I waited around for a good deal to appear on woot or another shopping site. When I gave up hope one finally popped up as the Amazon gold box deal of the day. It was more than $200 off its original price and ended up coming out to be $179.99, with free shipping. Not too bad, and at that price I figured it was well worth a gamble and it would allow me to write a detailed review.

Background:
For those of you that do know, Roomba is a robotic vacuum from the company irobot. Yes it sounds like something from a science fiction movie, but the technology seems far less advanced then that. iRobot has been making these cleaning bots for years. They are not limited to just the Roomba Vacuums, they also make the Scoomba floor cleaner/robo mop (lol), a robot gutter cleaning device, and a few different pool cleaners, and that is just at the consumer level. For industry I think they make some far more advanced robots that do some very specific tasks. Anyhow, for this review we will only be talking about one product, the iRobot, Roomba 550 with 2 lighthouse towers and docking/charging station.

First Impression:
Since I got my Roomba from Amazon, and it was the goldbox special, there was a short 2 or 3 week wait for the unit. As every day went by I got more and more excited and wondered how robotically clean my little 1000 square foot condo would be. I would think of the good time my robot and I would share and how spotless my floors would become. I figured the Roomba would replace my need to get a dog as an assistant to clean up spills and drops in the kitchen.

When the Roomba finally arrived, it was well packaged from amazon. The box was somewhat awkward when it opened and I ended up with an upside down robot and a few C batteries scattered on my floor. Whoops. I flipped through the instructions, find a nice little home for the Roomba and plugged the Roomba 550 in to charge.

A few hours later the color of the light on the top indicated the roomba was ready to go, and hit the CLEAN button and the magic happened.

The little robot took off down the hallway where I hope he would not enter. He then made a turn and came right on back. He zagged and zigged, zigged and zagged all around my kitchen and living room/office area. I was pretty impressed. He seemed to go over everything a few times, and seemed to do a pretty good job. Around my desk he attempted to grab a cord or two, but got out of any sticky situation.

I stood around with my arms crossed, like a proud father watching his son win the big game. I was blown away. The Roomba really worked. It even made its way back to the charging cradle. I emptied the little guy out and was amazed by how much dust and other crap he picked up. The future was now, and the robot revolution has begun.

My Second Impression:
I started to use the scheduling options on the Roomba 550 and would set my robot to clean the house every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 3pm, so that when I got home from the office I could eat off my floor (a popular habit of mine). This would require me to empty and clean the little bugger quite often.

It would seem like it was almost necessary to clean the Roomba’s brushes, dustbin, and anything else you could after he ran. This would take maybe 5 minutes, still better than going around cleaning everything manually.

Well one day I came home from work, I was hoping to see my kitchen spotless, as it has been, but today it did not look like anyone cleaned it. Thought it was a little bit odd. I looked at the Roombas charging / docking station and he was no where to be found. I called his name. No reply.

I looked high, and low for the guy but he was no where to be found. I started to get a little worried. I then looked in my family room and saw some tire tracks in my carpeting. ODD, where could he be? I followed the tracks and eventually found Roomba under my couch. He was hiding out like a scared child, hiding from the thunder. Somehow he bypassed the virtual walls and got to where he does not belong.

That was the first issue I noticed. He sometime just goes wherever he wants. The other problem I have been having is if I use the roomba on carpeting it takes a lot more maintenance and cleaning than you would think a high tech “robotic maid” would require.

After months of normal use:
I played around with various uses of the roomba for months, and even stopped using it for a bit. Now I set up my apartment so that the roomba only cleans one of the rooms, the great room. It is a pretty open area, with very few cords, or distractions, and now carpeting to clog up the brushes. It also contains my kitchen and an eating island with stools. So it gets messy pretty often and the roomba is scheduled to clean it 3 times a week.

Ever since I went to this single room option I have been very happy with my purchase. I can go well over a week now without having to empty the roomba out or take apart the brushes. It seems like it was carpeting and rugs that were causing the majority of my issues. That said I still have some hilarious moments when I see what sort of trouble my roomba creates.

