campaigns : Campaign Archive

March 2, 2006

We're so glad they thought of that

When it comes to handling the big crises in life, The Three Tomatoes have learned to stay relatively calm and focused on getting through them. Maybe a modicum of wisdom does come with age? But it's the little day-to-day annoyances that will set us off and send everyone around us scurrying for cover. In fact, the older we get the more annoying those little day-to-day things get. Things like keeping track of all those chargers we have for our electronic devices - like cell phones, PDA's, iPods, digital cameras. Or trying to unplug by trial and error any one of the tangled mass of wires that run our computers, printers, scanners, etc., Or trying to navigate through corporate automated customer service hell to reach a live person. Or having a street address number in NYC without a cross street. We're getting cranky just thinking about all this. So here are some solutions to a few of these day-to-day nuisances and our thanks to the folks who thought of them.

Finding the right electronic charging gear or plug

Here's a neat little product that made our day. They're simple little labels that have picture icons of the electronic device so that you can label your chargers and plugs. So for example your cell phone charger will have a little picture of a cell phone, your printer plug will have a printer icon, etc. The labels come in three themes: "Office" contains 22 office computer labels & 10 office equipment labels; "Electronics" has 16 home computer labels, 16 audio/video equipment labels & 8 charger labels for wireless devices; "Household" has 8 kitchen basics labels, 8 gourmet kitchen labels, 24 household labels & 8 workshop labels. They're $6.00 for each set and are available at http://www.spoonsisters.com/, which happens to be one of the coolest little web sites we've visited in a while. In addition to the labels, this web site has all kinds of unusual gifts and fun gadgets. For example, if you're looking for a unique gift for a newborn baby boy, check out the Pee-Pee Tee-Pees. If you've ever had the "surprise" of changing a baby boy's diaper, you'll marvel at these funny, cute and practical little cone shaped cotton "tee-pees". Now why didn't we think of that?

A rotating electrical outlet

Now it's not often that you'll find The Three Tomatoes visiting a hardware store, but we'd go for this new product that will be reaching hardware stores soon. It's the 360 Electrical Outlet and it rotates so you can fit more than one bulky appliance/device cord into an outlet. Apparently you just snap them into your existing outlets. Check it out at their web site: http://www.360electrical.com/.

What's the cross street?

If you're not familiar with this web site, you'll want to book mark it right now. It's www.ny.com/locator and you'll get the cross streets for any address on any numbered street in Manhattan. (Note: this excludes a lot of lower Manhattan.) You can also download this little app into a PDA. Now old time New Yorker's know a formula for figuring out the cross street, but it involves too much to remember and math to boot. Much easier to use our little mouse.

Want to reach a live person?

You know how frustrating the automated phone routine is and how it's almost impossible to actually speak to a person. In fact most of the time, we actually lose track of where we are in the menu and have to call back and start all over again. So here's this web site started by some guy named Paul English who's figured out how to bypass the annoying menus and get to a human and he's listed them at http://www.gethuman.com/. He's created directories for credit finance government hardware insurance internet mobile pharmacy products shipping software stores telco travel tv/satellite utilities . Well thank you Paul.