Monthly Archives: January 2012

Thermal-Aid Heating & Cooling Packs

Thermal-Aid (The same folks that make the adorable Bear heating packs) also make a line of 100% natural heating and cooling packs in a variety of different sizes.  Today, we are taking a look at three of them (Small, Large Sectional & Tube) to see what we can see.

The most notable part of these is that they are 100% natural materials.  The outside is a 100% cotton wrap, the inside is made of de-germinated corn kernels, which have gone through a process to remove their skin, all of the moisture and specially harden them to help retain an even temperature.

These are incredibly high quality as they are intended for use in the medical field, but thankfully they have a price sticker that keeps them realistic for the average household. ($20-$40 each, depending on size)

Each pack is surprisingly heavy, can be either microwaved for penetrating heat therapy or frozen for cold benefits, and is washable and designed to retard the development of mold and mildew.

The sectional sizes fold out and are pocketed like a quilt, where the small is a simple flat piece and the tube is a nice little snake (That feels awesome when heated up and set over a sore, tired set of shoulders) Altogether you get high quality, all-natural packs for your aches, breaks, bumps, bruises, cramping, pain, and the rest of your localized ailments that need heat or cold.

Available in Large Sectional, Medium Sectional, Small Sectional, Small or Tube on Amazon and at Thermal-Aid.com.

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Filed under Green, Health/Wellness

Grow Your Own!

At Home Mushroom Growing KitPearl oyster mushrooms are delicious.  Alejandro Velez & Nikhil Arora of Back To The Roots knew this when they started up in 2009.  Apparently, they also knew that they would be some day having a positive impact on the environment and create something that would fascinate children everywhere.  Okay, maybe they didn’t know ALL of that, but they accomplished all of that in a milk carton sized package.

This mini-mushroom farm is a DIY wonder.  Inside you get instructions, a bag of coffee grounds and a mister.  It is important to let the bag soak for 24 hours in regular tap water for 24 hours before you start your first crop, but after that place the bag back in the box, cut a slit in the bag and mist the bag daily.  In the first couple days, you’ll see some stringy, tentacle-like baby mushrooms will start to appear.  From these tiny baby mushrooms, you can watch day by day as they spread out, get larger and start to reach for the sky.

For me, there are three great values here.  First, the fact that every piece in this kit is made of recycled materials and is recyclable.  Second, taste.  You get to eat your experiment when your finished, and can easily get a pound or more of mushrooms that are sooo delicious in my home-made spaghetti sauce.  Third, and if you ask me most important, the sense of wonder.  We had our Junior DeskApes misting and checking up on the kit each day.  They tended the crops, wide-eyed each day as they grew larger and larger.

Available at Back To The Roots and on ThinkGeek.

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Filed under Food*ing*, Green

Great Sex! (A little Oh-La-La!)

Valentines is just around the corner, and if you are attached or hoping to be, you might be looking for a spicy gift for your significant other.  This cute little kit from Peter Pauper Press contains a small jar of strawberry flavored body dust, a feather tickler, and an 80 page guide on lovemaking entitled A Lover’s Guide to the Kama Sutra.

While the kit itself isn’t an all-inclusive bedroom experience, it offers a ton of tantalizing tips, and if you hand it over as a gift it serves just as well as a hint to your sweetheart.

The feather tickler is great for teasing your partner or applying the Strawberry Body Dust.  (Hint, try dusting yourself with it, and having him search for it later!) The book inside is a short and sweet quick-read that you can polish off in a very short period of time, and it offers positions, health and wellness advice in the form of safe sex, kegal exercises and even goes into setting the tone for your romantic encounter.

Check it out on PeterPauper.com or Amazon.

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Filed under Uncategorized

Angry Birds Gummies

When I first saw Angry Birds Fruit Snacks I jumped right into them.  (Not literally, of course.)  Starting off my journey with a bag of Red Bird.  I realized quickly that all the bags contain the same snacks, but I have a bit of a care for that beginner bird.

While I love the quirky novelty of having Angry Birds shaped fruit snacks, I can only assume that these poor birds didn’t fly off the shelves after having tasted them.  While the taste was “Okay” as far as fruit snacks, the texture was much like chewing old shoes.  They were so tough to chew, even though they were no where near the expiration date, that I could almost hear my teeth screaming.

Check them out at Amazon.  And yes, throwing them at structures is fun.

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Filed under Food*ing*

IQ Test Gift Box

IQ Test Gift Box

You know your curious.  Something about the IQ is fascinating.  How smart are you really?  How do you compare to famous names, or even your own family?

I got to check my own IQ using the Gift Republic IQ Test Gift Box.  The test itself is online, and unfortunately you do have to wait to receive your results.

To tide you over while you wait, you get a really cool tin that can be used for anything you want afterwards.  (It just happens to be the perfect size for my mini sketchbook and drawing utensils, creating a mobile mini-set)  The box contains a sealed IQ test designed by IQ expert Philip Carter (Who wrote the IQ and Psychometric Test Workbook)

So you get 40 questions over a span of 120 minutes, they mail you a certificate with your test results.  Consider, before taking the test how much rest you’ve had, how many distractions you have in the room, and anything else that might skew you results.  (I took mine extremely distracted)

Also consider: Do you really want to know?  I was a little nervous about opening the results.

 

IQ Test Gift Box at ThinkGeek

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Filed under Entertainment