Grab Bag Cereal Felons:
Cereals CAN actually be a great part of a balanced nutritional plan, but some fascinating grocery aisle reading is required to dodge the felons. Even some “healthy looking” cereals are incognito criminals (granola, we’re on to you). On the label, look for:
Sugars: 8 grams or less per serving.
Fiber: 3 grams or more per serving
Fats: 0 trans fats and less than 1 gram of saturated fat per serving
Grab Bag Noise Pollution Control:
According to Wikipedia:
Noise pollution can cause annoyance and aggression, hypertension, high stress levels, tinnitus, hearing loss, sleep disturbances, and other harmful effects.[3][4][5][6] Furthermore, stress and hypertension are the leading causes to health problems, whereas tinnitus can lead to forgetfulness, severe depression and at times panic attacks.
So what’s a human to do? I want my MTV and my iPod and gosh knows what else… but it’s the noises we DON’T want that seem to be the most detrimental.
So here’s a simple tip: Flip closed your doors, drawers and cupboards as you would when moving quickly through your house… focusing just on the noise they make… we tend to filter out the noises we’re used to, but that doesn’t make them better for us. If any of these make a noise that is audible in the next room, try picking up some of these at your local hardware store:
Silence is golden 🙂
Grab Bag Power Search Tips:
OK, if you’re not doing RSS yet, I’m dragging you… kicking and screaming. It can literally CHANGE YOUR LIFE. So follow along with me here, and we may learn a couple of things that could at least drastically change the way we search for the things we want. As a matter of fact, with these tips, you search once, and then the results KEEP COMING TO YOU until you say stop!
1. Craigslist Everywhere. Have you ever been searching for something on Craigslist, but wanted to search beyond just your area? Let’s say you’re looking for something special, and you’re willing to have it come from outside your local city. Currently Craigslist doesn’t offer an “everywhere” search. But I discovered a little hack that can let you do this for any item you want, as long as you use Firefox as your browser (this literally takes 2 minutes):
1) Go to http://www.google.com.
2) In the search field, right click (or “ctrl” + click on a Mac) and select “Add Keyword for this Search…”.
3) In the Name field, enter “Craigslist” (no quotations).
4) In the Keyword field, enter “cl” (again, no quotation marks). Click the “Add” button.
5) Open your bookmarks and right (ctrl) click on your “Craigslist” bookmark. Select “Properties”.
6) In the Location field, type (or copy and paste) the following (no spaces):
http://www.google.com.my/search?hl=en&q=site:craigslist.org%20%22%s%22&meta=
Click the “Save Changes” button.
That’s it. From now on, whenever you want to search all the Craigslist sites in existence for an item, simply enter “cl” in your Firefox address window, followed by a space, followed by the name of the item you’re looking for, like a Ferrari 246!:
Moving on… the next 2 tips require that you become familiar with RSS. I know, I know… it all seems so complicated. It’s really not. Watch this video from the Grab Bag’s “Internet Savvy” Tip.
And here is a video explaining Google Reader, an RSS reader that is easy to use:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
OK… so we have our RSS reader set up, right?.
2. Craigslist Updates come to YOU!
So… you’re looking for a job, an apartment, a specific widget, whatever. Go to Craigslist.com and search in the city of your choice for the treasure you’re after. When your search results appear, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and you will see an RSS button in the bottom right corner. Click on it and it will prompt those particular search details to be added as a feed in your RSS reader. Whenever a new item is added to Craigslist that fits your criteria, it will be sent to your RSS reader mailbox.
Below is an example of a search for a 1 bedroom apartment, in San Francisco’s Marina district, for $1200-$1500. See the little orange RSS button in the lower right corner? :
When you click on that, an RSS feed will be added to your RSS reader, and any new apartments that come up and that fit your criteria will automatically be sent to your RSS reader inbox. Bitchen!
3. Ebay Comes into Your Living Room!:
To get an eBay RSS feed that will send you all new items that come up for sale which fit your search terms, go to rssauction.com. Here you can fill out basic fields to describe what you’re looking for and how long you want to look for it:
Before you “Create Feed”, you can also click on Show advanced options and give more details:
Note: I have not had success in restricting results to “Items near me” and entering my zip code. This may be a glitch in the application.
Scroll down the page and you can set up a feed for Buy.com/Half.com/Books.com as well.
Hope this all helps to make your life simpler 🙂
Grab Bag Cool Stuff:
Hand and body artist Guido Daniele works his magic:
Grab Bag Brain Game:
This game is QUITE addictive. Really fun.
Grab Bag Funny Stuff:
If your printer’s sick, it might just need a CAT scan:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
LK's Grab Bag 
hours playing this game!!!!!