Episode 10: Help! My Billa Shower is Cooking me Alive!

controlling your water
temperature


many of us have had the same experience in our billa sink-showers: either screaming hot water, or the complete opposite.  you turn the faucet down to what should be "nice and warm", but the heater shuts off as there's not enough demand for MOLTEN HOTNESS.

where is the happy medium?!?!?!

right here:

Episode 9: aggh! Sink-showers!

your billa sink-shower and you

so has this ever happened to you?  
can you count how many times 
this has happened to you?

once again mr. martin over at ROKetship nails it on the head, right on down to the ill-fitting green shower slippers. 


and it's even worse when you're already dressed-up and on your way out the door, but need to run to the bathroom.  turn on the sink and BLAM.  you're all wet, and mad, and need to change.  the blue jeans which just took 3 days to dry are now drenched and your cool hair-do ain't so pretty anymore.


wanna know how to get rid of this problem?

[click to read on]

Episode 6: Singing in the Rain: Your Billa Shower and You

walking into his bathroom

betrayed the obvious:

the shower head.

good news for the 6'4" expat

                       

meet livio. he's the only one of my cousins to have walked away from the sicilian mob without ending up at the bottom of a river. he now spends his days in a billa, making and selling leather purses. he tells me that life is much better in his little home, yet he can't quite figure out the infamous billa shower. in this billa interview, i asked him to explain the situation to me (but he only responded, in the classical foggy italian voice, "come. i show you.")
[click below to read on]

Episode 4: Infestation (in your bathroom). Battling Black Mold.

Battling Black Mold

my high school foods studies teacher taught us a little about mold and bacteria.  she said that the three conditions that they thrive in are moisture, warmth, and darkness.

my old produce department manager ryan told me that some drunk guys won a bunch of subs (sandwiches) on their way to a party at his house once, and hid them in the bottom of his china cabinet when they got there.  anyway, ryan didn't know they had brought the subs in, and the drunk guys ended up forgetting about most of the subs by the time they woke up from their smashed stupor.  the subs sat there for weeks.

later ryan opened the cabinet while looking for something, and had the shock of his life.  a bunch of subs.  what on earth!

as he told the story i said to him indignantly, "but didn't you smell them rotting in there over all that time?!!?!!"

he said he hadn't smelled anything, and that they actually weren't sitting there in a rotten heap.  he went on to say that when he picked them up, they were hard as a rock.

dried out.  interesting.  anyway, pretty much end of the story.

but no mold.  and dried out.  this simple thought set my whole life on a new trajectory.

during my research and experimentation in the years that followed, i discovered yet another gem in the olde journals of early french microphysicist geordi la forge:

[click below to read on]