I take long showers, or at least I used to before I lived in an RV. I always put the water a little too hot, then get in and face away from the shower because the water is too hot for my chest. Fifteen minutes later I realize that I've been staring into space while enjoying my vertical hot tub, and then finally start taking a shower.
Yeah, it's not ecofriendly, but I'm making up for it now that all of my power comes from the sun.
Anyway, back when I had a house I realized two things:
- My showers are about twenty minutes long
- I'm wasting time when I'm in there
So, I decided to rig up a way to watch TV shows while I was in the shower. I got an old projector and set it up on the counter across from the shower. Then I cut out a rectangle of an old sheet and taped it to the glass shower door. I hooked the projector up to my computer, reversed the image, and connected some speakers.
Here's the final result, taken on a crappy camera phone:
How did it work? Pretty poorly. The image was too close, and when I was consciously watching TV in the shower it really seemed like a waste of water. Still, I love doing funny little projects like this. I came across the pictures the other day and laughed, so I had to post them.
And, as a bonus, because this is a short post, here is a picture of me wearing a hot dog mascot costume, dancing at a roller derby match (thanks to Dave Brett for setting that one up!):
(I swear I wrote a post about that, but I can't find it. If no one remembers it, I'll write about it)
Read Next
Ice Cold
On TynanWow. Is this three posts in three days? It's like the good old days. Remember those? So, today I wake up and go through my normal routine. Read e-mails, listen to voicemails, eat some breakfast, say hi to my beautiful fishies, etc. Time for the shower.
I turn the water to hot and weigh myself while I wait for it to heat up. 139. Damn. That's really skinny. I eat a lot of salmon. Shouldn't I weigh more? I check the water - it's still cold. I brush my teeth while I wait.
Still cold.
Cold Showers, Tested
On nickwinter.netA few months ago, I set out to test cold showers. Here's what I wrote for my experimental mission statement:
People are raving about what hormetic opponent process magic silver bullet it is to take cold showers. A little research gave supposed benefits of increasing circulation, mood, immunity, fertility, energy, exercise recovery, fat loss, mental alertness, pain and stress tolerance, cold tolerance, and skin and hair health. They're even supposed to stop depression and hair loss and tumors. I'm going to alternate two weeks of cold showers with two weeks of hot showers for the next two months and see what actually happens.
So excepting two days of each condition when traveling, every day for two months I woke up, did a 10-minute workout, immediately took a 7-minute shower, recorded my energy, mood, and shower discomfort, and took an 8-minute Quantified Mind battery. This wouldn't tell me anything about skin health and tumors, but it would get the main thing: does a cold shower begin one's day more vigorously than a hot shower?
Results
There were no observable differences on any Quantified Mind tests, suggesting that the brain does not care about the water temperature.