Category: the Rant Board
I am personally ready to throw my Black and Decker automatic coffee maker in the nearest dumpster. I HATE this thing. The minute you get all the coffee you want, it automatically shuts off, rendering your coffee lukewarm and eventually cold. It also leaves grounds at the top...BLECH...Try a Mr Coffee or one by Hamilton Beach instead.
Maybe Mr. Foreman has since come up with an easier to clean model, but when I was first married 8 years ago I remember thinking his little grill was overrated. It seemed very awkward and difficult to clean, and I did clean it immediately after use.
I just got an electric coffee maker from my friend a few weeks ago. It's all plastic, very light, works like a charm and is very easy to maintain. It's a one-cup with a permenant filter, the plastic kind that you remove, clean and then put back in the machine. You simply measure the coffee and put it in the basket/filter, , measure the water into a cup (that's how I do it anyway), make sure the bar is pushed back and pour the water in the side or the back. Then, you put the cup at the bottom of the machine and the bar at the centre so that the coffee will drip into the cup, close the machine, turn the switch and away you go! Once the coffee is made, you simply turn it off, remove the cup and then you could add the milk and sugar or whatever you want to it, or drink it black if that's your preference. As for George Foreman grills, I've avoided them because they drain all the grease and fats from foods. If I could find an indoor grill that doesn't do this, I'd definitely consider buying it. As for other products to avoid, I didn't like the one-touch can opener. I put it on a can and it didn't do anything. It was a total waste of money. I also absolutely dispise the light pots with all medal handles and no grips or pads on them. These were actually given to me by a counselor for daily living, prompting me to wonder what kinds of drugs she was taking. Who gives pots with exposed medal handles to the blind? Needless to say, I never use them. I love the lock pots, or at least the idea, but they're too small. I wish they made them bigger.
I like the Kurig model (SP?). It's great because it makes one cup of coffee at a time, so no worries about coffee going bitter in the bottom of the pot. You just put the cup on the little platform, then slip the little coffee container into the little compartment, close the lid and hit one button and it makes your coffee or even hot chocolate in less than thirty seconds. My folks just got one of those and I've rarely tasted better outside of a coffee shop.
Mom has one too. I hear that coffee pods are actually the worst kind out there, since they're not really fresh. But my taste buds completely refuse to accept it. That coffee really is delicious! I don't like hot chocolate made with water (I prefer milk) so wasn't too impressed with their's, but there tea was excellent for what it was, i.e. not loose.
Mr. Coffee is good but I don't believe they make a one cupper.
Yes, I have heard complaints about black and decker products.
I love one-cups. They're so convenient, faster, and clean-up is easier. Plus, like Tiffanitsa said, usually you don't have to replace the filters, because they're not disposable. I don't always follow the "cheaper is better" moddo, but sometimes it really is true, like when it comes to coffee makers.
I personally adore my all-medal demitas maker that I use for regular coffee. It goes on the stove and is much quicker than my electric. But there's a tiny bit more involved in cleaning it. Still, it takes a few seconds, so it's worth it.
I do hate changing filters all the time.
I think part of the problem with the more expensive models is that they tend to focus so much on the digital settings like the clock and the display, that they seem to forget the importance of the pot itself. Plus, as sad as it may seem, a lot of these companies design their products to break almost immediately after the warranty runs out, just so you'll have to buy another one, but they'll make sure they make it good enough that you'll want to keep buying more and more of their product.
Okay, enough of my senseless babble.
That was totally not senseless and explains perfectly my problems with alot of technology made today. People make everything fancy and forget the object is to use the thing, not to look pretty and to avoid those horrible things like knobs, switches or anything simple that's tried, true and easy to use.
Oh I agree but I must say I do like the alarm clock feature. You put the stuff in, set the timer and it starts itself. Sorry but I think that is just great.
But that's still a practical one and not something totally off-the-wall. I'm not even sure if there would be a way to do that via an analogue system, perhaps yes, but in any case, the idea itself is neat. I suppose, if you really wanted to get digital, you could find a way to put a microcomputer onboard that could connect to your pc wirelessly and give it commands from anywhere in the house. That would be strange but interesting. If anything, it would probably be good for people with certain handicaps or with memory problems, where they'd forget to shut off the appliance.
there's a new talking coffee pot. You can tell it what you want it to do either by pressing a button or voice commands. I'm wondering if that's just for setting the brewing time or the clock ... Those are two of the commands that i've seen. I'd love to get my hands on that thing.
Tiff, my pot alarm has real buttons, still digital.
Well, that's a good thing. But unless it talks, how can you set it? At least, with a dial, you could put a marker on it or if it's flat you could learn the position of the ial in relation to the time.
