I am referring specifically to item# 47275   I paid $16.99 + tax for this the other day and it’s the best money I’ve spent in a long time.  It comes in a nice case, it’s steel instead of plastic (like the cheaper version) and it appears to be pretty well made and accurate.

I’ve owned a cheap $2 plastic caliper from Harbor Freight  for a long time and I’ve gotten a lot of use out of it, but trying to read anything that’s a fraction of a mm is just about impossible.  I’ve been designing some stuff using Adobe Illustrator and finally got fed up with trying to rely on some manner of guesswork.  I got lucky because Harbor Freight was having a sale on a 6″ digital caliper.  It was only $6.99, so I ran down to the store and bought it…. and returned it the next day and got the one pictured above instead.

The original caliper I bought was item #93293 which is this one here:      and it was worthless.   

Again, it only cost $6.99 but it still should have been better than it was.  It came with a dead battery installed, so I replaced that and then went to work testing it out.  Unfortunately, when measuring two small objects, the total for both of them was less than each one added together.  Huh?  That’s right, I was measuring the thickness of washers and I measured one, then the other and added the thicknesses together to get a ‘total thickness’.  Then I actually used the caliper to measure the ‘total thickness’ and it was off by almost 2mm.   Even my cheap $2 plastic caliper was better than that!

But enough complaining, I no longer own that crappy $6.99 digital caliper.  Instead, I own the AWESOME $16.99 digital caliper!!!

While you might think that a digital caliper is something that you don’t really need, all I say to that is PASHAW!!  You need this!!!   Okay, you might not, but if you ever really wanted to be able to measure an object and actually know how big it is up to .001″, then you should pick one of these up today!

I, like many other Panasonic NB-G100P owners, wish this item hadn’t been discontinued. You can read many other posts on the internet extolling the greatness of this item, so I’ll just add my hat into the ring. I have one and it’s still working, getting used every single day. If anybody out there finds a secret bunker full of these NIB, please let me know.

Link to the Amazon.com page with reviews
Link to the “Break it down” blog with a lengthy description and posts from other owners and fans

At $1.99 for a set of six tumblers and $1.99 for a set of six bowls, I think these are tough to pass up, particularly if you have kids.

This is sold by the company Safety 1st, I’ve also seen it sold under the “Parents Magazine” nomiker. 

This is the first toilet lock to use suction cups to mount. No adhesives or screws and it fits most toilets. The locking arm swings aside to allow access to the toilet and automatically swings over and relocks when the cover is replaced.

The good thing is that there are no adhesives or screws required, unlike other toilet seat locks.    It also sounds good that the arm swings aside and then automatically returns when you’re done.   Unfortunately, the small suction cups which are to hold this item in place, simply aren’t strong enough.  You have to push a lock-switch, then pull up on the arm, then swing it over to the side exerting pressure on a spring (you know, the spring that allows it to automatically return to relock the cover).  During any one of those movements, the arm comes off in your hand.

Would I buy it again?  No way.

What are we using instead of this item?  A little thing called the bathroom door.  You just make sure you keep it shut.

The verdict?  It’s crap.   It relies on water to make the electrical connection causing the LED to come on.  The problem?  The LED doesn’t go out when you turn off the faucet.   My guess is that it’s because some water stays trapped inside the item (gee, what a shocker that would be) and therefore it continues to make the connection and the light stays on.  Since this item is battery powered, you can guess that it means it works for a short time, stays on all the time, and eventually the batteries die.

It also looks cheap, because it’s plastic.     It comes with a couple adapters to fit onto various faucets, but it would only work on one sink in our house.

It looks cool when it’s on and there’s water running through it but seriously, what’s the point when it’s going to die in a couple days anyway. 

Don’t bother with it.

After post-college discussions with post-college friends, I started to think that my small group of college buddies and I were the only ones who were aware of this because I talked to many people later in life and none seemed to fully understand what I was talking about.  Well, it appears that we weren’t the only ones who knew about this, because the people at HotWicks candles came out with “The Stripper Candle” which entices us with the promise of capturing this magical olfactory fountain of youth.  Here’s what they say about it:

It’s a candle and an alibi all in one! You don’t smell like a stripper, you just smell like a candle.

