Some time ago I began musing about the various things you can do with one of the CDs that AOL keeps sending in the mail. I am not up to 1001 yet, but there is plenty of time...

• 1. Microwave it. This is an exciting process and gives some interesting results.
• 2. Turn it into a boomarang.
• 3. Make a pretty mobile.
• 4. Use it for a coffee coaster. Particularily if you did #1 first.
• 5. Carry it in you packback and use it for a survival/rescue mirror. (It seems to have disappeared. Sigh...)
• 6. Glue a bunch to the ceiling of your bedroom. Thanks Vern.
• 7. Use them as reflectors for your outdoor Christmas lighting. This will drive your community association nuts! Thanks Vern.
• 8. This one from Paul. Cut triangles from the shiney part, put small holes in the point along with some ear-ring hardware and perhaps a few feathers and you have some neat ear-rings.
• 9. Another one from Paul. Cut the CD into wedges, insert the wedges into slits in a paper towel core and make a Barbie disco staircase.
• 10. After accumulating a number of AOL CDs, use them to border your garden. Do this by pushing the disk halfway into the ground, overlapping disks about a quarter. A decorative effect can be had by alternating which side is out in a regular fashion.
• 11. Curb and mailbox reflectors.
• 12. They would make interesting spoke bicycle reflectors.
• 13. Cover your VW Bug in them for the Art Car Parade.
• 14. Put one behind the cover plate for your car key slot to protect the paint on your car.
• 15. Fishing lure material. Nice sparkly material to attract the fish.
• 16. Tie the CD to a string. Attach the string to the ceiling of your garage so that when the cd hits the windshield of your car you are parked exactly where you want to be.
• 17. Throw it up in the air and take a picture of it. Then try to pass the picture off as a picture of a UFO.
• 18. Use it as a template to trace circles
• 19. Glue them to the floor to serve as floor tiles.
• 20. Use as a "Clay Pidgeon". This from my sister. The one in Arkansas.
• 21. You can smash up the cd, into reasonably large wedges, and use it as a sharp implement/weapon in case you get mugged. Thanks to John McA.
• 22. Bolted or glued together with a spacer in between, they make excellent spools for portable antennas, ribbon cable, etc. Thanks to Les, G4HZJ. This would work well with the "mini" CDs.
• 23. I actually saw this one the other day, tie a string through the hole and hang it from your car (truck) mirror. It makes a really distracting thing to stare at for the cars that are passing you.
• 24. I have a friend that is a gamer. One of his games uses random information from CDs to create a new character. Find such a person. Give the disk to him. One problem with this is that you have to have unique disks to create unique characters.
• 25. Give the kids some paint and let them paint pictures on the label side, keeping the reflective side clear. Then you have some nice decorations that the kids did.

LINKS

A particularily nice list of thisng to do with AOL disks is here

Mail

If you have additional uses for an AOL CD, please communicate.