57°F

Aaron Parecki

  • Braun Electric Razor Series 7

    I never knew electric razors could be so effective!
    I've had a Panasonic razor for many many years, but it finally died so I went looking for a replacement. I ended up deciding on this one, and I am so glad I found it! It's like night and day compared to how well it cleans up my face. I always assumed electric razors were only good for short trims, and any time I let my face grow out more than a day's worth I would have to switch back to a manual razor to clean it up. This one can chew through facial hair like a lawnmower! Okay maybe that's a slight exaggeration since I don't end up growing anything anyone would consider a "full beard", but still it's such a huge difference compared to the small Panasonic I've been using for years!

    My only complaints about this are:

    The razor charges with its own cord with a unique power connector, which means if I need to charge it while traveling I have to not forget to pack the cable. (My previous razor used AA batteries so it was easy to bring replacements or use rechargeable ones for travel.)

    The razor is significantly larger than the small one I used to use, so it takes up a lot more room in my travel bag. However it's so effective that it's worth it.

    I wish I had known electric razors could be so good a long time ago, I would have saved myself a lot of time!
    Portland, Oregon • 57°F

  • Tab

    This app is fantastic! It's the only app I've used that splits receipts so quickly and easily, and I've tried a lot!

    The Good

    This is by far the best app for splitting receipts. It's mainly designed for splitting receipts out at a restaurant/bar, but works equally as well for splitting things like grocery receipts.

    You start by taking a picture of the receipt and it does a decent job of auto-recognizing all the items on the receipt. Then you start adding people and assigning items on the receipt to which people had them. If two people shared an item, you can tag both people on that item, and it splits it between everyone who shared that item.

    After you've categorized all the items on the receipt, you can enter how much you want to tip, and it will also split the tip proportionally based on how much everyone's share of the bill was! At the end, you get a nice list of each person and how much they owe.

    The app has nothing to do with actually transferring money between people, so you're expected to either have everyone throw the right amount of cash on the table, or have everyone send money electronically to the one person who pays the bill. It's great because it is specifically designed to just split the receipt, so it's super optimized for just that task.

    The Not-So-Good

    Don't expect to be able to get back to any past receipts in this app, it's not for recording a history of things, it's really more an in-the-moment kind of app.

    The app does have a way to have other people join a bill to split a bill live instead of scanning a receipt, but I am much less impressed with that feature. It seems to be a bit complicated to join a receipt and is then more limited in how you can use it while in that mode.

    Portland, Oregon • 55°F

  • TESmart 8 port HDMI matrix

    Loud beeps when switching, and windows-only app control
    First of all let me say that this does work fine as an HDMI matrix. You press an input button followed by the output and then it will route the signal between those two. You can send one input to multiple outputs and change them all pretty easily from the buttons on the front.

    However, I'm knocking off two stars for the following reasons.

    It loses one star for having *extremely loud* beeps when you press the buttons to switch. Apparently it can be configured to turn off the beeps though, which takes me to losing the second star.

    The app for configuring the switch only runs on windows. The whole thing is controlled over the network anyway so it's theoretically possible to control it from a Mac but they don't provide a program to do that.

    The other problem I had with this, which isn't necessarily this device's fault, is how it handles HDCP. The device "supports" HDCP meaning it will tell devices plugged into it to send an HDCP signal. When you send one of those sources to an output, that output is then also an HDCP signal, so your TV or whatever at the other end will also need to be able to decrypt the HDCP signal. For using it with TVs this is usually fine. However I was hoping to use this with some devices that don't support HDCP like an HDMI recorder and livestreaming encoder. Normally I can plug my computer or iPhone HDMI output into these devices and they advertise that they don't support HDCP so the computer will not encrypt the output and it works fine. But with this, the matrix sits in the middle telling the computer to send an HDCP signal and then the output isn't accessible to the streaming encoder at all.

    Between the complications of using HDCP sources and the loud beeps and lack of software control on a Mac I ended up returning the device.
    Portland, Oregon • 36°F

  • Elgato Cam Link

    Doesn't work with the 2016 13" MacBook Pro
    This would be such a great device, but unfortunately it doesn't work on the 2016 13" MacBook Pro. Apparently it requires a quad-core processor, and the 13" only has two cores. Everything else about the device is great though. My mac did recognize it without installing any drivers, but the video was stuttering a lot. I just wish they could have made it work on dual-core machines.
    Portland, Oregon • 52°F

  • The Canelo A'lvarez at Conquistador

    This was a super interesting mix of flavors. The chocolate bitters stood out more than I was expecting, but gave it an interesting taste.

