"clock" news and stories

You know you told yourself you would use a permanent marker to label every jar, box, and package of food you opened with the date so you could remember. So you wouldn't accidentally forget. So you would not accidentally drink that soy milk you opened three weeks ago, even though it says on the box to drink it within five days.

You know you told yourself.

But who the hell besides Martha Stewart labels everything?!?!

Right. So the DaysAgo Digital Day Counter is perfect for us mere mortals. The little gadget attaches, either by suction or magnet, to anything, to let you know how many days have passed since. Since? Since whenever you turn it "on." Open that jar of mayonnaise, turn on the DaysAgo, and you'll know how long you have to make tuna salad sandwiches with it.

Then again, someone told me jarred mayonnaise lasts until kingdom come.

I have a problem. The timer on my oven is broken. Truth be told, I'm relieved because it went out in a blaze of glory - by which I mean that it made its high pitched beeping sound for about 2 days straight. By unplugging the oven, I was able to shut it off temporarily that was only a temporary solution, as I still wanted to use the oven. Now that the timer has passed on and I still have a functional oven, I am forced to rely on a temporary timer until I buy a new one.

I saw on Apartment Therapy: Chicago, they had picked out a list of the top ten kitchen timers, including the Michael Graves Alessi(bottom left, above) for $29.50, the Eva Solo Magnetic (right, above) for $33 and an Old fashioned aluminum timer for $24.99. To be honest, even though the Alessi timers are cute, I don't like any of them. I need a digital timer with a good alarm and neither of their two digital picks (an Oxo and a Taylor) mentions anything about their alarms in their product descriptions.

Digital timers not only come with better alarms than dialed timers, but they're much more accurate in terms of the times you can set them for. You'll never have to approximate, like you do with dials. I'm currently leaning towards the Big Digit Kitchen Timer (top left, above) or the Bonjur Timer, based on alarm noises alone. Is there such a thing as a best timer? What timer do you use?