The reel mowers are quite easy to use for small spaces. I'm lazy, small, and generally pathetic when it comes to manual labor and I do just fine. But I'm not that anal about my lawn and live in a climate that prevents growth for much of the year, so I may not be a typical user.

Since I am quite allergic to dustmites and have moved around enough to have given away a majority of the beloved books I've ever owned (which is unfortunate, although good for my sinuses), I ought to be the prime market for these thingys. Plus, I spend hours staring at a screen reading stuff like the Times and cases on Lexis so it isn't like I have some aversion to reading off a screen. And there'd be the added benefit of less light disturbance to my significant other during my bouts of insomnia. But nope. Still got my paper copies. Reading actual books is just so comfortably throwback. And the bathtub thing is a very real barrier.

The trouble is that SOME devices DO draw enormous amounts of power, not just in the aggregate but individually. And there is no easy way to figure out which ones they are and avoid purchasing them in favor of better-designed devices.

My personal favorite shaving product of questionable nomenclature is Coochy Cream, which is exactly what it sounds like--a shaving cream designed specifically for a woman's sensitive bits. I've got sensitive skin and had trouble shaving my legs without razor burn and Coochy solved the problem quite nicely. It originally retailed mostly through adult shops for outrageous sums, but it's come down in price and gone more mainstream, now available on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Coochy-Shave-Cream-Original-16/dp/B0006GT8VK/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1214647002&sr=8-1

According to my significant other, who hijacked mine quite some time ago, it is amazing for beard shaving. Or in his case, keeping his metrosexual lumberjack look from becoming overtly crazed-woodsman like. It's $12 for a 16 oz bottle, so significantly cheaper than Beard Lube and the pump makes one-handed use a cinch. However, it comes in pastel colors and will not make you feel like a dirty, dirty lumberjack.

We burned the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) copies we were saddled with as first year law students as soon as the contracts finals were over. The UCC is a model set of rules governing contracts, and made for some seriously awful reading and thoroughly deserved its fate. I like contracts yet thoroughly despise this book. They weigh about 15lbs each, must be carried to and from school daily, and are obsolete as soon as a new year's edition comes out. It was a deeply satisfying way to dispatch one of the most unpleasant parts of my law school experience. Plus, it kindled a nice bonfire which resulted in tasty s'mores. And it was at least marginally less sophomoric than adding an "F" to the cover, as some of my classmates did.

@5: Attractive nuisance? Not so much.

An attractive nuisance is a dangerous object or structure on a landowner's property which attracts trespassing children who are unable to appreciate the dangerous nature of the object. If it doesn't by its nature attract and then injure children, not an attractive nuisance. Gardens, however they come into existence, don't remotely qualify.

Wikipedia actually has a nice definition of the concept that (I think) is understandable to laypeople: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine.

I've both given and received free wireless, but once people started getting charged with downloading kiddie porn because others had access to their network, I was done. I'm not enough of a geek to only allow browsing while blocking downloading, and the unfortunate side effect of being an almost-lawyer is that I know people really DO get prosecuted on flimsy BS charges. I don't even file share and won't accept the legal risks associated with others doing so--I have no interest in ever having to "prove my innocence" to a jury of my peers. Sure, my squeaky clean computer ought to exonerate me, but if I was one of the unlucky few who got screwed for my generosity, it would bankrupt me and ruin my career. I live in Austin, so free internet is readily available in cafes, bars, etc, so I don't feel all that bad.

unfortunately, my sibling is too large to cram in there. even if she cooperated, it wouldnt close. ...now when they come out with the grown up version, perhaps ill bite.

Lying to the cops is never a good idea. You're apt to get charged with a crime unnecessarily when you could instead have effectively exercised your constitutional rights, refused to answer questions, and denied them entry. My favorite how-to movie for non-lawyers on the topic is:

Busted: The Citizen's Guide to Surviving Police Encounters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqMjMPlXzdA

Disclaimer: I was once handcuffed by "Officer Friendly" in front of a room full of people...as part of a Flex Your Rights presentation before the video existed. This in no way impacts my professional opinion that Flex Your Rights kicks ass ; )

Aside: I was also pulled over six times in a week to retaliate after I showed Busted at Wesleyan. I think that affirms just how useful a movie it is. After asking me where I was going ("To my internship at the ACLU, Officer."), they still asked for my consent to search my car. Not the brightest violators of my civil liberties.

@2 and @24: I made the mistake of eating baked potato while reading the comments, and your posts nearly made me snarf. Possession by potato demons would've been an uncomfortable nasal fate.

