Enhancing Your Cuddling Experience

Dear Santa,

I just added the ARMadillow to my christmas list. Please enhance my cuddling experience.

Thanks,

Jameson

P.S. My fiance says thanks in advance!

Motherlover

(Like we need any more distractions during finals week!)

Good luck with finals everyone. I hope you rock them! If not, I hope this brings you some sort of comfort....

Digital Magazines

Magazines are about the only physical books I read these days other than my textbooks, of course. (Ok, you caught me. I don't usually read those either.) I'm a Men's Fitness and MacWorld kinda guy. But my subscription for MacWorld ran out a couple months ago and I haven't bothered to renew it. I have it sent to my home (as apposed to my school address) because it's too complicated when I go home in the summers to have it switched back. And since I'm only home about once a month, my new issues are always old by the time I get them.

Well today I discovered Zinio. It's a website that allows to to purchase digital copies of your favorite magazines (yes guys, even Playboy is on there!). I still can't decide if I'm thrilled about the idea of a digital magazine because I usually read my magazines while I'm eating breakfast, relaxing on the couch or sittin' on the pot. But right now they're giving you the opportunity to try a one year subscription of some of their magazines for free (sorry, Playboy not included). How can you pass that up?! I'm trying the Reader's Digest as my sampler to see how this new experience goes.

When I started reading my first issue on the interwebs, I noticed that it was slow loading the next page. Little did I realize that you can't download Zinio Reader so you don't have to deal with the hassle of reading it online and waiting for everything to load. Plus, as long as the most recent issue is downloaded, you don't need internet access to read your new issues. This will be great for catching up on my reading while in the car.

Final comments: The quality of the magazines are excellent. Both of them I tried were crystal clear. Lucky for me I have a 22" monitor hooked up to my Macbook Pro so I can't read everything clear without having to zoom in. I can see that being able to read both pages on the screen would be difficult if you have a small monitor. That will take away from the whole magazine experience. But hey, the trees will thank you!

Anyone else given it a try? Let me know what you thought!

Plastic out. Organic cotton in.

Earth Day might have already passed but that doesn't mean that I'm through with celebrating. This year for Earth Day I made a goal to cut down on my plastic consumption. I already own 4 or 5 reusable shopping bags and use tupperware to store food whenever I can. But I still had a problem with wasting plastic bags every time I buy fruits and veggies.

SOLUTION: Reusable produce bags.

I was able to convince Erin and Libby over at Yaybia (which wasn't too hard) to teamed up on an order of reusable produce bags from reusablebags.com. They had two different styles to chose from--see-thru and non-see-thru. And they also come in two different sizes--small (for things like peppers, tomatoes, onions) and large (for apples, oranges, lettuce).

I decided to experiment by ordering a few of each. The first thing I noticed when they arrived was that the small size for the non-see-thru was a lot smaller than the small see-thru. But I am happy with the different sizes because there is no sense wasting a bunch of space for a single green pepper.

After a week or so of using them, I've concluded that I like the feel and ease of use of the see-thru bags much better, but i know there will be times when the other ones will be handier.

I highly recommend these bags to anyone who is wanting to go green. Heck, even if you aren't into the whole "going green" thing I still think that you should get them. They are SOOO much nicer and easier to use than plastic bags. Plus, you look cool using them. Who doesn't want to look cool when they are grocery shopping?!

Jamesonhall is now following TaxGuyMurray on Twitter

And you should be too!

Will it blend? WAIT....Shred?

Did you ever have the pleasure of being introduced to Will It Blend?  Well today Google Reader introduced me to a new Will it...? concept--Will It Shred?  A piano, in this case.

Now when I think of a shredder I think of my little personal sized paper shredding that rests beside my desk.  Now my shredder isn't the Cadillac of all paper shredders, but a dozen sheets is pushing it for even some of the more expensive ones.  I was sucked in from the beginning; I had to experience this new and exciting phenomenon. 

To my surprise, when they say shredder they mean an industrial size shredder that is capable of ripping my '00 Monte Carlo to bits.  I can't lie, I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get to watch a mini shredder take on that piano, but hey, you win some and you lose some.  Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

My final thoughts: So the beginning is pretty lame and the whole video was probably edited in iMovie in about 10 minutes.  But hey, who doesn't like to see a full-size piano being ripped to pieces.  

Your day is now complete.  You're welcome.

Just Because