Pete & Jay's Tip O Da "Day"

Now that the holidays are almost over, work off some of that holiday weight by backing up your hard drive. One can never predict when a fatal crash will ensue, so please. Back up.

After reaching a milestone like the 700th tip, people are usually annoyed to read a tip as lame as this.

For our 700th tip, we would like to celebrate with our first video tip that happened to have been shot at the party celebrating our 500th tip: When launching a watermelon from a trampoline, it is best to have two jumpers. This provides the all important "double bounce" that will help propel the watermelon farther. As demonstrated by our first ever Video Tip®:

If you do have to give a cat a bath. You should at least take the necessary precautions. First, don't try to do this with your bare hands. Find a mesh bag, I don't know where you get this if you don't have one handy, but some females knew what I was talking about, I think they normally may be used to wash underthings. Stick the cat in the bag, the water and soap can get in, but the claws can hardly get out. Once you get the cat in the bag (heehe, sounds kind of backwards doesn't it) grabs the bag by the top and then dip her in the sink or tub. But standing water can only get your cat so clean, and not matter how tempted you are, don't touch the bag more then you have to. So just stick a little shampoo in the toilet, one or two flushes should clean kitty right up!

It's generally never a good idea to give a cat a bath. If you hadn't heard, cats hate water. In fact, they would rather have you whirl them around by their tails than get within a foot of any body of water. Should you neglect this advice and give the cat a bath, know that your poor choice will likely land you in the ER at 4:00am.

To kick your frozen pizza up a notch or two. Dig around your fridge for other things that might be tasty on a pizza. Spare pepperonis? A couple slices of ham? Extra cheese? Old pancakes? As Emeril would say, "BAM!"

Don't put your fancy camera phone too close to your sweaty Taco Bell cup.

For the 20-90 minutes that your wedding ceremoney is taking place, grooms, you really really, don't need to have your cell phone on you. Because as history has shown, you will have a friend in the audience who will notice it, and send you a text message just to startle you, not to interrupt the whole ceremony because "surly it is on vibrate". Even if it was on vibrate, you clearly can't take the call. Seriously people, there is no excuse for why you would need your cell phone while you've saving your vows. There is no "phone a friend" option. Thanks, kind of, Julie

Oohhh look, the gifts are starting to pile up under the tree. And there are some good ones with your name of in them. Can you wait six more days to find out. Shake shake shake, sounds like Legos. No…wait. Ahh, just can't tell for sure. Do you dare open it early? Not unless you want to spend Christmas in jail. Turns out opening Christmas gifts early is actually illegal, and if you have a hard core parent you may not be so excited about your gifts when the cops show up.

Looking for that gift to really tell them how you feel this year? Well here is one way to do it: The Ex Knife Holder

Computers start to act up every once in a while (yes, even Macs). Its very tempting to just be like "Hum, that was weird" and move on. But if that kind of things happens again, you should really start to look into it. A little problem, like minor hard drive problems (which occurs often), can easily turn in to a major problem where you cann't access any files on your computer. This is also know as "not good".

Finally, once you've been told that you're 1. being billed separately for sewer service and 2. having your sewer usage estimated in the winter months, it's especially fun to play a little prank on the City of Nicholasville's receptionist. Tell her that you'd like to cancel your sewer service, because you have found "alternate means" by which to dispose of your wastewater. If she protests, tell her it's your right as a U.S. citizen. The 18th amendment plainly states, "the right to private wastewater disposal." If she continues to protest, "flush it to the man" by flushing your toilet many more times in the summer than in the winter. With each flush you can laugh maniacally saying, "take THAT, City of Nicholasville!"

If you want to increase your savings and decrease your stress , make sure to pick up a Rick Steves book before traveling overseas. You'll find it gives you the insider tracks, a quality experience, and you're whole time will be less touristy, and more native than you ever thought it could be.

So, once you call to find out what the bill in hieroglyphs is trying to charge you for, and you find out that it is, in fact, for sewer service, the fun is only beginning. What you'll find out is that the City of Nicholasville, in all its glory, estimates your sewer usage based on your water consumption during the winter months. (This is because they're too lazy to monitor your sewer usage, and would rather guesstimate). The receptionist will tell you that the reason they estimate in the winter is because all the water you use is, in theory, going into the sewer, and not watering your lawn or car. So, she'll discreetly tell you to use your water conservatively in the winter to avoid higher costs all year long!

