Call me crazy

but I love washing and drying clothes. And, contrary to my normal back-to-basics look, the sleeker these machines are: the better. So, when I was browsing on Wize and saw the Whirlpool dryer, I was in love. You know, for roughly five years of my single life, I spent about four hours each week in the local laundromat. Whether or not I was using a fancy maytag dryer is up for debate. But, it was sleek. and shiny. We had a very committed relationship. I was on a first-name basis with the employees and the owner. We joked that he needed to buy the empty building next door and install a coffee and donuts place. Ah, good times-good times. After a few years, my dear friend J**** took pity on me and allowed me to use her maytag dryer. I think it was a neptune. Now, instead of a drive to the nearest facility I could simply walk down the road. Such bliss.

When I see these fancy machines like the Maytag dryer or the super sleek whirlpool dryer pictured above, I forget all of my frugal and ecological tendencies and want to rush out and buy something sleek and stainless-steel-ified. Technological envy is the only affliction to which I can attribute this malady. I must say though, that at this point I am pleased to have any type of dryer handy. One of the requests we made of the seller when we bought BrightHaven was that he please leave the washer and the whirlpool dryer. It's not new or stainless steel or even very much pretty. In fact, during the hot summer months line-hanging takes about a quarter of the time to dry.

But it's my very own--and that makes all the difference!

Wize Dishwasher Reviews

I find it rather amusing to write a post featuring dishwasher reviews when I have not used my own dishwasher in over a year. I believe the usefulness of our dishwasher took a sharp nosedive when we discovered three inches of water standing in the bottom of it. And James took it apart. To quote June Carter: "I b'lieve that's when you broke it..." But seriously, folks don't usually come around to me looking for dishwasher reviews. That's why there are people like the ones over at Wize.

Those folks know what they're talking about. If someone wants to plunk down (do you like that word: plunk?) almost a thousand dollars on a device to make their dishwashing experience more enjoyable then I most heartily recommend visiting the dishwasher reviews on Wize. In fact, these reviews might make aforesaid person do a triple-take before plunking down said money. When the highest ranking (only a 93) goes to a machine costing $980 then it's time to do some serious soul-searching. Do we really need this machine? Will a used one work as well? How about hand-washing? Can I do that while I save the money for a dishwasher?

Whatever the final decision, do your homework first. Don't be left high and dry. Check out the dishwasher reviews. It's the Wize choice...

What's a dehumidifier?

There's a quote in one of the Little House Books where Pa looks at Laura and says: "The rich man gets his ice in the winter, but the poor man gets his in the summer." It's kind of odd these days to think of not having ice on demand (especially here in the South), but that's how folks lived for years. In fact, I would venture to say, only in the last eighty or so years have a majority of the people had ice or refrigeration on demand.

Why the rumination on ice? Well, I was looking over Wize's list of dehumidifiers and was astounded to see what prices run on these little buddies. The average price on these units is about $200: with the low being $22 and the high being over $300. I thought it rather amusing that several of the $200-$300 dehumidifiers ranked below the $22 unit. Just another reason Wize is such a useful site, I never would have known such an inexpensive unit existed! Granted, I don't think I'm going to be buying one of these little contraptions anytime soon, but some people will be glad to know they're around.

So, what does Laura Ingall's ice in cold weather have to do with these dehumidifiers? You knew I could link all this together, right? Well, here in Pensacola, we have a little problem with humidity. I once had a friend from Michigan state say that she figured southern girls had such beautiful skin because of the high humidity in our region. I'm not sure about that, but I do know that these days my skin has taken on the texture of dry paper. I can't drink enough water to rehydrate myself. Humidity is down to roughly 30% and I'm shriveling away to sawdust people! Can't I get some kind of happy medium here?

Flat-Panel TV Reviews.

When most folks enter our home, one of the things they notice is that we don't have a television. We are finding that our lack of a television is less and less of a novel thing in our circle of friends. More people make the choice not to own a television, citing lack of time, interest and good programming. For James and myself, we don't want to give ourselves over to the entertainment that comes through the screen. Besides, if there is something we really want to see (Dancing With the Stars), we can very easily pull it up on youtube.

So, it came as a huge surprise to me when I was tooling around on Wize the other day, to see the prices for which flat panel televisions are selling. What? I was hoping to buy a car for the price of a top-ranked flat screen tv. Granted, the screen picture looks beautiful, but I'm probably not the most qualified to write one of those flat panel TV reviews that you can find on Wize.

Actually, I find the price range of these TV screens fairly interesting. On the first page of the flat panel TV reviews, the ranking goes from 96 (100 being the highest) to 90. To my mind, anything in the top 10 percent must be fairly good. The top ranked screen sells for about $1000 while dropping 6 points in the flat panel TV reviews gets you an almost $600 savings! If I were in the market for one of these screens, I would really appreciate knowing this information. Chalk another one up for a great consumer review site.

If you're wise...use Wize...

What a neat website. Something tells me I read about this place a while back, maybe over at Stephanie's place? Not sure, but I was super happy to check out wize.com tonight. This website is full of product reviews from regular buyers like me. Even better, wize.com also has a panel of experts to write reviews. As I browsed some of the categories wize has to offer, I was amused to see that sometimes the users and the professionals disagreed on their verdicts. What are some of the categories Wize has to offer? The products reviewed range from manual SLR lenses to curling irons. What a great variety of opinions and ratings! Each item has its own Wize number (ranked from 0-100: 100 being the best) that makes for greater ease in finding a product to suit one's needs.

On further browsing, I was impressed to see two friendly looking folks sporting their life history. Wize actually has a leadership page, complete with bios for the founders and the board of directors. I love transparency in a corporation! More page clicking and I found what the media and other bloggers have to say about Wize. On the pressroom page, I found an embedded video of an interview with Tom Patterson (CEO of Wize). The interviewer referred to Wize as a "consumer reports site on steroids." Patterson then went on to explain in full that Wize is a website that offers product reviews that are beneficial to the consumer in making buying decisions.

My favorite part about Wize? The pretty pictures. No, honest! Although Wize does offer great product reviews, I also like it for its look. Wize is a nice, eye-friendly website (mostly blues and whites) with lots of clean lines and no loud advertising or flashy colors. I like simple and efficient. I also like workable. Looks like I found a good thing.