Where does one acquire the version where you spray paint through a stencil?

I've always wanted but never managed to get a tattoo, and after having injections of painkillers into my sacroiliac joints, I don't think I'll ever voluntarily allow anyone near my body with a needle. (Was thrown from a horse, landing didn't go so well for my back. Discovered that breaking vertebrae isn't necessarily a big deal, but soft tissue injuries to the lower back suck a lot.)

What I'd really love is longer term temporary tattoos, like a month or two. I want faeries and flutter-bys mixed with punk rock ness which don't have to be strategically placed to hide them when I need to pretend to be a respectable grownup. I doubt such a thing exists, but still, I can dream...

I like the idea of flip-up doors for the compartments as well as the idea about smaller shelves for books. You could split some shelves so that you could have books towards the front of the shelf on their own shelf which you can pull out and down to reveal the rest of the shelf space behind it. I'm not crafty enough to figure out how this would work exactly, but somebody on the BB readership should be able to design it.

Extra closet space would be nice. Unless the home has been redone recently, you probably have a pitiful closet, and living without sufficient closet space is maddening. (I'm having that problem now in my 1920s house in Austin. Apparently, closets were a new concept back then and nobody had gotten it right yet.) Space for dirty laundry is also quite nice.

I second the idea about needing private fridge space. Even good friends bogart your snacks. Plus, if you can get midnight snacks with minimal travel, it disrupts your sleep less.

Perhaps separately from the wall itself, if you could make one of those giant masks like the one in the Adventurer's Club that opened to provide secret storage, that would be sweet. Perhaps this could be the location of you bourbon stash?

If your bed will be close enough to easily access the wall, the miscellaneous crap that lives on your nightstand could be concealed. A pull-out table for a glass of water, book, and alarm clock would be pretty neat too. If your setup is not going to allow access to these compartments from your bed, this thing is pretty sweet: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80109421. I love the idea of a headboard with stealth bookshelves inside. If you built it yourself, you could make part of the shelves pull forward once they're out so it would be next to your bed.

While you're at it, underbed storage is amazingly space saving, if not as cool and Jetsons as the project you're proposing.

Docking stations for all of your portable electronics would be nice too.

Alas, I just got to "Texans support the death penalty but only for the guilty." If that were true, it would be a big improvement over the current state of public opinion in my adopted state, where the attitude is if you manage to get onto death row, even if you didn't commit THAT murder, you must've done SOMETHING....

@Clifton and Takuan,

Yes, the TSA's response to the Gilmore suit was that you ARE allowed to fly without ID. And if you parse what the TSA just said, you STILL are. You can't fly anonymously, which is an entirely different thing constitutionally. My guess as to what happened is that the TSA finally tumbled to the legal difference between demanding identification and demanding that you state your real name.

The TSA isn't being the bully or changing the rules at will. They're just doing what the Constitutional jurisprudence has always allowed them to do. They were too stupid to understand what the rules ARE up until now, which, honestly, is scarier than what Takuan accuses them of.

I strongly suspect that when this ends up in court outside of the 9th circuit, you'll rapidly get a circuit split and the majority position will be that you have to present identification. Then SCOTUS will agree, mooting the distinction altogether.

Mostly amusing, but one is not a misprint or mistake: "Practice reading with a real dog..."

It's a method of improving reading skills and speech problems. Kids with trouble reading or speaking benefit from reading out loud, and dogs don't judge you when stutter or misread. Plus, kids have more tolerance for tutoring if it doesn't seem as onerous. I mean, "practice reading with a real dog" is a lot more appealing than "read out loud to a special ed teacher because we think you're slow."

I used to do this with my golden when I was a kid. I was reading well above grade level, but hated reading in class and would become incapable of coherent speech. I made a fort in my closet and read The Chronicles of Narnia to her. She was a very tolerant audience and sat there with her head in my lap seemingly hanging on my every word.

I now read in Spanish to my lab mix. Reading aloud is good for pronunciation in a new language and I feel less silly if I'm not talking to myself. She gets "Harry Potter." (I've tried this on my cat too, but that doesn't go as well...)

To second and expand on what Kipesquire (#4) said, not only are you collectively misreading the TSA's press release, you misunderstand the Constitutional law surrounding producing ID and identifying yourself.

Although it is perfectly legal not to carry ID, in many situations (and not just when you are under arrest or boarding a plane), it is a crime to refuse to correctly identify yourself to the police. You don't have to produce identification in the sense of handing over a license or passport (unless you were driving), but you do have to state your first and last name. If you refuse to do so or if you give a false name, you will be arrested and charged.

