A friend of mine just received a new toy, and as the old saying goes “boys love their toys”. This isn’t you average gadget though… it has a green aura around it that makes the tree huggers out there go giddy. My friend bought a composter.
He’s been bragging about this for weeks. His wife initially made him buy a cheaper brand (after all, it makes dirt) but he returned it before even opening it and bought the classy model. It has it all – an indoors, top loading and odor free composter than makes dirt in 14 days instead of months using nature. You can throw materials into it anytime and it apparently just sits there tumbling until dirt pops out the bottom into a box.
I refuse to buy it.
It’s not that I’m not “green” because I am. Like most American’s I recycle whatever they will pick up curbside - plastics and paper, but not glass which they’ll pick out and throw on your front lawn… I kid you not. I also give money to several “green” oriented efforts when they remember to contact me (they never forget after the first time you give them money) and even once went to help with cleaning up a forest.
I won’t buy it for one simple reason – I can’t compost my poop. Now hear me out; when I go green with something, I like to go 100% or not at all. For me if it’s worth doing, do it all way. And when I compost, I want all my organic waste to be recycled into dirt. That means those end stalks from celery that no one eats, the green top of carrots, leaves from my non-existent yard, and my poop.
My buddy’s composter does accept cat and dog poop, but not human poop. The lack of a seat to deposit the poop is a clear indication they don’t want to recycle it. What’s the point of composting if you can’t compost everything?
Think about it – you could get back nine square feet of space in your house if you didn't have to have a comode, not to mention the savings in water, if only they could design a composter that recycles everything. Without that feature, it’s just yet another gadget taking up space…
Friday, June 4, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Kate is Premium
A good friend of mine has 1 ½ year old baby girl, Kate, which acts like a typical person her age. This same friend also has a problem with cats… as in he has too many of them. To be fair, I’m not sure if the cat-problem is really his issue, his wife’s, or (most likely) a combination of the two but that’s immaterial.
Anyway I’m talking with him on the phone a couple months back and all the sudden I hear him yelling Kate’s name and saying he has to go. A while later I get the photo below from him:
Now I’m no expert on kids but there are several things wrong with this picture. First is that the cat doesn’t seem to mind that macaroni and cheese is in its fur. Granted there are only ten or so noodles trapped, probably just enough for a meal for later.
More importantly I am horrified that, after careful study, this is a generic mac and cheese, not the premium noodles with real cheese. The noodles in this photo are obviously from the “standard” package… notice the thinness of the noodles and how they are just barely covered with the “cheese” mix.
If my friend loved his daughter, or had any gumption to be a good parent and provider, those noodles would be up to half inch diameter, and the cheese sauce would be generously and thickly applied to each individual noodle. The cheese on the pictured noodles appears to have come from a powdered source mixed with water. I bet they eat better in prison.
So to my parent audience, please don’t make this same mistake. Think of the kids after all…
UPDATE: I've been informed that the noodles are organic, home-cooked and were slathered in real cheese before the cat licked the cheese off.
Anyway I’m talking with him on the phone a couple months back and all the sudden I hear him yelling Kate’s name and saying he has to go. A while later I get the photo below from him:
Now I’m no expert on kids but there are several things wrong with this picture. First is that the cat doesn’t seem to mind that macaroni and cheese is in its fur. Granted there are only ten or so noodles trapped, probably just enough for a meal for later.
More importantly I am horrified that, after careful study, this is a generic mac and cheese, not the premium noodles with real cheese. The noodles in this photo are obviously from the “standard” package… notice the thinness of the noodles and how they are just barely covered with the “cheese” mix.
If my friend loved his daughter, or had any gumption to be a good parent and provider, those noodles would be up to half inch diameter, and the cheese sauce would be generously and thickly applied to each individual noodle. The cheese on the pictured noodles appears to have come from a powdered source mixed with water. I bet they eat better in prison.
So to my parent audience, please don’t make this same mistake. Think of the kids after all…
UPDATE: I've been informed that the noodles are organic, home-cooked and were slathered in real cheese before the cat licked the cheese off.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Green Mountain Energy finally goes green
My energy company promises I'll get 100% of my energy as renewable energy which makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I recently learned that allegedly a not insignificant percentage of the renewable energy source is from landfill gases which produces more waste than other "non-renewable" sources, but that's for another day.
For those who don’t know me – like anyone I don’t know is reading this – I live in a garage apartment behind a house divided into four apartments and logically it makes sense I’d be in unit 5. However when they built the garage apparently the electricity company decided that I lived in unit B with the garages I live over being unit C.
When I signed up with Green Mountain, they kept sending my bill to unit B instead of 5. I didn’t think much of it, and apparently either did the person living in unit 2, where the post office sent the bill. At least I didn’t think much about it until they switched off my power. Granted it's my bad to not start asking around ahead of time, so I can't offer any excuses.
I call my old electricity company and they said to contact Green Mountain Energy. I call them and they ask my account number which I obviously don't have. We finally get to my address and they said they sent me a couple bills, put a notice on my door, etcetera. Sure enough unit 2 got my cut-off notice, but Green Mountain did manage to turn off the power to the correct unit - mine.
To make a long story a blogs length, I remember just wanting power and paid whatever they asked and they turned it on the next day. I asked them to send the bill to my email account, but they couldn't. They can only send me a bill via postal mail.
The energy company that not only produces clean energy but has the word green in it’s name can’t send electronic bills, but only on paper. My bank, gas company, phone, cable, internet provider all offer to email me my bills if not overtly trying to get me to sign up for paperless bills. None of them has the word green in them yet can stop paper bills. None has the word Energy either but that's not what this blog is about this week.
Last week Green Mountain finally made it into the green age offers a paperless-bill option! Of course I immediately signed up. The only way I knew about it was that I logged into my account since to pay my bill when, as usual, I didn’t get a bill from them…
For those who don’t know me – like anyone I don’t know is reading this – I live in a garage apartment behind a house divided into four apartments and logically it makes sense I’d be in unit 5. However when they built the garage apparently the electricity company decided that I lived in unit B with the garages I live over being unit C.
When I signed up with Green Mountain, they kept sending my bill to unit B instead of 5. I didn’t think much of it, and apparently either did the person living in unit 2, where the post office sent the bill. At least I didn’t think much about it until they switched off my power. Granted it's my bad to not start asking around ahead of time, so I can't offer any excuses.
I call my old electricity company and they said to contact Green Mountain Energy. I call them and they ask my account number which I obviously don't have. We finally get to my address and they said they sent me a couple bills, put a notice on my door, etcetera. Sure enough unit 2 got my cut-off notice, but Green Mountain did manage to turn off the power to the correct unit - mine.
To make a long story a blogs length, I remember just wanting power and paid whatever they asked and they turned it on the next day. I asked them to send the bill to my email account, but they couldn't. They can only send me a bill via postal mail.
The energy company that not only produces clean energy but has the word green in it’s name can’t send electronic bills, but only on paper. My bank, gas company, phone, cable, internet provider all offer to email me my bills if not overtly trying to get me to sign up for paperless bills. None of them has the word green in them yet can stop paper bills. None has the word Energy either but that's not what this blog is about this week.
Last week Green Mountain finally made it into the green age offers a paperless-bill option! Of course I immediately signed up. The only way I knew about it was that I logged into my account since to pay my bill when, as usual, I didn’t get a bill from them…
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