Life Is Hard...

Review: Home Lumber Company

Abstract:

Out of Stock Delays, Great Customer Service, Odd-ball shipping.

Details:

On May 16th I purchased a Makita Cordless Drill w/ Flashlight and Tool Belt from Home Lumber Company (Whitewater, WI) through their online store.
The Drill was shipped via UPS and it arrived 10 days late because the item was out of stock when ordered. (Not displayed as out-of-stock on web site). It was shipped in a used box. (bulk toilet paper!) The inner box, however, was standard-issue Makita. The drill was fine, but upon closer inspection I realized that the tool belt had a broken belt loop. This burned me a bit, so the next day I called HLC and complained. Without a word of question they drop shipped me a new belt the same day. It arrived within 48 hours. Awesome. And I didn't even have to return the broken belt.

Pointy Knife Conundrum

Woe is us, cries the UK. We've banned all the guns, and now people are killing each other with knives! Well, duh.

The authors of an editorial in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal have called for knife reform. The editorial, "Reducing knife crime: We need to ban the sale of long, pointed kitchen knives," notes that the knives are being used to stab people as well as roasts and the odd tin of Spam.

The authors of the essay - Drs. Emma Hern, Will Glazebrook and Mike Beckett of the West Middlesex University Hospital in London - called for laws requiring knife manufacturers to redesign their wares with rounded, blunt tips.

The researchers noted that the rate of violent crime in Britain rose nearly 18 percent from 2003 to 2004, and that in the first two weeks of 2005, 15 killings and 16 nonfatal attacks involved stabbings. In an unusual move for a scholarly work, the researchers cited a January headline from The Daily Express, a London tabloid: "Britain is in the grip of knives terror - third of murder victims are now stabbed to death." Dr. Hern said that "we came up with the idea and tossed it into the pot" to get people talking about crime reduction. "Whether it's a sensible solution to this problem or not, I'm not sure."

Remember boys and girls, people don't kill people-- long pointy knifes kill people! Looks like that ole' de Tocqueville fellow hit the nail right on the head (with a blunted hammer):

...it would seem that if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild, it would degrade men without tormenting them.

What's next to ban, cricket bats?

Hybrid Efficiency Index

Greenhybrid.com recently released an analysis of the mileage that real drivers have experienced with their hybrid vehicles. (The EPA fuel economy numbers can't be trusted, because they are based on exhaust emmissions-- and this does not directly correlate to fuel economy on most hybrids)

The greenhybrid.com results can be seen here. In the meantime, I'm just going to shamelessly deep link into my blog for your viewing pleasure:

All well and good. But I thought, why not take this one step further? From my point of view, fuel economy is only half the question. I also wanted to know, how efficent is my hybrid car in terms of its own weight? ie. how much work is it doing per gallon? Therefore, I have invented the Hybrid Vehicle Work Efficency Index, which is measured in mile-tons per gallon. Here are my results:

* Average of vehicle weight w/ various options
** Weight is from the 4WD model

I found this most interesting. Pound for pound, my Civic Hybrid was actually more efficient than the Insight! Perhaps this could be a simple case of technology improving over time.