Dyson vs. Bissell Pet Vac -- Final conclusion

I am sure that overall the Bissell pet vac is fine for people that have a small fluffy dog, short haired dogs, a few cats, or vacuum daily, but it isn't for me.

There are good things about the Bissell pet vac, which I think I covered in previous posts. However, when I got to the really hairy and dirty part of the house (the living room) I quickly began to not like the Bissell so much.

Not only do I have lots of dog hair, but also my dog rolls in plants, dirt, pine needles and so on and she carries a lot of that into the house on her hair. The Bissell not only has a hepa filter, but also some other filter than I have no idea of the purpose. When the other filter clogs, the suction stops. It clogged every couple mintues for me and I finally just removed it. Likely that will eventually cause some other problem, but I don't have the time to stop and clean that out every few minutes.

The Dyson never loses suction is what the commercial says and that is pretty much true. There are some extreme things I have vacuumed that caused my Dyson to almost lose suction, but it isn't an easy thing to do. The Dyson also has no fiters to cause problems.

I do not like the canister emptying on the Bissell either. It is a far more dusty job than the Dyson.

As I said, the Bissell pet vac is not for me and I imagine that in a couple months when I have some extra money I will spring for a new Dyson -- the pet vac model.

Sometimes things are expensive because they are trendy, but Dyson is expensive because it is the best and I will gladly pay the expense again. Vacuuming is not a fun job, why make it worse by having something that doesn't work as well as you really need?

Vermont Teddy Bears must DIE!

I am sooooooooooooooo sick of this commercial. It is ridiculous! The worst part is that they must be selling A LOT of these bears because they can afford to show this commercial a zillion times per day.

Men -- don't fall for it. I can't imagine any woman that would want one of those for Valentines Day. For $70 you can come up with something much better, even if it is just a romantic dinner somewhere.

Some fun comments here -- http://jezebel.com/5148173/what-do-women-want-for-valentines-day

Update on things that suck -- vacs

Yesterday being Superbowl Sunday kept me from doing any major cleaning (thank you football gods!). I actually was curious about my new vac though and decided to take it out of the box and give it a try before the superbowl.

It went together fairly easy, but that was no real thanks to the instructions which I did not feel had enough diagrams to show me which part was which.

The first test is what I call the big step. I think a landing is the right term for it, but I am not really sure. Anyhow it is just 3 steps below our bedroom and the dog sleeps there most nights so it is completely covered with hair most of the time. The new Bissell vac did great on it! Much better than my near death Dyson. It was also on the stairs that I tried a new tool -- the contour brush. By far the best tool for stairs with carpeting that I have ever used! The wondrous attachment is shown in the photo above.

Nobody without carpeted stairs and a big fluffy dog can quite understand how hard stairs are to clean. I have often times had to spend 30 minutes or more just on the stairs. The regular vacuum head is pretty useless because it is so much bigger than the stairs.

After that test I vacuumed the bedroom and it worked as a vacuum should.

Later today I will try the turbo brush. I was never impressed with my Dyson turbo brush, we will see if this one is any better. Also, I will give it another test -- the downstairs near the front door where Pooka not only sheds hair but also shakes off leaves, sticks and other outdoor stuff that easily can clog a vacuum hose.

A couple more good things about my Bissell pet hair vac -- Unlike my Dyson it has a light. I don't know if the new Dysons have a headlight but mine didn't. Also, the attachments actually fit into the holders on the vacuum and don't fall off while you are vacuuming. I think this is the first vac I have ever had where the attachments actually fit in their storage spaces and don't fall out.

So far so good, maybe I won't miss my Dyson as much as I thought I would and maybe not at all.

Things that suck -- vacs

For the past 5 years or so I have had a lovely Dyson vac, similar to the model in the photo. However, the past several months it has been obviously near complete break down. It has like half the power it used to and the motor sounds wrong. None of the hoses are clogged, so that isn't the problem. After that many years of sucking up tons of dog and cat hair it seems to have had enough.

It took me months to admit to it, but I needed a new vac and I just can't put out the money for a new Dyson. Yesterday I finally replaced it with a Bissell pet hair vac, which was less than 1/3 the price of the Dyson animal vac.

I am not in the least happy about replacing my Dyson with something that isn't a Dyson, but I don't want to pay $500 and really can't afford to. I haven't even taken the new one out of the trunk of my car yet. I will later today and give it a go. At the very least it will have to work better than my half power Dyson, but is it also possible that it could work as well as my Dyson did when it was new? That is my hope -- that I will be very pleasantly surprised. I have sworn for the last 5 years that Dyson is the best vac ever invented, but I would be happy to be wrong.

I will update after I try the new one.

Even her own mother doesn't like her

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090131/ap_on_re_us/octuplets

LOS ANGELES – The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week conceived all 14 of her children through in vitro fertilization, is not married and has been obsessed with having children since she was a teenager, her mother said.

Angela Suleman told The Associated Press she was not supportive when her daughter, Nadya Suleman, decided to have more embryos implanted last year.

