Public Service Announcement: Spring Cleaning

There's nothing quite like an immaculate and organized kitchen!  Another PSA: I will personally strangle the first person to make a sexist joke about all this.

Genius or Madness? Bacon-Scented Candles

Wow!

"National Clean Off Your Desk Day"

I confess that I had no idea.  And I don't really use my desk to do more than store books (and occasional laundry).  I should have a "Clean Off Your Coffee Table" Day.  Of course, this is the perfect excuse to get these hilarious file folders ... all in the name of efficiency and better organization, natch.

Nerd Tips for Better Living: Thinking About Ditching Cable

Hmmmmm!   See this too.  It just might be more cost-effective to cancel traditional cable and go for alternative (and legal!) sources of your favorite TV shows.  I hate how the cable companies refuse to offer channels a la carte and instead make customers buy packages that are full of channels we don't want.  As for watching movies, see this.

Nerd Tips for Better Living: Connect Your Laptop to Your (Fabulous Huge HD) TV

Check out this nice tech tip.  Writing research papers may never be the same!

How To Connect Your Laptop To Your Television on Howcast

Disgustingly Cute Monday Therapy: the British IKEA Cat-alogue

Via Ninme comes this video of IKEA letting cats loose in one of their showrooms and -- even better -- the cat-alogue that was the purr-fect, adorable result.

Nerd Journal: MM Fascinated By The Picture Table for Small Spaces

This seems like an ingenious idea! Perfect for tiny little nerd-apartments? It's probably too expensive, though!

Here's more from the Austrian designer. Oooh, I like the mirror option too.

Right now, actually, I have a yen to do something -- anything! -- to my apartment, the Nerdcave. It's probably off to IKEA for me! As a grad student friend once told me, "If it weren't for IKEA, none of us would have any furniture at all! We'd all be living on the floor."

Nerd Fun: Finally, A Place to Put All Your Books

Look at this!

Hello Kitty Monstrosity of the Day: the Hello Kitty House in Shanghai

As Dorothy did say, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home..." -- which here should be "There's no place like home -- for scaring the living daylights out of your guests with Hello Kitty lunacy!"

Look at this madness from Shanghai. (Be sure to click on the link to see photos from inside the house. If you dare!)

Plummeting real estate values.

Household Income and Expenditures: Where Does the Money Go?

Some friends and I were having this discussion recently. We're all budgeting and counting pennies, and despite everything, we're always a little flummoxed: WHERE DOES ALL THE MONEY GO?

(Still, some things are just pricelessly precious.)

Anyway, here is an interesting link (filched from Neatorama) about how the average American family spends its income, according to a new survey by the US Department of Labor. Of course, when it comes to the actual percentages, YMMV. Check out the intriguing graphic (click to enlarge).

Going to the poorhouse? I'll meet you there!

Geek Fun: Ctrl-Alt-Del Computer-Savvy Coffee Cups

Look at these delightfully geeky, playful cups from Taiwan.

MM wants!

RELATED POST: The "Enter" doorbell.

Geek Fun: The Perfect Doorbell for Computer Geeks

Need I say more? It's the "Enter" key!!

Public Service Announcement: I Don't Care How Many Houses Somebody Has

I just thought I'd throw this idea out there. The moronic meme about McCain's multiple mansions (like that alliteration, did you?) is silly. The leftist soapboxing sounds more like, "How dare he have money! And how dare he use it as he pleases!"

You can probably see that I don't care about his houses or anybody else's house(s). (OK, unless it's Al Gore's loopy energy-sucking monster where he lives while purporting to tell the rest of us carbon criminals and Gaia-heretics to cut back on energy consumption. Oh, please. Welcome to Chez Hypocrisy. But I digress.)

Anyway, I for one would love having multiple houses. Yes, indeedy, I unabashedly declare my total disregard for my carbon footprint or anything else. If I had the money, I would happily plunk down some of it for houses or flats in various places. Because it would make travel SOOOO much easier. Plus, it'd be so fun to share them with my friends and relatives. I wouldn't get ridiculous castle-like AlGorean piles, but cute little flats or cozy little houses would be FABULOUS.

And I wouldn't care at all what people thought about what I was doing with my own money and/or property. By the way, I can fantasize if I want to, because as a nerd, I have neither.

So, let's take an informal survey of all you gentle readers. If you could have houses in multiple places, where would you want them?

Various friends in conversation have named some of their fantasy choices: something nice at Nerdworld, New York, Austin, London, Rome, Port Elizabeth (South Africa), Los Angeles, Taipei, somewhere in the English/French/Italian countryside . . . Or, as some other buddies suggested, choose by geographical feature: somewhere in the mountains, by the seaside, in the country, in the city . . . somewhere in Euroland and in the Far East . . .

Nerd News and Great Moments in Research: Husbands Cause Housework

I found this story rather amusing. Husbands = housework!

Of course, other things also cause housework -- like babies, pets, etc. In fact, being alive at all causes housework. And have you noticed, a house itself causes housework. Even if you leave it alone and don't live in it for a while (if you go on holiday, for example), when you come back, you will have housework!

In a weird twist, I was talking to two different friends at two different times recently, and all 3 of us mentioned the fact that we each needed to clean the kitchen and mop the floor. Apparently, joked one friend, soon there will be some mystical moment when every woman in the world feels the need to mop the floor!