My wife pulled her sciatic nerve last week. An ice pack was recommended but one of our friends gave us a great tip.  Instead of an ice pack, partially fill a strong zip lock bag with Dawn dishwashing detergent and freeze it. (I don’t know if other brands would work just as well.)  Just to be safe, we double-bagged it!  The detergent stays cold much longer and it can be re-frozen over and over. It also molds to your back better than ice.

Good one! Thanks, Scott!

Clean the aquarium with magnets

The Tricks of the Trade weblog has a brilliant method for cleaning the inner glass of a schmutzy fish aquarium:

A strong magnet inside of a rag or sponge placed on the inside of the tank can be guided around with another strong magnet from the outside.

I suppose you could fasten the rag around the magnet and then guide it.  That seems like a pretty cool trick.  Let me know if any of you use it!

Chapstick in the gas pump handle

Lifehacker reader Aaron Hodges writes in with this hands-free gas pumping tip:

"Up here in Massachusetts, gas stations have done away with the handy little handle kick-stand that keeps the pump pumping hands-free. I don’t know if this is a wide-spread thing or a state law or what, but there’s a great little hack to make that thing stay “on.” Simply stand an old chapstick container down at the back end of the handle (near the hose)… on most pumps, this will “lock in” nicely. Then you’re free to wash all the salty grime off your windshield wipers, or check your PDA for other lifehacker tips… Or just sit in your car out of the cold!"

Now, I’m sure that there must be some reason why this is a bad idea (aside from not wanting to use gas-y chapstick), but I’m not sure what the reason would be. I’m from the Midwest, where the gas flows like wine and the pumps are all hands-free, but in Los Angeles - good luck finding a “kick-stand.”

Clean, good smelling air

Here’s a handy little tip to make your house/apartment smell better and provide some air filtration to boot:

Fabric Softener Sheets!!

Place a few of those bad boys in strategically placed air vents (or all of them for that matter) and just wait for the smells to begin. Make sure you replace, or remove the sheets after a good period of use.

Now you can enjoy that fresh from the laundry smell all the time!

Build a bar out of old books

Designer Jeffrey Warren and friends recycled 700 books the library was disposing of into a full-sized bar.

One of our non-Vestal housemates worked at the Stanford library, and his job included the task of throwing away old books, which apparently the other librarians couldn’t bear to do. We decided to rescue these books from that awful fate - and what better use for them than a bar from which to entertain our frequent guests?

The pictures of the book bar construction are fantastic.

Spraypaint anything into an Christmas decoration!

"My spraypaint-lovin’ buddy Jim made his own Festivus decorations by covering household objects in a gold sheen - like a box cutter, 56k modem and a plastic spoon.

You too can make your own Holiday decorations by finding small, unwanted objects in your home and spraypainting them gold, then putting a string on them for hanging.

Sure, your conventional other half may not go for the 24k (HAHA!) modem hanging on the tree, but your geek friends’ll love it. I’m only a little embarrassed to admit I do.

Remove lint with a FedEx airbill pouch:

A brilliant trick for getting cat hair off your black pants ten minutes before the big presentation at the office:

Rather than use up strip after strip of scotch tape, or hit the mailroom for packing tape, take one of those FedEx airbill pouches, stick your hand in it like a mitten, pull off the adhesive backing, and voila! giant lint trap. Pat yourself down, and you’re good to go in about five seconds. (This also works wonders for getting pet hair off the couch.)

eHow explains how to remove bumperstickers with WD40. In addition they point out a product specially made for this.

Pep Boys has your product. It’s called “Sticker Shock” and is found either near the paint section or by the body fillers, etc. It comes in a spray can, 6oz. I believe. It will not harm your paint like many products/chemicals, and works like it’s supposed to: It removes stickers and residual adhesive goop.

As easy as that sounds, you know Macgyver would do it the harder, cooler way!

A great tip on keeping that professional look after a night on the town:

"The other night my girlfriend and I went to see some bands at a local rock-n-roll joint. They stamp every person’s hand at the door. Unfortunately, she had an important meeting today and she didn’t want to look unprofessional with a huge ink blot on her hand. Usually these stamps don’t come off easily no matter how much you scrub with soap and hot water. But she had a better solution… dab a cotton ball in nail polish remover and the stamp comes off in just a few wipes."  - Kevin

Finding Tripwire

The Tricks of the Trade weblog says Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan are using Silly String to detect bomb tripwires in dark rooms:

They spray the Silly String into the room, and the brightly-colored string gets draped over even the finest tripwire, making it easy to spot.

I sincerely hope no reader ever has to detect bomb tripwires in the dark. However, if you do, now you know: pick up some Silly String first.

Candle Wax Removal

About.com’s Guide to Stay-at-Home Parents, Barbara Whiting, has the solution to getting wax out of carpet or tablecloths:

1. After wax hardens, scrape up excess with a dull knife.
2. Place part of a paper bag over the remaining wax.
3. Place a warm iron over the bag and press gently.
4. Repeat until all the wax is transferred to the paper bag.

