Offbeat | Gear Diary

WD-40 Limited Military Collectible Series

Collections are fun. I have a collection of fountain pens still even though I rarely use pen and paper these days. I have a collection of gadgets, but that is more about my involvement with Gear Diary than anything else. And there was a point in my younger days when I collected unusual beer bottles. It was a fun collection and a great excuse to buy interesting six-packs. And since I was collecting EMPTY bottles… well you know… I’m sure dad was onto the scam, but he went along anyway. Thanks, dad! Yes, collections are fun, and when the…

Gear Bits

Google’s Chrome Ad Is a Tear-Jerker

Ok, maybe it’s just me (and Sarah!) We’re tired, it was a long, exhausting weekend. We were watching TV when the new Google Chrome commercial came on. In seconds we were both a bit teary-eyed. It was sweet. It was dorky. It was really, really brilliant. Yes, instead of taking the obvious path and focusing on specific Google services such as Gmail, it showcases the way memories can be saved. Its message, ” This isn’t about Google Chrome it is about you, your life and the stuff that matters!”

Gear Bits

Is the Twitter Bubble Over?

I once attended a work event where someone explained how he knew the so-called “tech bubble” of the early 90’s was over and done. It was Christmas Eve, he said, and his retired, conservative mother-in-law asked if she should own shares of Amazon.com. As he told it, at that very moment he turned to his wife and said: “That’s it, tech’s done.” If we go by that logic social media is done. Yes, if that is the correct indicator the social media bubble is about to pop. How do I know? Simple, at a mother’s day brunch earlier today my…

News & Features

Blog Comments R So CRAZY!

The plight of people subjected to identity theft is a terrible thing, and anything related to the havoc wreaked by BP and how many billions in profits they have made while leaving millions with their lives in shambles is a national tragedy. So I don’t want it to seem that I am belittling any of that … Writing for any online source, whether traditional article based where comments come via a ‘forum’ or on a blog like Gear Diary where you have an integrated comment system, one thing is for certain – you are going to see some crazy comments!…

News & Features

Craig Turner Solves the Cat Pee Problem (and Yes, There IS a Problem)

I love my two (fixed) female cats, but for a while we had a third — a stray we named Bobby because when he showed up more than 3/4 of his tail was missing. That’s him in the picture above. Cute little guy, right? Unfortunately, something else wasn’t missing; he was still a fully intact male. We never leave our windows down, so we didn’t discover his disgusting habit of peeing in people’s cars until he had done it to my friend Lisa’s jeep and my cousin Dusty’s work truck. Bad kitteh. I don’t know about you, but there are…

Gear Bits

Undo the Damage Inflicted on Marine Life with Recycled Carpet and Bottles? You Bet!

It is hard to believe but thanks to recycled carpet and water bottles marine areas that are currently “dead zones” can be brought back to life. Bruce Kania, CEO of Floating Island International has developed a way to create artificial islands from the garbage and, in the process bring life back to aquatic areas that would otherwise remain dead zones. Kania’s company takes the debris and uses it to create a “loofah-like mesh of plastic”. They then add soil and seeds and set it afloat. Nature takes over from there. The seeds bloom and grow and, as a post over…

Gear Bits

‘Be Consecrated to Me with This Ring’ (Or Is It ‘With This Coin’?)

Within my tradition, a couple is officially married when one partner gives the other something of easily assessed value; which is probably the original reason why Jewish wedding bands don’t usually have stones — the addition of the gems makes easily assessing the value impossible. The result is that while we usually use a ring in a wedding, it doesn’t HAVE to be a ring. Yup, the object used in the ceremony CAN be a ring or it could be something like a watch or a coin; you name it. So long as you can easily determine the value, you…

News & Features

Blue Canary Night-Lite Makes a Little Birdhouse in Your Soul

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch Who watches over you Make a little birdhouse in your soul Not to put too fine a point on it Say I’m the only bee in your bonnet Make a little birdhouse in your soul Who didn’t sing along with this song in 1990? Thanks to Think Geek, now you can have the night-lite that They Might Be Giants were referring to. $12.99 gets you this 4″tall night light with its light-sensing white LED. I’m ordering one now. Think Geek’s Blue Canary in the Outlet by the Light Switch (who watches…

Gear Bits

An Ingenious Dieting Tool: The Diet Fork

I saw this on Etsy and thought it was cute. Want to look more svelte? Try eating less with a “Diet Fork.” You’ll be so frustrated by the time you are done trying to stab your spaghetti or rice that you’ll just naturally begin eating less, your stomach will shrink, and you’ll live happily ever after! Well, maybe losing weight isn’t quite that simple. Okay, so there are some fundamental flaws with that theory, but I still thought the Diet Fork Magnet was a whimsical item — perfect for gifting to your friends who are always starting the latest fad…

News & Features

‘Hats’ Off to the Newly Married Royal Couple!

The media is super-saturated with coverage of the royal wedding, so I have no intent of spending any time on it. But as my wife and I drank coffee and watched the wedding – we normally watch the morning news, but the wedding was on pretty much every channel – we noted all of the wild hats. I couldn’t help but notice that next to the princess who reminded me of Monica Lewinski was another princess who was wearing a hat that looked like a combination of a wreath and a huge ribbon, but solid and attached to something that…

Reviews

Einstein’s Pedometer Gets Tested by Gear Diary!

