Channeling Your Inner MacGyver

Disposable chopsticks from chinese take out and dental floss make excellent miniature arbors and pergolas for trailing plants in your garden.

I was thinking of buying a CPU stand, or making one -- something with wheels because it's amazing how many times I must pull it out from under the desk to fiddle with the connectors at the back. Too many printers, cameras, etc., and not enough USB ports. Then one day, I walked by a garage sale and saw an old skateboard for sale It's perfect.

I do that stuff all the time and I can't believe I can't think of anything this second, but I know I will and I'll be back to tell all about my fanagle moments.

Well, back in north north, I had my Imac on an x-shaped stand on wheelies; that is, the kind of stand for putting big/heavy garden pots on, with a plywood square atop the stand. Very nifty for reaching the pluggoes in the back.

On chopsticks, I have, at this very moment, two chopsticks held together with cellopane tape (avoiding saying scotch) to make a tall thingy to hold up my not-so-long-ago purchased Euphorbia quadralaris, the E q that the guy told me should be watered every three weeks. Well, not. It does fine for about ten days, then crumps dramatically, like a green noodle.

Great minds reach out to nearby solutions...

The span between the tip of my thumb to the tip of my middle finger, when stretched out, approximates 6 inches.

My foot is a little over 8 inches long, so 3 steps heel toe is a couple of feet.

something the size of a smallish potato is a cups worth of stuff.

Well, I know that's not McGiver stuff, but it provides the tools I need when working with an empty vitamin bottle, a tampon soaked in vinegar and a bingo ink dauber to make an atomic egg timer.

Oh, good use of a tampon, never would've thought of that! I usually use pipe cleaners for my atomic egg timers.

Skateboard/wheelie things for computers are way cool!

I know, Montana, this particular one made me think of it but I can't think of any others right now, and it's something I do a lot.

Meanwhile the cornhusk doll was a bust, though. Sozlet -- who hadn't paid any attention to the thing since the day she brought it back from camp -- gave a dramatic performance of the doll's reaction every time the door closed on him/ her (pronouns changed during the telling). It involved a lot of writhing and grimacing. I tried to argue that the doll LIKED it, he/she was being useful after just laying on the floor being ignored, but sozlet wasn't buying. Turns out that a puffy scrunchy she got as a gift at some point and never wears works just as well.

I once awoke and found myself bound and gagged in a dark dank tin warehouse that was rusty and had a few holes here and there that let beams of light in.

I evaluated the situation, rolled over to the husking machine to make use of the blade to cut through the rope on my wrists. That worked real well and freed ny hands within a couple of minutes.

Meantime, I remembered that I had a paperclip in my mouth. Using my tongue to unbend it and work one end around so that the point could be used as a cutting tool, I proceeded to spend the next two hours manipulating the paperclip to cut through the duct tape covering my mouth.

Then just as I was finally freed, some guys in black with baseball caps came rushing in to grab me and run with me out of the building. The darn thing exploded just as we got to the door and the blast threw us 100 feet out into a corn field.

Since then, I don't go anywhere without my paperclip.


(I LOVED MacGyver!!! I wanted to marry him if Chevy Chase wasn't available)

THAT is hilarious! YOU DO love McGyver Squinney!

I had a crack in my pipe under the kitchen sink...It was not leaking badly and DH was out of town so I took some of the boys modeling clay and wrapped around it and mushed it down real good. It worked so well - it is still there. Maybe I should call a plumber....nah! Maybe when it starts leaking again!

There, that jogged another one free...

Sozlet (my 6-year-old daughter, for those who don't know) wanted to paint a special pencil for to use in school when it starts. I had some wood paint, which is extremely permanent, and I didn't want her to get it all over her hands, and if she was holding the pencil, drop it... etc. So I laid out some cardboard as a painting surface, then took a glob of Sculpey, made a sort of a squat cone (wide base, narrower tip), and stuck the eraser side of the pencil into it. That held the pencil straight up so she could paint it.

Modeling clay rocks.

(Oh and it was hilarious! Paper clips rock, too.)

Well, I never like to promote violence, but in the spirit of McGyver, here's a little something if you happen to get into a sticky situation and have a box of tampons in your purse ...


:wink:

Well...I mean tampons..how bad can they hurt if they hit you...I wonder if my boys would ask too many questions if I made them one of these...we are always looking for ways to shoot each other! Marshmallows work really great in those guns too...the dog gets sick after each one of our wars - but such is the nature of violence in our household.

Sozobe - has there been a book on 100 Uses For Modeling Clay in the Home? If not maybe we could write one!

A friend of mine had 2 doberman pinschers who has gotten their ears cropped.

He used tampons (tampax brand, super absorbant), still in the applicator, to stick in their ears and wrap the gauze around to that they healed in an upright position and curled properly.

this was years back, apparantly the approved method is using mole foam now, since the applicators aren't as comfortable.

Dogs with tampons in their ears

good times.

One word ladies: Hangers (wire).

Please tell me Chai (and may I say that avatar is so much more you) why the hell do people cut the ears off dobermans????

Some years ago I was in a dramatic society and we were putting on a play in which one of the characters was a high court barrister. To buy or even hire a wig was beyond our means (all our props were home made or begged or borrowed).

I scrouged a ball of white wool from somewhere, a piece of white cotton material and a couple of boxes of tampax. I sewed some darts in the cotton material to make a cap. I then removed the tampons from the applicators. A dab of glue at one end of the applicator and the wool wound around made a stunning 'curl'. A couple of dozen of these, the rest of the wool sewn on to the cap and then the curls glued on to this made a first class wig. :wink:

http://www.gifts4lawyers.co.uk/products/topsellers-1.stm

Maybe '100 Uses for Tampons' would be a good book too!

My father is the expert in improvised experiments of many sorts. Among the visually more startling was his keyboard suspending device... he nailed two ropes to a bookcase above his computer, and attached two loops made out of a leather belt to their end... He puts his hands in those devices to type on his keyboard. It looks like a medieval torturing device, but he swears by it. I got him a gel pad to rest his wrists on before, but he didn't like it. Made his hands go numb after hours of typing. This, he claims, not only doesn't make him numb, it also keeps him from falling asleep and generally on his toes... silly ole fool.