aren't being sold in the poultry section of every grocery store in America! Fornow, go to the website, and order some. If not for yourself, for your children. (Won't you think of the children?!?)

Paper Strip Music box

Whereas most music boxes these days play from commercially prepared disks or cylinders with raised nubs on them, this Mechanical Music Box Kit captures the musical data as holes in a paper strip. The bonus? You can punch the strips yourself. The kit is only $16 plus S&H at the Curiosity Shoppe Online (unfortunate spelling, gentlemen). This is an excellent idea! This is the perfect gift from a poor college student to his beloved. Punch up a version of your song for it and you've got a great Valentine's day gift!

If you'd like to see one in action, check out the beginning of this youtube video by Yael Naim, which is where I first saw it. That woman has a fascinating voice. I guess she's french? Based on her name, maybe she's morroccan? I'm not sure. Israeli (thanks, Wiki!). I found Yael Naim by googling the lyrics for "New Song", after hearing it played on a commercial for the new MacBook Air commercial. Have you seen how slim that thing is?! And have I mentioned how much I love the internet?

Modern mix tape technology

I was a huge fan of mixtapes in college. The only thing better than making one was receiving one. But mix tapes ended with the era of the CD-R. Somehow they just lacked the same panache found in the classic mix tape.

Well, a worthy successor to the mix tape has been found at last- the mix thumb drive. This is the best idea. Now they just have to get the price down a bit. $30 is a bit pricy for a mix tape, no? Get it into the $5 range, and you've got a product that I can get behind. Check it out here

Un-Christmas Cards

Heh-heh. I'm digging this card. I'm feeling Christmassy right now, but I guarantee, before this season is over, I'll have had it up to here with it. There are 4 different cards in the pack, including "Have a Rubbish Christmas" "Merry Christmas. Now Get Stuffed", and "Christmas is all about me", as well as the one pictured. Funny cards, with great graphics, but $12 for 4 cards? C'mon. We send out way too many cards for that. Oh well. Maybe I'll add it as the message on our photo card next year. Buy the cards here:Vintage Un-Christmas Cards-Mod Retro Indie Clothing & Vintage Clothes

Utlimate Gift for Parents

Just stumbled across this new remote control, which might be the best ever gift for parents, if only it worked. Check out the button labels in the pics at left. There are specialized ones like "say thank you," "don't answer back", and "tidy room", and general use buttons like"stop that", "play" and "no smoking" for day-to-day use. At only $8.75 plys S&H (from Spoon Sisters) I've got to get one of these!



PS: Check out some of their other parenting items, too! The book "How to Con Your Kids" looks like a winner, as does "The Wheel of Responsibility"- a wheel of fortune for deciding whose turn it is to do those obnoxious parenting chores like diaper changing, or driving the kid to practice. Best of all, the all-time best baby name book: "Sci-Fi baby names" featuring all time favorites like Klaatu and Barbarella. excellent! Wish I'd had this before the younguns had been monickered. TheWife fought off Kazimir and Lars, but she'd have been powerless against Klaatu or Aeon!

and Father's Day is now past.

Damn it! Why do I only find the coolest ideas for gift-giving after the holiday has already passed? (And why do the coolest gift giving ideas cost over $300?). As you can no doubt see from the photo at right, I have discovered the CruzinCooler.

"Wow!", you're thinking, "That's a helluva cooler! But surely it will be too slow, and won't hold enough 'adult beverages' to be worth my while." Well, that's where you're wrong. Again. You might want to stop guessing on these kinds of things. It's getting embarassing.

In point of fact, this cooler will achieve top speeds of 13 mph (with a maximum range of 15 miles), and will easily hold a case of canned beer, PLUS eight pounds of ice. And let me note that those who think going 13 miles per hour while sitting on top of a cooler filled with beer have obviously never gone 13 miles per hour while riding a cooler filled with beer!

"Still not good enough!" you say? Well, then check out one of the higher level items, which top out at a remarkable 15 mph! There are also cooler wagons available. This is a product pretty much designed for Middle Bro's neighborhood. And at only $350 for the low end model, how can he pass it by? Hopefully, he'll pick one up for me, too. I'd be the hit of trick-or-treating with this thing.

