Category: Life hacks

18 miles per gallon

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Chevrolet makes a hybrid Silverado?! I’m impressed – not with the fuel efficiency but the fact that you can buy a hybrid truck for under $30,000.
The fuel efficiency is similar to what I’m getting in my ’98 1500 Chevy and better than most of the newer Chevys are getting.
According to WikiCars, GM considers the truck “mild hybrid” so customers can utilize hybrid technology which turns the engine off when stopped at lights and reduces emissions, yet still gives the power and performance people expect from Chevy trucks.
In addition, a pair of 110V outlets are available located in the rear bed sidewall and under seat which can prove very useful when power outlets are unavailable such as on a job site or a fishing/camping trip. Very cool.
I don’t plan on heading out and buying one anytime soon. I plan to run my 98 Chevy into the ground — but it will be exciting to see what direction this vehicle line goes in over the next few years.

Three years unemployed

Thrifty blogger Amy Lin has been unemployed for three years — and she’s not worried.

Almost 3 years ago I quit my 9-6 job to “take a break.” I quit not because I hated that particular job, but because I hated the 9-6 part. It also didn’t help that my commute was 3 hours round trip and I didn’t get paid well. I thought I just needed some time to figure out what I wanted to do. I was still under the assumption that I should be able to find something I loved to do and get paid well doing it. Hell I was even quoted in the LA Times saying something to that effect. Something about my generation demanding more from a job than just job security. We want the works: good location, cool coworkers, fun duties, excellent pay. I suppose I was naïve to think that I could be different and settle for nothing less. On the other hand, I’ve yet to go back to that life, so perhaps that dream is not so elusive after all. Only time will tell.

Lin suggests that everyone can adapt when there’s less to live on. And even being unemployed for three years she’s been able to build up a one year cushion in her bank account. I’ve been employed for three years and I don’t have a cushion.
Sounds like she’s doing something right.

Ask.MetaFilter

ask.metafilter.com is basically a large online community of Q & A’s. I’m getting more and more addicted to it’s random wealth of knowledge. Folks just like you can ask a question and have folks just like me and you propose their solution/answer to your question. Here are some of my picks for top recently posted items:

  • Vacation: pre-packaged deal or do everything myself?
  • I love Velvet Underground, I love the Violent Femmes. I love early R.E.M. I love early David Bowie. What new bands should I listen to?
  • Very random: Where to buy a bikini that features the Atlanta Braves?
  • What’s the best way of keeping track of a large collection of Quotes?
  • I’m going to exert myself excessively this Friday. What can I do to minimise the aches and pains that will leave me a cripple by Sunday?

    • Cure writer’s block

    languageisavirus.com hopes to help you cure the common writer’s block. Believe me – I’ve been there. The site offers a number of tools including different writing experiments like this one:

    1. Homolinguistic translation: Take a poem (someone else’s, then your own) and translate it “English to English” by substituting word for word, phrase for phrase, line for line, or “free” translation as response to each phrase or sentence. Or translate the poem into another literary style or a different diction, for example into a slang or vernacular. Do several different types of homolinguistic translation of a single source poem. (Cf.Six Fillious by bp nichol, Steve McCaffery, Robert Fillious, George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Dieter Roth, which also included translation of the poem to French and German.) Chaining: try this with a group, sending the poem on for “translation” from person to another until you get back to the first author.

    Via: lifehacker

    Wacky uses

    Mike Mc found a wacky use website today while doing some research.
    Here’s a couple wacky uses on the site:

  • Clean a toilet bowl. Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl. Let the real thing sit for one hour, then brush and flush clean. The phosphoric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china, according to household-hints columnist Heloise.
  • Condition hair. To give your hair a great shine, pour a can of Coca Cola into your hair, working it in well, then rinse your hair with water.
  • Kill slugs or snails. Fill jar lids with flat Coca-Cola and set in the garden. Slugs and snails, attracted by sweet soda, will slither into the jar lid and be killed by the acids in the Coke.
  • Repulse deer. Drill a hole in a wrapped bar of Irish Spring Soap and, using string, hang it around crops. Deer mistake the smell of deodorant soap for humans, and flee.
  • Lubricate furniture drawers and windows. Rub Irish Spring Soap on the casters of drawers and windows so they slide open and shut easily.
  • Soothe a sore throat. Add a tablespoon of Smirnoff Vodka to glass of warm water and gargle. The alcohol helps numb the sore throat.
  • Remove grass stains from clothes. Rub the stain with a clean cloth soaked in Smirnoff Vodka, then rinse thoroughly.
  • Attract fish. When sprayed on fishing bait, WD-40 covers up the scent of human hands on the bait to better lure fish, according to USA Today. The WD-40 Company receives hundreds of letters from consumers confirming this use, but prefers not to promote WD-40 as a fishing lure since the petroleum-based product could potentially pollute rivers and streams, damaging the ecosystem.
  • Prevent grass clippings from clogging up a lawn mower. Spray WD-40 on the underside of lawn mower housing and blade before cutting the grass.

    • Ok… you’ll have to visit the site to read the rest.