TinkerBotQuality, Against All Odds.

Energy Drinks - An Increasingly Unhealthy Habit

Although this blog is fairly new, I have to admit I never imagined myself writing something preachy. I’m not one to talk when it comes to unhealthy habits, I’ll be the first to admit that. Although I’m a skinny-mini, once in a blue moon I’ve been known to down entire boxes of doughnuts in one sitting. But the sugary goodness of Krispy Kreme^TM is really nothing in comparison to the caffeinated monstrosity I discovered the other night: Spike Shooter.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of the infamous Cocaine Energy Drink, but did you know that Spike contains even more caffeine? It may be a mere 20mg (6.7%) more, but that extra caffeine adds up. Spike delivers the same caffeinated punch as 3 cups of coffee (300mg) in a mere 8.4 oz can. It claims to be “The Hardcore Energy Drink” and I’ve come to discover through personal experience that this claim is not completely unfounded.

I had the pleasure- yes, pleasure (please take note of my obvious sarcasm) of witnessing my boyfriend’s reaction to this so-called energy drink that, as of 2008, is being openly sold across the US. At about 1AM Tuesday morning, my boy-toy arrived home from a friend’s house, completely shaken. My first thought was that he had been in some sort of accident because of his quivering hands and bright red face. I had to have asked something along the lines of, “Are you okay?” because he quickly explained that he hadn’t followed the warning label on the drink (that drink being Spike Shooter Energy Drink). I went to go give him my customary welcome-home hug when I realized he was shaking from head to toe and could barely stand because his knees were buckling.

Maybe I’m being a bit melodramatic because he IS my snuggle bunny, but I couldn’t believe that he was having this sort of reaction to an energy drink. The worst part was that he didn’t even finish a full can! Read the rest of this entry »

A Sticky Situation: Part 2

For those of you who are absolutely clueless as to what’s going on, I’m testing the stickiness of different brands of duct tape. Why? To determine which brand I’m going to use when testing out the ever-popular (yet admittedly stupid) method of leg waxing using duct tape.

I covered the details of the experiment in the last blog entry I wrote, but basically to sum it up, I sent a marble down a ramp (or rather, in this case, a tube) and the stickier the tape, the shorter the distance it traveled.

On to the actual experiment this time…

Read the rest of this entry »

A Sticky Situation: Part 1

My first large-scale series of experiments for TinkerBot are aimed towards finding the best (and cheapest) method of leg waxing. Most women (and some guys… including my queer boyfriend) know what a pain in the ass it is to shave their legs, but few realize the cost. Between my mother and I, we probably spend about $30 a month on Venus razor heads and shaving cream, not to mention the extra 5-10 minutes we spend in the shower in order to shave. Yearly that adds up to about $400, countless gallons of water, and at least 20 hours between the two of us.

I’ve started using a sugar-based home wax recipe, but a friend suggested to me that I try using duct tape. Surprisingly, a LOT of people use this as an alternative (and cheaper) waxing method, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.

I picked up a cheap roll of duct tape that was lying around my house and tried it. Surprisingly, it removed the majority of the hair from a spot on my leg after a few applications. There were a few stubborn spots, but overall for a knock-off brand, it worked pretty well. So I decided to investigate further and find a stickier brand of duct tape that would complete the job.

For this, I designed a little experiment to determine the stickiness of different brands of duct tape. Read the rest of this entry »

She’s A Comin’!

Just letting you all know that there will be a blog coming up very, very soon. Sorry about the wait on this one, but it’s definitely worth it! Trust me, it’s pretty big. At least by my standards, but that’s not really saying much.

Behold, TinkerBot!

TinkerBot as it stands at the moment is nothing more than an idea still stuck in my head. Regardless, I’m going to do my best to explain what it is (or rather, what I’d like it to be) now that I’ve gone ahead and had a full night’s sleep after putting this thing together at 2am.

TinkerBot comes about as a result of three things:

• My oh-so-fascinating hobby of staging experiments,
• My susceptibility to TV infomercials and
• The sheer amount of different products and methods I end up trying to use to solve everyday problems.

I guess you could really boil it down to my nerdiness and consumer whore-ism, but that’s beside the point.

This blog will be my outlet for ranting and raving about different products, coming up with solutions for everyday problems, and tips and tricks for pretty much everything in life you can think of. If TinkerBot were a TV show, it’d be something along the lines of MythBusters taking on infomercials with a late-night talk show twist. Or– uh… something like that.

Well now that I’ve failed miserably at explaining myself, feel free to explore the awesomeness that is TinkerBot!