Evaporation

Check out this cool t-shirt at Etsy! The graphic is an illustration of evaporation from an old Japanese text book. Alternatively, it could be taken as a representation of The Rapture. Something for everyone, I guess. You choose. A bargain at only $15 plus shipping! (This isn't mine, and I don't know the folks selling it. I just think it's really cool).

Bad gift for the six-fingered man.

If I didn't already have a drawer full of rarely-worn t-shirts, (and if I wasn't a total cheapskate) I'd buy myself one of these. Excellent, simply excellent.

(BA - The title is the link. But so is this.)

The little book of Hindu Deities

Some guy from Pixar has produced a cartoon style book of Hindu deities. Pretty interesting! It seems like it's geared to a slightly older crowd than the kid's book nature of the drawings would suggest. Witness the illustration of Kali, at left. Skulls, arma and a severed head. Not good for bedtime stories... but pretty cool! Some of the illustrations are available as posters or t-shirts, too. I expect the Kali design to be a big hit with the hipsters.

(Y'know, the more I look at this, the more it reminds me of Muppet Babies. Still, pretty neat.)

Eternal Ascent

Another wacky thing to do with your mortal remains. Have yourself cremated. Then, this company will transfer a portion of your cremains* into a weather balloon and launch you into the stratosphere. At some point, the balloon will burst, showering the earth with your ashes. I have to say - ick. When someone has their ashes scattered onto a lake, or over a field, that's one thing. They've symbolically joined with some place that is special to them. But to have them blowing all over the damn place from miles up, and raining down on unsuspecting individuals... that strikes me as a bit too far. But then that's just my humble opinion. YMMV.

(BTW, the photo above is the launch of a pet's ashes. I just couldn't post one of the people pics, though the website does have them.)

* is it just me, or do the words cremains and craisins just have too much in common for comfort? I think I may lay off of the sweetened, dehydrated cranberries for a while.

Pirate Baby Shoes!

These shoes would be great for TheBoy! After all, if we want to eliminate global warming, we've got to get kids interested in piracy early!

BarterBee changes business model

Music, Movie and Game trading website BarterBee.com has just revised it's business model. There will no longer be a $1 charge per trade! Apparently, their new business model revolves around the sale of points and insured envelopes. Excellent! If you've rejected BarterBee before, based on the cost, maybe it's time to look at it again!

Goodbye old friend...

At last, it has passed. Today, my Canon S230 Digital Elph made its way to the great circuitry graveyard. Something inside it just stopped working, and while I could still view the photos already in memory, new photos could no longer be produced.

Fearfully, I turned to amazon.com... and found that the $120 low-end camera had 1) higher resolution, 2) a larger view screen, 3) cheaper memory cards, and 4) used non-proprietary rechargable batteries (that don't cost $50). I've never been so happy to have a piece of electronics fail.

Oh, and while I was ordering from Amazon, anyway, I decided to pre-order Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! I should have it within two days of the release date. Although if you pay for shipping, they'll guarantee it arrives on the day of release. Not worth it for me. I can wait two days to read a book if it'll save me $5.

Recycled Paper Coffin :: Ecopod Environmentally friendly Coffin

As part of my continuing series on the trappings of death, allow me to present the Ecopod - the environmentally friendly compressed paper coffin. Looks like they're still ramping up for production, but what a neat idea. Even if you go with a traditional vault burial, this should be much less expensive. And you get a choice of designs to boot! (I'd recommend against the gold leaf version shown on the website... seems a bit too Cleopatra, somehow).

magnet rubber ducky

I kinda dig Etsy. In spite of all the hand made aprons and other crap, there is a significant mass of neato stuff. F'rinstance,

this ducky magnet! *who likes the little, little duckies, etc.?* Nine bucks with shipping is a little steep, I guess, but it's pretty cool. Lot's of cool clip art magnets and "tabs" (which are 2x3 ceramic pieces with clip-arty images on them, and a hole for hanging (in your cube, your tiny apartment, or maybe even on a thong around your neck?) built right in). Nifty colors and nifty images - it's a winning combination!