Many people are arrested for committing a crime when they legitimately believed that they were asserting their constitutional rights. If the police have a legitimate reason to stop you (a very low bar), you do not have the legal right to refuse to state your name.

I was thrown from a horse, and an odd lingering effect of the resulting concussion is that my hand strength sucks, rendering all sorts of household items difficult to use. I spend inordinate amounts of time doing battle with recalcitrant inanimate objects, so I don't think this is silly at all.

@ Jordan M

Re dealer/user split:
Nearly everyone who uses is legally a drug dealer. Smoke a joint with a friend, pass him that joint, and you've just distributed marijuana. Possess enough of anything, ("enough" being not a whole lot) and you'll be charged with intent to distribute. Remove a dealer from the street and you create a job opportunity. We can't punish or incarcerate our way out of the problem. We incarcerate more people than any other country in the world. Drug use has remained steady despite a surge in incarceration.

Re Prohibition:
If your goal is to reduce threats to public health or safety, banning most substances is poor public policy. It hasn't served to make drugs less accessible, and as the experience of prohibition shows, it creates a violent black market around the substance. Get rid of the prohibition, as we did with alcohol, and the violent black market disappears. Liquor store owners and bartenders don't generally shoot their business competitors.

Alcohol certainly causes enormous problems. But prohibition failed at significantly reducing consumption, turned millions of ordinary people into lawbreakers, inflated the price of booze, increased the level if impurities because it ceased being regulated, and forever changed the nature of violent crime in America. The substance, misused, is harmful, but the "solution" was worse than the problem it sought to address.

Re addiction:
One of your comments was particularly absurd: "As for prescription drugs, well.. they are so heavily regulated and controlled that the vast majority of people either never receive a dosage large enough to be addictive or have to jump through hoops constantly to continue to get more."

Many prescription drugs are highly addictive when used as directed. Some nonprescription drugs are as well. Addiction is not necessarily dosage dependent. Peculiarly, you admit as much in your next sentence, shooting you previous argument in the foot: "The dosages necessary to produce euphoria or whatever the desired effect for illicit drugs are often greater than the dosage to become physically dependent - so making them a controlled substance isn't practical."

The first part of that sentence is entirely correct. Even if you take only enough to control your pain, if you are on any opiate long enough, you will become physically addicted. You don't get high, but you need them to feel normal even once you're not in pain. Steroid inhalers and nasal sprays are also highly addictive when used as directed, but don't produce any pleasant buzz. So too with sleeping pills (at the prescribed dosage). How the conclusion that you draw: "so making them a controlled substance isn't practical" follows from that fact is lost on me.

If you can become addicted at doses below the dose it takes to make you high, then obviously people can and do become addicted to them, and I have no idea how that fact means you can't make them a "controlled substance." (I'm ignoring that you've got terminology all wrong and just assuming you mean "Schedule 1 drug" instead of "controlled substance.")

I'm currently taking hydrocodone for a fractured vertebrae. By the time I'm healed enough to stop, there is absolutely no doubt that I will be physically addicted to it and would have withdrawal symptoms if I stopped suddenly. I'll have to be tapered off slowly. I know that and my doctor knows that, but many patients and many doctors don't. Doctors are also lax about giving painkillers to people who need them because of physical dependency when they're well past the point that they could reasonably need them for pain. It's especially true with patients who don't fit the stereotype of addicts. And when the doctors wise up, then addicted patients behave like junkies, see, e.g., John McCain's wife: http://www.commondreams.org/views/021400-102.htm.

Anybody who regularly drinks caffeine, even in small quantities, and stops suddenly would be able to tell you that a great many widely available substances are highly addictive. How addictive a substance is has no relationship with how harmful it is to your body or to society.

I am perfectly capable of university level economics and calculus, but I cannot do simple math, which resulted in my being discouraged from pursuing my interest in biology as a child. CTY, one of the biggest gifted and talanted programs in the US, ties admission to it's science programs to math test scores. I got a special award from CTY for having one of the highest verbal SAT scores of the 7th graders who took the test, but they wouldn't let me in their marine biology course when I missed the math cutoff by one question. My younger sister, a bio major, is similarly lopsided--strong verbal skills, good at science, and awful at 4th grade level math.

It is a state court, not a federal court. "District" courts in the federal court system are trial courts, not courts of appeals. Federal courts of appeals are called circuit courts. California is in the 9th Circuit.