Make Your Own Ginger Ale

Believe it or not, I found a recipe to make your own ginger ale. Using only five ingredients, you too can be sipping delicious homemade ginger ale in front of a crackling fire. It sounds super easy and like a lot of fun -- I'll post an update if I try it.

My mom has a ridiculous story of my grandmother and her homemade rootbeer, but I didn't see any soda-like confections coming out of her kitchen. Maybe she was a closet bootlegger.

Link

Update: It turns out I posted too soon. There are all kinds of WikiHows on brewing your own soda pop, and they all use the same techniques. Maybe I should have a pop-tasting party at my place this summer.

Link to cream soda recipe
Link to rootbeer recipe
Link to cola recipe

Homebrew Mosquito Trap

We've all heard the joke: the mosquito is [insert province/state]'s official bird. Here in Saskatchewan it's just short of being true, and quite frankly, I'd do anything short of hanging a big bucket of blood outside just to keep the pesky little critters off me. So you have to understand how intrigued I was when I read about this DIY mosquito trap.

I've mentioned Hammacher Schlemmer before because of the cool stuff they carry, and I'd seen this mosquito trap there long before I caught it on BoingBoing. My friend Wendy has a similar contraption called "Skeeter-Vac" in her backyard, which I believe she picked up at Costco. It runs on propane to generate the carbon dioxide, and, as far as I remember, it does a decent job of keeping the outdoors relatively mosquito free. But it's expensive, and I'd prefer to spend my hard-earned cash on slurpees during those sweltering summer days.

The instructions for building the DIY trap are very simple, and I was able to put one together in less than 30 minutes. The most time consuming part, especially if you're a perfectionist like me, is getting the water to 40 degrees Celsius. We already had most of the necessary materials lying around the house, so my total cost was $1 for two huge sheets of construction paper from Dollarama.

Although there's nothing preventing mosquitoes to come flying out of the bottle, they're thankfully too stupid to know that. The carbon dioxide apparently gives them direction into the bottle, but once inside there's nothing to provide them with direction out. I'll post in a week or so with what my results are: personally, I'm wondering how this stacks up against more natural solutions, like bats and dragonflies.

Link (via BoingBoing)

Edit Aug. 10/06: Well, I regret to inform everyone that this experiment has failed miserably. I did not catch a single mosquito, but I did catch three daddy longlegs, some kind of crazy-ass beetle, and half a bottle of dandelion seeds.

Final tally: Mosquitos 2, Deron 0.

Build Your Memory

I've been using mnemonic techniques like this for years -- ever since I saw Harry Lorraine on Amazing Discoveries, actually. And while they make for fun parlour tricks, like memorizing 20 (or more!) license plates on my walk to work, I haven't actually achieved much success with them. When you read about top memory experts, they all use these techniques or slight variations, so I'm probably just not practicing enough or using them consistently.

But for people unfamiliar with these memory techniques, this is a well-documented and easy to understand resource with lots of examples, allowing you to jump right in and start improving your memory immediately. And yes, these tips will allow you to perform dumb stunts like memorize the order of an entire deck of cards, as well as not-so-dumb stunts like remembering the names and phone numbers of the 15 people you met at last night's dinner party.

Link

Grow Your Own Pineapple!

Regular readers know that I love pineapples. Of course, the only regular readers this blog has also happen to live in my house. But this does little to invalidate my original statement.

Imagine my surprise when I learned I can grown my own pineapples! You Grow Girl has a brief but easy to follow tutorial on producing your very own pineapple plant from the discarded crown of the fruit. The best part is that it says all you need is lots of sunlight and a moderate indoor climate, two things which I think Saskatchewan can provide.

The downside of this scheme is that it takes two years to produce any fruit. There's a section that tells you how you can fool your poor plant into producing fruit after one year, but if the plant finds out it was tricked and comes after you with a cleaver or something, it's not my fault.

Link (via Kiddly)

Ice Shot Glasses

Elephant Staircase has two quick-and-dirty methods for making ice shot glasses for your next party.

Link

Lightsaber Building Tutorial

Alas, no blade. But the instructions for the handle are easy, cheap, and provides a fairly reasonable facsimile of the real thing. I mean, I'd buy one of these if I had the money, but this seems like a fun project and will go well with the Jedi costume Heather's supposed to be making for me. Until I get it, I don't think Hobo Jedi is going to be as big a hit on the Hallowe'en party circuit as I'm led to believe.

Link

Pop Can Inventions

Creative (and inventive) genius Rob Cockerham has built an aeolipile out of a pop can. Yes, the masses can refer to it as Hero's Engine, but here at FeedMonkey it's all edutainment all the time. Rob's engine is a little impractical because, like Hero, I don't see an easy way to harness the power produced. But it's great science in action, and at the price of a can of pop, it's super cheap. There are some great pictures, too.

This reminded me about the trick of lighting a fire with a pop can and a chocolate bar. I also found instructions on building a propane stove out of a pop can, but it's not something you can do while out in the bush. But now that I have a Dremel tool, I may try it out for camping this summer.

Link to Cockeyed's Hero's Engine
Link to pop can fire starter
Link to pop can stove

How to Nap Properly

Men's Journal ran a piece on how to nap properly. Included in the article are tips on the lengths of time you should spend napping and some of the science behind sleep. Good stuff!

Link