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Number One Fan and I have been going around, looking at various wedding items lately. While everything in the wedding world is overpriced and is deeply rooted in emotional usury, the worst offenders of the lot have to be the people making wedding dresses. For a long time, I thought that the profit killing funeral homes made off of taking advantage of people when they were in the depths of despondency from losing a loved one, were horrid. Now I'm realizing that those in the bridal business are just as bad if not worse. For, the people working in death are doing a job that most none of us really want to do and there is a cost to pay to have people doing those jobs. Those working in weddings try to wrap everything joy and love and doves and white satin to cover the fact that they're trying to get you to spend tens of thousands of dollars on what may be the happiest day of your life, but one that will put you in debt for decades to come.       So, when it comes to wedding dresses, it isn't the fact that most everything I see is some god awful tribute to lace and rhinestones, but more the fact that everything is so overpriced. An average, basic dress that is nothing special and hopefully not horribly ugly will cost about $500-1,000. There is no reason for this other than the fact it is a "wedding" dress. Make the dress black and put it on the 2nd floor of your average Macy's and suddenly the same dress is at most $200.       It's not like there is any special care that has gone in to these dresses. Once I got tired of looking at what is essentially the same thing over and over, I started looking at manufacturing tags. Sure enough, all of the dresses under $1,000 were made in China or some other country that relies heavily on sweatshop. So in the end, there's what, $50 or $10 or even $5 of expense in these dresses? Naturally, I have no hard figures as no one wants to look in to this because everyone is either too fixated with trying to find their special dress or sell one of these special dresses.       Of course, if you want something fancy like Vera Wang you're talking $5,000 and up. At least these dresses look good, but are they also made in China? If so, how can this be anything but laughable, filthy greed?       Ah yes, there is the other screwy facet in all of this is that you simple cannot try on a wedding dress without an assistant and most likely only by booking an appointment with said assistant. This may seem classy, when in reality all they're doing is upselling you and something bigger and fluffier than you wanted with the, "Oh, just splurge, you only do this once!" Folks, the divorce rate in the US is a bit of 50%, so don't listen to this line of crap.       I don't know what to say and it seems that so many women are hell-bent on paying these outlandish prices for a dress that they wear once that there isn't much that can be done about it. I'm betting that even if Oprah did a special on it, it wouldn't change a lick and it's sad because not only could that money be put to better uses in life, but it could be spent on a better party for the guests. I mean really folks, when it comes down to it the only thing people remember about your wedding is how much they drank and how much they ate and if either of these items were worth the wedding present they gave you. So, feed your guests and skimp on the dress!

These days, now that there are two of us in the household and thusly about 1.5 times more waste (not twice as much, as two people are more economical living together) I really try to make the effort to not throw away anything except organic waste. I like to run with the assumption that somewhere, someone can use what I am not using anymore. To this, I might add that I mean someone local. It is often the case when donating large, obsolete items to developing nations, you can do more harm than good with how much trouble it is for them to receive something that they can ultimately buy for less than what it takes to get it in to the country. Take that in to account when you think you're doing good by shipping off your 15 year old megalith to somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa.       So, #1 Fan and I did some Spring cleaning recently and got rid of a great many things that were hogging up space in the 63 square meters we call home. But instead of just throwing them out, we tried Freecycle. Previous to this, I had just left items down on the Free Shelf or out in the very Free Street. Freecycle seemed to have some advantages, as you were basically advertising items that you wanted to get rid of and the people responding were really interested in getting them. Ultimately we had mixed results and realized that Freecycle is best for those living in a rural setting who don't have a Free Shelf or a Free Street to easily toss items out upon. But, following is a run down of what works and what doesn't in each situation.              Freecycle       It's a website, but it's mostly an email list that people post on and respond to. It seems like a great idea and a way to circulate things that you just don't need to those who do need them. The principle is sound, but the how it plays out in the end is not. The two issues with Freecycle are the hoarders and the flakes. The former group are those that see something for free and think, "Hey, it's free, I could probably use that somehow." and they just respond to any and all postings no matter if they need it or not. This group sorta cripples the purpose of Freecycle and makes it a free for all that's about as useful as the Shelf or Street method. This group is also most likely where the flakes spring from. There are so many countless, endless people on Freecycle who just never show up to pick up something that they said they were going to pick up. It's pretty maddening really and makes giving things away a real pain.       Again, Freecycle is probably best for those living outside large cities, but then again, those are the areas with the fewest people subscribed.              Free Street       Yeah, just dumping it out on the street. It's simple, but it can also make a neighborhood ugly. You can also get ticketed for doing it. In reality, unless you have something big that's in nice condition, it's a pretty crappy thing to do. This is about the only case where I do it. One exception is where I'm getting rid of an older pair of shoes. I go and put them on top of a trash can around the corner. Ultimately, some homeless guy will always pick them up and get some use out of them still. And of course, if this doesn't happen in less than a day, I would go back down and toss them in the trash.       The biggest mistake [lapse in judgment] most people do is to put out old couches or mattresses on the street. These almost never get picked up until after some homeless guy has slept on them for a night or two and then the municipal trash ultimately tosses them.              Free Shelf       Probably the best method. I often leave things down on the shelf in my apartment, but then again, you really need to live in a decently large apartment to pull this off. This method runs the risk of angering the building manager though, unless you just put one or two items down there that are small and could really be used by someone else.       Lately, folks have been abusing the Free Shelf. Art students moving out (who never live in the building for longer than two years) will just dump all their crap down there. All of their "ironic white trash" apparel will end up on the shelf and stay there for days until the building manager tosses it. Some kids even left a pile of used bras and underwear. This is pretty ridiculous as a) no one in this building will pick it up and b) there are three charity groups and can actually use it. I've seen it end up in the trash on more than one occasion.       Even still, I love the Free Shelf and think that it's just the bomb for person to person recycling.              Free Box       I close with one extreme failure of the whole free recycling thing which was the Free Box at Peoples' Park. That box came to epitomize the worst of out capitalist society with it getting raiding by guys in the area who lived in the park and who got in fights with the other guys at the box over the junk people would dump there. They then ultimately sold whatever they got out of the box, negating the whole purpose of it. I was thankful to hear that it has gotten burned, smashed, and dismantled several times, since its presence in the park always created a bad atmosphere, unlike the Free Shelf in my apartment which just propagates endless love. Really, it does!

