FYI Consumer Reports

The August issue has some reports on craft beers as well as some smaller articles on food labeling and bison. Also ratings on home dishwashers and kitchen knives in addition to their usual info on electronics and stuff.

And here's a tip from your resident geek:

If you have a Louisville library card, you can read Consumer Reports for free on your computer or tablet.

Point your browser to the LFPL website to get signed up. The process is a bit convoluted, but worth it. Besides CR and other general interest magazines, they have a bunch of food and drink titles, including La Cuchina Italiana, Saveur and Beer Connoisseur(!).

Note to Robin: You picked a fine time to kill off the deals and steals forum

And here's a tip from your resident geek:

If you have a Louisville library card, you can read Consumer Reports for free on your computer or tablet.

Point your browser to the LFPL website to get signed up. The process is a bit convoluted, but worth it. Besides CR and other general interest magazines, they have a bunch of food and drink titles, including La Cuchina Italiana, Saveur and Beer Connoisseur(!).

Note to Robin: You picked a fine time to kill off the deals and steals forum

This was good to know! I was curious if Oldham County Library would as well. They do although they don't have as many magazines available.

This was good to know! I was curious if Oldham County Library would as well. They do although they don't have as many magazines available.

Wha ?.....Wait a minute....Oldham County has a -library- ???... ..,.But I thought... ....ahhhh hell, never mind....

They pretty much killed their credibility when they named Shock Top Wheat as a "Best Buy". I don't say that as a knock on AB, but more as a knock on their take on the style. Much better options in the micro and macro world for a Belgian Wit. Then again, the last time I trusted that magazine to make an appliance recommendations, one of the Best Buy's almost burned my house down.... live and learn

Agreed. Shock Top is horrible stuff.

They pretty much killed their credibility when they named Shock Top Wheat as a "Best Buy". I don't say that as a knock on AB, but more as a knock on their take on the style. Much better options in the micro and macro world for a Belgian Wit. Then again, the last time I trusted that magazine to make an appliance recommendations, one of the Best Buy's almost burned my house down.... live and learn

Well that's a drag. I do use CR as a starting place for info gathering for alliances and big ticket items. There was a similar magazine a few years ago called Consumer Reviews ( used a similar font and layout as Consumer Reports but took advertising and was cheaper per issue) that was REAL iffy with their reviews and findings. Could the initial review for your appliance have been from them?

They pretty much killed their credibility when they named Shock Top Wheat as a "Best Buy". I don't say that as a knock on AB, but more as a knock on their take on the style. Much better options in the micro and macro world for a Belgian Wit. Then again, the last time I trusted that magazine to make an appliance recommendations, one of the Best Buy's almost burned my house down.... live and learn

Well that's a drag. I do use CR as a starting place for info gathering for alliances and big ticket items. There was a similar magazine a few years ago called Consumer Reviews ( used a similar font and layout as Consumer Reports but took advertising and was cheaper per issue) that was REAL iffy with their reviews and findings. Could the initial review for your appliance have been from them?

It was definitely Consumer Reports, not Reviews. I do remember Reviews coming out to and was amazed at how they got away with being such a close facsimile to Consumer Reports. I think that the appliance in question (it was a dishwasher) had pretty deep issues that they simply did not find in their testing, as it happened after about 6-7 months of use. They had a ton of issues with that model, and had to do a recall on them eventually. Nothing quite like the drying cycle on the dishwasher locking up and continuing to run until it burns up a circuit board and associated wiring...

Anyway, lesson learned, don't rely on just on review source. Thankfully there are a lot of options available now

They pretty much killed their credibility when they named Shock Top Wheat as a "Best Buy". I don't say that as a knock on AB, but more as a knock on their take on the style. Much better options in the micro and macro world for a Belgian Wit. Then again, the last time I trusted that magazine to make an appliance recommendations, one of the Best Buy's almost burned my house down.... live and learn

Well that's a drag. I do use CR as a starting place for info gathering for alliances and big ticket items. There was a similar magazine a few years ago called Consumer Reviews ( used a similar font and layout as Consumer Reports but took advertising and was cheaper per issue) that was REAL iffy with their reviews and findings. Could the initial review for your appliance have been from them?

It was definitely Consumer Reports, not Reviews. I do remember Reviews coming out to and was amazed at how they got away with being such a close facsimile to Consumer Reports. I think that the appliance in question (it was a dishwasher) had pretty deep issues that they simply did not find in their testing, as it happened after about 6-7 months of use. They had a ton of issues with that model, and had to do a recall on them eventually. Nothing quite like the drying cycle on the dishwasher locking up and continuing to run until it burns up a circuit board and associated wiring...

Anyway, lesson learned, don't rely on just on review source. Thankfully there are a lot of options available now

OMG Todd that's horrible! I'm glad no one got hurt. Geez I hope they gave you some kind of settlement!

OMG Todd that's horrible! I'm glad no one got hurt. Geez I hope they gave you some kind of settlement!

Thankfully I caught it before anything major happened, but we lost a lot of the dishes that were in the load, and obviously the dishwasher. They did replace the dishwasher and gave us a generous credit at the store to offset the cost of the dishes. Thankfully, I was barely out of college, so it was a lot of cheap plastic dishware that was lost. I do still miss my Larry Bird Dream Team cup from McDonalds though.