Archive for the 'dirt cheap' Category

Green DIY For My Gardener Friends

I came across a couple of things on the DIY site Instructables that I thought some of you might enjoy. Self watering plant pots and vases made from old plastic bottles.

I used to make something like this (a terrarium instead of a pot) when I was a kid of out of old 2 liter soda bottles when they still had the plastic caps on the bottom of the bottles. Very cool stuff, a great way to keep recyclables out of the landfills, and useful for plant-lovers everywhere. Best of all, most of it won’t cost you anything as it’s mostly made from “trash”. Enjoy.

Red Eye aka Shotgun

Traditionally, a red eye, is one shot of espresso in a cup of coffee. I’ve never been one for such weak traditions myself though, which could be why I usually throw three shots into it.

Why am I writing about this? Well, after a few years of diligent service my poor ol’ coffee pot finally stopped making coffee like it used to. I had to put paper towels under her to keep her from leaking all over the counter, the basket drip was pretty much shot and wouldn’t hold if the coffee pot was pulled out from under it, and she’d just seen better days. I’ll still keep a hold of her just in case I get an office somewhere at some point. She’ll do just fine for little jobs, but not the normal wear and tear I put her through.

So we bought a new coffee pot/espresso maker combo. Now I’m not really much for those emasculating European coffees, but a red eye is a pretty nice way to start the day if I do say so myself. So, while it does have the steamer and all that good stuff on it, I think I’ll save those things for making the wife some fancy coffees. I still remain a fan of the black and bitter usually, although I have been known to put cream and sugar in my coffee in my old age…at 26. Don’t get me wrong, she likes black coffee too she just can’t drink that much of it.

While it was a little more than your standard run-of-the-mill coffee pot, $100 isn’t bad at all for what we got. I don’t usually like Bed Bath & Beyond because I’m not into decorating and things of that nature (anyone who has ever met or seen me in real life can attest to the fact that I have no fashion sense), cooking is something that I do like to do and they have some pretty handy stuff there…sometimes.

I just thought I’d share my new morning company with you all. I should probably dial back on the coffee, but if I did that I wouldn’t get done with half my days workload. Besides, it just tastes so darn good.

You just can’t beat the price

I know I already wrote about it on the WotG front page, but I think it bares repeating. Medison is taking orders on their newest endeavor, a $150 laptop named “Celebrity”.

This thing isn’t going to win any speed awards, but the hardware is incredibly impressive for the price. Like the 1.5GHz processor, 256MB of RAM, AND 40GB hard drive. Oh, it also comes with Red Hat’s free OS, Fedora, pre-installed on it and accompanied by media and office applications.

For more information either visit the site linked above, or go to my article on it here.

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