About a week ago I entered my living room to a xbox 360 controller by the door, a rug bunched up in the middle, and the roomba nowhere in site. Somehow it got caught up in a rug, pulled my xbox controller from the xbox and carried it across the room, and then got itself into a big mess of cords in the corner, where he gave up hope and called it quits.

So from my months of owning one of these robotic vacuums, is that 1, you need to keep your cords tidy. 2, the roomba hates lightweight rugs (like the cheapo ones from ikea), 3, the roomba can clean carpeting, but you will need to clean the brushes all the time if you use it for cleaning carpeting, and it leaves tons of weird “tread marks/patterns” in the carpet.

Customer Service:
The only real issues I have had are due to the cords. The one day it seemed like the side brush quit spinning, I could not figure out how to get it to work. I called support and within minutes they had the problem solved. I needed to unscrew 1 screw then clean hair off the side brush. Since that day I have made taking apart the side brush as regular maintenance.

I was impressed with the customer service, and after looking at some of the help online, it seems like the roomba is pretty well made. It is quite modular, so it is unlikely that you whole unit will ever just go bad. You may loose function in one are, but it should be painless to fix if one of the motors quits working or something like that. It seems well thought out in regards to replacement parts.

While the roomba may not really be as smart as I had hoped I find it helpful. I am convinced it just runs for 25 minutes doing whatever it wants rather than somehow mapping the room. The one thing I wish it had was a sensor that could tell when there is an object above it, so it never stops in the middle of a cycle under a bed or couch. I think it would pretty easy to add that feature.

The Actual Performance:
I always am surprised with how much dust and such the roomba manages to pick up. It seems to gather really fine dust that brooms and other vaccums may miss. On hardwood floors the roomba is great, whenever I empty the bin on my roomba there is probably a half cup of really fine dust that gets thrown out.

Summary:
All in all, I am happy with my purchase. It may not be perfect for everyone, and in some instances it may be more of a hassle than a helper if you have to constantly clean the brushes due to long hair or carpet fibers. If you have hardwood floors, are fairly tidy, and keep things like cords off your floors the roomba may be a helpful time saver that can help you cut down on your chores. If you fit those three criteria I think it can be a great purchase. If you have lots of cords or mostly have carpeting, I do not recommend the roomba for your use, but rather a non robotic dyson vacuum.

PS: I started to write this like a year ago only a month or so after owning the roomba, and now it has been about a year and I finished it up.

Maybe a year and a half ago I started to drink soda water with a lime. I would get it whenever I would go to a bar and then started to crave it at home. My options for that were to buy 1 or 2 liter bottles at the local grocery store. If I needed it in a bind I would get a liter at the 7-11 for about $1.79! This started to get expensive so I researched what my options were to make my own seltzer water online. It seemed like there were really only 4 options:

1. Get an old fashioned Soda Siphon – You know like the 3 Stooges would use to spray each other in the face. While these are stylish they are not all that practical. First off they contain a few parts which need to be cleaned out, and second they need disposable CO2 cartridges like you would need in a paintball gun or mini bike inflator. You can get a Soda Siphon for about  $40 online, and the Co2 cartridges run about 50 cents each in bulk. Each liter requires one cartridge, so about 50 cents per liter. I liked this option but did not like all the waste it would generate.
2. Build my own carbonation system using a bulk CO2 tank. This is the cheapest solution in the long run, but it requires a bunch of extra equipment and is a but bulky and industrial. You need a larger CO2 tank, that you can get a beer brewing store. You also need regulators, some hose, and you need to hack some soda bottles. The initial cost for this is probably around $150-200, but you can do it with a 5-50lb co2 tank which means YEARS of bubble water, for pennies per liter. I am not an expert at this, but here are some nice tutorials (found here). In the end it seemed like a lot of work and equipment for my already cramped house.
3. Get a commercial soda system. This is what they would use at a restaurant or bar. This would probably be the coolest system, but also the most labor intensive and expensive. It could easily run into the thousands of dollars, and take some serious hacking of my kitchen to get it installed. The plus side I would have a bad ass soda gun and an unlimited supply of bubble water. It would also require all the equipment in the homebuilt method, plus a compressor, and more. So I did the following:
4. Get a SodaStream Soda Maker. The units range from non offensive to pretty cool looking. The starting price is about $100 and should have enough CO2 to carbonate around 100 liters of water. So it is about $1 a liter to start, but when you get refills it is about 25 cents per liter. To me this seemed like a great compromise; little to no waste, a decent price, and no crazy equipment. Here is my review.

