Frugal Librarian #43: Great goober shortage of 2011

These are the times that try mens souls.  Food charities are concerned, and the benevolent food industry giants like Con Agra are raising prices 40 percent just to keep up.  Classic cheap source of protein and kid appeaser, peanut butter, is in short supply due to the invisible hand of the market.

If you’re not inclined to switch to Vegamite like our Aussie pals, plan to pay more or make other sandwich plans until the next crop.

Frugal Librarian #42: Weekly savings cycle

We’ve all heard the cheapest day for airline ticket purchases, for which there has been no definitive ruling about the mythical master mainframe of all airfares that mystically opens up pumpkin coach-class seats at midnight on a Wednesday.

According to site Extrabux, there is also some data out there that backs up weekly price trends for computers, TV’s, jewelry, appliances, books, and more.

And if you want a deal, don’t worry that cyber Monday has passed.   The biggest online day of the shopping year usually ends up being something like December 10th.   On which, the odds of getting pepper-sprayed/trampled by your fellow retail shopper significantly decrease.

Prohibition on DVD

Do you get psyched about the prospect of panning over black and white photos while a narrator describes what is going on in those photos? If you said, “Yeah, buddy!” then Ken Burn’s brand new Prohibition is for you.

With a total running time of 6 hours, it is relatively digestible as the equivalent of watching three movies. And in all seriousness, these black and white photos featuring denizens of the Jazz Age are truly intriguing. Even more so is the occasional bit of footage of flappers dancing, heaven knows the source.

It is not the documentary for you if your heart bleeds at the sight of innocent glass jugs being blasted apart by Volstead enforcers or the occasional bullet-riddled pinstriped gangster.

Fun Prohibition facts:
“Bad guy” Al Capone financed the soup kitchen that fed thousands on Chicago’s south side as the Great Depression took hold. The best charge the feds could level against Mr. Capone (other than keen business acumen in a market they created) is income tax evasion. Shockingly he didn’t declare all his profits on his 1040-EZ form.

Small cities of Bahamanian freighters would drop anchor three miles off the Atlantic coast to make deliveries to local boats. No one cared.

Many “Dry” congresspeople drank, some even accepting deliveries at the Capitol.

Alcohol consumption increased in some cities.

Some milkmen would deliver hooch to your doorstep in innocuous bottles to streamline the purchasing process.

Numbers exponentially surged for medical whiskey prescriptions and synagogue memberships.

I’ve never watched a documentary from the renowned master, Ken Burns. This was time well spent.

Frugal Librarian #41: Vitaminimalist

The most expensive multivitamin is the better one, because the price reflects a company with more stringent quality controls, right?  Not at all.  But the cheaper ones aren’t any good either, right?  Wrong again.  Some of them are stellar.  Some.

It turns out there is pretty much no correlation between cost and quality, from a few cents per dose to some over fifty cents a pill.  Some don’t have the the advertised  RDA of certain vitamins.  Some have unhealthful contaminates.  Some are of such low quality they don’t disintegrate properly, rendering them ineffective.

So, just don’t take vitamins then?  Also, a bad idea.  Read the results of this experiment and buy the cheapest with a passing score.

Frugal Librarian #40: 12oz of wi-fi

There are a number of variables that can screw up the wi-fi transmission in your house: overall distance, changes between levels, idiosyncrasies between hardware manufacturers, or maddening and unpredictable interference in the walls.  If your supposedly “plug-and-play” router is more like hours of “trial and-error” maybe this DIY extender from Discovery Channel is just the ticket.  What else are you going to do, use the internet in one set location like it was 2001?

We can only assume the parabolic setup is the same as the increased strength sound is given by the folks on the NFL sidelines holding parabolic dishes.

I’d add onto the list of ingredients a little masking tape to blunt the edge of the razor sharp aluminum, because, well, you’ve got enough problems with wireless without an emergency room trip, right?

NOTE: We don’t know if this works, it just looked interesting.  Please consider these tips, which include a tinfoil parabola.

A Patent Truth

You may have read the blurb in the newspaper that DPL is the first electronic patent depository in the country. Well, it’s true, but what does that mean to you, John Q. Inventor?

If you have an internet-connected computer, you can already easily search patents to see the originality of your idea the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s search page. However, advanced searchers will find a more streamlined experience using our PubWest searching station, which only Patent Depository libraries hold.
And, of course, we have a direct line of support to the USPTO to help you get your searching endeavors off the ground.

Frugal Librarian #38: Late-night lettuce

In another month, every break room and front porch is going to be loaded with well-intentioned zucchinis, cucumbers, and tomatoes from benevolent friends and neighbors.

But in the interim, take this recent advice from Lifehacker.  According to them, it’s practically a standard equation at the supermarket level regarding deep price markdowns to salvage some return on the product before the freshness date expires.

To compound it, Wednesday may enable you to harness overlap between the the two-week span’s advertising circulars.

It makes sense, and it’s actually true.  I figure whatever they aren’t going to be able to work into the next day’s salad bar gets the big red sticker.

Frequently I get seven bagged salad mixes that were $3 once they become $1.    That’s the only time to buy.  If you pay more than $1, you paid too much.  If there’s nothing there for $1, select another style of mix that they are unloading.

Congratulations, you paid $7 instead of $21 for your week’s lunches, you genius.

Apparently the leafy greens in there turn into a pumpkin coach after midnight as opposed to something that is completely edible and delicious we all can safely consume for an additional 7 to 10 days.

Bless you freshness date.

Frugal Librarian #37: Take the plunge

If you’re not French-pressing, you’re shortchanging yourself.

A recent convert, and not for lack of trying from others, I’ve rationalized that it is more than win-win.  Four wins.  That’s right, a quaternary level of winning.  Insert hackneyed, two months’ stale Charlie Sheen reference here if you’re that person, followed by a sound life-examination.

1)It’s green. No filters showing up in the landfill. And after you’re done with it, swish the grounds around in some water and dump them onto a potted plant or garden bed of your choice. Apparently, plants love the stuff and worms will turn rock hard clay into aerated loam because you discarded your morning joe bilge there.

2)You use less coffee.  I reckon up to a third less.  There are a lot of oils and nuanced flavors that come through that you weren’t getting before. So your coffee dollar goes further. Frugal readers know that is one greenback that isn’t going near as far as it used to in the global marketplace.

3)You get more caffeine. There are scientific types that take this stuff very seriously…to a lab coat level.  They’ve determined optimum extraction occurs somewhere between 190 and 200 degrees Fahrenheit.  Your Mr. Coffee percolator is at best about forty degrees shy of that mark.  If you slug it out of a wide-brimmed soup cup like I do, cool down time is not an issue.

4)You get a whole bunch of counter space back. Think of all the cool stuff you could put there instead!

Yeah, so you’ve got to learn how to boil a small amount of water and you can’t set a wake-up timer on it.  Buck up. You get to feel like a chemistry major without floating a D grade-point average.  Also, you’ll have to start looking at the microwave to see if you’re running late. It’s worth it.

Frugal Librarian #36: Bullseye vs. Smiley-face…whaaat?

Notwithstanding any preconceived notions about either store, I was as shocked as you will be when several unbiased sources pitted the monolithic Wal-Mart machine against a spirited Minnesota-headquartered box store called Target and the latter won.  I had no idea this was possible.  Any readers out there have anecdotes where David beat Goliath?