I dread buying from Amazon. What started out as a pioneer in internet sales, has slowly turned in to a megalithic company with a CEO having as high a monkey quotient as Steve Ballmer and customer service as squalid as my cellphone provider.       Beyond everything else that they do and the fact that despite multiple redesigns, their site is still pretty ugly, it's the fact that they delay shipments that really drives me crazy. How is it that a product with immediate availability takes a week to ship? Simple, they want you to actually pay for shipping, as opposed to using their Super Saver Shipping. So, instead of just having one option for shipping where you pay for your order and they ship it out in the order received, you get all these other options. It's somewhat like sales tax in this country, where the final price isn't the final price if you want to get what you were expecting.       Somehow people tolerate this as Amazon is still around and Jeff Bezos has an ever more smirking grin as time goes on. I happen to not be one of these people that tolerates this and so I just use Amazon and don't buy from Amazon. I encourage everyone to do the same wherein you browse for something, read the reviews and then buy it at a more ethical store. For instance, browsing for books and then ordering them from a bookstore like Stacey's here in San Francisco which is local and fantastic. Doing this benefits you (although should be taken with a grain of salt overall) and wastes Amazon's servers and bandwidth.       Of course where Amazon gets even is that they'll sometimes be the only place I can get something, which is providing the dilemma that I'm in now where I ordered on the 4th and will hopefully get it shipped out on the 11th. It is true that I could get this product (a really well-built electric razor) elsewhere, but that meant getting it from Canada just like I have to do with the Freytag and Berndt maps that I so dearly love. But, given the amount of time I'm waiting, I suspect that Amazon may just be drop shipping it to me from Canada. Those cheeky bastards...       

You know, I get really bothered when a company wants to give me an offer, but wants to get something out of me above and beyond my money. The reason I bring this up is because H&M sent out a 25% off promotion to some people. A friend forwarded it to me and just to keep my options open, I wanted to get the coupon.       Now, I rarely shop at H&M anymore as they use sweatshops and 3rd world labor to make just about everything they sell. But on the off chance, something in there isn't from one of these places, I might feel tempted to buy it, thus the interest in having a 25% coupon.       So, going to their site to get the coupon at www.hmfriendsandfamily.com I was more than slightly perturbed by the fact they wanted a rather large slew of my personal information to get this coupon. I'm not happy about that, but I proceeded through the hoops to get to the final page to download the coupon. But as it turns out, you don't need to do this, just to this link - here and you can keep all your private info to yourself if you want.       I might add that this coupon is only good from December 7, 2007 to December 9, 2007, so if you happened upon this article sometime in the future, it ain't gonna do you much good. Happy shopping and watch those labels!       

