Stupid ways to stay cool during summer

January 7th, 2013

Appliance News

Unless you have an inactive hypothalamus gland, you will be well-aware of the fact that it’s hot.

Turns out the country known as ‘Australia’ is actually a desert, and that uncomfortably high temperatures during the ‘summer’ time period are considered normal. Huh!

As Irish comedian Dylan Moran puts it:

“(Australia is) a ridiculous place located three quarters of a mile from the surface of the sun – people audibly crackling as they walk past you on the street. That’s why they all barbeque – you don’t need to cook somewhere like that, you just bring the food out, throw it on the grill and it bursts into flames!”

(Of which, if you happen to want one of those barbeque things, Appliances Online has some particularly nice ones. Just saying!)

Anyway. It’s hot, and my ability to type coherent sentences is rapidly dwindling. Here is a list of amusing solutions to the problem of being hot, in no particular order:

Stand in front of the fridge

The fridge’s job is to stay cold all the time, which is why so many of us find ourselves gravitating towards it during the summer months. However we would advise against Homer Simpson’s method of air conditioning (pictured above) not least because it is energy inefficient, but the persistent door alarm that comes with most modern fridges will soon outweigh the benefits by making you insane.

Even stupider:

Make and consume a lot of slushies

Yes, you can obtain slushies (/frozen Cokes/Slurpees/whatever you want to call them) from just about anywhere these days. But the problem is, you are lazy, and leaving the house during a heatwave veers dangerously close to a concept known as ‘effort’.

Alternatively, you can make your own!

Step one: buy yourself a blender that can crush ice, such as the Tefal Soup & Co Blender:

(Don’t be put off by the name – while it does make delicious soup, it is also designed to crush ice so it remains useful during summer and henceforth doesn’t take up 30 centimetres of prime bench space for six months of the year. Neat!)

See it in action here:

Now, there are few different methods to making your own slushies. Firstly, you could put Coke in an ice cube tray, then (once frozen) chuck the cubes into your blender, pulse for a few minutes and voila! Frozen Coke is yours to enjoy.

Or, you could just combine plain ice with sugar syrup (made by boiling water and sugar until dissolved) and then add any other ingredients you want – such as frozen raspberries or lime cordial – then tip the result into a cup and drink.

(Note: the addition of liquor is an option! Might not help you cool down precisely, but it will probably take your mind off the heat for a couple of hours at least!)

Get a paddling pool

“You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever,” quoth Germaine Greer. And being the impassioned feminists that we are here at Appliances Online, we’ve no choice to agree! (Plus she’s kind of scary…)

Here is some photographic evidence that paddling pools are fun for people of ALL ages:

Embrace nudity

As Richie Black showed us with his highly informative article ‘Boobs, bums and baking: cooking in the nude‘, cooking without clothes on is a surprisingly popular activity that’s enjoyed by a startling number of civilians and celebrities alike.

If you think about it, it actually makes sense. Cooking generally involves heat, and heat is hot. Taking off your clothes is a simple yet effective solution to such a problem, provided you remember to stand well away from boiling hot oil. (There’s a reason why my brazenly unselfconscious ex boyfriend always wears pants while frying bacon these days…)

There are many other activities that can be enjoyed while naked, such as talking to your cat or writing blog posts. However if you want to do things that involve leaving your house (although why on Earth you’d want to do something crazy like that we’re not sure…) you might like to consider moving to a nudist colony, to avoid the pesky and time-consuming hurdle of being arrested. For the uninitiated, I suggest you read this book:

A transcript of the title story ‘Naked’ (which details the author’s hilarious personal experience visiting a nudist colony for the first time) can be found here.

Become ideologically cool

Finally, if you’re feeling the summer heat and can’t find a way to physically decrease your temperature, perhaps you could console yourself with being ideologically cool.

Elusive as this personal quality may be, there are some things you can do to increase your chances of being cool. First of all, take off those glasses and get your braces removed – and if you’re a girl, make sure you take your hair out of that ponytail while shaking your head suggestively – everyone seems to view that as an improvement.

Second of all, consider founding a successful rock band. Fortunately we live in an age where a reluctance to put in the hard work and a complete lack of musical talent are no obstacles to getting ahead in this industry, so this should be easy. Dancing skills are no barrier to success either, as Thom Yorke from Radiohead has more than proven – people still think he’s the coolest thing since dry ice despite the fact he dances like a man in the midst of an epileptic fit.

Other ways you can be cool are to reject authority (perhaps you’ll get an opportunity next time you’re running away from a policeman who is trying to arrest you for indecent exposure), take up smoking, and perhaps die prematurely in a hotel room from some kind of glamorous overdose/suicide.

…Or, you could buy an air conditioner. Your call.