I love my SodaStream, there I said it. This is a product that works like it is supposed to. It is a relatively simple product, with a really specific purpose, but it does a great job. The first unit I ordered was the "Fountain Jet Soda Value Kit". I would not recommend getting this kit if you only want to make seltzer / soda water at home. It comes with a bunch of things that you do not need. Anyhow this kit cost me I think $130. It now is at $149, but there are coupons available.

It took maybe a week for the kit to arrive and here are my unboxing photos:

You can see that it came with 2 gas tanks, the soda maker and a bunch of soda mixes. Now when I mentioned I would not recommend the “Soda Value Kit” it is based on all those soda mixes. I am not really a fan of them. I like just plain old soda water myself, so if you are drinking just soda water, get yourself one of the Seltzer kits instead of the soda kit.

Now you might be wondering how the SodaStream actually works. It is pretty easy, and there are not really any moving parts. You have one large tank of CO2, a sturdy plastic bottle, and a button to dispense the gas into the bottle and a little tube that goes into the water in the bottle.

You pretty much fill the bottles with water, refrigerate them, then take the cap off, put it on the machine, and hit the button. Here is a video I made myself, filming it with one hand while making soda with the other. It is really that simple!

Like I said, I love having a Soda Stream at home, and have given them as gifts.To date I have actually purchased 3 Soda Steam machines. I have given one to my sister as a gift, my old one to my girlfriend for her office, and a beautiful orange one for myself.

I think I have now ordered 10 tanks of gas which last me about a month each, less in the summer since I drink more than one liter of soda water a day. My next project will be testing various ways of refilling the tanks myself to further reduce the costs. It will be interesting, and costly, but it should pay for itself in the long run, as well as lower the cost of making soda water to all the people I know who have gotten themselves a SodaStream.

Now that you see how it works, and why you should get one, all you need to do is order one. You can get a SodaStream directly from SodaStreamUSA.com, but be sure to try out a few of these coupon codes if you are planning to buy a machine or gas:

SodaStreamUsa.com Coupon Codes:

BESTFRIENDS – This will Save you $10 Off  a new machine
SAVEBIG – This will save you 10%
MAKESODA – This will save you  $10 on a new machine
FREEMIX – This will allow you to get a free soda mix, you should be able to stack this with another coupon code, just enter this one in first and make sure you have a soda mix in your cart
Code MIKE or PATRICIA – should give you free shipping.

Do you own a SodaStream? What do you think of it?

I must have been a good boy this year, because the nice folks at Dyson gave me an early Christmas present of a Dyson DC31 Animal Handheld Vacuum cleaner.

You would think this is the first hand-held vacuum that I have received as a Christmas gift, but as I child I actually asked and received a Black & Decker Dustbuster, in I am guessing 1985. I was a special kid. The Dustbuster was a pretty cool, little vacuum, but it had some serious issues; it would fill up quickly and quit sucking, the filters were not washable and needed to be emptied and/or replaced, the battery life did not last too long, it was not that powerful even when empty. I also remember picking up things like screws and them falling right back out the second you stopped the motor.

I would say until recently (Or October 12th, 2006 to be exact) this was a common problem until Dyson released their first series of handheld vacuums, known as the Dyson DC 16 Root 6. The DC 16 addresses many of the issues that the Dyson full size vacs did when they came out. The DC31 is an even better version of the DC16 and has some unique features that will set it apart;

The DC31 Is even smaller than the DC16 weighing in at 2.9lbs, and is more balanced. There were some complaints that the DC16 was too heavy, and hard to maneuver. The DC31 should take care of that.

• They have added 2 power modes to extend the battery life. 10 minutes at lower power or 6 minutes at full power.
• They have included a motorized brush on the Animal version of the DC31
• It has a new “Digital Motor” which is lighter, faster, more powerful and more energy efficient than a standard motor.

