When I saw joe's post on bookofjoe: bookofjoe MoneyMaker™ — OneZip Mini it made me want to recount my own plastic bag obsession.

Ever since our Europe trip, I've become a believer in resealable plastic bags. While I know that one-time-use plastic bags are the enemy of the free world, I think these little guys are useful (and plus they are reusable).

For our first trip to Europe, we used plastic bags to pack everything in easily removable groups. For example, in the "pants" bag, I had my spare pair of pants...yes I only had two pair of pants with me plus a pair of shorts for the whole month. I packed the AC adapters, plugs, connectors, etc into another plastic bag. Of course, our toiletries went into their own bag. My underwear and socks plus a couple of t-shirts when into our good old Eagle Creek packing cube that have been on every trip with me for ages and ages. Another plastic bag for splenda, meds, etc. We brought along extra baggies just in case and used them to carry food we bought at supermarkets and left overs from restaurants.

When we got home, we've continued to use the same bags for storage of various items. We have our "croissant bag" which houses the tasty Costco croissants and keeps them from turning into rock hard projectiles. We also use them to keep other foods and then we wash, dry, and reuse them. Aren't they disposable you ask? Why yes, but just because something is disposable doesn't me it can't be reused. We've used the same set of gladware plastic boxes for years now. I know you're supposed to toss them after a few months, but why? They work perfectly fine.

My one word of advice is to avoid Hefty zip bags. They're just not as well made as ziploc or glad baggies. We got them because they were cheap but found that a couple of bags had funky zippers that did not close properly. So much for quality control.

Oh yeah, on of joe's commentors had a link to this sweet selection of baggies in case you need odd sizes.

It seems people do love them some egg chairs. Well if you like the egg chair for one, you may want to check out this sleek little two seater that has a very egg-chair-ish look. What's that you say? It's sweet? Yeah, I like it too. This would look great in the reception area for a bond villian's front-business.

via [freshome]

What do you mean the replacement HEPA filter for my air purifier is $50?!? The whole damned thing cost me $50!! I have the Hunter Fan QuietFlo 30117. I really like it for the compactness, but it is a little noisy.

So why air purifier shopping? Well, I have one and will need a new filter soon. Also, I'm trying to find a good father's day gift that is useful. I thought maybe the ionic breeze thing would be cool, but it seems that the ionic breeze air purifiers are quite bad for you. Weak.

Then I thought, hmmm, I can just get them the same one that I have, but it's a bit too small for their house. Then I saw the Sharp FP-N60CX Plasma Cluster Air Purifier (see left). No, it's not a nuclear reactor (I think) as the "Plasma Cluster" moniker may suggest but it does definitely sound cool. At nearly 400 smackers it sounds expensive, but if you take into account my little Hunter QuietFlo is going to burn $100 per year ($50 every six months for the new filter) and the Plasma Cluster only requires a new filter every 5 years (only $100 each)...it ends up being a great deal. The nice thing is the Plasma Cluster has a really low output of ozone unlike the ionic breeze.

It's pricey, but I tend to invest in good products that will last a long time rather than buy shit from WalMart that falls apart after a couple of weeks. Also this bad boy looks to be like a good deal in the long run ($100 every 5 years versus $100 EVERY year...ouch).

Not sure why I would need this, but just in case I need used school lockers in the future....

dodoskido says...

Man it's hot around these parts these days. It especially sucks because I have no air-conditioning at home. Yep, that's right...my apartment has no A/C. The good news is the pool is at the right temperature right now (the bad news is that it's usually filled with screaming 10 year olds). Anyway, I could use one of these misting things in the house and for Hongyun's art booth (coming next year at Art & Wine Festivals around the Silicon Valley). I'd better get to home depot and figure this thing out so that we can mist-ify (get it? get it?) her potential collectors into purchasing some of her great artwork.

Originally from Gizmodo

With only a fan, a spray bottle, and a little love, you, too, can cool your mottled, puffy skin with a sweet mist. While I'd fill my spray bottle with a little kerosene and create a beautiful light show for my neighbors, you can hook yours up to the garden hose for hours of delightful misting action.

Building an outdoor mist cooling system [Grynx]

AccuRain Lawn & Garden Watering System - Automatic Landscape Sprinkler & Drip Irrigation Alternative

Hate wasting water? That's what happens when you water your lawn and your sprinklers miss their mark and water the sidewalk. How about if you have plants with different watering schedules? How do your sprinklers handle that? Well, most likely, your sprinklers will either overwater one plant while leaving another high and dry. How do we fix this problem?

Enter the Death Star...actually it's called AccuRain, but it sure looks like the Death Star (it should come with a mini Darth Vader that can stick to the pole...oh man, that'd be super geeky, but nice all the same).