Since it rained today, I could not photograph the tree removal, so I decided to post this critter instead. Maybe it will help someone considering buying a voice recorder if they can see how it works. On the whole, I recommend this gadget! I used it to record long meeting for podcast on my neighborhood website, and it worked like a dream.

If you want one, they can be had for cheap over at Amazon, and if you buy one by clicking my Amazon link I will put any earnings back into Node101 Phoenix. It’s always great to buy direct from the maker, too, which you can do at XtremeMac’s MicroMemo page.

Almost every mayonnaise on the market is encased in plastic, and I’m sick of it. My husband is the type of person who keeps a spare of everything. We always have one jar of mayo in the fridge, and one in the pantry. Over the last year we have watched our choices of brand diminish as more and more of them switch to plastic jars.

We bought some mayonnaise in a plastic jar exactly once, when we had no other choice in the grocery store. By the time it went from our pantry to the fridge, three weeks tops, it had gone bad. It smelled, well, wrong, and we dared not eat it. Now, the only place I can get mayonnaise in glass jars is the local organic or health foods stores, where it is approximately twice the cost of regular grocery stores, at least here in my neighborhood.

Glass is better for two huge reasons. First, it isn’t permeable like plastic, and your mayo won’t go bad, at least not in the next several years. Second, you can reuse the glass jar for a long time, and then you can readily recycle it. (Phoenix only recycles #1 and #2 plastics, and not all plastic food containers are accepted.)

So one of my resolutions this year is to drop out of the mayo market. I am no longer a mayonnaise consumer. I am a mayonnaise creator.

Oh, and in keeping with another new year’s resolution, this video is compressed using the h.264 codec using the multi-pass setting, as per Freevlog‘s latest screencast. It’s still iPod compatible, and I can do it from my MacBook Pro.

Happy New Year, everyone!

The web site says it accepts input from other devices. That’s something I’m looking forward to. Might be a quick way to convert lousy video into audio-only on the fly without capturing the video to a computer. I have to agree with Philip Hodgetts:

If it’s not necessary to watch the video portion to get the value from a program, then dump the video and just go with audio.

I’m pre-ordering now. When I get it, I’ll test it out and post a review.