I'm an American and also a gadget fiend. I love every new-fangled thing that comes out and the first thought that usually goes through my head is, "Where can I get it?" Lately though, I've started to have a new line of thinking when I see sparkling objects which is, "Do I really need it?" This was the case with my iPod, where I realized that the one I have is good enough and I really don't need the new iPod Touch.       Initially this may seem a move against anti-consumerism, which it is, but at the same time, it's a move against waste. Do you remember how much packaging there was with the last gizmo you bought? So, part of what I'm trying to do is avoid creating new waste, but there is an additional depth to this in thinking about the waste that we already have. What do you do when your cellphone dies? How about a blender? Or maybe even an entire computer? After all, in 2005, about 1.5 million to 1.9 million tons of used and unwanted electronics were discarded (source).       There are some places that have sprung up lately to deal with this waste. In San Francisco we have a few, seeing as how we have many computers being tossed all the time. Even still, I feel that there is more than can be done and it means taking things in to your own hands.       Two years ago, I bought a Logitech MX5000 mouse. It's a nifty little cordless mouse that fit my large hands well. Naturally, given the inherent obsolescence built in to many products these days, it died recently. Most people's first reaction would be to dump it in the trash and get a new. This is bad. This mouse is deadly and also worth something. First off there is that battery in there. Then there is a lot of wire. Of course there is a good deal of plastic as well. So, what did I do with all of this?       The first thing I did was rip it apart. I took out the battery and dropped that off at a recycling center. Then, I ripped apart the power supply and stripped out the wire. Copper is quite a precious commodity these days and all the wire wrapped up in power converters (that power brick you plug in) is worth stripping out. Then there was the plastic. I was stumped and I had to regrettable toss that. We really need to lobby for housings on devices to be made of reusable materials...       This was just a small thing and it meant that I didn't toss out useful and toxic things in to some nearby landfill by stripping it down. Ripping apart and sorting your old electrics can have even more of an impact when they're bigger like say, a toaster oven. As you can read in that article, I had even greater luck reducing this dead device to nearly only recyclable materials.       All of this isn't just for geeks like me though. You can do it yourself. Just get a couple of tools like a basic screwdriver set and a pair of pliers. You can then rip things that are truly dead apart with the greatest glee and try and stop the amount of waste on this planet. Recycling doesn't stop with putting cans in those blue bins...

First and foremost, my issue is not, as Borat profoundly says it, that, "Everybody know it for girls!" I am quite happy with the form factor and if that reduces my overall outward sexuality, so be it. I carried with me around Europe for almost four months and am quite okay with it, even the fact that it's green.       No, the big problem with my iPod Mini is that it still works very well and plays music. These are the two things that I need out of such a device. For the last three years that I've had this thing, The Jobs keeps coming out with supposedly newer and better devices. He even did away with the Mini. But, I still got mine and since I doubt I could get anything for it on Ebay at this point (couple of dings from dropping it once or twice) there really is no point but to hold on to it until it completely dies.       So, Apple keeps trying to tempt me with new devices because I am one of those people that they want to see upgrading all the time. I'm younger than 35. I live in San Francisco. I have a decent income. And of course, I'm a programmer by profession. I am supposed to upgrade. I am supposed to be buying The New. But yet, I don't. A good deal of this is because I believe in better buying and don't want to generate more E-waste in the world. The other reason behind this is that beyond playing music, keeping a charge, and being small, Apple hasn't really convinced me to upgrade. But, let's look at some of the things they've attempted to ply me with and why I didn't like them:              iPod Shuffle - Too little storage. No Screen.       iPod Nano - First generation was really bad. Second generation was better, but does nothing above and beyond what my Mini did. Third generation is much more interesting, but I don't really care about video all the much and I don't care about it on that small a screen.       iPod (Classic) - Whatever the version, while they've always had better storage than my Mini they were just too big and the video feature was really uninteresting given that screen format.       iPhone - Way, way too much stuff in a phone. Bad battery life. Only slightly more storage than my Mini. Too expensive. Locked in with AT&T who I really dislike.       iPod Touch - Now this is interesting. It provides everything that I have, plus some new features that I like, such as viewing horizontal. But like the iPhone, the price is just too much for 16 gigs of storage. You can buy almost terabytes of external storage for that price! It's also still kind of new and they're getting the kinks worked out. Once again, I really just like to play music and it doesn't do anything more than my Mini in that category and even a little less, since I can't tap the controls in my pocket like I do with my Mini.              Moral of the story? The iPod Mini was probably the best basic music player that Apple ever made and they killed it at the height of its popularity. Some saw that as a bold move. I just saw it as backwards, since the beat goes on for me in Mini style and it seems that many are getting unhappy with the new Apple Greed system.