    • Serrano pepper infused tequila
    • Blood orange puree
    • Chocolate bitters
    • Lime
    • Agave
    Cocktails from Friday's Portland Highball Week Pub Crawl
    Portland, Oregon
    #cocktail #highball #pdxhighball

  • Old Fashioned Cherry Bomb at Mad Sons Pub

    I was optimistic at first, but this was way too sweet. The flaming cherry was neat, but didn't contribute to the overall drink. I think the cherry juice they used was just way too sweet. If they had used a 100% cherry juice it probably would have been a lot better

    • Red Stag
    • Cherry Juice
    • Bitters
    Cocktails from Friday's Portland Highball Week Pub Crawl
    Portland, Oregon
    #highball #cocktail #pdxhighball

  • Skip a Rope at Dig a Pony

    Nice refreshing drink for a sunny afternoon. This was a little sweeter than I normally like, but still pretty good!

    • Jim Beam Rye
    • Burnt Caramel & Cardamom Syrup
    • Bitters
    • Soda
    • Candied ginger garnish
    Cocktails from Friday's Portland Highball Week Pub Crawl
    Portland, Oregon
    #highball #pdxhighball #cocktail

  • The Bitter End at Loyal Legion

    This was my favorite drink of the afternoon. The IPA+Apricot reduction was amazing, it kept the hops flavor of the IPA while also tasting like apricot!

    • Old Grandad 114
    • Maker's
    • IPA + Apricot Reduction
    • Cynar
    • Dolin Rouge
    Cocktails from Friday's Portland Highball Week Pub Crawl
    Portland, Oregon
    #highball #cocktail #pdxhighball

  • Blackie Lawless at Slow Bar

    On the sweet side, definitely rich flavors. The fruit rollup lightning bolt garnish was a cute touch.

    • Jim Beam Black
    • Black Peppercorn
    • Pomegranate
    • Lemon
    Cocktails from Friday's Portland Highball Week Pub Crawl
    Portland, Oregon
    #highball #cocktail #pdxhighball

  • Dropvox

    Voice memos that record straight to your Dropbox account.
    Portland, Oregon
    2 mentions

  • Bose Solo 15 Sound System

    Bluetooth works great, sound leaves something to be desired

    I was optimistic about this item at first given my experience with the BOSE SoundLink Mini Bluetooth speaker which has excellent audio quality and bass for its size. However, I was disappointed by this device. The bass wasn't as rich as I had hoped, and it didn't fill the room like I had hoped. It sounds very mono-directional compared to other sound bars which have speakers on the ends to simulate surround sound better.

    Pros:

    • Like the SoundLink mini, the Bluetooth feature on the Solo works very well. It quickly reconnects to previous devices, which is great.
    • If you're going to use it with a TV, it's great that you can set the TV on top of it.

    Cons:

    • Sound quality is not as good as I was expecting
    • No HDMI input, so can't be used with an Apple TV without extra converters
    Portland, Oregon
    1 mention

  • Marantz NR1605 Receiver

    Network resets periodically, making Spotify Connect nearly useless
    First let me start with the good parts. I really wanted to like this product. The slim form factor is great, and it has more than enough ports for everything I need. Setup was easy, and everything worked great at first.

    I was pleasantly surprised by the Spotify Connect feature. I hadn't used it on any device before. It's neat because the receiver streams the music directly from Spotify, you can still control it from your phone or computer, but if your phone or computer disconnect, the music keeps playing.

    However, every 30-60 minutes, the network connection of the receiver would reset, and the music would be interrupted. The device would go into the "reconnecting" mode for 30 seconds or so while it established a network connection again, and then I would have to re-connect Spotify and tell it to play the song again. I tried both the wired and wireless connections of the receiver, tried DHCP and static IP addresses, but nothing would solve the issue. I checked for firmware updates but there were none available. I contacted Marantz support, but they also had no other suggestions.

    Ultimately I ended up returning the device after about 20 days of the problem continuing. I am not certain whether this is a firmware issue, or a rogue problem with the specific refurbished device I had. At this point I am unwilling to risk it with another Marantz model and am going to try a Yamaha instead.
    #review

  • Amazon Echo

    I've had the Echo for a few months now, and despite being skeptical of voice control in general, have been pleasantly surprised by Alexa!

    Realistically, I haven't found all of the promoted features as useful as they try to make them appear. So far, it has been most useful for:

    • setting timers while cooking, so I don't have to fiddle with the crummy interface on my microwave with my hands covered in goo
    • turning off lights after I'm in bed
    • setting an alarm for the morning
    • asking "what's the weather" while I'm getting dressed
    • adding things to my grocery list
    Portland, Oregon, USA
    like 1 reply
    #echo #alexa #review