Saturday
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
If you'd like to be part of the Itzl Alert Network, please leave a comment asking to join, or send us a message asking to join. We'd love to have you. The bigger our network, the less likely someone will be stranded all alone.
I could never afford a Sodastream, so one day, I found and bought a Fizzgizz device.
It has it's drawbacks - you have to carbonate everything all at once because once the CO2 cartridge is breached, it leaks. You can't use it for a 20 ounce bottle of water, and then put it away for a day or two, and use it again. You have to carbonate as much as that cartridge will carbonate all at once. That means you need to have enough bottles to store what you carbonate.
On the plus side, you don't have to carbonate just water, as you do with the Sodastream. With the Fizzgizz, you can carbonate any beverage - coffee, tea, juices, Kool-aid, milk... You can recarbonate sodas that went flat. You get a better and higher carbonation rate. You can create any flavor you like and carbonate it - as sweet or not sweet as you want. You control all the ingredients.
With the Sodastream you can only carbonate water, then add the flavoring. If you try to carbonate anything other than water, you void the warranty on the device, and you might (according to warnings I've read from Sodastream) damage it.
Another downside to the Sodastream is that all the flavorings are too sweet. They contain at least 2 sweeteners (mostly artificial), even the diet ones. You don't control the flavors or the ingredients.
I am such a control freak that I prefer the Fizzgizz, with its flaws, over the Sodastream.