Well since none of this matters unless the vacuum can pick up a mess here is my review of the Dyson DC31 Animal:

As usual the Dyson packaging was impressive. It is not as amazing as apples, but it seems to be designed nicely, well packaged and pretty easy to open. The first impression I had of the unit when I saw it was that I loved the color. The DC31 Animal comes in this amazing metallic purple color. The feel of the unit was that of quality. The outside is made entirely of plastics, but they do not feel brittle or flimsy in the least. The unit feels solid.

Now comes the part that surprised me. Well I guess for 2 reasons. It was charged out of the gate, which I found surprising. The second and more important reason why I was surprised is that when I hit the trigger it sounded like a jet engine mixed with a dentist drill. I would say that this is the Ferrari of handheld vacuums. It just sounds really powerful and neat. (I will post a video so you can hear it soon)

Since my house was pretty tidy the first thing I did was dump some flour on my counter and suck it up. It did not stand a chance. The DC31 snorted it up like Scarface with cocaine.

The next thing I went after was my girlfriends couch. It is a plush couch and it seemed pretty clean. I put on the brush and went to town. Tons of really fine dust came out of the cushions and a bunch of the hair that was once on Sarah’s head. Sarah loved that you could see what was sucked up inside the clear canister portion of the vacuum.

I tried all of the attachments and did not find anything that it could not handle. The battery did not give any signs of dying, but Sarah reminded me that it was a bit late at night to be vacuuming the house. So I figured out how to empty it and put it on the charger before going to bed for the night.

The next morning I heard some commotion coming from the kitchen and asked what was wrong. A little coffee bean spill. I jumped out of bed and started seeking them out. Whole coffee beans went into the DC31 like it were a shop vac. It was awesome.

I installed a closet this weekend and used the DC31 to clean up drywall dust where my dc14 failed. This little handheld is powerful.

The other way I used it was to clean up my hairy mess after I shave my head. I am also looking forward to using it to clean my keyboards!

After using it a handful of times it has easily become my favorite vacuum in the house. My apologies to the DC14 and my Roomba 550.

The biggest complaint I read about was battery life. I did not see an issue with this, but I could see me trying to clean my whole car or house and running out of juice after 10 minutes. I think if you use it as intended you will never have a battery issue.

Overall I think this is a great vacuum. If you have a pet or a kid you should get one of these. It would be way faster then taking out the full size vacuum and do a better and quicker job then a broom.

Here is a quick summary:

Positives:
Small, Powerful, No Filters, No loss of Suction, Good attachments, Great for hair/fur, Excellent feel and quality, Beautiful color, Awesome powerful sound, 2 year warranty.
Negatives:
Expensive, Short battery life if you want to clean your whole house, Too loud to use at night.

All in all I recommend this to anyone who thinking about buying it. It would make a great Christmas gift to those of us out there who actually like receiving useful gifts and tools!

What I would really like to see changed with this handheld vac are the following:

1. My old dustbuster had a charging cradle/wall mount. I would love to see something like this for the DC31 because it does need to be charged and plugged in. The battery is removable and can be charged while removed, but an all in charging cradle would be useful. I guess the best way to describe my feelings are I need to have this item at the ready. I want it in a place where I know it will be ready, and I can go and grab it, know it is charged, and choose my accessory and get back to the spill/mess and get it taken care of.
2. I am not sure if it is possible, but I would love to see an option to charge/power the item with a longer cord. That was I could run around my house and vacuum the whole thing if I wanted. Even like a 12v cigarette adapter would appease those who want to do their car.
3. I did not really like the build in brush/other tool. I like the rounded brush tool I have with my DC14. I think a small round brush may be useful. I will know if it is needed when I clean my keyboards though.
4. Charge time. The card/instructions say 3.5 hrs. How come my ipod can do 80% charge in 1 hour or my power drill can do a full charge in 18minutes? I would like to see a speed charge mode, if possible.

None of the complaints are deal breakers. I am really blown away by this handheld vac, and it is light years better than my Dustbuster was 20+ years ago. It has 100x the power of that unit, and I would say almost close to the suction that my DC14 does. Dyson congrats on another great project/product, and thank you for letting me play with it!