Storyville.com

Storyville.com has mailorder coffee for which the major selling point seems to be that it's fresh. The cost for this? roughly $19 a pound, plus S&H. Give me a break. Go to your local roaster and pick up a pound. It'll be even fresher than Storyville, and should cost you less than half as much. If you're in Milwaukee, I recommend stopping by Alterra's east side store. The Kenya AA (IMHO, the finest coffee there is) is only $12 a pound. They roast it right there. Stop by during the week, and you'll be able to drink a cup while watching the roasting process. Lovely.

USB Cannon

This is ridiculously expensive ($35, plus S&H), and ridiculously awesome. It's a USB powered desktop cannon. Three foam projectiles (adhering to a human cannonball theme) are included, as is the software allowing the cannon to be aimed using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Judging from the pic at left, it looks to be about 6 or 7 inches tall. I'm just giddy at the mere existence of this thing! What could be more excellent! At last, you can mount the attack (really more of a pre-emptive defensive move) on the neighboring cube, and earn yourself the lebensraum you really need.

Eternal Reefs

I heard someone going on about this on the radio this morning. It's another in a long line of alternative deceased loved one disposal techniques. Actually, though, this one does some good. The person is cremated, then the ashes are mixed with concret and used to create one of these -->

It's a Reef Ball - a single module that, when combined with other, similar modules, creates a sort artificial concrete reef. Each Memorial Reef Ball also gets a bronze plaque memorializing the deceased. Current reef locations include Ocean City, NJ; Charleston, SC, Sarasota, FL, Miami, Ft Lauderdale, and Ft. Meyers.

OK, it sounds a little weird at first, but it certainly beats a lot of the alternatives I've seen. And instead of spending a ton of money for poisons that will leach into the environment, your funeral dollars will do some good. I'm going to think about it!

For previously discussed body disposal schemes, see here.

Milwaukee Chocolate

This morning's theme was Milwaukee Chocolate. In addition to sampling some of Milwaukee's (and Ghana's) own Omanhene chocolate (very tasty, if you like the dark stuff, as I do), I stopped off at Milwaukee's own version of the Soup Nazi, at Northern Chocolate. The guy is rather... particular about how his customers behave. It's his store, fair enough. Fortunately, I was prepared for his unusual behavior after reading a Milwaukee Journal article about his place.

After dropping TheGirl at her class, I headed up the road to Northern Chocolate. It's on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, about five or six blocks south of North Avenue. I was careful not to step in the snow bank as I got out of my car, and carefully knocked the snow from my shoes when I reached the sidewalk. I reached the front door to find the proprietor unlocking the gate that controls access to his front door. It went something like this:

"Hi! Are you open?"

"Do you know what you want?"

"I thought I'd look to see what you have."

"All right. Are your shoes dry?"

I lifted each shoe to show it was free of snow and ice. Nodding grimly, he stepped inside, and I followed. As I shopped, the proprietor informed me that he was opening late because of the recent development of certain health issues which I won't go into here, as according to TheGirl, discussing them provides "to much information". I selected a box of assorted chocolates (cherry walnut clusters, mint meltaways, pecan-caramel logs, toasted coconut drops and solid chocolate cresent moons - excuse me while I get another pecan caramel log. Yum!) He began to ring up my total, but then stopped.

"Promise me that you brush and floss," he demanded.

Breathing a sigh of relief that TheGirl had recently pressured me into following dentist's orders for the first time in my life, I assented. The total was around $18. After I paid, we chatted for a few moments about the sad state of pop culture, and our respective careers. The proprietor then moved to the door and opened it for me. Taking this as my cue, I departed, a box of excellent chocolates in my hand.

My personal faves are the dried cherry walnut clusters. Simply delicious! The chocolate at Northern Chocolate is on the brittle end of the spectrum (as opposed to, say, the creamy end of the spectrum occupied by your typical swiss chocolatier), but undeniably good. If you're on the north side of milwaukee (or downtown, river west, or the east side, for that matter) some Saturday afternoon, be sure to dry your shoes and stop in at Northern Chocolate for some excellent treats.

PS: I was informed that the Easter chocolates would be coming out shortly. Molded chocolates are a major selling point of the store. In addition to the clusters and logs, the shelves are lined with an amazing variety of beautiful molded chocolates. I'm picking some up in the next few weeks if I get a chance. I'll post pics here if I pull it off.

Incidentally, prices are about typical for high-end hand made chocolates, and he only takes cash.