Review - the Water Jet

Ok, I haven't done a review in a while, but this product is in desperate need of one.

You may have seen this product advertised in a commercial:

Especially if you watch a lot of late night cable TV, which I, sadly, do.

Well, the commercial makes it look like this wonderful product is set to replace the pressure washer as the means by which you clean your house, spray off your patio, hose down your car, et cetera. The commercial makes this product look awesome. It is remarkable powerful this product is... in the commercial. IN THE COMMERCIAL it can do anything a pressure washer can do.

And it is only $20.00

REVIEW:
COMMERCIALS - Lies, damn lies.
Who didn't already know that, right?

fine
REVIEW:
the WATER JET - D minus. Don't buy it.
Yes, the Water Jet makes the water come out of your garden hose faster than it otherwise would have without the Water Jet. But, no, this product doesn't not suck.

Yes, this product will remove the moss and dirt build up on your patio; sort of. But no, it will not do it quickly and it will not not waste a lot of water. (the double not was intentional) It took me about five minutes to spray the leaves off my 10' by 10' patio. I could have swept it in 2. And though it did remove the moss and dirt it did it begrudgingly and I had to focus on a single spot for several seconds. That's a lot of water wasted.

Yes, this product does come with an alternative head for a different kind of spray. But no, it also doesn't not suck.

No, this product will NOT remove the mildew from your vinyl siding. The commercial says it will, but not at my house.

Basically, this product does make the water come out faster, but only marginally. It will not come out of your hose at pressure washer speeds. For $20.00 it is totally not worth it. I wouldn't pay $5.00 for it.

There is a product out there that can do the job the Water Jet does for much less. Free even:

It's called your thumb.

If you need more power, rent/buy/borrow a pressure washer.

Update!

HOLY CRAP!

Someone at the Blizzard company must have read my blog!
(Because this blog is such an bellwether for all things pop-culture and gamey)

Star Craft II comes out 7-27-2010.

In case you haven't been reading lately, about two months ago I jokingly challenged myself to finish as many projects as I could before Star Craft II finally came out. SCII has been "talked about" for almost ten years now. I didn't think Blizzard would ever get it's act together. Oops.

That means I have six weeks to finish as many projects as possible. And let's be real, finishing one project in that time will be a miracle.

So the project I have chose to focus on is "The Birds and the Bees" story. I probably won't finish it by then, but I'm going to try. I wish I could have done the animation project, as I was so much closer to finishing, but my 9 year old computer is just in too bad a shape to do anything appreciable with it.

So, Blizzard called me on my challenge! The heat is on.

I'll keep you posted.

Pant cuffs

I don't like buying new clothes.

I resent that fact that I'm still at a 9 to 5 and I have never liked wearing a collar and leash (shirt and tie).

One of the things I hate most about clothes is how well they fall apart.

As an aside, I know that Wal-Mart is "inexpensive," and that some people take that to mean it is the better deal, but cheap is cheap. Almost every article of clothing I've ever purchased there has fallen apart at break neck speeds. Last year I bought this amazing looking Hawaiian shirt there for $10.00 (I love Hawaiian shirts). I washed it once! The second time I wore it I found a hole right in the front chest. Cheap is cheap.

I digress.

So, one of the things I hate the most about pants is how the cuffs tend to become all raggedy and frayed. I tend to not care myself, but in the past year I have had no less than four people comment on my clothes.

My former boss called me out in front of others for having a hole in the bottom of my shoe.

A new guy in our unit looked at me and then said to his boss, "So we can dress casual here every day?"

My current boss told me that I needed to have some sports coats on hand, should I need to look good. (ouch)

And a co-worker, recently, told me that I should tend to the frayed edges of my pants.

"I cut them off when they get too long," I said.
"My husband would be freaking out," she said. I wasn't really offended by this because I know her and I know she wasn't being mean. She was just giving me a hard time.
"What would he do?"
"Well, he's an ex-Marine." She likes to remind us of that frequently. "He always burns the frayed edges off of his pants."

Really? I thought. That might work! I was thinking that perhaps the frayed edges would some how cauterize or melt together and prevent further fraying! That would be worth looking into.

Now, I'm not going to say whether the burning of the frayed edges of your pants is a good or bad idea. Perhaps it works well if it is done right. Perhaps it works better if you have a synthetic blend of fibers in your pants. But cotton does not cauterize. It just burns. And when it is done burning instead of having little pieces of frayed pants you have slightly shorter and slightly darker pieces of frayed pants.

