Disposability

See, the general idea is to equip women with cone/funnel-like device, which can be peed into and used to direct the stream of urine wherever it needs to go, all from a comfortable standing position. But the non-disposable ones, well, like Michelle says:

I don’t want a long-term relationship with a urination device. If you’re not near water, you’re stuck carrying around a urine-soaked object.

Amen to that, and enter the Urinelle.

At about $1/use they aren’t exactly cheap, but for travelling, super-gross toilets and general emergencies it may be well worth the money. Take for instance Michelle’s experience on an airplane:

With my trusty pseudo (and flushable, no less!) penis, I became master of that airplane bathroom domain.

If you’re handy, she even suggests making your own – cone-esque pieces of sturdy paper are not exactly rocket surgery!

Read the full article at Salon

via mhh5th

Take this little gem of insight from none other than yours truly:

There’s a lot of fear surrounding a bidet

Hmmm, I totally remember saying way cooler things than that! Now in fairness, the author (Diane Mapes) did warn me much of my material would need to be sanitized – no pun intended.

And if you are visiting from MSNBC: Welcome, please feel free to stay awhile.

Luckily, EPCOR was kind enough to produce a graph of water usage over the course of the day. Check out the spikes during intermission!

Apparently 1 in 3 Americans tuned in as well, but no graphs of their flushing habits.

via Pat’s Papers and BDS

Previously: Halftime flushing and the Superbowl

It’s been years since I have used truly awful toilet paper.

A couple of decades ago, when I frequented the public ice arenas of Edmonton, Alberta, I did a lot of necessity-based toilet paper exploration. There was some terrible stuff out there back then. The worst was the TP that was dispensed a single square at a time, and consisted, from what I could tell, of a very fine grain sand paper.

Recently though, my exploration has diminished, and even when I strike out for a public bathroom I’m rarely treated to anything less than perfectly adequate loo roll.

Now for all my experimentation back in the day, never once did I end up hospitalized with a wiping-related ailment, like certain toilet paper manufacturers would have had you believe in the 1920s. That’s right, back long before the internet was even a twinkle in anybody’s eye, scare tactics were being employed to convince people to drop premium cash for premium TP.

When you ask for just “toilet paper,” danger is probably the last thing that enters your mind.

Correct! But wait, it goes on!

You are risking your family’s health every time you do this.

AUGH!!!! My family!!!

via BoingBoing

Watch on YouTube Now!

Anybody have 15 seconds of Superbowl ad time they can spare?

While I would hardly approve, I would totally understand the appeal of wiping yourself with, say, a cashmere sweater. That stuff is soft, and I bet it would feel really nice (anyone care to comment on the absorbency of cashmere?). But just slapping a little extract in there and calling it a day seems remarkably lame.

More at Consumerist (via)

As you probably know, the ICBE’s official position is that the toilet seat should be left down. The one thing about this is that, especially in mixed male/female environments, this involves a lot of raising/lowering the toilet seat.

Enter the Johnie-Lift, a small handle that attaches to the seat to minimize actual contact with the (hopefully not too) germ-laden surface. Paul writes the following:

The discussion on whether to leave the toilet seat or down wages on, however I believe in leaving it down. My wife has me well trained and it makes sense to me anyway.

Back in 1963, my In-Laws made a small handle for the toilet and won approval from Sears & Roebuck to carry it, but they did not have the resources to make the injection mold.

Now, after some 46 years, my wife resurected the product, including upgrading the look to be decorative in order to blend in with today’s bathrooms. We used the same name that my In-Laws came up with way back.

Our product is the Johnie-Lift – a decorative toilet seat handle that installs instantly and provides a more sanitary way to raise and lower the seat, eliminating any direct contact. While this a small step in the overall germ prevention program, combined with other simple ideas will make a big difference. It may also reduce the incidence of arguments.

We are a small, family-owned company located in Thousand Oaks, California and we need help in getting our message out. Please let me know if you could help us.

Well, I’m not really sure about the marketing power of the ICBE, but we’re happy to try. Head on over to the Johnie-Lift site to check them out, and order a few. At $2.95 a pop they are nothing if not reasonably priced.

…this isn’t about logic, or statistics, or minimizing global effort or anything other than etiquette and doing what’s right.

So when reader Michael D. emailed me a link to a statistical analysis of toilet seat positions and efficiency, I wasn’t that impressed. From the paper, by Jay Pil Choi:

I find that the “down rule” is inefficient unless there is a large degree of asymmetry in the inconvenience costs of shifting the position of the toilet seat across genders. I show that the “selfish” or the “status quo” rule that leaves the toilet seat in the position used dominates the down rule in a wide range of parameter spaces including the case where the inconvenience costs are the same.

Let me repeat: This isn’t about efficiency. This is about etiquette!

The fine folks over at Home Fixated brought One2Flush to our attention today. Simply put, it’s an inexpensive kit that allows you to retrofit your current toilet with dual-flush capabilities. Awesome!

If you haven’t seen the episod yet yourself (do you live in a cave?), the story goes something like this:

1) Jim and Pam visit a potential daycare

2) Jim walks in on the daycare director sitting on the toilet

3) Hilarity ensues, including a very awkward confrontation about the incident.

#3 is where it all went wrong. If you walk in on somebody going to the bathroom, leave immediately and apologize as you do so. Don’t apologize and then leave, apologize while you are already leaving. And for goodness sake, look down while you do so.

Now if somebody walks in on you, you have to apologize too. Oh, and try not to scream – that doesn’t help anybody (unless of course it’s a prowler).

It doesn’t matter who’s fault it is, both people simply need to do a quick apology and never, ever talk about it again.