Quick Tip: Turn Your Sink Into a Dishwasher

Remi Stevens demonstrates a hands-free approach to washing dishes. All you’ll need for this one is a sink and your dirty – soon-to-be-clean – dishes. Remi Stevens’ “environmental” approach uses no chemicals, only water.

Jim Smetchland’s Rating D-
“Just a warning this is not recommended if you are the least bit ecologically concerned. Can you imagine how much water this wastes, are you actually recommending people do this? . . . . . I highly doubt this even works. . . . . You wore the same shirt last time, real creative guys!”

Quick Tip: Air Freshening Plugin

Use the flavour that suits you best!

Jim Smetchland’s Rating: C-
You’d have to keep topping up the water constantly, and I’m not entirely sure that boiling laundry soap doesn’t give off toxic fumes. Mess of Wires Studios netted a cool million with the corporate products mentioned in this one!

“If you share your household with a female, let her choose the fragrance. Peace in the family is important for the artistic and creative process.” – Exuvia

Quick Tip: Water Bottle Faucet

Make sure you have a tight sealing cap. Air can’t come in the top to replace water that would leave out the bottom, so water doesn’t leave. Its the same reason you put two holes in large pourable containers- air and water use different holes reducing the glug, glug, glug.

Jim Smetchland’s Rating D+
“The production team let me down entirely on this project. It was hard to see, the ’science’ wasn’t particularly intersting, and the overall feel was cheap. The last scene seemed cut short to hide the fact that the contraption didn’t work. And of course you need a tap to make this tap so what’s the point?”

Quick Tip: Home Defense

Keep an eye open for the upcoming article: “The Appearance of Security” for more information. Other options not mentioned in this presentation might include neck biting dogs and shooting people with guns.

Jim Smetchland’s Rating C+
“I suppose this is mildly useful. Nothing wrong with having enough fire extinguishers and such- not sure if that empty 80 year old extinguisher is up to code though. . . .Also not sure if I’ve got a spear around here anywhere; I generally just shoot intruders with guns.”

Avoid Switching Gears

Whatever it is you do and are doing, its important to keep the task at hand at hand. Cooking a burger? You cook the first side fully, then do one necessary gear switch and flip the patty. Finish the second side and remove it from the heat. Only one gear switch, otherwise it comes out dry and shitty. Don’t waste time standing over a hot bbq wrecking your dinner.

Cleaning your filthy place? Clean up all the garbage first. Don’t stop to sort CDs. Don’t stop to clear the dishes. Pick up garbage! Do it til its done, then move on to something else and complete it all in one shot. This is the most efficient way to do most everything- especially menial tasks. Think about it; there is prep time, task learning time, closing time. Take vacuuming for instance, you need to get the vacuum out, you need get into vacuuming mode, you need to finally put it away. Granted prep and learning times on something simple like vacuuming are pretty short, but its still wasted time. You should only ever turn your vacuum on once per cleaning.

Its a guarantee that you will be able to do something more quickly while in the process of doing it than at the start of performing the task. It’s kinetics, that’s physics, so its right. Ever seen a person in a textiles factory do a stitch? They get so fast because they groove down into heavy repetition. When you’re moving, you’re moving. Stick to what you’re doing and you get fast, use that incremental fastness to stretch your efficiency towards achieving completion.

As long as you’re not working to the point where you have exhausted your muscles, you’ll get the best efficiency from backbreaking repetition. Its just like the gears in your car. If you need to maintain a speed of 75kph you don’t keep switching back and forth between third and fourth. You pick one and stick with it.

Do things in one shot, don’t waste time restarting the same tasks. How many times do you want to do dishes this week? I’m going to do them only once and spend far less time overall engaged in dish washing. . . .hmmmm, I wonder what level of extreme efficiency i could reach if i did them only once a month? . . . . …

QuickTip: Chopping and Dicing

Have a look at The Advantage of a Dull Knife for More on This Topic. The greatest part of this technique is that you will only dirty the knife and your hands. Luckily both can be quickly cleaned with a quick pant wipe. quick.

This method is also featured in episode #3!

Jim Smetchland’s Rating A+
“Ok this one works! Anything can be cut this way, and you have full control over separation size and almost nothing gets dirty. . . .Perfect, hassle free chopping and dicing. . ..but why not cut above a plate instead of a workbench with old cheese and raw meat?”

Episode 3: Hamburgers with Bacon

Ah the new kitchen, beautiful. Hoping this one will last me a few show’s worth, but we’ll see.

Did you notice. The Onion was put back in the “fridge” using fingers that touched raw bacon. Luckily that onion rotted and was discarded. He’s full of shit.

Quick Tip: How to Remove a Hot Light Bulb

The other option, of course, is to wait a minute.

Jim Smetchland’s Rating F
“Someone is asleep at the wheel here. This wasn’t funny or clever.”

Laundry Tips for Fresh Smell

Laundry Tips
Remember this principle works in reverse as well. You could take a clean article of clothing and make it dirty by spending time in the dirty pile. If anything, this form of osmosis is even more efficient than the one that cleans for you. This is why we’ve stressed the importance of pile separation. A mixing of piles can very quickly render clean clothing useful only for informal attire.

—Try just sneaking your dirties into clean piles or dryers at the laundromat, be quick, save some change.

Jim Smetchland’s Rating C-
“If the clothes are clean, why are they on the floor? Won’t floor contaminate the pile? Especially with that giant greasy black cat around. I have trouble swallowing the ’science’ of this one, but I’ll give it a try.”

The Advantage of a Dull Knife

Whoops! I slipped while cutting up an apple. No big deal though, luckily I was using a dull knife. Keep a sharp knife around, sure. There are some things only a sharp knife will do, but for everyday use you want the dullest safest knife you can find. I find cheap short serrated steak knives work best. You can get through pretty much anything with sawing, and its safe enough to use your own hand as a cutting board.

Have a home riddled with children or animals? You certainly shouldn’t have sharp knives lying around in convenient locations. A knife should be easy to get at, but safe to keep where you’re keeping it. Those special knives you use to cut jack-o-lanterns are going to be perfectly harmless if your child or pet were to swallow one.

Separate a pair of $1 plastic safety scissors. Your get 2 great dull knives for $1!

If you’ve only got sharp knives, and have no budget for the above suggestions. You can dull your knife by altering the angle you use on your sharpening stone. Keeping the knife perpendicular to the surface of the stone while you sharpen will give you a flatter, duller cutting edge. Also, if you need to, your knife can easily be dulled in the same fashion against brick, concrete or metal.

Many people who’ve never been stabbed, mistakenly fear the sharp knife. In illustrations they always put that little star by the point of a knife to make it look sharp and menacing. You’ll find, however, that getting stabbed with a dull knife is actually more painful. A sharp knife can be in and out its victim leaving only a smoothly cut entry point- the dull knife gets a bit messy. Think how intruders might feel if they see you’re brandishing a dull knife- a seasoned criminal is going to know all about getting stabbed.

Other knifings you wouldn’t want a sharp knife for: bottle opener, balloon shaver, tooth pick, back scratcher, q tip.