How To Tie Your Shoes

If you have shoe laces that come undone this is for you. Way better than a double knot because it comes undone easily. This is hard to describe, so I'll just link to a video.

Mixing Wasabe and Soy Sauce

The way I used to mix soy sauce and wasabe was to measure out the desired amount of wasabe, pour in the desired amount of soy sauce then mix the two. The trouble with this method is that you end up with spicy wasabe chunks that make sushi eating a little too exciting for my liking.

My preferred method now goes like this:
1 - measure out the desired amount of wasabe
2 - add a small amount of soy sauce
3 - mix until you have a uniform paste with no wasabe chunks
4 - add soy sauce to your liking

This technique works well for any number of other mixtures that tend to clump.

I learned this tip from a coworker, but I forget who it was.

Improving Your Dishwasher Emptying Experience

This is one that I came up with myself recently. Still working out a bug or two...

One of my pet peeves is sorting the utensils when I empty the dishwasher. Fork, knife, fork, spoon... Such a waste of time to sort each utensil one by one. My solution is to put all of the knives in one slot, all of the forks in another slot and all of the spoons in a third slot. No sorting when everything is clean.

A problem with this is that the spoons tend to spoon and don't get very clean. My solution to this problem is to mix scooper up and scooper down in the spoon slot. Works fairly well to keep spoons separate and doesn't slow down the unloading too much.

The Best Ways To Open A Banana

I know four different ways to open a banana. One way is distinctly most effective. Another way is distinctly the most fun.

The most effective way to open a banana is backwards compared to the way that most people open a banana. Most people take the "handle" side and torque on it until the banana splits open. The better way to open a banana is to switch to the other side and squeeze the end together. The skin will split open and you can peel it like normal. I got this tip from Paul Bloudoff, a former coworker. This youtube video shows this technique in action.



The most fun way to open a banana is to snap it in half. This works best with firm bananas, and it really helps if you stomp and shout while you do it. The actual secret is to rotate and pull outwards while you're doing it. I forget who I learned this one from.

This guy does a good job but needs more drama.



This guy is going to town but I feel he's also lacking some flair.



For the record other two ways to open a banana are:
1 - The normal, handle side, way.
2 - The flick. Grab the banana by the handle and flick it away from you. Not very consistent, but definitely quirky.

And while I'm talking bananas I think that everyone should know about the banana penguin. Agata taught me this one. Thanks Agata. Goes over well with the kids.