Clocky, the wicked alarm clock

clocky

A few days ago I wrote about an alarm clock that had a rotor that flew around the room when the alarm went off. The only way to put it back to snooze was to catch the flying devil and place it back to its place. This time, our little monster is Clocky, and instead of flying, he waits for one push of the snooze button. Imagine, the alarm goes off, you hit the snooze button and go right back to sleep. Little do you know that little Clocky doesn’t wait for the second push in the same place. He just rolls down from your night stand, finds himself somewhere to hide, and after 10 minutes, goes off again, with the same racket. You hit the nightstand, realize your clock is not there anymore and start a searching quest around the room to stop the damned thing. After finally finding it, you can’t go back to sleep. Job well done, Clocky!

Moving? No problem!

Usually, moving into a new home is not an easy task. An even harder one is moving out of the old one. Why? Well, you have to pack, for one. Let’s remember our last vacation, when we had to pack our bags. Moving is fairly similar only on a larger scale and with more headaches. Not to mention the costs. Here are a few tips for when you move both to make it easier and cheaper.

1. If you look on the spending side, it’s easier, cheaper and more useful and fun to pay your friends in a night out or a night in with beer and pizza, to help you move your stuff, then paying a moving company, whose employees you don’t know, to move your stuff. I’m not talking furniture, fridge, washing machine. I’m talking clothes, sheets, kitchenware and so on.

2. Every piece of furniture and cavities must be filled. If you hire a moving company to move your stuff, be a jerk and leave your clothes inside the furniture. Fill the washing machine. Put your kitchenware into bags in a trash container.

3. Look around stores for free large size boxes. I’m not telling you to look in the garbage, but big stores like shoe stores, appliance stores are a great place to find huge cardboard boxes: TVs, washing machines, dish washers, refrigerators, are stored in huge boxes that get thrown away once displayed in a store.

4. Before you move, start getting rid of unwanted things. Think what you have in your new home. If you don’t have a garden, give away your gardening tools. No use keeping unwanted or useless stuff.

5. Don’t get cheap on insurance with a moving company. Also be very careful who you’re dealing with.

6. Don’t leave empty spaces in boxes. If a box is only half full of items, use stuffed animals, bed sheets, pillows to fill the empty spaces. Use up all the space at your disposal. You won’t get away without a general cleaning anyway.

DIY Mini Lamps

Looking for some design ideas, I found something really extraordinary. It’s Mark McKenna’s DIY (do-it-yourself) package to design battery lights. The kit contains a series of flat pieces, which you need to assemble. Then, you hook them up to a 9-volt battery, which should be the light source.

Mini Lamps

There are five different lamp kits for five models respectively. The mini-lamps are representations of the most famous designer lamps: Ingo Maurer’s Lucellino, Castiglioni’s Arco and Toio, Sapper’s Tizio, and Philippe Starck’s Miss K. Each kit costs $26. In my opinion, the idea of a DIY battery lamp is extraordinary. First, you solve a puzzle, then you enjoy the cool lamp from your desk. Nice!

Mini Lamps

Mini Lamps

[via Inhabitat]

Funny doormat

doormatThis little creep made me laugh half an hour when I came upon it. It’s a doormat with a subliminal message. Well not really subliminal. Just put it on your doorstep with the “Come in” part showing to the visitors. They’ll come, see the doormat, think “Aah, what a cute doormat” and proceed at entering. Not knowing what awaits them upon leaving. They’ll get dressed, open the door and in the minute they want to exit, you ask them something they have to think about. They throw their look on the floor before them, and see the cute doormat. Except that its message has changed. Well, it’s really not so complicated, you could just tell them “look what a cute doormat I’ve bought” and it’s pretty much the same. You’ll laugh half an hour, like me. Just make sure you tell them when they come, not before they leave.

Did I mention you can also wipe your footwear on it? That is if you don’t want to ruin a wonderful piece of both graphic and comedy art.

KA’s LawnBott

LawnBott2

After the automatic vacuum cleaner, that does the dirty work as you watch TV, KA came out with the idea of the automatic lawn mower. It is basically the same, but out of safety, they had to add a few minor modifications. As it works outside and after a random pattern, you have to keep it on leash, or you’ll end up searching throughout the neighborhood “have you seen my lawn mower?”. So, unless you have a well bordered yard, with no ways of escape, you’ll have to use the included perimeter cable, that you must lay down around the perimeter to be mowed (it doesn’t have to be the whole yard). The LawnBott detects the small signal emitted by this cable and it doesn’t dear trespass it. The other feature is that though it’s not waterproof, it has an incorporated water detector, so after it detects a few drops of water, it hides in its shelter. Oh, I forgot to tell you, it comes with its own lawn mower house, that you can put near the dog house, where it charges its batteries after a hard day at work. They might even become friends with your pet. After recharging, it resumes its daily shift, well, not daily, because it can even work non-stop (except for recharging time, of course) so you never have to lay a finger on your old, fuel powered lawn mower.

