A Toilet Tip and some Self-Centered Links

Mmmm.  Potty talk.

Please tune to another blog post if you want.  Nothing to see here but some really mish-mash linkages and ramblings….

Toilet Bowl Black Streaks - Q&A - Mosby Building Arts – Yeah. I know.  How gross can we get?  Only for the past year I have been fighting an ongoing battle with the toilets trying to get these Amityville Horror-esque black streaks from re-spawning under the rims.  I’ve tried every under-rim bowl cleaner I could find, dumped bleach down the tank-tube to try to nuke the mildew-growth out of existence.  But despite my weekly deep-cleanings, the sparking bowl became re-streaked in less than a week.  It was gross and frustrating.

I was about ready to rip them out and replace the entire toilet.

Then I read that tip that claimed the mildew problem (that I knew) was caused by hard-water deposits.  I took the advice offered, and found some Lime-A-Way under-rim toilet cleaner at the grocery store and gave them a good coating at bed-time one night.  For good measure I also dropped about a 1/2 cup down the overflow/fill-tube in the tank as well that feeds water down the rim-holes and into the bowl to get the inside run above the holes coated and cleaned as well.

In the morning I flushed well, re-scrubbed with standard toilet-bowl cleaner and waited.

Months later the black streaking still hasn’t returned and the bowls seem to stay cleaner longer as well!

What do you know!

I’m continuing with a bi-monthly application just to be safe as we do have a mineral-deposit problem with the local municipal water supply in our area (also tends to be iron-heavy).  But I think the problem is solved.

Thanks to Tug over at The Undershirt Guy Blog, I think I have found my long-lost solution to a clothing issue I have also been working on for years.  Long time ago I got a short-sleeved mock-turtleneck shirt from Lavie’s mom.  I quickly found it looked great (to me) under polo's, particularly in the fall and winter months.  I really liked the way the higher collar worked with polo shirts.  The fabric was too heavy though and it wasn’t comfortable for summer.  So I have been searching for a high-collared style t-shirt ever since and never found exactly what I was looking for.  I did find some high-end t-shirts such as in the UnderArmour line and some tactical (police-grade) t-shirts that came close, but they were very pricy and still not a “true” turtle-neck high collar.

Leave it to Tug.  I run his blog’s RSS feed and recently spotted his post Ask Tug Update: Undershirts with a high, tight collar that don’t stretch out or sag.

Turns out Jockey makes a higher-necked collar for the common man. 

Jockey Short Sleeve Mock Neck T-Shirt 8351

Priced at just $7 each, they are from a trusted and quality manufacturer and are easy on the budget.  I just finished ordering several in white and black.  I can’t wait for them to come in.  So if you are law-enforcement, military, work-uniform wearers, or just plain strange like me, this might just be a rare and golden find.

one hundred push ups – Just found this site.  Who knew this task was big enough to rate?  Back in high-school I did a lot of push ups.  And I set the challenge to myself to be able to accomplish 100 reps non-stop.  It took me a while, but I did get to where I could crank out 100-rep sets nightly.  No biggie.

I tried again the other night after hitting this site and was only able to turn out forty five before my arms gave out.

I find that it isn’t just a matter of physical strength but also mental strength to push-up through the pain and “quit” that my shoulders feed to my central cortex.

So starting tonight I plan on reclaiming that goal from high-school.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Men’s Health - Eat This, Not That - 20 Worst Foods of 2009 – I pulled this link the other day and read through the items.  Horrible!  Now I don’t calorie-count (usually) but do try to make healthy choices with food items, snacking, and work to eat in moderation. But it was still as shock to find out just how many calories are packed in some food products.

From that article:

• Worst Burger of 2009 - Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Triple-The-Cheese Big Mouth Burger with Jalapeno Ranch Dressing - 2,040 calories
• Worst Chinese Entrée of 2009 - P.F. Chang’s Tam’s Noodles -1, 678 calories
• Worst Supermarket Meal of 2009  - Marie Callender’s Creamy Parmesan Chicken Pot Pie - 1,060 calories
• Worst Ribs of 2009 - Outback Steakhouse Baby Back Ribs (full rack) - 2,260 calories
• The Worst Food in America of 2009 - Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake - 2,600 calories

Now we eat at all these places and have consumed these items from time to time. Nothing wrong there.  To be fair, everyone likes their indulgences and in Texas, we like our cow cooked and big portioned.  But this information does provide helpful context for dining decisions.  Say, spend a few days eating lighter, low-cal fare before satisfying your desires on one of these items.

Me? I usually get the standard hamburger when eating out at Chili's or Outback and ask for some steamed broccoli on the side.  That gets nods from the family and usually impresses the waitresses (and the waistline).

mandolux | desktops | flags | Hope – I love this dual-monitor desktop from Mandolux.  The colors and textures in Old Glory are fantastic!  And yet the simple field provides a great desktop wallpaper without loosing desktop icons which sometimes can occur with some wallpaper designs.Full size, single-image download available over on Mando’s Flickr page if you want to crop one up on your own.

The Longstockings – Fun blog maintained by a number of teen/tween authors.  I don’t know if I will ever get around to writing that novel, but these folks provide great and honest feedback on the real-life of writing.  It’s fun, frustrating, and glamorous.  Well, probably just the first two.  Great source for finding new teen/tween novels that you might not encounter by looking on the shelves of the local “Fox Books” store.

Are you going to believe me, or your lying eyes? – Dan over at Dan’s Data and his also amusing How To Spot A Psychopath blog goes on a great and thoughtful rant.  This one is aimed primarily at geeks who appear to continually have a need to do hardware-upgrades on their system with little thought behind the real cause of their performance woes.

I love this quote:

My own motto, though, is that if something's worth doing, it's worth knowing what you're doing, and why, and how you can tell if it's really working.

Dan the Dude nails it.  And that’s a motto that you can apply pretty well across life.

--Claus V.