Eggs can be quite fragile and the last thing you want, is to not have any egg nog during the entire holidays season. But the second to last thing you want is to have busted eggs all over the floor and nothing for breakfast. So make it easier on yourself for next time you take the eggs out of the fridge. As you use eggs, use them up evenly, so that your cartoon has a predictable center of gravity. As shown here in our well lit, well exposed digital photograph:

So, if you live in a place like Nicholasville, or some other city where the government is in control of the water supply, don't be alarmed if you receive your water bill, and then promptly receive a second bill, from questionable lineage and undecipherable service codes. It probably, in fact, is a bill in disguise for your SEWER usage, that conveniently was not already billed on your water bill.

This tip is better known as "The Mini-DVI Fiasco of '06." It all started on a cool wintery day in Pittsburgh, PA. Andy was feverishly trying to find a way to get the slideshow he created on Julie's iBook to a projector. I told him all he needed was a handy mini-DVI to VGA converter (a simple adapter made by Apple.) He bought the adapter but was shocked and appalled to find that it didn't fit Julie's iBook. Confused, I tested my iBook. No fit. And Christine's Macbook Pro. No fit. "WTF?" we thought. After much digging, we came to find out that a rogue Apple engineering elf , with an evil demise to sabotage the "Switch to a Mac" campaign, decided to do something highly annoying. He singlehandedly made some Macs with a mini-DVI port (which I thought all the computers had) and some with a mini-VGA port. And, to further sabotage the campaign, he made them so similar in size/shape/function that even an advanced Mac guru couldn't tell ...

Everyone wants to take some sick days each year. But, dang you just don't get the flu most winters. I'm sure there is something wrong with you. Check out the Rare Diseases Index . Maybe you have Agammaglobulinemias or Zellweger Syndrome .

Microwaving a fly, or ant, or other bug, is not a reliable way to kill it . It turns out the foot, which has been a popular way to kill bugs since the stone age when it was a close second behind actual stones, is a much more reliable to kill them and better on the environment.

Before traveling overseas, take a good look at the adapter on your laptop. Most adapters will tell you that they will adapt a voltage anywhere from 100 to 240 volts into the 20 volts that your computer battery requires . This is a nice feature for your laptop as it will be able to go to Europe with you with minimal trouble. All you'll need then is a 99 cent adapter as opposed to the much more expensive $30 converter. It's what they call " dual voltage ", a thing heavily advertised in the on-post stores for those Americans who wish to buy a TV here and have it moved back there.

Google is trying to promote the use of their Checkout thing. Its basically like PayPal , and I don't know why you would normally want to use it instead of using the web store's built in payment system, especially since coupon codes and gift message/wrap doesn't work with it, but they have provided a good temporary reason. $10 off a $30 purchase from most stores that accept Google Checkout. And some stores are offering additional incentives, such as $20 off a $50 purchase from Buy.com . Just in time for the gift buying season.

To avoid having to clean all of your measuring spoons and cups everything you dirty just one of them, put them on a mini carabiner. This can also come in handy if you need to make pancakes while rock climbing.

Nothing is more frustrating than importing a CD into iTunes that's not recognized by CDDB™. Having to manually enter the track information is obnoxious, but there's a little shortcut for those of us like Pete and Jay who like having anally-maintained iTunes libraries. First, type in just the names of the tracks in iTunes. Then under the Advanced menu, click "Submit Track Names to CDDB." It will prompt you to fill out the information for the whole CD, and when you're done, you submit to CDDB so other poor blokes with the same CD will have it be recognized. Plus, iTunes adds that CD information to all the tracks, conveniently. So, you've killed 2 birds with one entry!

Contrary to the trend here at TodD, some of our tips are based on actual science, so here's one for you, and one we can whole heartily endorsed. A recent study stays that reclining is better for your back then sitting up straight, and better than slouching (duh). Here is the short version and long version of the story for you. After all of this research, I think its time for me to find a recliner and relax, it is friday after all.