When I was growing up, I thought my family was poor.  Other kids had plastic sandwich bags that zipped shut; I was stuck with those stupid ones with the flap that folds over, which really didn't work at all.  But then the day came:  My mom started buying zip-lock bags.  I figured we must've won the lottery or somehow made it big.  Zip-lock bags = success in life. 

But then it started going downhill.  I would notice a bag or two sitting next to the dish drainer.  I would wonder, "Who left these used bags out?  They belong in the trash."  And then I caught my mom in the act -- she was washing the bags after using them, giving them a second life they didn't deserve at all.  I was back to square one.  My family was so poor, we had to reuse zip-lock bags. 

I went through a phase in early adulthood where my trips to the supermarket were a statement of rebellion against how I was raised.  I bought zip-lock bags.  I bought draw-string trash bags.  I bought candy and cookies, and often did so without thinking about it beforehand, i.e. spur of the moment.  I was successfully misdirecting my rage into shopping, which I've heard is a good idea.  And those zip-lock bags I bought?  Sometimes I would just throw them in the trash for the fun of it, without even using them, simply because I could.  (I'm kidding, of course.)

Fast forward a few years, and here I am, in my kitchen, washing dishes ... and plastic zip-lock bags.  I was opposed to it at first.  We make enough money to buy all the plastic zip-lock bags in the world, but it's not about the money.  [Serious moment coming]  It's about the landfills.  Most times we use a plastic bag, we simply throw it in the trash when we're done because that's what you do with disposable things.  That's why plastic was invented in the first place (or something along those lines).  But if you reuse a bag even once, you've effectively doubled the lifespan of that bag.  It lasted 100% longer than it was intended.  And I think that's a start.  Since plastic in landfills will essentially never go away, I think it would be a good idea to cut down on the source, which turns out to be me.  So now not only do I reuse zip-lock bags (washing them isn't so bad), I reuse plastic shopping bags as well (at least the ones that haven't been used for the transport of cat excrement).  And I recycle, even though I'm not fully convinced it's real.  In general, I think it's a good idea to cut down on disposable things and try to reuse as much as possible.  It probably won't help much, but it's something. 

This apparently isn't new news, but Nexcare makes duct tape bandages. 

Never has being maimed looked so cool.  (via Boing Boing)

Perhaps one of the most useful tools ever created is this thing called a slate rod, purchased at my local Home Depot.  It's just a simple metal rod, about 4 or 5 feet long, weighing about 15 or 20 pounds.  One end is pointed; the other used to have a flat part with a hook, but it broke after about 30 seconds.  My dad always used to carry a metal rod around the yard while doing odd jobs, and after buying a house a few years ago, one of my happiest purchases was this same metal rod.  Seeing it in a store, I'd have no clue what to use it for.  But once you use it for a few things, you realize you could never live without it.  I just used it this weekend to dig up rocks from my backyard that I kept hitting with the lawnmower.  If I used a shovel, I'd have to dig and dig to try to figure out how big the rock is, then hope to somehow pry it out, likely snapping the shovel in the process.  With the slate rod, I just poke around for a few seconds, then use it like a crowbar to dig the rock out.  Since it's a solid piece of metal, it pretty much can't break.  I can easily put all my weight on it and use all my strength to try to bend it, but it won't budge.  Other uses include moving large heavy things like trees and railroad ties, digging and prying out stumps, and destroying things like bricks and cement. 

If I was stranded on a deserted island, the three objects I would want in my possession are: 

1. Leatherman
2. Duct tape
3. Rubber grip jar opener

Rubber grip jar openers are usually used by old people and weaklings.  But like duct tape, it's easy to find more and more ways to use them.  I just loosened the head on my cordless drill so I could remove the bit.  I couldn't do it in my own strength.  Only with the help of rubber. 

I just saw a motorized golf pull cart (like this one) in use on the golf course at work.  A lady hit her ball and started walking towards her bag to put her club away when her bag started moving away from her.  She had a little remote in her hand that made the bag move.  This has to be the laziest product in the history of the universe.  Thankfully it's available for the low-low price of $800, which is practically a steal in my book. 

For people who don't golf, here's a brief history of golf club carrying devices:  First there was the golf bag, which slung over your shoulder and apparently affected your swing after about 14 holes; then there was the pull cart (or push cart, depending on how you use it), which took the weight off your shoulder and had a tendency to roll away when you weren't looking; lastly we have the motorized pull cart, which simultaneously solves a nonexistent problem while also using up extra money that many golfers seem to have weighing them down. 

The Consumerist has a post on those California cancer chemicals warning labels.  Generally speaking, the warning labels encourage a certain level of public safety, but in actuality, their purpose is mostly litigious.  One negative side effect of the abundance of these warning labels is a general disregard for them. 

Warning labels that warn against any infinitesimal risk are essentially useless. The outbreak of warning labels spawned by Proposition 65 is so widespread that consumers are being conditioned to ignore them. Even if some of these labels are trying to warn us against a legitimate risk, we are likely to ignore them since these labels "cry wolf" more than they protect us.