LawnBott1

How it works? Simple, like in “I, Robot”, it follows a few simple rules:

1. Do not pass the perimeter cable

2. If it bumps into an obstacle, back up, turn around, follow another route. Randomly, as usual.

Decorating business

businesscardart

If you your work involves meeting a lot of people, you might have a few, or lot of business cards. If not, you have friends who do. I saw this on a website where the owner of hundreds of business cards had the brilliant idea that instead of throwing them away, he would decorate his office walls with them. As single cards, there’s not much of a decorating accessory, but as you stack up a few types and colors, they can become a great brick for a mosaic on your wall. The method is up to you, make a pattern, form an image or just stack them up randomly. With a little planning and persistence you could end up with a neat office wall to look at, instead of the boring blank one you have now. If you don’t want to ruin the wall it is advisable to stick them on a huge cardboard which you hang on the wall like a painting. But it is entirely up to you. Just make sure you get lots of colors, as the most usual business cards are white.

The food washer

At first we did the dishes and washed our clothes manually. Then along came the washing machine. Shortly after, the dishwasher made its appearance on the market, so we do the cleaning without the mess. food washerIt also saved us time. Now, the only thing we wash manually are the fruits, vegetables and other things we eat to clean them from bacteria before we eat or prepare them. Or do we? It seems that they came up with an automated solution for this one as well. The Clean Cuisine product washing machine is made to handle this task with the recently developed Activated Oxygen technology to rid your food of bacteria, germs, pesticides and so on. The result is a clean, disinfected, safe-to-consume product, to protect you from all the food poison related illnesses that record a few million cases every year, curable, but undesired nonetheless. Maybe this information will make the price of almost $200 more accepted.

Sink maintanance

sink cleaning

I don’t watch television too much, but I often see these commercials for Mr. Propper or something, that’s used for cleaning your pipes in case of clogs or bad odors. Every time I see them, I remember to clean my pipes, as I share the drain with the next door neighbor and we often get bad odors in our kitchens. But here’s the catch: I don’t use Mr. Propper or any cleaning product. What I use is a combination of three, very common kitchen ingredients, probably very familiar to many or all of you: vinegar, baking soda and water. So what I do is boil a liter of water or so, put a cup of baking soda in the drain, add a cup of vinegar and quickly two cups or more of boiling water. It basically does the same as the commercial cleaning products. The difference is that you don’t get that detergent smell after the process. The baking soda and the vinegar react violently, producing and effervescent product that cleans your pipes and burn any kind of grease in the drain. I don’t know if it’s common to you, but I often use this combination to clean my own digestive pipes (of course without boiling the water). It’s not recommended for frequent use in your body though. For pipes, it’s just fine, at least I can’t think of any way it could damage them.

Have a seat on your coat

hood chairI’m talking about the Brodberg & Ridderstrale’s Hood Chair. Might make you curious the first time you see it. It is a kinky design inspired from the idea of toss-your-coat-anywhere. It’s most intriguing part is the hood at the back which could serve as a storage place for clothing items or just a place for your pet kitten that loves to share the room with you. The interesting part will be when it starts playing with your hair while you watch TV. Other than that, it’s a
fairly ordinary chair, made of plywood, felt and steel, I’ve seen many similar chairs, without the hood of course.

Painting kitchen cabinets

Given the working circumstances in kitchens it is nearly impossible not to get messy now and then. Sometimes, this “messy” turns out to be just the thing to leave our kitchen furniture marked forever. Well, maybe not forever. If you have (once) white kitchen furniture like I do, and it is getting kind of yellowish from steam and brownish from stains, but can’t afford replacing it, just calm down, you can paint them. Many people think that if a cabinet has some kind of decoration, than painting is not recommended. WRONG! A flat cabinet would look horrible after painting, just like flat doors, due to the large texture less surface. However, if the cabinet has a little decoration, a raised border the texture is replaced.

white cabinetSo, go down to a hardware store, buy a good quality latex based trim paint, and start repainting. Paint all the faces if you like to move your furniture around. You never know what is exposed, paint both inside and outside, both sides of the doors (it is recommended to remove the doors and drawers before you start the whole operation). Don’t forget about the drawers, of course, all sides (the bottom and back sides are optional). Let it dry, remount and see what you get. Keep the remaining paint, it will be good for future repairs, and it is advisable to buy a Magic Eraser, in case you screw up during the operation.