How to Keep Lotion from Drying Out in the Pump

Here is how to stop lotion from developing that plug of dried lotion in the tip of a pump dispenser bottle. I mean, what’s the point of the convenience of a pump bottle if the pump gets clogged with that plug of dried lotion, right?? Some day somebody is going to invent a clog-free pump, but until then, here is how to keep lotion from drying out and clogging up the pump with that annoying plug of lotion.

The secret is to get a package of rubber chair tips (I use 3/4 inch tips) which you can pick up at any hardware store for a few dollars.

Rubber Chair Tips
rubber chair tips

 

You just slip one over the tip of the pump, and your lotion stays nice and..er.. lotiony. No more dried-up lotion plugs!

Rubber Chair Tips Keep Lotion from Drying Out in Pump
how to keep lotion from drying out in pumps

 

chair tip on lotion pump

 

Searches that led to this article: http://www mangemerde com/how-to-keep-lotion-from-drying-out-and-plugging-up-the-pump-dispenser/,  https://www mangemerde com/how-to-keep-lotion-from-drying-out-and-plugging-up-the-pump-dispenser/,  

New Spork Lets You Really Talk Out Of Both Sides of Your Mouth

This utensil could only have been invented by the Marquis de Spork. The typical spork, perhaps best known as the white plastic utensil that accompanies take out orders from KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), is a spoon with tines like a fork at the tip.

But this masterpiece also has a serated edge for cutting built in.

As one of the sides of the fork!

WTF?!

Just take a look at this, and imagine actually using it on your next forkful of mashed potatoes.

Once.

Take a look:

By the way, if you want to see an hysterical treatment of sporks, in a great-for-kids movie (although warning, it does have a little bit of religious overtone), check out the Veggie Tales spoof of Lord of the Rings, called Lord of the Beans:

VeggieTales - Lord of the Beans

An Open Letter to “Mother Earth News”

Dear Mother Earth News,

I was shocked – and very *very* disappointed – to open this month’s issue and find a full page advertisement for cigarettes, of all things! I’m referring to the ad for “Natural American Spirit” cigarettes that appeared near the back of the August/September 2008 issue.

I have been a fan of Mother Earth News for more than 30 years – since the original publication of the magazine. I have turned more people on to M.E.N. than I can remember, and my husband and I have held M.E.N. up to our son as one of the few publications that is true to both the earth, and clean, honest, healthy living.

To now find you pushing *cigarettes* is so shocking to the conscience – so antithetical to all for which we believed you to stand – that it is all we can do to not cancel our subscription immediately.

However, instead we will wait for the next issue, in the dear hope that the offending – and so completely out of character – advertising will be gone.

If it isn’t, we will be, and you will have alienated and lost at least one very loyal subscribing family.

Do New Yorkers Walk Fast or is Everybody Else Just Slow?

I walk quickly. I always have. I chalk it up to being a New Yorker. Because, you know, New Yorkers walk fast. We’re busy people, and we have places to go, and things to see.

Even when we aren’t in New York. (Even, in fact, when we haven’t lived in New York for many years.)

You can take the fast walker out of New York, but you can’t take the fast New York out of the walker. Or something like that.

Now here’s the thing:

All you people out on the sidewalks who aren’t from New York – all you people who walk so agonizingly sloooooowly – and you know who you are – you’re in our way!

You’re holding up traffic!

Get the heck out of the way!

Move to the right, so that we can pass you.

No..further.

FDA Won’t Put Warning on Epilepsy Drugs Despite 80% Increase in Suicide Risk

In news of the disgusting, the FDA today decided not to put a warning on 11 epilepsy drugs known to increase suicidal thoughts and tendancies by at least 80%!!! (Some reports put the increase at 100%.)

The FDA, listening to a panel of outside experts, heard that the increase was “only” 2 people in 1000, and the experts said that they were “very concerned … about the risk of unintended consequences of influencing practice and discouraging patients” (from taking antiepilepsy drugs).

According to news reports, the FDA had wanted to require a warning in a big box on all anti-epilepsy drug labels, but was talked out of it by the panel which, of course, included representatives of the drug manufacturers.