I would love to see Dyson try building a wet/dry vacuum or shopvac, and a robot vac to compete with Roomba.

I wish I would have taken photos of my unit when it was clean… I will post what it looks like to the site shortly!

He had me sign and I had an unexpected package in my hands. On my way in I saw it was from Dyson. I was a little confused because I did not order anything. I came in and opened it up and found the zero day old Dyson Air Multiplier. I really had no idea what this thing was. I saw that it was sent to George Kepnik aka "Werty" which I thought was pretty funny… for 2 reasons. One my name was spelled wrong and two, it was obviously from this website.

Well I open it up and I see I am #13 of 65 lucky people who got a free test "fan" sent to them. Inside there was a retail box, inside that there was a hand signed letter from James Dyson. That is pretty fucking awesome. After looking at the thing I decided to look at the instructions. A few seconds later it was together, and a second after that it was moving the air.

I played with it for a few moments and did some test videos to see how it actually works. Unfortunately I had to go to work and was not able to play or post about it until tonight. Today at work I looked at a few videos and listened to a talk with James Dyson. Seems like a pretty interesting guy, at least in regards to his views on engineers and manufacturing. Dyson is helping the UK put in some engineering programs for younger students to help them get into the field. That is pretty cool I think.

Anyhow back to this Air Multiplier. All over the web you can see some detailed info on how this technology works due to press releases and interviews. More or less it uses a small fan in the base of the unit, blows the air into the ring structure, over a surface like that of an airplane wing. his forces the air to combine with air from behind, as well as air from above/on all sides after it exits the ring. This is how it "multiplies" the air. They say 16x the air that goes through the base is actually moved by the rest of the unit.

Well on to the testing of it. My initial impression of it is less of the standard "oh where are the blades?". I think it looks sort of goofy and is a bit tall. I have it sitting on my counter by a stool and it could easily be mistaken for a hair dryer like you would see in a beauty salon… the type that folds over on top of your head.

After you get over that, come down to performance and functionality. I hit the power switch and was a little shocked by the sound it produced. At high speed it is a bit noisy. To me it sounds like a quieter version of their vacuums. Imagine if you had a computer fan on high speed. Then multiply that noise by 5times and you have the sound this fan makes. I was hoping the unit would be totally silent and use some sort of "over my head magic" to move the air. I guess it does use that, but it is air moving air, propelled by motors. Not something like electricity + static + magnet + magic=silent ring of wind in the face.

The amount of air it moves I think is impressive, also it does seem to provide a more gentle and constant stream of air than a traditional fan. Some say it is similar to the air moving if you had a window open, and I agree. I also think it is similar to the air that comes out of a vent if you have your furnace on. It is just a nice steady flow of air.

The oscillation built into the fan is one of the cooler parts. It seems almost robotic. It must have a separate motor for the oscillation since it is so smooth. I am thinking I have to be correct because due to some glitch mine will still oscillate w/out the unit being powered on.

As far as the price goes, I think it is a bit crazy. It is $300, and unless it makes the air cooler, warmer or cleaner, or was totally silent I think that is too much to ask. Also I think by not actually having anything I can see working I am not too impressed by it. I would love to see smoke or something go through this just so I could actually see it moving the air. Lastly I think durability will be a major issue for these. Mine had an issue with the oscillating button within 4-5 short uses and now has a mind of its own. I actually do like it as just a rotating object though.

I think it is a pretty cool thing though and wonder how the invention of it will translate into other industries if at all.

I know water has different properties than air, but I would think something similar could make efficient water pumps or "propeller-less boat motors". Also I would think something like this could be used in a car to force more air into the engine, or move a plane.

So to sum things up, I think the idea is cool, the quality of mine is questionable, the price is high, and the wow factor is pretty high. Also if you have kids, this is probably the only finger safe fan out there.

If anyone from Dyson reads this, please continue to make me a product tester, and thank you very much.

I plan on framing my letter signed by James Dyson.

I replaced my washer and dryer because those were hunks of crap, and it made this insanely loud squeaking noise. I called a repair guy, it cost me $75 to tell me it was a $900 repair on a $800 washer/dryer stack unit. Hmmmm. Anyhow so I opted for one that is pretty much the bees knees and my clothes have never been cleaner.

