June 1, 2005
Hot BBQ, Cool Ice Cream, And Both To Go
Home & Garden | Jun 1, 05
With summer upon us, many are thinking in terms of beach trips, picnics, camping, and so forth. We've come across some portable items that can make that road trip a lot more fun. For all your portable grilling needs, there's the Weber Q Backyard Portable and the Weber Baby Q. Both have push-button ignition, a tubular stainless steel burner, cast aluminum lid and body and easy-grip handles for maximum portability. The Q backyard portable has a 280 square inch cooking area and 12,000 BTU/hour input, while the Baby Q's cooking area is 189 square inches with an 8.500 BTU/hour input. They go for as little as $149.99 and $119.99, respectively, and they are both, well, kind of cute.
And after a barbeque, what hits the spot better than ice cream? Keeping to our theme of portability, consider the Hamilton Beach 1.5 Quart Capacity Cordless Ice Cream Maker. It makes ice cream, gelato and frozen yogurt in 25-40 minutes with no ice or salt needed. It should fit easily inside most freezers and then toted about by its “Go Anywhere” handle. Its yours for under $35.
Posted by jeffrey.trester
Permalink
| Comments (0)
February 20, 2005
Go Sit on It
Home & Garden | Feb 20, 05
One of the problems with buying a chair is that it's hard to 'test drive' it long enough to matter. Some chairs that feel good when you sit on them in the showroom end up by causing near sciatic imparement when used over days, weeks and months. I suppose this could be a corollary of the old Things that look good in the shower... rule.
I recently decided to buy a chair for my home (apartment) office. This involved three principal considerations: (a) it had to function well as an office chair; (b) it had to look ok in an apartment --- where you generally can't afford to hide it away by taking a whole room for an office; and (c) cost is a factor, though, in this case, distinctly less important than other considerations.
A local high-end office decoration and workspace store had a chair I liked in the window. While it was expensive, it had several characteristics that were appealing:
- The 'modern' style would fit well in my apartment as it looked fresh and new, but was not so very avant guarde as to be distracting;
- You could buy an ottoman for the chair with either a work surface or a back rest or both --- thus allowing the ottoman to function both as a footrest and as an occasional extra office chair ---something particularly convenient given the space constraints of an apartment;
- It came in colors that would fit well in a residential apartment setting;
- It was large enough to be comfortable, but not so huge as to require special treatment with regard to space; and
- It had lots of adjustable aspects that would let it fit into different circumstances as the apartment decoration changed.
The chair in question was a Sitag Emotion along with an E2 Ottoman. It cost about $600 for the chair and about $400 for the ottoman along with its acoutrements. I bought one and it was delivered about two weeks ago.
So far I am happy to report that the chair has passed my one day and one week tests. My guess is that it will continue to make me happy, but it's not the vote of my brain that counts with respect to that one. Suffice it to say that at least up to this point in time I find it both comfortable and effective.
I'll do a follow-up report if I find anything changes.
Posted by david.ness
Permalink
| Comments (0)
