If you remember, a few months back, I wrote about my temptation to get a fish feeder that would automatically feed my little fishes for me. Well, either I am darn unlucky to get a faulty unit or this whole automatic fish feeding idea is just that. A good idea but not workable.

I purchased one in Wally world. They only had one brand for sale. Brought it home and immediately put it to use but it never did work So now, I train my kids to feed the fishes. That’s probably a better idea. Teach them some responsibility. That thing cost me $12 too. It’s not that much but considering it could buy my kids a set of clothing, it’s a lot to me.

The good thing from this is, I did figure out how simple the mechanism is. Think one of these weekends I’m going to get crafty (no, not that kind of bad crafty) and make my own automatic fish feeder.

A while back, I blogged about my dream gadget - the Archos AV700E. Not long after that, I decided to plunk down some cash for it. It’s been about 6 months since I’ve got it. The final verdict? Love it.

So, let’s back up a bit, if you’re not sure what I’m talking about. The Archos AV700E is a portable media recorder and player. I like to think of it as my portable digital VCR because that’s exactly how I use it. If you have TiVo, you know how it feels.

While this little thing is not exactly TiVo, but I love it mainly because of portability. We used to have a set top type DVD recorder. Problem is, sometimes we want to record from another room and we have this huge hassle of moving, unplugging cables etc.

The Archos has also helped me save several DVD disks. Instead of allowing my kids to destroy the disks, I just record the movies. Not all movies are recordable though - it’s got a built in mechanism to not record protected material.

Finally, this thing is awesome on road trips. Pricey, yes useful for us, absolutely.

While in Wal-Mart, I came across the d_skin, a cd scratch protector. Well actually not only for CD’s but discs in general. It’s like a plastic cover you slip over the bottom part of your discs. I thought it was an awesome idea and picked up a set of 10. I wanted to pick up more but my brother said, you don’t know how well it’s going to work so let’s try it out and so I did.

When a friend, Barb blogged about it recently recently, it reminded how much I didn’t like the d_skin. The reason I bought them was so my kids won’t mess up those oh so very expensive DVD’s we buy them. But the d_skin keeps falling off. Just a light touch and these things slip right off - kinda defeats the purpose. Other than that, at one time, I put in a DVD and it kept spinning, not recognizing the disc. Took the sleeve off and the disc worked.

They just didn’t work out for me. I resorted to making backup copies of the DVD’s.

I like to read in bed. It helps me fall asleep - yea bad insomnia and reading helps to take my mind off the stressful stuff. For years, I’ve tried all kinds of book lights. From the traditional clip on the book types - oh boy I ran through many of them. Unfortunately many of them also drain the batteries faster than I can finish a chapter.
Ok that was an exaggeration but you know what I’m trying to get at.

Finally one day, I found one of the Rayovac book lights. I saw it used LED bulbs instead which I know uses a whole lot less power than regular bulbs that all those other book lights use. And they’re brighter too. So I sprung for it despite the thing costing me precious $10. I loved it but there was one small problem. It was designed to hang around your neck. Great if you sit up to read but I don’t. I like to lie down to read.

When I finally found this version of the Rayovac book light, I knew immediately that’s my solution. They are out of the single units so I purchased the double pack. I figured it’s handy to have a backup. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a book light. I even share it with my kids when we read together in bed at night. Love it.