I was pointed to a very cool site one day that's called, Obey the Pure Breed. It's a fun collection of t-shirts and other bits all focused around the glory that is the dog. While they'll often repeat a theme throughout the various shirts, they're done in a very clever and amusing way, such that you don't really mind. I mean, everyone has got their favorite dog(s) and so you're going to zero in on the breed you claim as yours, thus making the repetition moot.       Seeing as how I don't have a dog, I'm a fan of several that I'd enjoy having someday. That being the case, I'm now the proud owner of Obey the Dachshund (pictured up above of course), as well as Obey the Vizsla. I'm not an overly huge fan of the Vizsla, but I love that shirt. Just to round out the set, I got my woman, the ever so tasteful, Whippets of Mass Destruction.       All of these are cool and you can even find some that were Made in the USA which is a rare thing these days and a reason that I'm tagging this as Better Buying. But even more cool than all of this and something that which is not an example of Better Buying, seeing as how it's completely wasteful, yet amazingly cool is the T-Qualizer. Every raver, or better yet, Welsh Lad out for a birthday tipple should have one. Regardless of your needs, you should check out Think Geek for all your t-shirt needs if you happen to be a geek and if you're reading this, there's a good chance you are.

I think there are two reasons that I'm such a tea nut and love doing my Tea Reviews. The first reason was a trip to London in 2004 where I was exposed to good tea for the first time and got hooked. The second was due to this bit I saw on Good Eats where Alton Brown went in to the depths of food geekness in talking about tea. It was a good show, but it was his "recipe" for the perfect cup that really got me hooked on tea and as any reader of this site knows, it's a bit of a passion for me.       One thing that Alton went on and on about was the need for perfect water when making tea. I had been somewhat taking this for granted because I brew at home or get a cup where they boil the water properly. It wasn't until I tried using the hot water in the office water cooler that I realized how important it was to have good, properly boiled water. I would rather be tired and un-caffeinated than drink tea made that way because really, it sucks.       It wasn't until recently at one of my sometimes offices where I pointed out the fact that the coffee drinkers get all these fancy coffee pots, $500 espresso machines, and what not, while the tea drinkers are stuck with the crappy hot water thing on the water cooler that makes me prefer Starbucks. So, after much hassling, I managed to have them get an electric tea kettle. Specifically, this on from Sunbeam. The only catch (which I didn't think of as an issue at first) was that it's made of plastic. This probably isn't a big deal to most people seeing as how nearly every damned thing is made of plastic these days, but really it makes a difference. While this pot will actually get the water to a rolling boil, there is something never quite right with it. Tea doesn't steep as dark as it does at home and there is always this slight air of plasticness to it that I don't quite care for.       All things told though, I greatly prefer this over the water cooler and it is a lot better than spending $2 every time I want a cup of hot water and Indian leaves. Still, it's not great and short of having a gas burner with a proper Chantal kettle (god I love these) in the office, I believe this is the best I will get. Quite obviously, I need my own company and office...

If you follow along in the Tea Reviews section, then you're very aware of how much I like tea. One unfortunate personal downfall is that despite my love of the leaf, the ability to make the perfect loose leaf cup seems be an elusive goal for me. This tends to result in the cop out of using bags and while they're good, they're not really ever as perfect as loose leaf can be, when made right of course. They also happen to be considerably more expensive and less environmentally friendly, since pure tea leaves are so easy to compost and recycle.       But, it seems that with hundreds of attempts under my belt, I'm starting to get closer to figuring out proper loose leaf methods. My problems all seemed to revolve around the amount (I put in too much) and the steep time (I let it sit too long). About a pinch and a half from my big monkey fingers seems to be the right amount for a single cup that is laced with a lot of flavor, but not too much flavor to the point of being overwhelming. As for the time I've been letting it steep, this is still something of a work in progress. At times, I get it just right by leaving it shorter than what seems should be enough time to me. But still, I'm over steeping just a little much. If I pay attention to the color that seems to help.       I'm sure I'll get it right someday and while this is a silly pursuit, at least it's not a costly one since the only things I need are tea leaves and boiling water. There is no $400 machine that I need like in coffee and the fact you have to "meditate" a bit to get the cup right is something that I like. Anyways, I've got a large lot of loose leaf samples coming from a tea blender for me to review, so I'll get more practice and more reviews up in due course.

Okay, so it's Valentine's Day and it's funny to listen to the various commercials out there because they know that more and more folks are seeing this "holiday" as just a money grab and so they're trying to shame guys in to not thinking that. They are of course forgetting that we're talking about guys here. We're "bears with furniture" as Rita Rudner put it so graciously. We'll see how this pans out and if more guys start to realize that you can treat your lady pretty well on just about any other day and not have to deal with the crowds or price gouging you get today.       On another note, a friend sent me the graphic on the right from where she is. If I haven't said it before, I am very, very happy to be in California and she wishes that she was as well right now. What the hell is a "wintry mix" anyways? Sounds like a DJ mashup of Christmas carols or something.