AAAgh, I nearly forgot my favorite ASOT product ever. It’s the VITAMIX, dun dun dun…Seriously, it’s the master of all blenders. It’s outrageously expensive, but it can reduce a 3 inch pine block to sawdust in less than a minute. Granted, you’re not supposed to do that on a regular basis, but not because it burns out the engine, oh no, it can ding the blades if you do that too often.
It is the perfect party machine- crushes ice with a great big “GRUNCH!” noise and makes madgood margaritas!
My mom has a VITAMIX, that is one serious blender. I read the manual, and they rated the motor in horsepower!
Love the foodsaver, we used to buy meat in bulk, and butcher it all at once, divvying it up into portion sized packages. 5 packages of cubed beef, 5 of strips, 5 steaks, etc… That sure made mealtime easier.
I got my Mom one of those Microwave omlet makers for Christmas. It doesn’t work very well at all. No only does it not work very well, but whatever eggs you do manage to eek out of it taste like crap.
On of my sisters got one of those electric ab zapper things. You know, the ones that pump you abs FOR you. Didn’t work worth a damn, but she didn’t really expect it to.
I have another sister who got the ab slide. She got sick of it real quick, so she gave it to my brother. He says it works. It just gets kind of tedious.
I won a Turbo-cooker at a company holiday party. It is actually a pretty nice pan, but you coulkd get a heavy non-stick pan with a cover for less.
Brian
About a decade ago (at the height of my teenage eavesdropping on my parents), I bought one of those headphones/radio-type things that lets you hear sounds from really far away magnified. On tv, the commercial was a guy sitting in a restaurant with this thing on listening to women talk about him from across the room.
It sucks really badly. It doesn’t let you hear better over on the other side of the room, it just magnifies everything, so if you move, you clothing swishing gives you a headache, and you hear a lot of dead air as well.
I bought a FlatHose . It works well, except you have to uncoil the entire length to use it. With a regular hose you can leave it partly coiled if you don’t need to stretch it out the entire 50 feet. But the flat hose needs to be fully uncoiled & layed out to expand along its entire length or it won’t work.
Still, it’s worth it because it winds up so easily. I used to spend 15-20 minutes trying to coil up a regular garden hose, getting water everywhere and crud all over my hands. The FlatHose coils up on its spool-winder-thingy in about 20 seconds.
I’m gald to hear that about Oxy-Clean and Orange-Glo products.
Dijon Warlock wrote:
I’m thinking of a juicer, maybe the model Jack Lalane is hawking. Anybody have any experience with those?
We bought the small juicer touted by the Juiceman…it works ok, but do you have any idea how many vegetables it takes to get a glass of juice? Way expensive… it also can’t handle fibrous fruits and veggies very well. It’s not worth it to us.
A friend of mine has a Rotato— a potato peeler. She uses it often and likes it a lot.
From techchick’s link:
Green Bean: How does the Perfect Pancake-having family deal with getting one pancake at a time? That’s what I think would be impractical about it.
Miss Mapp: I’m probably being a meanie, telling you this after you’ve bought the thing, but you don’t need a special appliance for soothing sounds. I have CDs of rain and surf noise, and a CD player with a “repeat” feature.
ivylass: My dad once got me one of those handheld sewing machines. Forget it: the fabric will bunch up immediately.
I tried Nads, not because I’d seen it on TV, but because I thought its appearance in stores validated its worth. Not!
I also have some plastic thingy that’s supposed to enable you to prepare vegetables 101 ways. I use it for one thing: steaming broccoli. Well, I don’t know how else I’d steam broccoli, so I’d count that as a “works”.
I bought that Nads product (for the smartmouths in the audience, I think it’s Nad’s, and it’s an Australian-made product intended for removing leg hair) over the summer, and found that ants were attracted into the bathroom and to the jar of the product, since sugar is a main component. It didn’t hurt as much as I’d thought, but it also didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. Like most other depilatories I’ve tried, it left about half the hairs on.
As for vegetable steaming, I have a plastic steamer basket that’s microwave and stovetop safe. The sides are made out of overlapping “petals” that allow it to fold up when done, or to adjust to different pan sizes. I don’t know if I have seen the product you’re talking about, though.
Ditto on the Orange Clean/Orange Glo stuff. I used it on my very messy stove after cooking one night and the grease wiped right off.
