05.47 pm
Well, not much has happened today, really – it has been a very quiet day here at Stillwater, despite the fact that Kyle, our lawnmowing person, was here mowing the grass, and making whipper-snipper type noises for most of this afternoon. This morning I played WoW – sometime in the wee small hours of the morning, Oz time, Blizzard’s new 7.2 patch went live, so that had to be downloaded first. It wasn’t very big – we’d been expecting something a lot bigger, but – oh well, we shall see what it’s like. There was also a new version of Windowblinds, the UI skinning utility with which I can “prettify” the boring and totally unimaginative Windows screens – so I downloaded that too, and ran it – hmm… I’m not sure that I like it all that much – visually, it’s very different from the previous version – but… and I’ve been thinking about this a bit since this morning – all the changes are really only cosmetic! Yes, it looks very different – but it still does exactly the same things – it’s just done up in nice, new graphics, and presented in a slightly different manner! And for that I paid a whole nine dollars?! Sheesh! 😉
So, while I was busy mucking around with Windowblinds and WoW, Julian was outside in the garden, harvesting the last of our tomato crop, pulling all the old plants and vines out, and preparing the vegetable beds for the autumn/winter crops that we hope to be planting soon – er, that is when we can decide what we’re going to plant! “They” say that Brussels sprouts should be planted around now, and I’m really very keen on Brussels sprouts – the trouble is, I’m not supposed to have them too often (apparently they interfere with the way my Warfarin works, which is a very big no-no if I want to avoid dying from a blood clot!) We shall have to consult “The Box That Knows Everything” to find out what we should, or can plant, for our autumn/winter crop! Any (polite) suggestions, anyone? (*Winter looks around hopefully*)
So, because that’s about all that happened today, I shall write you all a short(ish!) revue of the new Dyson “wand” vacuum cleaner that we purchased about a week or so ago… I’m thinking that I might make a copy of my revue in order to send it on to Dyson – but I don’t think they’ll appreciate it!
As you all know, I clean out the cat litter trays every morning, and as those of you with cats, or familiar with indoor cats will know, the “clumping” kitty litter gets into everything! It seems to be almost frictionless, the way it bounces and rolls along the floor in every which-where direction, the moment you even look at it! Anyway, I’d been using a very el-cheapo “powered” carpet sweeper, which really did an extremely good job of sucking up all the slippery little granules of kitty litter, and about the only reason I was dissatisfied with it was because the very tiny container for the guff it swept up was difficult to get at, almost impossible to remove, and even harder to put back in again. I wanted a proper cordless. “wand” vacuum cleaner, quick, light, efficient, easy to empty, etc., etc., etc. As usual, Julian did his homework well, and about the only type of “wand” vacuum that would tick all of those boxes was… you guessed it, the Dyson!
The Dyson wand-type vacuum seemed to be exactly what we wanted – we were going to get the V8 model… but please, do yourselves a favour, and go and look at their “Features” page – at what it says, halfway down the page, about its balance, ease of handling, and what this vacuum cleaner is capable of. In the end, we got the V6 “Pet” model (because it supposedly picks up pet hair better than the others) as the V8 one was simply… too heavy for me to manage properly! It’s the V8 featured in the link above, where one picture shows a pretty young thing supposedly vacuuming up dust, or cobwebs from around the ceiling (or whatever) I cannot believe that that’s a photo – it has to be a very good “artist’s impression of” – because unless she works out with weights at the gym for six or seven hours every day, she wouldn’t be strong enough to do that! Even Julian had trouble with the V8’s weight! OK, so the V8 was too heavy, and we got the V6 (there’s a V4 too, but it doesn’t come with as many brush accessories) Now, it’s lithium battery-powered, and their charge is supposed to last for about 20 to 40 minutes… unless you use it in its “default” Turbo Charged mode, when you’d be lucky if it lasted between ten and fifteen minutes!
Oops! Sorry, dinner’s ready! Back anon…
09.45 pm
Yeah, anyway, after two days of grizzling because I could never manage to finish all the vacuuming I had to do, we finally read the manual (yes folks, occasionally it is necessary to revert to some of those quaint olde worlde customs, like reading the manual! 😉 ) found out about the “Turbo Charged” mode, and corrected our… er… tha mistake. The dust chamber, or whatever it’s called, works fine – it’s easy to remove, easy to empty, and easy to put back – but instead of being able to turn the machine on with a simple “On/Off” switch, it’s got a trigger switch that you have to keep pressed…. That’s right, you have to keep the trigger depressed to keep the vacuum running – the minute your finger loses even a little bit of pressure on the trigger, the machine turns off. WHY, for goodness sake??!! It’s not as though it’s a light, “hair” trigger, that requires very little pressure to keep it depressed, it’s a fairly robust trigger that needs a fair amount of pressure to keep the machine running! An “On/Off” switch would be completely appropriate in this instance! So with its totally unbalanced, heavy, unwieldly motor at the top of the “wand” part to maneuver around, whilst keeping a tight grip on the trigger, it’s not the easy, effortless, cleaning machine that Dyson advertise! In fact, I could even go so far as to mutter something under my breath about ‘false advertising’?
Oh well, let that be a lesson to all of you out there in Reader-land! Do your homework on “The Box That Knows Everything” first, then add a good bucketful of salt! I fear the fame of Dyson’s name has gone to its head, and it’s relying on that to sell its products, rather than actual skilled engineering, innovation and quality. All things considered though, now that we’ve tamed the Turbo beast and the amount of charge is getting me through the vacuuming I need to do every morning, it’s working quite well. I’ve even becoming a bit of a dab hand at keeping that idiotic trigger switch depressed, while switching between my right and my left hand, at the same time as I’m carrying my brush for getting kitty litter out from between the carpet and the skirting board! 🙂
Maybe I won’t send them a copy of that report… hmm… Anyway, once again that’s about “it” from grizzly me for tonight – tomorrow it’ll be “amusing tails of the cat” – or perhaps “the cats of amusing tales”? Chi sà? Do drop in again tomorrow night though, to find out all the latest chez nous (f’rinstance, after testing some of the Ferguson Plarre Hot Cross Buns for breakfast this morning, we’ve decided to order our Easter Buns from them! They’re just as yummy as the Wood Frog HCB’s, and a lot cheaper!) …and please hurry up Easter, as my weight keeps going up just thinking about Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns (oh! I forgot to get Julian to ask them at Ferguson Plarre if they made Simnel Cakes! Bother!) But until tomorrow night, please keep trying to bee good, don’t forget – life is not about how you survive the storm, it’s about how you dance in the rain – and remember to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool, depending on the circumstances – but most importantly, please – don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