Finding small wastebaskets that fit recycled plastic grocery bags: cool.

Finding small wastebaskets that actually encourage you to use recycled plastic grocery bags as opposed to their overpriced “liners”*: way cool.

Finding out - ahead of time - that your local locksmith is a flaming godbag**: totally teh coolest.

———————–

* Just a fancy word fer garbage bags, really.

** While he offers common key-n-keyhole services such as

# Safe Sales and Service
# Bank Vault & Teller Station Service
# Safe Deposit Box Service and Keys
# Master Keying, Standard & Multi-level
# Mechanical & Electronic Access Control
# Keys by Code - Lock Installations
# Door Closer Installation & Maintenance
# Security Hardware Consulting Service

The Lamb Locksmith, Keyman to teh Gods ™, helpfully cautions, “The Key to Eternal Security is Jesus Christ”.

RAmen.

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Tagged: shopping online the internets godbags recycle wastebaskets garbage locksmiths simplehuman

 

 
By the by, the NY Times article that caught Stephen’s ire is available for viewing - for free (!) - here.

————————

Tagged: stephen colbert the colbert report video comedy central freegans free vegans dumpster diving consumerism

Since I last posted a list of holiday gift ideas and green gift guides, many more have found their way to my inbox. Here’s a quick roundup of those I thought to bookmark.

As always, leave your suggestions in the comments!

* United Animal Nations’ (UAN) online store offers a number of practical gifts for those with companion animals, including a disaster planning handbook and a “pet” emergency starter kit. Note to frugal readers: the supplies in the first aid kit are listed online, making it even easier for you to DIY!

* World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) has a store on Cafe Press, where you’ll find lotsa fuzzy wuzzies gracing the standard Cafe Press merchandise.

* PETA’s 2007 Shopping Guide for Caring Consumers would make a great gift for the veg*n on your list. Or, buy it for yourself, and use it to make wise gift choices year-round!

* In Defense of Animals (IDA) compiled their own list of cool, animal-friendly holiday gifts. Bonus: it’s got ideas for guardians and companions alike!

* Grist Magazine advice maven Umbra weighs in with her picks for green gifts for the yung’uns. More here.

* Via the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a list of geek-tested, geek-approved green gadgets for the holidays.

* Green gossip blog Ecorazzi shares their 2006 Ecorazzi Green Celebrity Gift List.

* Defenders of Wildlife offers some “trash-busting steps” to help you have a green(er), less wasteful holiday.

* Finally, check out this special, free (!) issue of Greenlight Magazine. Cover story: 50 Great Gifts With a Conscience.

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Tagged: animals animal+rights action+alerts environment environmental environmentalism environmentalist x-mas christmas holiday holiday+season happy+holidays gifts presents gift+ideas green

Activists know it’s the holiday season when the appeals for cold hard ca$h start to outnumber the calls to action in the good ol’ inbox. While all the pleas can get depressing after awhile (so many causes, so little money), a little dexterity goes a long way. To wit: since, in all likelihood, you’re locked into spending at least a little coinage this Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus, why not buy your gifts and/or holiday knickknacks from a favorite advocacy org or two?

Keep reading for a guide to creative, meaningful and/or eco-friendly gifts for the socially conscious loved ones on your list. Even if the folks on your list aren’t all that into animal rights / feminism / the homosexual agenda / environmental awareness / etc., don’t despair! - It might still prove possible to find a present that they’ll like, and you can live with.

(A note to easyVegan.info readers: I plan on crossposting to KellyGarbato.com, and I’m feeling lazy, so I didn’t edit out the non-AR stuff for your eyes. Either enjoy the extra info or skim past it, but please - no retrogressive complaining.)

For instance, my Aunt Millie’s an unconcerned omnivore of going-on-80 years. Even so, she’d probably love to be on the receiving end of a sponsored pig from Farm Sanctuary, since she’s obsessed with cute little porkers. A fifth Piglet figurine in as many years isn’t exactly original; her very own piggy, complete with certificate of adoption and a VIP tour of the farm, is way cool. But more on that later.

(more…)

Chevy wants you (!) to direct an ad for their 2007 Tahoe.
 
Of course, they’re hoping that you’ll have something good to say about their latest gas-guzzling model, but if you’re a lib, consider this a call to snarkiness.
 