It seems that there's a danger in overwarning.  Too many warnings with too few observable effects (i.e. getting cancer from one of these products) is a bad thing. 

I saw this interesting product in a sporting goods store the other day: 

It's a Parent/Child Boxing Glove Set, which consists of a pair of 14-oz boxing gloves for adults along with a pair of teeny tiny 6-oz boxing gloves for children.  I'm no marketing genius, but the following sales pitches immediately came to mind: 

1. "It's not child abuse if you give them gloves too."
2. "Now parents and children can fight nicely."
3. "Won't leave embarrassing bruises!"
4. "Time to fight back!"
5. "Teach a skill while teaching a lesson."

I understand the idea behind it:  Create a little quality time, albeit with a somewhat violent pastime.  And even though it's not explicitly stated, the punching isn't intending to be directly at one another, but instead at a punching bag.  Of course.  But the entire thing just shouts child abuse and dysfunction.  I love it.  Someday, I hope to punch my child with these gloves, all the while getting punched by his/her tiny hands in return. 

I've always wondered what these warning labels meant: 

"WARNING: This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm."

Since this is on sooo many everyday products, is it something I should be worried about?  Why does only California know about it?  Why doesn't any other state know?  If it was a legitimate issue, wouldn't the product be outlawed?  Maybe Californians are extra cautious about cancer? 

It turns out it has something to do with a law passed in California in 1986 called the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, or Proposition 65.  This law requires the state to annually update a list of 700+ chemicals that are known to cause health problems.  A group of scientists and industry experts determines which chemicals are added and occasionally removed from the list.  The general qualification for a chemical that causes cancer is that if 100,000 people are exposed to it for 70 years, more than one person would get cancer.  Whether that's a fair qualification or not, I have no idea. 

In my "research" for this post, two things stood out to me:  (1) This information was surprisingly hard to find.  I would think it would be in everyone's best interest for someone to make an easy-to-find, easy-to-understand website with simple yet thorough information about a warning label that shows up on billions of products around the country.  (2) There's no answer as to why California is the only state that created such a list, or why the federal government hasn't adopted a similar list.  This leaves me with two possible conclusions.  Either California is full of extremely smart people who know a lot of stuff about a lot of things and have decided that certain chemicals can cause certain health problems in certain doses and certain situations, or exactly the opposite; i.e. California is full of fruits and nuts.  I'm sure both conclusions are true, but the second one doesn't have much effect on me getting cancer. 

Raise your hand if you've spent more than $10 on a pen.  *hand raised*

It turns out I'm a bit of a pen addict.  It's not that I spend lots of money on pens and always buy new ones.  It's more like I walk down the pen aisle of office supply stores and ogle at all the cool pens.  If I had a million dollars, I'd probably buy a million pens.  And the weird thing is that I don't write very often.  I don't take very many notes on paper, and when I write something down, I type it.  But when I do write, I like simple pens that write smoothly.  The Bic Clic Stic was my favorite pen, but it seems they've stopped making it.  I'm on the hunt for a new favorite pen because this gel ink one I have at work is scratchy and blotchy. 

I might've taken my eBay obsession a little too far.  Lately, I've been finding all kinds of cheap stuff on eBay, most of it made and sold by the nation of China.  It's a bunch of knock-offs, but most of it is good enough quality at a low enough price to be attractive.  I got a few lenses for my camera.  Then I got a lens cap.  Before that, I got a few accessories for my cell phone.  Nothing to write home about, but it was fun finding good deals on cheap little gadgets. 

But I found the limit, the line after which cheap eBay products are no longer acceptable.  In this case it was audio equipment, and specifically an FM transmitter for using an mp3 player with a car stereo.  I bought a cheap, cigarette lighter-powered transmitter and got it last week.  I plugged it into my car's cigarette lighter and it powered up, so things were going well.  But as soon as I plugged the audio cable into my mp3 player, there was a god-awful noise loudly flowing through my car speakers.  I wiggled the plug around a little bit and eventually got the noise to stop, but the audio quality coming out of my radio was pitiful.  I briefly imagined I would just have to deal with it as yet another hindrance in the whole audio portability problem. 

I went to a store and happened to see a similar FM transmitter for a similar price, but this one was made by Philips.  I decided to give it a try, wondering if a brand name audio device would have any superiority over a cheap Chinese knock-off. 

It turns out there's more than a slight difference.  The difference in audio quality is unimaginable.  The quality of sound coming out of my car's stereo is equal to CD quality audio.  And this is with an mp3 player, with songs encoded at 128 kbit/s.  There isn't even a comparison.  The "thing" I bought off eBay isn't in the same league.  It barely even qualifies as an FM transmitter in my opinion. 

So, in conclusion, eBay isn't the best place to buy everything, especially in terms of the third definition of fidelity:  "The degree to which an electronic system accurately reproduces the sound or image of its input signal."