Kitschy Kitschy Coo: Magazine Mental Illness

I love this; found it on the Kitschy Kitschy Coo blog:Kitschy Kitschy Coo: Magazine Mental Illness. Here's what they say about this magazine, published by Popular Mechanics back in the 1940s:

Home Kinks magazine isn't what you think it is. Or maybe it is; maybe you're not as twisted as I am. Or maybe you are just as twisted, but you just knew this was a Popular Mechanics publication (1947)

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Hey Shark Navigator - wanna send me a freebie?

As I have written here many times - I love my Dyson.  That said, it isn't perfect and doesn't pick up dog hair in carpet as well as I would like.  I have been watching an infommercial for the Shark Navigator which claims to be great at picking up pet hair and that it doesn't get all wrapped around the brush, like on my Dyson.  So I figured it is worth a try to put out a request that someone send me one.  If it works as promised I will not only write a review here, but also at Amazon and elsewhere.

Hey, it is worth a try.  After spending a bunch of money on my new Dyson last year I can't really justify buying another vacuum simply because it claims to be better on pet hair.

Mad Henry Makow and Women in Jeans

Henry Makow, or "Mad" Makow, as I like to call him, is ... well, ... hmm. He's a pundit actively promoted by Jeff Rense, a Christian, but he's Jewish, he's the "inventor of the board game Scruples," he's a right wing, Illuminati fearing, paranoid bigot, homophobic and misogynistic male, stuck in a Twilight Zone version of the 1950s. His latest rant is an "annual update" about women in jeans. Every year he republishes his article Female Gender Confusion is in the Jeans,  with some tweaks.  It's funny, and would be even funnier, if it weren't for the fact Makow is serious, deadly so, and that he has fans. Admirers. Men, and women, who agree with him. Scary, that is. Be sure to read the comments after his post at his site; many are from women.


He opens with a quote from Deuteronomy, so that tells you something, then proceeds to enlighten us as to what it is about jean wearing women that is so wrong:

Jeans are a fitting feminist symbol. They are farm workers' and miners' clothes. Feminism is an invention of the central bankers who also created and financed the socialist and communist movements to control people.

Makow is an anti-Semite, and uses code words for Jew like "central bankers" a lot. One of his pet theories are that Jews, er, bankers, invented feminism to destroy men and take over the world.

Makow offers advice to men, warning them of jean wearing pinko commie lesbian feminist women:

Men, a woman wearing jeans is a red flag that you might be dealing with "GID" --"gender identity disorder." Her jeans are saying: "I don't want to be a woman. I don't want to look good for men. I fear and distrust men. I want male prerogatives. I want to look like a man. I want to be a man."

He weaves all this into Stalinist Illuminati take overs, you just have to read it to see for yourself. He ends with this:

There is nothing more beautiful than a women wearing a summer dress. I can still remember a young woman I saw five years ago wearing a frock. That's how powerful femininity is. Let's not let highly-paid pious feminist and lesbian "change agents" destroy it. It's time for real women to relegate jeans to garden or farm work.

Did he just say "frock?" I haven't heard that term since I was a kid when my grandmother used it, and I'm old!

Makow's website is savethemales.com. Yep, "save the males." Oy.

Fall Closet Cleaning

Most of you (unless you live in Florida or somewhere really warm) know that this is the time of year that us girls clean out our closet and try to remove all the summer stuff and replace it with sweaters, jackets, jeans and so on. Winter is a bitch for my closet. Not only do winter clothes take up more space, but there is a lot of summer stuff (like tank tops, t-shirts, yoga capris, work-out type shorts) that I need all year. I literally have already removed 2 large yard type bags of clothes that went to charity (too small or just one of those things that you wonder whatever possessed you to buy it) and 1 bag of summer clothes to storage and I seem to have only a little more room than when I started and that has already been filled with sweaters that I brought in from storage. One of the things that bothers me is that I never know how winter will be here in New Mexico. Sometimes I need my cozy sweaters and some winters they get almost no wear. There are always at least a couple weeks that are miserable cold, but some winters that is it. Other winters it seems like several months of that. Don't get me wrong, there are few things that I love as much as a cozy cable knit sweater or some soft cashmere, but they do take up a lot of space. I guess I am saying all that to motivate myself to finish the 1/4 (or there about) of the closet that I haven't finished with yet. There is no sense in having great clothes that you love if you can't find them under everything else.

Swooning over my new Dyson Vac

OMG, I have a new Dyson vac!

It is the little 10 lb model. I was skeptical that it would work as well as the full sized, but it does! Oh, and it is soooooooooo much easier to carry up the stairs. As if that wasn't good enough -- all my attachments from my other Dyson fit it, including the coveted power brush! It is also one of the new "ball" models that actually can turn. It is the most fabulous cleaning machine ever invented!

Just when you thought I was done with posts about vacuums

A couple months ago, Britton decided to give my Dyson to the handy man we had working at the house to see if he could "fix" it because it seemed to have a clog. Now handing a Dyson (or probably any vacuum) over to this man (or maybe most men) is like handing a computer hard drive to a caveman. It is something foreign to them (unless it is a shop vac) and they don't understand it. Somehow this person managed to pry off the canister without actually using the release knob, he then took apart pieces that were not suppose to be taken apart and cleaned them. Probably needless to say, but that totally destroyed my already sickly Dyson. Since then I have been stuck having to use the horrible, very heavy, many filtered Bissell Pet Vac. When the filters aren't clogged the suction is pretty good, but the filters clog every few minutes when you live out in a desert dusty area and have several pets. That alone is frustrating beyond belief, but earlier today I apparently didn't snap in one of the filters right, which for some reason took nearly a minute for me to notice and I ended up with a room full of fine dust particles. This caused the worst asthma attack that I have had since I was a child. So I threw the Bissell out the backdoor, well, so much as I could throw that heavy piece of crap while having an asthma attack.

Not having had an asthma attack bad enough to require medication since I was a child, I had no inhalers or any type of med in the house. I made a hot pot of coffee and although I have heard you shouldn't take it for asthma (not sure why) -- I took allergy med. Luckily that seemed to work and I was back to breathing pretty normally within about 30 minutes.

It has been due to my cheapness that I didn't just buy a new Dyson. Well, also I thought that I wanted or needed the animal vac version, which is like $600. However, after checking some sites on the internet I found the only difference with that version is that it comes with 2 attachments that not all Dysons come with. I already have those attachments, assuming they will work with a new model, but even if they don't they really aren't that important. Anyhow, it means I can buy the much cheaper, smaller and lighter (easier to lug up the stairs) version of the Dyson! I will likely have to empty the canister a lot more often, but emptying a Dyson is a breeze.

So first order of business tomorrow will be shopping for my new Dyson. I doubt I will ever again be as happy to spend a few hundred dollars on a cleaning tool. :)

How to clean the house

1. Open a new file in your PC .
2. Name it 'Housework.'
3. Send it to the RECYCLE BIN.
4. Empty the RECYCLE BIN.
5. Your PC will ask you, 'Are you sure you want to delete Housework permanently?'
6. Calmly answer, 'Yes' and press mouse button firmly ...
7. Feel better?

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?

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.