I was thinking I was going to need to replace my dishwasher in much the same fashion. It appeared to leave dishes, silverware, and etc just kind blah, and not really clean.

The other day my sister hooked me up with some METHOD "smarty dish" dishwasher detergent pellet things, and they fucking rule. Prior to this, I was "being green" and was using Seventh Generation Automatic Dishwashing Gel, and it was total crap. Like I mentioned before that stuff left a weird grossness on everything in the dishwasher. These METHOD things my my shit shine.

Here are some reviews of "green cleaning products" that I have used so far:

Method Smarty Dish Dishwasher Detergent: THE BEES KNEES. Makes your dishes and silverwear shine, may add life to an older dishwasher.

Seventh Generation Automatic Dishwashing Gel: The BEES Arsehole. This stuff sucks. Do not get it!

Method Tub and Tile Spray – Eucalyptus mint scent – This stuff seems to clean well, but it smells fricking awesome

Method All Surface Cleaning Spray – Cucumber – Again seems to clean well and smells awesome

So so far a big thumbs up to the Method cleaning products that are sold at Target… not sure if they are made by target… but I like them. Take my money target, make my house smell nice.

Have you used any of these products? What are your thoughts?

Designer Whey Review – This was probably the first protein that I have purchased, and I think it was a pretty solid choice. Designer Whey mixes really well and has a middle of the road flavor in regards to sweetness. Like I mentioned it seems to mix really well. I have used a hand blender, a plastic shake container, as well as one of those 2 AA battery powered mini whisk things and it has blended pretty "chunk free" every time.

The Flavors I have tried are just the basics, chocolate and vanilla. I was happy with both, but I prefer chocolate because I can easily mix that into coffee and it tastes great.

I have gotten Designer Whey both from the internet and retail stores. One of the good things about Designer Whey is that it is easy to get. You can buy it at many grocery stores, or pretty much any vitamin/med shop online. I have purchased it at Trader Joes, Jewel / Osco and the The Vitamin Shoppe. It comes in many sizes and I would recommend the 1 pound container to start and see if you like it. I have read that it can give you some "stomach issues" but I have never experienced such side effects. All in all I would recommend this to anyone who is looking to buy some protein.

Muscle Milk Protein Review – I purchased Vanilla Muscle Milk from Nice Muscle.com and was really happy with the shipping and price point…the product however was a bit too sweet for my liking. I tried the vanilla flavor and it is way way way too sweet. It has a really sharp sweetness to it, which overpowers the protein in my mind. On the plus side, it it REALLY fluffy in the container and mixes beautifully. I have never had a lump in my handheld plastic shaker. One thing I did notice was a touch of grittiness near the bottom of the shaken container though. Not exactly sure what this is… might be the fiber within it?

When you look at the ingredients/nutritional value, it has quite a high amount of both fat and carbs, so to me that is not an ideal protein, and I will try and use another brand as my main source. Post workout I think it would be fine, but I would never take the stuff before bed, like they recommend.

Costco Brand Premium Protein Review – I am not 100% who actually makes this protein but I thought it was pretty good. It contained a variety of protein sources, whey, milk and soy I believe. It came in a 5 lb sack, and was somewhat expensive (35$), which I think is high for Costco. I tried the chocolate, and thought the flavor was good. It was pretty sweet, but not over powering. The things I did not like were the bag it came in… it never seemed to close properly so I used a different container. The other beef I had with it, were that it seemed really hard to mix. It would chunk up pretty quickly and those chunks would never get dissolved. I tried all of my mixing methods and they all seemed to stay a little bit chunky. Other then that I would buy this again, since it tasted pretty good, and had low fat & carbs.

All the Whey – Whey Protein Isolate Review – Whey Protein Isolate just came in today, and review will be coming soon.

Moishe's sounded great over the phone and in their review, but the actual move was a disaster. Like I said I called various companies to find out which one sounded like the best choice.

The cost at Moishe's was higher than everywhere else, but they sold me as a premium service, so the extra cost seemed justified. The man I talked to over at Moishe's insured me that all items would be wrapped in moving blankets and then in plastic to protect them from the move. This sounded perfect.