I tried Zap in my bathroom when I was moving out of my apartment last year. The grout in my shower was orange from hard water, and nothing else would get the stains out. Zap worked very well on the minor stains, and got out about 85-90 percent of the really bad ones. So it didn’t work as well as the commercial says, but it worked better than anything else I’d tried. (BTW: I picked it up in Wal-Mart for about $4.)
I haven’t tried OxyClean yet, but I might give it a try because I’ve heard good things about it. A few months ago I considered trying EpilStop, but after reading a few threads here I decided to avoid using anything Igia makes.
Another vote against GS-27 Scratch Remover. The stuff is worthless. I’ve found a great “home remedy” for small stone chips in your car paint that are starting to rust. If your car is silver or similar (mine is light blue, but I’m more concerned about stopping rust than making the paint look perfect), get a bottle of Testors Chrome Silver model paint at a hobby shop for about a buck, and one of those tiny paint brushes. Dab a few drops of the silver paint onto the chip, and it will be sealed for years. I had been hitting the same spots over and over with DupliColor touch-up paint, and the rust kept coming back through. One hit with the Testors silver took care of it permanently. Weird, yet true. I have no idea if other Testors colors will do this or not. My experience in building model kits is that the silver tends to form a thicker coating, which is why I tried it for this purpose.
-Andrew L
I found out that OxyClean works great for white marching-band shoes. I thought the shoes were goners…
Combining products for Results and Joy!
Dirty (mixed fibres, mainly polypropylene and polyamide I think) carpet with a couple of greasy marks on it + OrangeGlo + Steam Cleaner = Clean.
Spray on a little Orange-Glo, and rub in to the stains.
Steam clean, using an old towel wrapped around the steam head brush.
Observe the cleanliness!
Wooooo!
I’m such a housewife.
Personally I wouldn’t touch OrageGlo with a ten foot pole.
From their web site:
I don’t deny that orange oil is a very good for cleaning purposes, but it’s also one of the worst allergenes you can find and I put my health above a spotfree house.
We got one of the variants for our daughter because she wanted it so much. It works exactly as demonstrated on TV. I will note that it is only appropriate for someone over 10 years or so in age. In the hands of a six year old the thing is some sort of medieval hair-torture device. GO SLOWLY!
Second on Rain-X. Sort of a pain in the butt to apply but it rocks! A good coat of this stuff makes windsheild wipers pretty much unnecessary.
Now for mine…
Several years ago they were selling these ‘sweater dryers’ on TV. These odd shaped poles you put in the sleeves to make them look pressed or smooth, little tabs to hold the collars, you hang the whole thing from a door to air-dry sweaters. My wife hates it because it takes up so much room but the thing actually works. Sweaters and shirts dry much faster than laying them flat and they dry with no wrinkles.
NP: Dark Tranquillity - Damage Done
Have to chime in with the rest of the Orange Glo/Oxy fans.
We use Oxy-clean in your steam cleaner, and it takes out stuff you’d think would never come out, including the dog piss. It’s great!
Another vote against that GS27 scratch remover. Worthless. I even tried to polish some plastic/glass “Glasses” with them.
Nuthin.
I told the manager off at the Home Hardware where I bought the tube. (Not nasty or anything.)
He, at least, offered a refund.
I miss the GLH Spray Hair in a Can infomercials.
Anyone ever get the knives? Only thing I was ever seriously tempted to buy.
Do they really work for years without sharpening? I have no intentions of sawing thru hammers or anything, but I hate working with a dull knife.
Regards,
Shodan
Opengrave, which product did you buy? My 7-year-old daughter is hankering after a wrap thingie that will wrap hair in string (I think) for a non-braided braid look. This is the first year I’ve noticed them advertised.
FWIW I’ve trained my children to yell “ripoff” when any number of IGIA products come on the air. Their hair iron commericals are priceless, showing sullen-looking but otherwise cute little girls with nice hair, who are TRANSFORMED by the application of hair tattoos. Merciful heavens.
The knives are just that. Knives. You would get as good from a dollar store.
The replacement deal works like this: the “Shipping” charge is overstated… as the cost of each knife is about $0.30
Or my favourite: The Beverly Hills instant facelift.
What it was is 2 stickers with loops, you string fishline OVER your head to pull the skin to eliminate wrinkles.
Seriously.