Amanda of Pandagon has a roundup of all the cool bloggers’ contributions, and the Consumerist has a list of clips, too. Some have made their way to You Tube, but the quality generally leaves much to be desired. Though, I must say that some are more than worth the eyestrain.
 
Here’s mine:
 
 

 
 
Nothing like the taste of a Chevy Tahoe at the back of your throat! Hope they likey likey.

They’re only accepting submissions through Monday, so get your snark on before it’s too late.

I totally suck.
 
More than a month ago, a reader who volunteers at Rocket Dog Rescue in San Francisco (a city that, currently, I totally *heart*) asked me to give a shout out for a new book called Tails of Devotion. After hopping on over to the book’s website and swooning over the concept, I promised that I would…and then totally forgot. Ooops! In my defense, I wasn’t blogging about anything at the time. I know, excuses, excuses.
 
Luckily, my timing is impeccable. What with Mother’s Day fast approaching, Tails of Devotion would make a great gift for the mother in your life – especially if she has (or has loved) babies of the furry, four-legged type (yours truly included, wink, wink!). It’s a sweet coffee table tome that features photos of companion animals and their guardians, alongside letters written by the humans to/from their furbabies. A number of Bay Area celebs contributed to the project – think Amy Tan, Robin Williams, Mickey Hart, and Ronnie Lott.
 
The best part: 100% of the proceeds will be donated to animal rescue organizations, including The San Francisco SPCA, PAWS, Friends of San Francisco Animal Care and Control, Pets Unlimited, Rocket Dog Rescue, Summit County Friends of Animals, and – my personal fave – Best Friends Animal Society.
 
Now get your arse on over there and order a copy.
 
 

 
 

OK, I know I said I was done with Krismas suggestions, but I just couldn’t let this one pass without comment. Nerve, the purveyor of “Really Sexy Syndication,” offers this disturbing holiday gift guide. Love Objects includes ideas for the Sensualist Scribe (a $395 pen - ouch!), the Design-Conscious Drunkard (a more reasonably priced wine opener), the MILF in your life (a tube top - what else!), and the Shameless Sitcom fan (a ripped ALF in jammies), among others. Warning: the aforementioned ALF slide may induce nausea. 
 
Elsewhere in the blogosphere, Grist - always the worrywart - reminds consumers to check their sex toys for toxins on this 2005^th celebration of Jesus’ birthday:
 

So you’re an Enlightened Green Consumer. You buy organic food and carry it home from the local market in string bags. Your coffee is shade-grown and fair-trade, your water’s solar-heated, and your car is a hybrid. But what about the playthings you’re using for grown-up fun between those organic cotton sheets — how healthy and environmentally sensitive are they?

 
Hold on, now! With cutesy names like Rubba Ducky and Rabbit Pearl, how harmful could said playthings be?
 

Many popular erotic toys are made of polyvinyl chlorides (PVC) — plastics long decried by eco-activists for the toxins released during their manufacture and disposal — and softened with phthalates, a controversial family of chemicals. […]
 
A study in 2000 by German chemist Hans Ulrich Krieg found that 10 dangerous chemicals gassed out of some sex toys available in Europe, including diethylhexyl phthalates. Some had phthalate concentrations as high as 243,000 parts per million — a number characterized as "off the charts" by Davis Baltz of the health advocacy group Commonweal.

 
Yikes! That cute little bunny-wunny is starting to resemble the creepy man-rabbit from Donnie Darko!
 
Luckily, eco sex toys are available - like this little guy, made by Big Teaze Toys.
 
 

 
 
The lesson? Always read Mr. Duckie’s label (especially if he’s a Good Duck Gone Bad, like Devil Duckie here).
 
- K

With the krismas spending frenzy well under way, I managed to get most of my gift shopping done this week, and - Flying Spaghetti Monster willing - I should wrap it all up this Wednesday. Yea! Now for those friggin’ krismas cards…
 
Anywho, the leftist liberal Nazi orgs I belong to have jumped into the fray, sending out their own green (or red, depending on how you look at it) gift-giving guides for all the fascist pigs on your “holiday” list. Thought I’d pass on the best of ‘em, in case anyone is need of a novel gift idea.
 
Got a nerd in the family? The NY Times just released their 100 Notable Book of the Year list.
 
If it’s a geek you’re shopping for, check out Wired’s Ultimate Geek Gift Guide. Bonus: Sexy geeks get their very own list.
 
