Oddities and annoyances

[ellarien]

I know that dishwashers -- American ones, anyway -- are not generally considered capable of actually washing dishes without prerinsing so extensive that one might as well just do the washing up by hand. Being British, though, I've always cheerfully ignored this, and let the unrinsed dishes sit around for the week it takes to accumulate a load, and my (quite elderly and basic) dishwasher has mostly coped. The load I ran last night, though, came out with about half the items not noticeably cleaner than they went in. I suspect it's a problem with the newfangled detergent sachets; will have to look again and see if I can get one of the older formulations. In my experience, the much-advertized fancy new ideas never work as well, possibly because they're user-tested under standard usage assumptions.

I have a rudimentary prepaid cell phone, to which about four people have the number. It's intended for emergencies, or at least contingencies, not for idle chat, and is mostly more useful as an alarm clock/organizer than a phone. In the last couple of weeks, I've been getting a surprising number of wrong-number calls from the local area; to my mortification, one came while I was in a meeting at the Monterey conference, and I was so used to never getting calls that I hadn't thought to silence it. There were two more this morning, one while I was enjoying a lie-in.

Comments

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

We never had a dishwasher until a few years ago. Now we have a relatively new one -- three years? four years? and I have gradually learned that the dishwasher is not especially a labor saver. I really do have to do the presrinsing and scraping rigamarole, especially with greasy dishes, or the dishes come out with clumps of what I think must be saponified fat all over them. And I've been learning that the dishwasher itself needs a fair amount of cleaning. But -- even so, my belly doesn't get wet, I use less water, and the dishes are in general more clean, and they have been heat-sanitized which is a good idea when you have the dog prerinse the dishes for you.

I was thinking of giving up the cell phone but as it happens I do kind of need it. I still can't figure out how to pay less than $60-70 a month for two lines, minimal use, though.

phones

[ellarien]

Mine's a Virgin Mobile, on the lowest pay-as-you-go tarriff; in principle you have to add $20 every three months, but I can never find the $20 cards, only $30 ones. The minutes don't vanish if not used in that period; they're expensive -- 25c a minute for the first ten per day, 10c after that -- but straightforward. I think I've used less than $10 worth since I've had it. I don't think they do refinements like multiple lines, though.

Re: phones

[anghara.livejournal.com]

I've got the Virgin pre-oay too but I really only use that phone when I'm on the road and my husband is NOT, which doesn't happen that often. It's an emergencies-only phone if I take it with me anywhere at all within greater Bellingham. I just cannot justify paying 40 bucks a month minimum for an actual monthly service when I use a cell phone so little - but having one handy when I'm travelling, so that I can call a cab when I want one, for instance, is wonderful.

Re: phones

[ellarien]

I got mine mostly for travelling purposes, too, and it's come in handy a couple of times. I do tend to use it for in-state long-distance now, as it isn't any more expensive than my landline plan.

Judging by the packaging and website, I think those plans are mostly aimed at the teenage market, but the phone itself isn't obnoxiously teenagerish.

Dishwashers

[ellarien]

My problem is usually dried-on bits of cereal or veggies -- if I want greasy food, I get it on campus. I just re-ran it with old-fashioned powder detergent, and things seem to have come up fine. The odd thing is that the 'complete' formula that's supposed not to need pre-rinsing doesn't work nearly as well for me as the original.