Well when the move day came the movers showed up on time, which was a good thing, but it went to crap shortly thereafter. On the plus side they did come in under budget but there is a downside…

Moishes Moving of Chicago ended up damaging pretty much 40-50% of my large items that were not in boxes. 2 of the most expensive items survived, my couch and my tv, but nearly anything else that was large was damaged.

I documented all of the damage over at Flickr (Moishe's Moving Damage). But here are some choice pics of the damage:

And my personally favorite which enrages me everytime I see it:

Note the Sharpie marker that was used to "hide" the damage that they caused.

Overall I would say that this company is terrible, and I would not recommend them to anyone.

Update: Moishe's did make good at the end. They did give me a nice check for the damage that my items received, and gave me the number of a furniture repair company, which I still need to check out. I would say they were quite courteous with the claim and such, but I still will not forgive them for the poor quality of move that I received.

My Advice is to get a recommendation from a friend and stay away from CitySearch.

When I was on my trip to Asia I was w/out my standard battery operated nose hair trimmer (a highly ranked panasonic) for 3 weeks my traveling associate and myself both experienced some times when we needed a trim. I had scissors in my travel first aid kit and we used those they worked, but not well.

I knew I have seen manual nose hair trimmers before and I was looking to get one in Japan, did not have any luck. When I got home I hit up my trusty friend THE INTERNET and started seeing different options. The ones I have seen before were like this thing you squeeze and it spins. I also found a different model which takes up even less space, and I found it to work even better. Here are the reviews:

Rotary Nose Clipper / Squeeze Nose hair Trimmer:

A cool little machine in a tiny package. I thought that when you squeezed it the blades would spin, and you would kind of pump it and keep the blade spinning faster and faster. This is not the case. One squeeze turns the blade let’s say 45 degrees, enough to cut, when you release it returns back those 45 degrees. It seemed to work a bit, but not too much better than the scissors, so it would just take up extra space in my suitcase. I was not too impressed, nor would I recommend this to anyone outside of a gadget collector. This model costs $16 and there was one lower model at $12 and one higher model at $27.

Platinum XL Nose hair Trimmer:

This is more like a tool than anything else. The build quality is excellent and it has a bit of weight to it. I think the handle is aluminum and the rest is stainless steel. It is about the width of a sharpie pen and half the length.

Using this trimmer you hold the top in one hand and turn the lower part with your other hand. Compared to an electric nose hair trimmer, the platinum XL makes no noise, is more controlled, does not require batteries, takes up less space and seems to do a better/safer job trimming my nose hair. Not once did I get the sting/sneeze feeling that you get with an electric nose hair trimmer due to the fast spinning that rips sensitive nose hairs out!

The platinum XL is a great gadget/tool to add to your toiletry kit or medicine cabinet. It costs about 20 dollars with free shipping. I would get the Platinum XL manual nose hair trimmer again if I lost mine or get one for a friend who needs a trim.

To sum thing up, buy the Platinum XL if your nose hairs are getting too long, or you are thinking about replacing your electric nose hair trimmer. I found it to be the best nose hair trimmer that I have ever used!

You can get these nose hair trimmers here: www.groommate.com or via Amazon.

My experience with Blockbuster was a little worse than with my Netflix experience, but I did not utilize their new “All Access” features which allow me in store rentals as well as one free game or movie rental per month. For me it does not make sense to actually have to go to the store to rent movies…one of the reasons I signed up for online DVD rental in the first place…I am a lazy.

Compared to Netflix, Blockbuster has a smaller selection, especially when it comes to foreign and independent films. As far as mainstream movies go, Blockbuster and Netflix are on the same level.

As far as shipping goes, I ran into many of the same problems I saw with Netflix. They seemed to throttle my account and show that movies took longer to receive then they actually did. In addition to this, Blockbuster does not seem to ship on Saturdays, which is something that Netflix does. Lastly it seems like Blockbuster had a smaller stock of popular movies since in my 3 month period with Blockbuster I never received movies that were on my queue.

Depending on your situation and your proximity to a Blockbuster store, Blockbuster all access may be a better choice for you than Netflix, but I would recommend trying both out, since they offer risk free trials, and may perform differently for you than they did for me.

