Vancouver, like most North American cities has a block layout with back alleys for parking, refuse disposal, telegraph poles and other services. Also like many North American cities there's a culture of leaving things you don't want, but which someone else might next to the bins in these alleys for others to pick up. This appeals to my senses of environmental responsibility and general cheapness, so I often walk the alleys instead of the streets in case anything good's been left out.

A few months back (during winter, naturally) I found a desk fan. It was next to the bin rather than in it, which is the signal that it was still working. It also satisfied my personal rule of only picking things up that aren't overly bedbug friendly, or at least are easy to inspect for the little critters.

It worked of course, but it was pig-ugly, so I set about it with a can of Plastikote (or similar) and lo: Quite a nice little freebie for my desk.

Not sure what the overriding point is for this post, either 'reuse is better than recycle' or 'carefully spraying things a cool colour is an easy way to renovate them'. Take your pick.

And speaking of pics, here's the before, during and after shots:

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When I moved into my new place in the summer its only downside was it faced quite a busy road, and had old, ill-fitting, single-glazed windows.

After a couple of nights sub-optimal sleep I decided to have a go at fitting some secondary glazing, and, not wishing to spend proper money on a rental house I came up with quite a pleasing solution: $100 worth of plastic (polycarbonate to be precise, specially designed crystal clear for windows) sheeting and draft excluding tape from the local DIY store.

The photo tells the rest of the story, but one nice thing: Because the window frames have multiple bevels, I didn't need to cut the sheets to size down the sides, I just chose something roughly right, knowing one of the bevels would do to buttress against. A relief since cutting this stuff smoothly is almost impossible.

I've tested noise with and without, and compared to the proper double glazing in the sitting room and it seems about as effective - in so much as you can tell with a free iPhone decibel meter anyway. :-)

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I have a 5 year old laptop, with a 100gb hard disk. It has no DVD drive so installing the OS on a new disk is tricky, and even if it had one that's still an immensely boring task that can be avoided with some sticky velcro and a £50 USB-powered external disk, like so:

That is all.

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I discovered the other day that candlewax microwaves well. This is probably obvious, but compared to putting glasses of wax into pans of boiling water this does make reusing old candles much easier.

I scooped up a few old candle leftovers, broke them up into a glass, nuked it for a minute or so and dropped in my replacement wick (held up with a paperclip, tied down to a 1" nail):

One error I sometimes make: Always dip the whole wick in wax for easier/stronger starting off with the new candle.

Eco-scrooge strikes again!

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Very few things are as annoying as wading through a number of automated menus looking for the right part of a megaglobalcorp to speak to - especially if you have an unusual request to make and know it's going to require actually speaking to someone to sort it out.

This is a subject many people have written about before, but I've had a couple of experiences recently that made me realise a compilation of known techniques might be useful. So, here they are:

1. In the UK there websites that list known landline numbers to companies. The biggest is Say no to 0870 and, in addition to avoiding 08 number fees this should get you through to a human.
2. I recently got so annoyed on one of these lines I shouted "get me a f&*^ing human" out of sheer frustration. I was then immediately connected to an operator. It turns out that swearing and stress level monitors are common, so as long as you're not in an open plan office, this is worth a try.
3. Finally entering your initial login / account number, date of birth information incorectly can often shortcut you to an operator. This worked most pleasingly on VanCity's shockingly poor Reloadable visa card customer services line, where I would otherwise have been charged one dollar for connection. Win-win.

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