The drugs implicated in the suicide and suicidal thoughts increase are:

  • carbamazepine (Carbatrol, Equetro, Tegretol, Tegretol XR)
  • felbamate (Felbatol)
  • gabapentin (Neurontin)
  • lamotrigine (Lamictal)
  • levetiracetam (Keppra)
  • oxcarbazepine (Trileptal)
  • pregabalin (Lyrica)
  • tiagabine (Gabitril)
  • topiramate (Topamax)
  • valproate (Depakote, Depakote ER, Depakene, Depacon)
  • zonisamide (Zonegran)
  • Patients taking any of the above drugs who become stressed at the thought that it might lead to their committing suicide are advised to take Prozac to help with their stress*.

    (*That is irony – I am not a medical doctor, and that is not a real recommendation.)

    When Something is Copyright-Infected

    I heard for the first time today the term – I kid you not – “copyright infected”.

    That’s right.

    Apparently now copyrighting and attempting to copyright-protect something you have created is so anathematic to some that they have perverted the term to “copyright infected”.

    Because, you know, everything should be free and available for the taking, no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears you poured into it.

    This was, of course, in the context of whether people should be allowed to download files that are unpermitted duplicates of works which are, you know, copyright protected.. er.. infected… er..something.

    Now, the people who think that they are oh-so-clever and cute in coining this perverse term may not like my taking issue with it.

    Too bad.

    Because fortunately this blog has a First Amendment infection.

    Telemarketing Calls within 3 Hours of Hooking Up the Telephone

    We moved recently, and for the first time in a long time, we have a land line.

    And, within 3 hours of hooking up the telephone, we started getting telemarketing phone spam. And I thought that email spam was bad!

    Only this time, we have caller I.D.. So, I’m going to post every darned telemarketing number that comes across, and who it belongs to, for others who may be searching that number.

    The winners for the “slime who phone spammed us when our phone line wasn’t even 24 hours old” are:

    501-217-3296 Market Strategies
    720-214-3122 Affordable Security
    515-369-5701 Viking Magazine
    203-365-9666 (Number unknown – darn!)

    By the second day we also had the following calling us:

    800-845-2074 (Number unknown)

    Stupid Tobacco Delivery Law Tries to Stop Minors from Buying Cigarettes on the Internet by Making the Delivery Services (UPS, FedEx) Responsible!

    We all know that minors buying cigarettes on the Internet is a problem. This is in large part because a) companies that sell cigarettes on the Internet can’t know the age of the person ordering them, and b) many companies that sell cigarettes on the Internet don’t care if the person ordering them is a minor.

    But passing a Tobacco Delivery Law, such as the state of Maine has done, that makes the delivery companies, such as UPS, FedEx, and the like, responsible for delivering the cigarettes to a minor has to be one of the most stupid, dunderheaded things I’ve heard in a long time.

    The question isn’t really “how can the delivery services confirm age?” Because, sure, if someone looks like they are underage, and the package is from a cigarette company, the delivery service can require an adult’s signature.

    After all, as Kathleen Dachille, with the Legal Resource Center for Tobacco Regulation, Litigation & Advocacy explains, “When I am sending something by FedEx there are a whole host of things I can ask them to do. There are different ways I can ship it, different rules about who can accept it, what the signature requirement must be, and who it can be left with. They already offer those sorts of premium services to their customers, so while it may create some level of burden they can certainly charge their customers for that.”

    No, the question is “if these laws are upheld, what’s to stop the Internet tobacco companies from simply sending the cigarettes in plain brown wrappers?”

    And the answer is “absolutely nothing.”

    Obviously, if a law says that the delivery companies must get an adult’s signature for packages they know to contain cigarettes, the Internet cigarette companies will just make sure that it’s not obvious what’s in the box.

    What waste of tax-payers’ money – both the passing of the law, and now the lawsuits defennding the law.

    Stupid, stupid, stupid.

    Headsets and iPod Cases for Toddlers?? Give me a break!! The Tadpole Headset and Case is a TadDisgusting!

    Ok, we won’t even let our 9-year-old have headsets – they just aren’t good for their ears. And he only just this past month got an iPod Shuffle, and then only because it was to help on the long road trip during our move, and only to be used with an external speaker (an iCat, in this case).

    So, you can imagine my shock, dismay, bemusement, and, yes, revulsion, when I saw this product – the Tadpole Headset and Case. The Tadpole is earphones and an iPod case for children – little children – in the Apple store. Note that it is being pitched as a way to let your child listen to their iPod in car, grocery store, doctor’s office, and STROLLER!!

    That’s just disgusting.

    To see the blatant marketing to toddlers, click on the picture to read the bottom of the package.

    Of course, if you don’t share my disgust, feel free to check out the Tadpole here.

    IMG00054.JPG