(no subject)

The drain of my bathroom sink smelled mildewy, so I poured in some vinegar and let it sit overnight. The mildewy smell went away, but now the drain emits a foul vinegary smell. I'm going to pour something else down it tonight.

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I was out shopping today and passed a new consignment store. I went in to look what they have, and saw a very nice-looking rug. It was expensive, but I'm not sure how much a rug like that usually costs. I didn't see any tag saying what the fiber content was; if it is silk or wool I wouldn't want it. So after getting home I did some web searches, and came across this:

It will take one girl about half a year to make a 2×3ft carpet of 300 lines (90,000knots per square foot), 1.5 years to weave a 2×3ft silk carpet of 500 lines(250,000knots per square foot), two years to knot a 2×1.5 feet silk carpet with 800 lines(640,000knots per square foot) and 3 years to make a 1.2×1.5 feet silk carpet with 1000 lines(1000,000 knots per square foot). The silk thread used to knot top quality carpet is as thin as a hair. When knotting, weavers even need to use magnifier. The work is so harmful to weavers' eyes that they seldom can make the second same piece. So this kind of silk carpet is named "soft gold".

Good gosh, I wouldn't want a hand-made rug; the thought of someone tediously and painstakingly working for years just to produce a small portion of a rug makes me shudder. If I had a rug like that in my house, I'd feel guilty just looking at it. Surely the rug in the store was machine made, but I'm still not sure about the fiber.

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I also went to Bed, Bath & Beyond. They have so much neat stuff there! I got some solar-powered lanterns to put in the back yard where it is very dark at night. And some other things. Their website has neat stuff too. I wonder how this thing works - a chess set with LED pieces which glow when they get close to the board.

I don't know how to train this dog

This video showcases the main problem I have with Zorro. She "jumps with her teeth" - she jumps up and bites my clothing. That is why I mostly wear this ratty old jacket when I go in the yard, to keep her from ruining my good clothes (I don't know what I'll do when the weather gets too hot for wearing a jacket). She also play-bites my ankles and pulls on my pants legs. As can be seen in the video, I've tried ignoring her when she does that (sometimes that makes her stop, but today it didn't), I've tried shouting "OUCH!", I've tried sternly telling her to stop, I've tried hitting her when she jumps... that makes her growl angrily and get more aggressive. I've tried praising her when she doesn't do it. Nothing seems to help. I don't know what to do.

"" (Watch on YouTube)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df9CEfwXLpA

lights and music

I wonder why solar-powered yard lights are mostly sold with nickel cadmium batteries instead of nickel metal hydride ones. I seem to recall it being almost 10 years since NiMH started replacing NiCd for rechargeable batteries, due to being better for the environment, no memory effect, and higher capacity.

Ah, this page gives some possible reasons, such as NiCd batteries being less sensitive to temperature extremes and lasting for more recharging cycles.

I'd advise against getting the small yard lights which are sold individually and cheaply. I got 2 of them, and the batteries they contain are not standard sizes, so they can't be easily replaced. They don't look as water-proof as the LED crystal ball I got last year, either. Besides those, I also got a 2-pack of glass/metal stake ones, and a 4-pack of plastic LED lanterns which I plan to hang in a tree (I got those from Lowes - even Lowes has a nice selection of solar yard lights to choose from). The glass/metal ones look to be the best quality of the lot (although I am partial to real glass over plastic, so that may have me biased).

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This HMDX Audio portable speaker case for an mp3 player is one of the things I got at Bed, Bath, and Beyond yesterday - I got a pretty purple one. The size is actually 6.5 inches wide, not what it says on that linked page. The sound quality is quite good, and it's louder than a different mini-speaker I got last year.

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Dang it, LiveJournal is still returning this message:
Error updating journal: Client error: Sorry, there was a problem with content of the entry

when I try to save any post with a link to an ezinearticles page. I first noticed this was happening in January, and it is still happening. So I had to add an 'x' to the beginning of the first URL above.

Update: was able to get link to post using www. in front.