What I will do is give you some advice.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO BURN THE FRAYED EDGES OF YOUR PANTS:

1. Make certain your pants are not 100% cotton. Maybe you can do it correctly with 100% cotton, but I did not.

2. Don't, under any circumstances, assume that burning off the edges of your pants can be done while you are wearing said pants.

3. Remember, that when the 100% cotton pants you are wearing start to burn, they burn on the outside and inside of the pant leg.

4. Consider buying new pants.

I suck at checkers.

Most people think of checkers as a kids version of chess. But it isn't. At least, that's what I tell myself every time I lose. Which is just about every time I play.

No matter how hard I try I cannot keep from falling into some stupid trap. One minute I'll have the perfect defense and I'll be poised to clean up the board. But the next time my opponent moves I find myself lured into a trap where he bounces all over the board and takes two, three, or sometimes four of my chips.

I think this game is rigged by some secret society. Probably the Masons. Or the Jasons. The Jasons are like the Masons, only you have to be named Jason to join. A few people have honorarily been named Jason so that they could join the Jasons, but mostly those were Masons or Graysons.

If you have any information on this checkers conspiracy let me know. I'm planning on going undercover as a Jason to try and gather evidence of a world wide checkers scam.

Different Day, Same Shirt

I think I might be wearing the same shirt I wore on Monday.

I've been kind of frazzled this week and I wasn't really paying attention to my attire on that first day. I know I wore my light brown pants then and today I'm wearing my dark brown pants. So no one should say anything about that.

The shirt is kind of nondescript:

It's just a dark red shirt with a line pattern on it.

I rolled the sleeves up hoping that would throw people off from discovering my faux pas. "That can't be the same shirt that he wore on Monday. It is short sleeved."

Who am I kidding? I feel like that dirty kid from high school who wore a jacket to school in the summer to hide the fact that he was wearing the same shirt every day. When the teacher finally asked it was discovered that he had run away from home and had been living in the school courtyard for a week.

You gotta give that kid credit though. He decided that his family wasn't worth a crap, but his education was still important to him!

I have not run away from home.

By the way, you can see from the picture that I have gained quite a belly. That is the extra 20 pounds I am carrying around. Actually, that's the extra 18. I'm carrying 2 pounds in my double chin. sheesh

PS. the photo on my badge is an exact likeness.

Sorry. I died.

Sorry I haven't posted in a few. I had a medical emergency. I didn't exactly die, though. That title is a bit misleading.

I woke up Monday feeling normal. I used the bathroom like normal (which is important later). Went downstairs to make breakfast and my stomach started bloating up. Suddenly I didn't feel like breakfast.

I went back upstairs to lie down for a bit, but by the time I got upstairs my stomach was so tight it was fairly uncomfortable. And unfortunately my body’s way of dealing with this increasingly bloated stomach was for all of my ab muscles to lock down.

I tried to lie down, but then it felt like my stomach was going to explode. Standing... no good. I could only sit hunched over – but still every muscle in my stomach was cramped. My belly was tight and sore. I looked pregnant. And truth be told, I thought I might be giving birth to some alien baby.

Over the period of about half an hour this began to wear me down. It was hurting and it was relentless. Like a sit-up that never ends and never lets go. I finally had to ask Rebecca to take me to the ER.

The drive over was miserable. I was sweating and tired, but I couldn't rest because my stomach wouldn't relent.

Luckily the ER was empty so I didn't have to wait long. The nurse got me set up on the bed and told me to lie down, which I couldn't do because it hurt too friggin much.

Then the EMT put in my IV catheter. Right as he stuck the needle in my arm I got a wave of pain, so naturally everything in my torso flexed and a fountain of blood when squirting out of my arm. Sadly my acid blood dissolved the EMT into a puddle on the ground, but another one came in immediately to take his place.

Finally the Nurse Practitioner entered the room and asked me what was wrong. I told her my problem and that I couldn’t stretch out because of the pain. Naturally she told me to stretch out. When I couldn’t they called in an army of nurses to grab my legs and arms. Ten bulking male nurses grabbed my feet and tried to stretch them out. It was either ten bulking nurses, or ten marines. Or it might have been a single lady. I can’t remember. I’m pretty sure it was ten bulking marine nurses. The pain was so intense I accidentally kicked a couple of them through the glass wall and into the nurses’ station. They collapsed in a heap on the floor and almost woke the doctor in sitting in the chair.

The rest of the throng finally got me subdued and the Nurse Practitioner was able to work her magic. First she pulled out the extremely expensive device called “her hand.” And with that she performed a complicated maneuver called “poking my stomach.” After she prodded me she said that she was going to test my blood, my urine, do a CT scan and an ultrasound. Then she left.