This is our favorite candle. After hundreds of hours of research and a lot of dollar bills we succeeded in capturing the legendary stripper scent. If you don’t know what a stripper smells like just imagine the perfume counter at your local department store times a thousand… then add some glitter.

The Catch-22 here is that I can’t describe the smell we’re all hoping for here (and no, it’s not the smell of cigarettes, cheap perfume and shame, although I find that description funny as hell), so I’ll just cut to the chase:

• Does it capture the elusive essence of strippers?   No
• Does it smell nice and kind of like a pretty naked lady?  Yes

Would I buy it again?   The jury is out.

Available here for about $8.95 from Hotwicks.com

One interesting thing I found was a candle that smelled like pot.  Well, I actually found a FEW candles that were supposed to smell like pot.  Curiously enough, most of them don’t actually say that in so many words, they just imply it.  As a cautious shopper, this made me wonder if they ACTUALLY smelled like the demon weed.  Perhaps the creators of said candles weren’t making any claims they couldn’t back up.

I searched high (pun intended) and low for reviews of these candles and found just about nothing.  Only humorous comments on people’s blogs proclaiming “Look dude, this place sells a candle that smells like pot!” which was usually followed up by somebody else saying “who wants their home or room to smell like weed??? The cops would always be called and come running for no reason. They don’t make weed scented candles!”.   The one candle that got the most press, however, was The Hippie Candle by a company called Hotwicks.  Hotwicks sells a number of interestingly scented candles, at least one of which I’ll cover in another entry.   So here’s what their website says about The Hippie Candle.

THE HIPPIE CANDLE — Treat yourself to a candle and a contact high… don’t smoke the candle.

Say “NO” to drugs, say “YES” to candles that smell like drugs! Yes, THE HIPPIE CANDLE smells like pot, but it won’t get you high and it is legal. This is a great gift for your favorite stoner, college student, or one of those wookie looking dudes that wanders around concert parking lots selling bean burritos and hemp necklaces.

WHOA!  Did you see that?  This one actually says “THE HIPPIE CANDLE smells like pot“  Obviously they’d read my thoughts about some of the other candles who dance around the claim.  So after much internal debate and looking over my checking account balance, I finally pulled the trigger.  I bought the Hippie Candle from Hotwicks.

Does it smell like pot???????????????????   No.   $8.95 +s/h down the drain

What DOES it smell like?  I don’t know, herbs maybe? It’s a little sweet, a little smokey, but that’s about it.  My opinion is to pass on this one.  Nobody will confuse this scent with that of somebody smoking mary jane.    And this, my friends, is the straw that broke this camel’s back.  After buying tons of things over the years and being slightly-to-greatly disappointed with the results, I’m finally posting the info online.  Why? Because with some of these items, nobody else will.

Thanks for reading.

Here are some other ‘pot’ scented candles.  If you’ve tried any of these, let me know your thoughts.

• The Marijuana Candle – this is available from AnnAroma.  They have a MySpace page here (and I HATE MySpace pages, but I’ll link it because their actual website doesn’t seem to exist.  They used to have a website at www.annaroma.com, but at the time of this entry the domain name has dropped and there’s no webpage available.  Click that at your own risk because who knows what cybersquatter might have picked it up.)
• The Malin & Goetz Cannabis Candle – $48 from their site.  Too rich for my blood, particularly since I’m not sure it’ll live up to its name.  Described as “Peppery Candle that intoxicates your senses and is paired with fresh green Neroli creating a unique blend that provides perfect sensory balance. Top Notes: Orange & Lemon. Middle Notes: Fig & Pepper. Base Notes: Sandlewood & Patchouli. Paired with Green Neroli.”
• The IIKH Cannabis Candle – this is/was available from IIKH.  You can find references to this through Google but as of the time of this entry, the IIKH store returns only error pages when clicking on the categories.