Grist Magazine’s 2005 krismas ideas run the gamut; they’ve got suggestions for everyone on your list, including The Self-Righteous Enviro, The Anti-Enviro, The Pint-Sized Enviro, The Pet-Obsessed, and The Angsty Teen.
 
If nothing at Grist catches your fancy, the Natural Resources Defense Council also produced a green gift-giving guide.
 
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation has a Buying for Equality guide, free for download, in case you’re stuck shopping for a fussy human rights commie activist.
 
For the frugal and/or broke among us, hop on over to Buy Nothing Christmas, where a menu of cheap/free alternatives await. Wage a heathen war on krismas by not spending a dime this year! (Talk about un-American, you filthy fascist, you.)
 
New American Dream also offers a ton of holiday resources. Must-reads: Not Sold in Stores: Ways to Save Money, Protect the Planet, and Spread Cheer, and Inexpensive, Creative and Eco-friendly Gift Ideas.
 
Oh, and PETA’s “mall” features a ton of great links to animal- and enviro-friendly vendors. Not always a big PETA fan, but they got the links. Their holiday ornaments are fucking adorable, to boot.

Finally, the Evangelical Atheist came up with a kick-ass list of Godless Gifts, perfect for the atheist, agnostic, or unbeliever in your brood. (Or the religious zealots, if you really want to get their tighty-whities in a bunch…and who doesn’t!?)
 
Once you’ve got your goodies in hand, visit The Green Guide for enviro-friendly tips on dolling them up. (One word: newspaper.) 
 
Just in case any of my dear readers would like to send some krismas bonuses my way, here’s my Amazon Wish List. Not bloody likely, but worth a shot. 
 
Hmmm…maybe I should whore myself out as a part-time cam girl? Surely some middle-aged perves out there would like to watch a sweaty girl grunt her way through an hour of kickboxing in exchange for some FemiNazi literature? Just a thought.
 
Anyway, that’s it. I’m done collecting krismas links. You’re on your own now, people.
 
- K

No doubt, many of my readers are exhausted (if not comatose) after partaking in the bloodthirsty American spectacle that is Black Friday. Today, I was thinking of the hordes of shoppers, braving the biting cold and limb-numbing wind, just to snag a great deal on an imported laptop. Imagining the mayhem while I went on a brisk morning walk with the old man. While I leisurely strolled about the house, hanging a string of garland here and a stocking there. As I nodded off to sleep behind the tree while Shane tried in vain to coax a string of lights to regain their color, I thought, “Fuck, at least I’m not getting trampled on the cheap linoleum floor of the Sawgrass Mills Mall.” And I smiled contentedly as I grabbed an afternoon nap with my warm canines. I’ll be doing all my shopping online this year. Well, 98% of it. At least. Hell, most of my gifts are either purchased or earmarked. With free shipping, to boot. Sa-weet.

A bit of Black Friday trivia, courtesy of Snopes.com:

The day after Thanksgiving is the day millions of Americans, enjoying a rare Friday off (and a dearth of football games on television), head for the malls to inaugurate the Christmas shopping season. “Black Friday” (as it is known in the retail industry, supposedly because it’s the day retailers turn the corner and see their balance sheets move out of the red and into the black) is regularly cited as “the busiest shopping day of the year,” but although it may be the day the greatest number of holiday shoppers traipse through malls, it isn’t the biggest day of the year in terms of dollars spent. […]

Sales figures spike on the day after Thanksgiving, drop sharply, then steadily increase throughout December. The result is that Black Friday generally ends up ranking as the fifth biggest sales day of the year at most (and sometimes less), behind the four days comprising the two weekends before Christmas. The day on which holiday sales peak varies depending upon which day of the week Christmas falls upon, but the highest sales day is usually either the last Saturday before Christmas or December 23.

Interesting. I always thought it was referred to as “Black Friday” because the time-limited closeout prices and crass commercialism of the holiday collude in a perfectly wicked fashion to bring out the darkest impulses in the frenzied shoppers. The hordes. The crushing stampedes. The carnage and all-out warfare. Nope, definitely not humanity’s finest hours. Perhaps I’m just being a wee bit cynical? Or not.

- K
 
 

Get up, you old bag! The Baby Jesus don’t like crybabies!