There's a couple products I bought off of TV only to be disappointed. The first is the Xpress Redi-Set-Go. It's an electric indoor cooker that cooks things in less than 15 minutes like pizza, fried chicken, muffins, cookies, hot sandwiches, etc. It has a dial type timer on the unit itself and I suppose the place marks could be accessible with a braille label that you'd make yourself. After using it a couple times, the heat of the machine melted the paint off the numbers and I started having to use my kitchen timer to time things. Also, if you time something too long, you can't do that nice trick with the dial timers and force it to zero. When I tried that, the whole knob broke off and thus I was only left with my kitchen timer. The machine doesn't have any removable parts so it's very hard to clean and the recipes in the book over-stuff the ingredients so some things come out half done. Oh yeah, that's the other thing, you'd need a scanner or a sighty to access the recipe card and book as it's all in print, go figure. The other product to avoid are those smooth legs or smooth away pad things. The hair that they claim to remove is hard for a blind person to feel anyway because it's on the surface and the little pads get worn out after 2 or 3 uses and only come with five replacements. Better to do the timeless activity of shaving if you want hair removed.
Thank you! I'd love to hear more products to avoid from tv, since I adore infomercials and would be the type to buy them and be stuck with garbage. Personally, I adore my wet/ry shaver that I got from Maxiaids. It works very nicely, though I don't mind splurging on a really good one, preferably waterproof, if I can find it. But yeah, more tv messes please!
Tiff, to answer you question, I just memorize the buttons I need.
exactly.
I like the clock and timer features on appliances. I just think companies need to focus a little less on that, and a little more on the quality of the appliance itself. If the clock breaks, at least the rest of it will work. Currently, that doesn't always seem to be the case.
Verry true. It's all a marketing ploy.
Another product I'm going to have to add...Magic Jack. Some of these computer ploys offering free long distance if you just plug this device into your computer are not worth the grief & aggravation and they cater to people with a get something for nothing mindset.
My husband took advantage of this service to make calls to his native country. It was so disruptive to our land line and even logging onto the computer even took more time than it had to. We no longer have it but had to get a new telephone # for our land line, and some of the problems we were having with the Magic Jack aren't the case now. It isn't a "saving" I would reccommend.
My parents use it and seem to like it. I've subscribed to Skype (both to make and receive calls) and while it works nicely, I' like to downgrade to the last version, since doing certain things with this one is a real pain. As for avoiding things, the plastic collapsable cups and the ice trays for the blind, where you fill a bottle type thing and the ice comes out in the shape of balls, are definitely not worth the price, though both are very cheap. The first breaks and leaks very easily and getting ice out of the second is very difficult. I had to bang it against the sink to get them to come out. Still, it's better than the regular square trays where the water could spill everywhere as you try to put them in the freezer.
I like the ice machines that come with fridges, but you have to clean it out quite a bit, or the ice will get stuck. Also, the ice cubes often get stuck together. The machine is convenient though.
I have one of those. Water also will come out if you push one of the buttons but you have to clean the tray thing the catches any spills.
Hmmm, interesting topic. Has anyone ever used a Mr. Steamy? this isn't an appliance, but those disinfecting wipes you can buy seem to do kind of a crappy cleaning job. I used them on my porcelain toilet tank, and I think regular Windex would have worked better. I think those really are just for getting germs off of surfaces.
the things that are supposed to be used for shaving, the buffer it away option is not a wise move. not only does it not get the hair off, it can also cause your skin to get red. also the spray you can spray on your leggs and wipe the hair away, is not a wise move either. it doesn't work that well, and it burns the skin.
Yes. I found that out the hard way. *will never use nair again*.
I've heard about that stuff. Why would they sell such a product?
it's supposed to make shaving easier, but in my opinion it makes it harder or at least for me.
And, apparently it lasts longer than shaving, but personally, I find just the opposite.
nah, I hated it too. yuck.
I haven't heard good things about it, either.
Sounds just horrible.
used nair and hated it as well. it made little skin scratches on parts of my legs as well. also something I want to warn people about are these music clubs and dvd clubs online. I got locked in to one called BMG and it took me month to get it all paid off and to get my credit cleared. The we will give you bla bla bla for free just is never true in my eyes. read every bit of fine print before submitting to any of that stuff.
Don't give out your credit card number or any other payment information unless you know exactly what the other party is using it for, and you're okay with it. You never know what could happen.
Yeah. If it's really free, they won't ask you for that stuff anyway. The most they'll do is have you pay for shipping, and even then, they'll explicitly state that this is all they're doing with your information. But most places with truly free products also offer free shipping because they want you to try them with no obligation.
I once had this independent living person come in to teach me how to cook. Not only did she get food all over the floor when I cooked her something, but she gave me these extremely dangerous pots. One was a lock lid, which I thought was really cool, since it had a built-in strainer, and the other was a regular pot. Both were far too light to be taken seriously and both had medal handles with no covering! Seriously, they didn't have plastic or coating of any kind, just pure medal handles. All I could think was "these are given to the blind?" Okay, I would know enough to use my Ove Gloves (wonderful product) but what if I was very new to cooking or to blindness and just put my hand on the pot's handle while it was on the stove? I have professional chef's pots and regular ones and both have safe coverings on them. The only ones that don't are in my cast iron set. I gave the bad ones to my family and they still occasionally use them.