I majored in philosophy in college, and my high school physics class trip to Great Adventure could be summed up as “WHEEEEEEEEEE” rather than “So that’s how Newton’s 2nd Law of Gravity works on ‘Scream Machine.’” So while I understand that Einstein’s theory of relativity involves time and that if you launched into space at the speed of light and came back you’d be less old than if you stayed on Earth, I can’t tell you why. Or whether you get the same benefit going 80 instead of 65 on the highway. However, like all things in life, there’s an…

Gear Bits

You Know You’re a Geek When …

We are in Massachusetts for three nights for a friend’s wedding…yet somehow a weekend trip required a MacBook, a netbook, a Kindle 3 and a NOOKcolor. Oh, and not pictured: an HTC Incredible and my Motorola Droid. When I met Sarah she didn’t even have a smartphone; apparently geekery is contagious!

News & Features

Movie Ages

While quoting lines from movies is as old as the ‘talkies’ themselves, over the last few decades movies have become so ingrained in our cultural fabric that they have become part of our identity. My family uses lines from Airplane!, Star Wars, Monty Python and many, many more on a regular basis. So I thought this comic was really cool … and a bit scary. It is best if you read from top to bottom … especially if you are over 35! Source: xkcd

Editorials, Gear Bits

A Marriage Statistic

Note that the above chart is missing one key slice. In 2004, Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage. No World Wars or other disasters befell the state, but the Red Sox won the World Series! So remember, in the event of same-sex marriage, two people get married AND long-standing bad sports curses break. Win-win! (And that really is the most exciting thing that happens. As Dan loves pointing out, Sarah and I are just as boring as every other couple!) Via Good.is

News & Features

Randomly Tragic: 25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Tragedy

Even after three years in New York I still keep up with the Boston Globe via their website, and today they have a short article that really caught my eye marking the 25th anniversary of the explosion that created the worst nuclear disaster in history – April 26, 1986. But what really struck me was the images: 34 images that show the ghost town of Pripyat in the shadow of the nuclear plant, as well as outlying areas. An area twice the size of New York state was contaminated, with a 19 mile exclusion zone set. From the article: On…

Editorials

The Revolution is Televised … But Will it be Subsidized?

Last year chef Jamie Oliver made a big splash by heading into a small school district in West Virginia and looking at what the kids were being fed … and then tracking back to homes and seeing the source of the issues. While our own kids are not overweight, several of their friends are (and there are some kids – girls in particular – with fed issues of different types) so it was a great discussion. It turns out that the food choices our kids have might be somewhat better than those in the West Virginia school system shown, but…

Gear Bits

A Quick Chuckle from Elana’s Uncle

You know those jokes that your Aunt Gertrude likes to send? The ones that come with 9000 other email addresses in the To: line since she doesn’t know how to use the BCC line and be respectful of others privacy? Well sometimes they are actually kinda funny. Like this one… Here is the proof that we have become too dependent on our computers: Question: Are you Male or female? To find out the answer, Look down… — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —…

Gear Bits

Take Off With the Jetlev R200 Flyer Jetpack

So tomorrow there are a number of us who will be excitedly pre-ordering the HTC Flyer Android Tablet. But that’s tomorrow, and it is a whole day away. In the meantime there is another flyer worth a look, although it costs a heck of a lot more. The Jetlev R200 Flyer is a Jetpack that makes personal flight a reality. The device uses pressurized water to levitate the pack and it’s “driver” and go vertical or horizontal. At close to 100K it is a luxury for people who live lives of super luxury but who knows, in a couple of…

News & Features

Look, Up in the Sky, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane It’s… A Car??? Terrafugia’s Transition Roadable Aircraft

File this under “I have seen the future and it is now”. This flying car would be the stuff of fantasy, or folly, except for one thing, it is exists and can be ordered now. Called the Transition, this car/plane (or is it plane/car??) is the brainchild of an MIT aerospace PhD Carl Dietrich and it has moved past the development phase in record time with him only conceiving of the idea in 2006. As the Transition’s website explains, Every pilot faces uncertain weather, rising costs, and ground transportation hassles on each end of the flight. The Transition® combines…

Gear Bits

Today is the Day Skynet Passes Judgement: The End is Near!

Image courtesy of iheartmovies If you live under a rock and have never seen any Terminator films, then you would have no idea that Tuesday night (4/19) at 8:11 PM Skynet came online and became self-aware. Skynet was a machine designed by our military to take control of our defenses. Giving a the control which According to the Terminator lore today marks the beginning of the end for humanity as we know it. Judgment Day is upon us, and soon the machines will take over the world as we know it. Sarah Connor shows us in T2 what is to…

Gear Bits, Music Diary

Random Cool Video: Weird Al Takes on Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’

Not my favorite stuff of his … but perhaps that is because the original song is so totally ripped off from superior Madonna material that I find Gaga to come off as a parody or at least an ironic look at the music industry. Naturally, she (or her ‘people’) wouldn’t allow him to do it … so he is releasing it free similar to the (better than the original) ‘You’re Pitiful’ parody of the milquetoast James Blunt snoozer. Anyway – enjoy Weird Al singing ‘Perform this way’! And while we’re on Weird Al and Lady Gaga … what about Polka…