Netflix
Netflix is arguably the leader in online DVD rental services. They have been in business since 2000 and have over 3 million subscribers. They have a huge selection, including rare foreign and indie film gems that you cannot find anywhere else.

Despite these great features they have a few skeletons in their closet, mainly something called “throttling”. Throttling is something Netflix may do to your slow the shipment of movies in your account if you have too much activity on it. Early on when you sign up for an account you may be able to see turnaround times of 2-3 days from the time you return a movie, until the time you receive a new one. Throttling will make this period be longer, allowing you to rent less movies per month, and increasing the amount of money Netflix makes from you. Netflix may perform the throttling by shipping from a distribution center outside of you closest one, adding a few days in the transport. It also seems like they will say it takes longer to receive one movie than another. A better article about throttling at netflix and blockbuster.

An example of this is that I returned 3 movies at one time. They should have all shipped together and arrived together, but Netflix says they received one the next day, one the day after that, and another THREE days later. I have had problems with the USPS in the past, but something like this is not very normal, and I have seen it time and time again.

In the past I have upgraded Netflix plans, to allow 5 out at a time, and have seen similar throttling. This angered me and I quit and wanted to try out Blockbuster, which I found to be worse than Netflix so I returned.

I have been a member of Netflix for around 3 months this last time, and have just sent 2 movies back from the post office. They should have arrived at Netflix today, but I have not heard of anything yet. My guess is they will say one will arrive tomorrow, and the other on Thursday or Friday. This is just wrong, but the only choice I have is to quit, or have a lesser selection from elsewhere.

Without the throttling, Netflix would be the greatest online rental service. With the throttling they can be annoying, but for the user who watches only a handful of movies a month, you should be extremely happy with their large selection of movies and the ability to rent from the comfort of your own home.

Has anyone used either Blockbuster or Netflix, and if so what are your thoughts? What about any of the other companies out there like GamezNFlix or Intelliflix? This site seems to do a pretty in depth comparison of these mail order dvd companies. This site, compares even more DVD companies, and has some good points on Blockbuster versus Netflix.

The first mistake I see is some poor use of flash. Their logo uses flash, and does not link to the home page. I would swap the animation for a static image and a link home any day of the week.

Flash strike #2 – on the right column they have a flash animation which looks pretty nice…it grabs my attention but does not allow for any action. Let me click this thing.

The next thing that pops out at me is the bunny costume…the image looks like crap…it grainy. The funny thing I actually had to show for a bunny costume last week. If I click on the “shop for Easter” text looking part of the image it takes me to a poorly optimized page the order of the page makes very little or no sense to me. I am sure the “crown of thorns” is a top notch item… seriously, I would display things based upon either what sells the best within a category or allow for some featured items on the top. The order seems somewhat random.

Another thing to note is the ridiculously long left hand navigation going on. They display 20 items by default which still leaves room for another 20 below with the length of that crazy ass navigation menu. Based upon the default 20 item display I would also allow me to sort by price, popularity, featured, and also allow to display all within a page.

Once I get into an item I like the cross/up selling going on with the you "might also like" on the bottom.

Back to the homepage… the Easter graphic links me to kids costumer… and there is only one costume… something is not right. I would think the main Easter graphic should relate to Easter COSTUMES! After looking a bit further the landing page for kids costumes is a mess, and needs to be looked at. It only has one item in the main category, sub categories seem to be fine.

Other then these errors I think the site is somewhat solid. I would write custom descriptions for all the costumes and maybe work on my product names/titles. Also I would get the category ordering looked at and figure out if you really need that many categories with duplicate content such as these 2 pet categories (one, two), especially when the root category is only a link to the previous 2.

Lastly I only added one item to my cart which was straight forward, but they force me into creating a new account at the beginning of the process which is a pretty long form with some scary red dialog in the middle.

If you are unsure what the above means or don't know how to use the internet to shop online, we urge you not to establish an account with us.

Instead of telling people to fuck off, if they do not understand the paragraph you may want to offer phone ordering or an 800 help number. Either that or let me just order the stuff I want and not be forced into an account.