Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Kill-a-watt, Spycam car key fob camera, and something fun for the kids

I had a gift certificate for ThinkGeek and today I got to spend some time on the site and found a couple of items that are worth mentioning.  First is a Kill-A-Watt power measuring device.  You plug it into the wall and plug whatever appliance you want into it.  The device will monitor the amount of electricity the item uses, what the average amount is, what the peak amount is, etc.  This will be good to figure out how much electricity I need to conduct certain events.  For example, how much electricity does the microwave use if I want to heat up some soup for 2 minutes?  What about the crockpot if I'm cooking a pot of beans for 12 hours?  What about the computer to use it for an hour and also during that time it's having the battery charged up? 

The next item I purchased is the video camera with audio.  It's housed in a key fob and from the picture really looks like a key fob.  I will probably use it for a keyring.  It takes 640x480 resolution, which isn't bad.  It has 4GB of memory and it is advertised to take about four hours worth of video.  I don't know what I'm going to use it for but I'll figure out something good.  It needs light in the background and doesn't do well in dark hallways, or outside after dark, I'm assuming.  Having a covert video camera will come in handy I'm sure.

The last item I purchased is going to be a fun one for the grandkids.  It turns juice or water or milk or any liquid into bubbly liquid.  Imagine juice rather than soda.  Or lemonade soda.  Or even carbonated chocolate milk.  After looking at the video that's available to be seen on their website, it is something that could be make for probably a bit cheaper than they are selling it for.  It's still a great idea and I'm willing to use the last amount of money on my gift certificate to pay for their great idea.  You use two 2-liter bottles.  In one you put your juice.  In the other you pour some vinegar.  They give you a little tube to put baking soda into.  As we all remember from our volcano making days, baking soda and vinegar produces carbon dioxide.  You take the filled tube and put it into the bottle with the vinegar.  You put the lids on, which have a tube connecting each lid (meaning the two bottles are now connected).  Shake the vinegar and baking soda together.  The gas will escape that bottle and go into your juice bottle.  After a few minutes you can take off the tube lid and put on a regular lid.  Shake the bottle a bit to get the carbonation throughout the liquid.  Open the bottle and pour out your carbonated juice.  The kids are going to love this!  Maybe we'll make carbonated lemonade with our lemons and the clean water we will be preparing. 

1 comment:

  1. I just received a Kill-a-Watt also. I feel like a child with a tape measure trying this on each electrical appliance.

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