"It can't go on any longer," she said in a phone interview Friday. "She's got six children and no husband. I was brought up the traditional way. I firmly believe in marriage. But she didn't want to get married."

Nadya Suleman, 33, gave birth Monday in nearby Bellflower. She was expected to remain in the hospital for at least a few more days, and her newborns for at least a month.

A spokeswoman at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center said the babies were doing well and seven were breathing unassisted.

While her daughter recovers, Angela Suleman is taking care of the other six children, ages 2 through 7, at the family home in Whittier, about 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

She said she warned her daughter that when she gets home from the hospital, "I'm going to be gone."

Angela Suleman said her daughter always had trouble conceiving and underwent in vitro fertilization treatments because her fallopian tubes are "plugged up."

There were frozen embryos left over after her previous pregnancies and her daughter didn't want them destroyed, so she decided to have more children.

Her mother and doctors have said the woman was told she had the option to abort some of the embryos and, later, the fetuses. She refused.

Her mother said she does not believe her daughter will have any more children.

"She doesn't have any more (frozen embryos), so it's over now," she said. "It has to be."

Nadya Suleman wanted to have children since she was a teenager, "but luckily she couldn't," her mother said.

"Instead of becoming a kindergarten teacher or something, she started having them, but not the normal way," he mother said.

Her daughter's obsession with children caused Angela Suleman considerable stress, so she sought help from a psychologist, who told her to order her daughter out of the house.

"Maybe she wouldn't have had so many kids then, but she is a grown woman," Angela Suleman said. "I feel responsible and I didn't want to throw her out."

Yolanda Garcia, 49, of Whittier, said she helped care for Nadya Suleman's autistic son three years ago.

"From what I could tell back then, she was pretty happy with herself, saying she liked having kids and she wanted 12 kids in all," Garcia told the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

"She told me that all of her kids were through in vitro, and I said 'Gosh, how can you afford that and go to school at the same time?"' she added. "And she said it's because she got paid for it."

Garcia said she did not ask for details.

Nadya Suleman holds a 2006 degree in child and adolescent development from California State University, Fullerton, and as late as last spring she was studying for a master's degree in counseling, college spokeswoman Paula Selleck told the Press-Telegram.

Her fertility doctor has not been identified. Her mother told the Los Angeles Times all the children came from the same sperm donor but she declined to identify him.

Birth certificates reviewed by The Associated Press identify a David Solomon as the father for the four oldest children. Certificates for the other children were not immediately available.

The news that the octuplets' mother already had six children sparked an ethical debate. Some medical experts were disturbed to hear that she was offered fertility treatment, and troubled by the possibility that she was implanted with so many embryos.

Others worried that she would be overwhelmed trying to raise so many children and would end up relying on public support.

The eight babies — six boys and two girls — were delivered by Cesarean section weighing between 1 pound, 8 ounces and 3 pounds, 4 ounces. Forty-six physicians and staff assisted in the deliveries.

Family: Octuplets' mother has 6 other children

Stories like this REALLY bother me.

In general, fertility treatments bother me when there are so many children in need of a good home. However, I do realize that for some reason people want to have a child with the same genetics as they have. For someone who wants to have 1 or 2 children, I suppose it is somewhat acceptable, but why on earth should someone that already has 6 children be eligible for that type of procedure?

This story bothers me on many levels -- there is no mention of a husband and the woman lives with her parents. Now, I have no problem with single women having children, so I am not saying it in that sense, just pointing out that this woman is living with her PARENTS, not on her own or with a husband or SO of some sort. Why on earth would someone in that situation need more children?

I can't imagine what type of woman -- single or not would want even 6 children, let along 14. Frankly, I believe this woman must have some sort of mental illness. You know, like those people that horde pets -- only she hordes babies and children.

I personally believe that there needs to be restrictions put on who can have this type of treatment and that someone that already has SIX children should not be eligible. Is that mean of me? I don't think so.

Family: Octuplets' mother has 6 other children - Yahoo! News

Signs

RIP Sweet, Sexy, Soulful - Eartha

My favorite Catwoman and truly one of the most amazing singers to ever have lived. Eartha Kitt will be very missed by myself and millions of others.

1980's and BIG HAIR -- Memories

There was very little that was any cooler than the clothes and hair in the Love is a Battlefield video, but it was all because of ATTITUDE!


Cyndi is the one who let me know that any hair color is fine and more than one is even better. Oh, those big earrings with faces on them, it is hard to find things like that these days.

Madonna made me desperately want and buy those big bow things for my hair and lace gloves with cut out fingers.

Oh and that big hair! I don't know about everyone else, but to get hair that big I had to always be permed. I still can't believe I got up hours before I had to be anywhere just to do my BIG hair. Hair spray, scrunch spray, mousse, blow driers and most importantly -- curling irons. It is a wonder my hair survived.


I didn't have shiny black vinyl pants, but I did have lots of legging. Yeah, long shirts and a belt went with those. Who could live without some ankle boots to go with that outfit?

Weird Vintage Ads

Yeah, I assume the one above is fake. :-)