Here are some tips and truths that I've discovered. These are all based on actual recent experiences.

Duct tape can't fix everything. To fix everything, you also need nails, rubber bands, screws, wire twist-ties, electrical tape, scrap wood, PVC pipe, clamps, super glue and wire coat-hangers.

Computers are inherently unreliable, period. You can mitigate this unreliability by backups, maintaining your system and using less popular but more secure and robust (and easier to maintain) operating systems such as Linux, but the basic tech, while getting easier and easier to use, is still fundamentally flawed. When you need them most, they fail.

Trying to end an argument like this, “honey, why don't you email me all of your complaints so that I can DELETE them, OK?!”, doesn't really work.

You can easily and cheaply convert a non-mulching lawn mower into lawn mower that gives the same benefit: doing away with raking! If it has a bag, take it off - emptying the bag several times during the mow is also annoying. Take off that guide as well, the one that ensures that the cut grass forms nice, neat, lines. Try to mow on a windy day, and wear at least sunglasses, because you'll get grass in your face. Make sure that kids and pets and neighbors aren't nearby, in case there are rocks and such in the yard.

Dogs are fundamentally unable to comprehend simple knots and snags. Dogs also have no respect for neat unwrinkled paper of any kind left on pet-accessible places like sofas and easy chairs, be they school permission slips, newspapers or important collated, freshly-printed, work related documents.

Both dogs and cats think they can run faster than you can fall on them while running in front of you down the stairs.

A cat who sneak-jumps perfectly into your lap via an exquisite combination of timing, velocity and grace doesn't usually factor in the cup of hot coffee you are holding.

It's often well worth grabbing a pot-holder instead of the more macho technique of racing against the pain - running the steaming side-dish from the kitchen to the dining room bare-handed.

Bruised tail-bones aren't fun and should be avoided. Running down wooden steps with socked feet should also be avoided.

Discovering the negative aspects of one's own psyche is a good thing. For those of you who frequent the UK Forum, check these people out. I admit, sometimes I can see aspects of myself in this guy. Those are all extreme caricatures and I'll bet that most forum regulars can see themselves in one or more of them.

Rechargeable batteries are one of the greatest modern inventions. I wish that PDAs and cell phones used standard sizes, like AA, instead of custom-shaped, and therefore expensive, variates. My first charger could handle AA, AAA and 9V, though rechargeable 9V batteries sometimes seem hard to find. Just the other day I noticed rechargeable C batteries – time to get a new charger. We have some board games that take those monsters and suck them dry amazingly fast...

What they need now is some kind of large charger/container. The unit should be wall-mountable, and allow you to just throw the dead batteries into the top where they would be sorted like coins into their various sizes, charged, and then kept on trickle so that replacements would always be available in easy to access slots along the bottom.

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