As soon as she walked out the door I realized I was already feeling better. THEN the nurse walked in with the narcotics. She was about to juice me up, but I told her I didn’t need them. Suddenly all my pain was gone. “Did you fart?” she asked, but I hadn’t. Nor had I burped. I just sat there embarrassed.

So after about thirty minutes my doctor awoke, came in and introduced himself… to my wife. Then he looked at me and said, “You’re having pain?” Without waiting for an answer he gets on the far side of the bed to palpate my stomach. I almost didn’t feel him touching me, compared to the Nurse Practitioner. “It’s probably nothing serious,” he said to Rebecca. I think he might have winked at her. “These things are usually gas or maybe a stone.” He stood at the foot of my bed in a sort of casual-cool - feet apart stance, and absently breathed on his stethoscope. He smiled and polished it on his coat. “It hurts right here,” I said and touched at the base of my rib cage, which was now the only place that actually did hurt. “Yeah,” he said dismissively, still looking at my wife. “So anyway,” he chirped as he walked out the door, “blood tests… cat scan… hem…” His voice was cut off by the closing of the door.

I guess I should feel lucky. For the most part ERs don’t use doctors anymore. They are too expensive. Apparently having the doctor come in and almost touch a person, and say things like, “blood test” costs too much for the hospital to make a profit.

I asked Rebecca if she thought the doctor was hitting on her. She said there was no doubt. It was the same doctor, it seems, that saw her a few months back when she was in the ER for a migraine. Apparently on that day he listed to her heart by putting his stethoscope squarely on her left nipple and cupping her boob. Nice. We revere these people, why exactly? Rebecca took it in stride. In college she had to go to the emergency room three separate times for three separate issues. Every single time the doctor (always a different one) seemed to think he could only be certain what she had if he did a pelvic exam. Why? Do doctor’s speak vagina?

Shortly after the doctor left my Nurse Practitioner came back in the room. Embarrassed I told her that I was not hurting anymore. “Are you ready to go?” she asked. Before I could answer my wife said, “I’m worried that it might be a gall stone.” “Well, we have him scheduled for a cat scan. Let’s see what that shows us.”

The CT scan was negative. My blood test was negative. My urine test was negative. Sigh.

After three hours at the ER the Nurse Practitioner came in again and said that they were dismissing me. My diagnosis was “abdominal pain.” I kid you not. My diagnosis was my symptom. I knew that before I set foot in the damn ER. “So you ruled out a gall stone?” Rebecca asked. “Well,” the NP said, “It didn’t show on the CT scan, but cat scans are the best way to look for gall stones.”

She literally left it at that and walked out.

Is it any wonder insurance premiums are shooting through the roof? I get no diagnosis AND my insurance was probably billed a couple grand. I got ignored by a doctor and the NP gave me a test that isn’t the best at determining if I have the one thing my symptoms might point to. Stupid.

So I’m just telling everyone who asked that I had my pride removed laparoscopically.

You should all be very proud of me. I busted my hump and got some things done this weekend. None of them really qualify as projects, but they were jobs.

Here you can see our Petunias and our new solar powered lights. Digging this ground up was a horrible chore. Just rocks upon rocks. But once it was done putting the lights in was easy. However, this morning a deluge of rain hit our house and I’m afraid it may actually wash the lights away.

We’ll see. Anyway, it was a big job and it is done. This guy helped:


Some people think garden gnomes are cheesy. They are. But I like them. I like them when they are not prominent or big. I like them relatively hidden, where finding them is a little surprise. I haven’t thought of a place for this guy yet, but it will be in the back yard somewhere. I’m worried that if I put him in the front yard he’ll get gnome-napped. Theft of magical creatures has escalated in this region of the world. We must protect our unreal cohabitants.

I got a lot of non-yard work stuff done too. I worked out. Whoo hoo! Shortly afterwards I died. And I went through about half of my basket of projects to find the ones I would consider as suitable for my challenge.

So far it is looking like the best two projects for the challenge are the 3D Snow Scene, as I am so deep into it already, and it was recent enough that I still recall everything that I was doing, the Birds and the Bees book, as I have the whole story laid out, and Bunny Wars – the comic book – as it is fairly nearly done also. While I was looking, however, I found several clips of stories that I had long forgotten about. Some new ideas began to brew in my head for how I might combine these into a cohesive book. We’ll have to see.

And, of course, as I am gearing up to really start plugging away at this mystery project my boss announces that he has been promoted. This in and of itself is not an issue, however, two people already have suggested I apply for his position. That means more time at work, less time to goof off, and about two months of interview preparation. But the money would be so nice.