2007-03-10
I heart technology
|I love technology, most specifically, the internet. I just found out most of my library needs can be met online. If I want a book at my local library I can get on their site and check their card catalogue. If that book is in, I can place a hold on it and then pick it up in the next five days.
If my library does not have that book, I can check out the network of libraries to which mine belongs and ask the neighboring library to borrow that one. They will send it to my library and then my library will send me an e-mail notice alerting me that the book I wanted is available.
Even better, my library will e-mail me two days before my books, videos, etc. are due so I can get them back on time. This comes in handy when my kids take out Hello Kitty videos and I then promptly forget they exist -- inside or outside of my house.
Each day a CD or DVD is overdue I am charged $1. When you forget about the movie you borrowed it kind of eliminates the great concept of borrowing the video and makes it more like a trip to Blockbuster.
Another recent internet find is Tweeze (pronounced twee-zie, like Wheezie from "The Jeffersons," just add a t). This little invention is a mini-epilator just perfect for eliminating those stray chin hairs (or so I've heard). For just $19.99 (plus shipping and handling) you, too, can have a hair-free bikini line, chin, upper lip, etc. It's 30 times faster than ordinary tweezing, so says the infomercial.
My sister Kim got one and loves it. Then my sister Kate visited Kim, tried the Tweeze and bought one herself. Kate just stopped by last week and I tried hers. Now I'm watching the mail for my very own Tweeze. And so on, and so on, and so on. (Remember that commercial for shampoo? "She told two friends, and she told two friends and so on and so on" as the screen splits and shows the faces of all of those friends who heard about that bitchin' shampoo. Too bad I don't remember the brand name.)
Anyway, I am looking forward to my new purchase. I don't often by stuff from infomercials. The last time I did that, I got a Shark cordless vacuum from CVS. It was the same thing that was seen on TV, but it was in the drugstore and I had I place I could return it to if it didn't deliver.
I'm happy to say I still have the Shark vacuum and it's doing a good enough job three years later.
Also, I like to check the internet for other consumer's opinions on such items. I have been longing for a steam cleaner; you know, the small portable kind that promises with just water to clean all the crud off your stove, out of the bathroom, the kitchen, etc. I did a quick search on that and found that most people were not satisfied with their purchase of the steam cleaner as seen on TV.
I still want one; I just wish they would make a better one for $19.99.
2007-03-10 at 12:52 p.m.
