Things I’m get unduly excited about at the moment

Posted by louisa on Friday 18 November 2011 in meta | 2 comments

The lovely people who have been reading this blog for a while may be aware that I get unduly excited about strange things. Like freshly cleared out chicken coops. And stupid puns. And graphs. And really obscure references in post tags for others in the small set of people who like both cartoons & mycology.

ANYWAY. It’s Friday afternoon (singalong Friday afternoon in our office) so I thought I’d think about some of things that made me all happy-happy-joy-joy. This is what I’ve been getting unduly excited about recently:

1. The pointy bit on, say, tomato puree tube lids that you turn upside down and use to pierce the foil on the top of the tube bit. (I wonder if they have an actual name because that’s kinda long winded.)

I used one the other day and was reminded of the genius – it does the job perfect and safely. I don’t have to hunt around for a knife or similar – and risks stabbing myself when said knife inevitably slips. It probably doesn’t add much, if anything, to the production time or costs (since the lids are just formed plastic anyway), and doesn’t impact the level of waste or whatever. Plus, if it’s a shaped spike, it makes the tomato puree come out in the fancy pattern, like a considerably less gross version of these. (Warning: link contains poo humour and a waste-of-plastic “gag gift”.)

2. How much quicker it is to defrost stuff in a bowl of water than just on the side

A 1lb/500g pack of diced lamb fully defrosted in about an hour the other day, versus probably all day if I’d not put it in water. Woo. And then I turned that lamb into a lovely casserole thing with lots of veggies and chickpeas. Double woo.

3. The thread slicer on a sewing machine.

I like to jump right in when it comes to crafts and rarely plan ahead enough to remember to grab a pair of scissors. And even if I do, it’s time consuming to pick them up whenever I need to make a quick snip. So the little (shielded) sharp bit of metal on the side of the machine is wonderful for me.

4. Seam/stitch rippers

And similarly, seam or stitch rippers, whatever you want to call them. So small yet so useful!

5. The fact that we might get to see the sea tomorrow

Great on two counts: 1) the sea, weeeee! and 2) dog in sea = hilarious.

6. That when I came to search for a picture of a tomato puree tube for the picture up top, by completely coincide I ended up on Recycle This and a photo I took two and half years ago.

I thought, “oh, I’ll use that, we use Morrisons tomato puree after all – oh! that’s our tomato puree!”

I heart internet coinky-dinks.

What are you getting disproportionately giddy about at the moment?