happylife

Tempur's pillow

I've been using this strange shaped pillow for years. As you might know, it is a famous Tempur's pillow. NASA originally developed the material for shock absorbing use in the early 1970's, and Swedish company named Tempur perfected it for medical use. The most characteristic point of this pillow is its touch of feeling; when you touch it, it clings to you. If you press it with your hand, the mark of your palm remains for a minute after you let go of it. With this pillow I feel like my head is floating on water. It dramatically relieves my neck pain and back pain. I love it so much that I carry it with me when I go sailing. The only one problem is its price. More than one hundred backs for just a pillow might seem incredible, but it seems quite reasonable when we think it as the cost for thousands of comfortable sleeps. If you have neck pain or you can't sleep, this pillow would be a good resolution.

A vending machine

I found a vending machine in a shopping mall in Bellevue. The number and the kinds of vending machines are apparently less in North America than in Japan, though I'm not sure the precise statistics. However, the one I found today was what I had never seen in Japan. It was selling iPod! To tell the truth, I had known the existence of this vending machine in an article on the Internet, but it was for the first time I saw it with my eyes. I don't think it pays for the development and running cost, and actually no one was using it while I was looking around the machine. I think for most people, iPod is still a precious item which is sold hand in hand. This machine would have been set as a part of advertisement telling "iPod is so popular that you can purchase it from a vending machine like a Coke."

iPod Shuffle hacks

Whenever I go out, I'm with iPod Shuffle. It's really a great gadget and thanks to it, I can always enjoy my favorite music or Pod-casting programs anywhere. The only one source of discontent is the twining cord. As I usually wear a T-shirt with no breast pocket, I have to secure my iPod in the pocket of the jeans. It means that the cord is running from my crotch to my ears, and it is sometimes hooked. If you had any portable music players, you should understand this irritating situation. Of course I know there are some ideas and products to prevent this tiny but universal problem including wireless headphones, but they are costly. My idea is not more than this picture. It might look awkward, but it is effective and costless.

A headlight

Headlights are indispensable for outdoor life. This is my headlight which I found at Walmart a few years ago. It has three light modes: 2 red LED, 1 white LED and 1 incandescent lamp. It is almost an ideal light combination because every light mode is useful in different situations. As you know, LED saves battery and I usually use the 1 white LED. I can read a book in darkness. The 2 red LED is gentle to eyes, so it is useful for night navigation or star watching. When I need to look at a point in a distance, I choose the incandescent lamp which can reach way further than LED. This headlight is so useful that most students in my ex-sailing school have it. If it were water proof, it would be perfect.

One time password

This picture shows the new security device for my bank account. It is as small as a key ring and creates a different password every thirty seconds. This system, so called "one time password," is said to be very secure because the password is effective for only thirty seconds, and it's no problem if it is stolen unless it is used in thirty seconds. Sure it is secure, but I don't like it because I have to carry it whenever I look up my bank account via the Internet. Every security system stands on a trade-off between security and usability, and I think this one time password system is too secure. Plus, we can't forget the fact that we are paying the cost for this system.

An indispensable printer

It was almost three years ago when I bought this printer for $100. I believe it was a good deal because since then, I have been using it quite often; literally every day during the last two years to compare my original blog with the one corrected by Peter. Of course it's possible to do that on the computer display, and my LCD display is not so bad, but printed characters are much better for me. I can draw lines on paper and they are gentle to eyes above all. Other than my blog, I sometimes print out interesting but long pages on the Internet to read carefully. Is it only me that feels more or less hustled while reading characters on computer displays? I know that using printers is sever to the earth, but please forgive me to use 1,000 copies every year.

JOBY

Joby is a well-designed tripod for compact cameras. It is made of 30 plastic balls, each of those works as a flexible joint just like octopus legs. By using this tiny tripod, we can fix our camera not only on a flat surface, but also on rocks, branches, nets, poles and so on. As the three legs can be twined around even a vertical pole, I think I can take pictures from new angles. According to the spec note, this light weight tripod can hold most compact cameras except for single-lens reflex cameras. (I hear that another type of product is to be released so as to hold heavier single-lens reflex cameras.) I'm thinking about carrying this new item with the digital camera, and taking more interesting pictures.

Extended desktop

I'm usually using a notebook PC which has a 10.6" display with 1280x768 resolution. I've been used it for one and a half year, and I've been feeling that the display size is too small and too severe for my eyes. As health is the most important matter, I finally decided to get a new LCD display and drove to the Futureshop. After refusing an insistent invitation for a shop's insurance, I payed $280 and got a new BENQ's 17" LCD display. It is greater than I had expected and I'm very much satisfied so far. According to my calculation, the dot density is almost a half of the notebook PC, which means its characters are twice as large as the old one. Furthermore, I can enjoy the XP's Extended Desktop function, in which I can use two desktops with one PC. I have the old display show the start menu, the task bar and folders, while reading and writing on the new display. It's super convenient because I don't need to look for icons behind application windows.

Lint cleaner

This is a lint cleaner which I found on a shelf of Safeway. I got it because it was sold for a special price of $2. I got interested the fact that it is washable and reusable. The surface of the blue roller is made of adhesive gum-like material and it catches lint, hair and bread crumbs in the carpet just by rolling a few times. It's interesting and pleasant to find a lot of dust caught on the roller, which can be washed away easily. In the night I got this cleaner, I repeated rolling and washing it again and again. After repeating this enjoyable cycle more than fifty times, its adhesive power has been reduced a little, but I can still use it. I feel I can't almost stop using it forever. I wonder how much lint and hair remains in the carpet of my room.

The stronger the better

I've purchased a new vacuum cleaner at last. It was sold for C$59 at Canadian Tire, whose regular price was C$79. I was attracted by the words on the flyer, "SAME SUCTION as a typical FULL-SIZE VAC." I had learned from my old and compact-size vacuum cleaner that the most important thing for cleaners is power. I tried the new machine as soon as I got back home, and it worked much better than I had expected. The 1200W suction power was great! It swallowed all the dust in my room with a pleasant crackling sound. It was so pleasant that I was vacuuming my room for more than one hour until the brand new bag got full. It has four attachments and each of them worked great too. I couldn't help laughing when the brush attachment removed white dust from my black and nylon bag. The turbine attachment has a small rolling brush in it, which spins at a super high speed and agitate sticky dust in a carpet. I've changed my mind that I will clean my room once a week not a year.