Replace the paper bag as needed and watch as the wax lifts right out of your carpet. It works great!

Don’t put tape on them, like I did. It doesn’t look good and the tape starts to come off making it look worse. Use clear (or colored) nail polish. It works great. If you are a tradesman, you could use wood glue or Liquid Nails even. However, I prefer the clean look of nail polish.

Pick a hanger that twists at the neck rather than one with a cardboard bottom. Untwist the neck, open it up and you have a three-foot-length of metal with a convenient hook at the end perfect for retrieving stray socks and other items that fall down behind furniture.

I've already mastered this habit, because I think it's gross, but here is a tip anyways.

Former nail-biter Ken Norton kicked the habit by wrapping a rubberband around his wrist and snapping it just enough to sting when he thought about chewing on his fingernails:

At first, I’d remember to snap myself only after I’d started biting. Or I’d snap myself, but chew anyway. But within 48 hours I noticed that I was chewing less and less. For one thing, I was thinking about nailbiting more frequently, and I was reminding myself how much I hated it. Amazingly, the involuntary habit had given way to my voluntary consciousness. Within a week I was done biting, and have never had the problem again (I ditched the rubber band after two weeks). For the first time in my life I had to learn how to clip my nails.

Here is one more MacGyver-Like Tip:

"I saw the cute Powerbook Screw Caddy tip, which inspired me to share a picture of my oversized version of that. I use a $5.99 Ikea magnetic knife holder mounted above my desk to hold all sorts of metal items. I use another one by my front door to hold keys. Here’s a picture of the setup:

"

All you need is a simple stick.

Place a it in the track to prevent unauthorized entries or exits. Sawn broom-handles work great, as does my solution—a bit of wood from our old house. I wrapped it in duct tape (splinters are bad!) and added felt to the ends to protect the door hardware.

Since that was a pretty well-known tip, here is another one:

Does Junior take off his diaper?

And, worse, does he play with what’s inside? Brown- or yellow-colored fingerpaint, if you know what I’m saying?

It’s time to MacGyver Junior’s diaper.

Duct tape. It’s the cure for all ills. Put a bit on each of the tabs to keep Junior’s diaper on.  A little bit’ll do you. Just enough to secure the tabs and protect Junior from himself and your walls and floors from Junior.

Wilderness survival skills site Tracker Trail has a photographic tutorial on polishing the bottom of a Coke can with chocolate to focus sunlight on tinder and ignite a fire. You know, for all those times you go wilderness camping and remember the snacks but forget the lighter.

When you’re not looking, do they sneak off to a magical appliance world where they party all night, knock back the AA’s, and hang out with the skankiest singleton socks that escaped from your dryer? If you have trouble keeping track of your remote controls, today’s MacGyver-worthy tip should keep your remotes anchored in this reality: duct-tape tails.

Attaching a duct-tape tail to your remotes increases their visibility and makes them almost impossible to lose. The remote may work its way into cracks between sofa cushions or into the space under a lounge chair, but the tail won’t make it in. And if you use a strongly-contrasting duct-tape color, the remote will never be able to “hide” on a black table.

You’ll want to keep the tail about 18” long, so measure out about 40” of duct tape. Attach the first end to the bottom of your remote, below the lowest button. Carefully loop the duct tape in half, folding it carefully as you attach it to itself. There should be an inch or two left at the top after folding to complete the attachment to the remote. If space permits, add an additional “belt” of tape where the tail meets the remote.

Lady Tip:
Before you sharpen your eyebrow pencil, stick it into the refrigerator for a few minutes. This firms up the center portion allowing you to sharpen it quickly without losing a lot of the material.

In addition, you may want to store unused cosmetics in the fridge to slow down deterioration. Many hypoallergenic cosmetics are preservative free. Refrigeration helps stabilize them both before and during use.

Here’s a great MacGyver tip. It’s a basic fact of physics that headphones and microphones are basically the same thing. Sure, one of them turns electrical signals into sound waves and the other turns sound into signals, but they’re both basically identical.

It’s just like a motor. Add electricity to a motor and the shaft rotates. Turn the shaft manually, and you create electricity. So the next time you can’t find a working microphone, consider using a pair of headphones. We’re not talking high-quality sound response, but it should get you through the task at-hand.

Extra Tip - Ladies:
When caught without an emery board, the grout between tiles makes a great ad-hoc file as does the 'striker' part of a matchbox.

Apply the duct tape when you first feel burning and, hopefully, before a full blister develops. Lay it as smoothly as possible, avoiding wrinkles.

Blisters already exist? Shield them from the duct tape glue. Cut out a circle of paper or gauze, attach it to the center of the duct tape and cover the wound with the non-sticky part.