Jimmy's Tech Corner

1) I've gone a couple of days without shaving, and decided to take care of it this AM: We were OUT of my preferred Gillette Fusion 5+1 blade cartridges, so I went OLD SKOOL and rocked the Mach3. What, only 3 blades? What is this, Stalinist RUSSIA?

I gotta say that it was way BETTER: That little head stayed closer to my angular face curves and the shave was closer. It was like going from an SUV to a BMW 3 series. I wouldn't go all the way to say sports car, but it got the job done. So people, I'm here to say that you may not NEED the new Gillette 15 blade contraption. Mach3 did just fine by me. People you can get off of the upgrade train. Now, to completely reverse myself:

2) Pamela's phone was dying. Battery was down to a day, and mysterious white lines were criss-crossing the screen... I had to take action. So we got iPhone4s. We qualified for the upgrade, so it was a cheap move... and I love love love this phone. In fact, I have to say that the camera on it is actually a bit better than the Canon Supershots I've been using. I used it exclusively at the Fair yesterday and got amazing pictures and videos. Plus, in lower light situations, the white LED is much kinder to the photo subjects than a flash. I took a couple of A/B pics, Canon to iPhone, and the iPhone was nicer in all cases. Bella loves doing video chats from other rooms in the house with Facetime. Plus, HD Video, which came in handy yesterday....

3) I swapped out the insides of one of our toilets with one of those new two-stage flush systems - one button for mini-flush, one button for maxi-flush. The idea is that you use 1/3 of the water of a normal flush for your "pee only" flushes. They say it will pay for itself in water savings, but I just like the idea of saving thousands of gallons of water.

To celebrate, I donned a purple wig and sunglasses and a falsetto voice and used my iPhone4 to shoot a short video for the kids as "Mother Nature" showing them how the new toilet flusher works. I shot 5 scenes, loaded iMovie on the phone, edited it together with crossfades, added a techno soundtrack, and published the finished work. The kids watched it over and over, laughing. But it also got the message across. And it took all of 10 min to shoot and edit, and I was like a PRODUCER. Supercool.

And no, this video will not be on the internet.