I really can’t believe no one has thought of this yet.

Two out of every five people to test the new design proudly reported no lasting eye damage.

I spotted this on the Rebecca Writes blog and pasted in one of my previous posts:

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

That’s quite a compliment, although it appears that it uses a simple reading level algorithm for matches. David and I both tend toward long words and long sentences.

Try it out yourself: iwl.me

I can’t think of all that much else to write. The title is pretty self-explanatory.

We dropped it off this afternoon and protected it from the elements as best we could. All the drawers, legs, and fasteners are included.

Artist's conception of free desk left leaning against the free store shed. Not exactly as shown.

The desk looks something like the photograph to the right, but is a bit darker and made with thigh-bruising sharp corners.

I hope someone can give it a home before the next rain shower de-laminates the edge trim even further. The top surfaces are in very good shape.

It’s built like a tank, so bring a friend and a truck to cart it away.

I bought it from a used furniture store in Kingston about 20 years ago and it has served me faithfully for all that time.

I guess I could think of more to write after all. Sniff. Goodbye ol’ Desky McDeskerton. Sniff, sniff.

In my early teens I found my grandfather’s straight razor at the bottom of a dusty leather trunk. I managed to shave my wispy whiskers twice with that wicked thing, nicking only a few minor arteries with my trembling hand. Having neither skill nor honing strop, I abandoned the project, turning to an old Remington electric model for the next dozen years.

Eventually I cottoned to the fact that electric razors don’t work well for lazy shavers in humid climates, so I bought a Gillette Atra, and its pivoting double blades have kept me scruff-free since.

In recent years I’ve grown ever more worried that Mr. Gillette would halt production of my Atra cartridges, in a bid to force me to upgrade to his latest exorbitant pentablade contraption. The Atra cartridges are expensive enough after all, and they date back to the 1970s.

It then occurred to me that I could turn to an old and nearly forgotten technology: the safety razor.

Remember when airplane and hotel bathrooms had little slits for disposing of your used razor blades? If you do, you also remember when watches were wound, telephones were dialed, and the remote control was a younger sibling positioned in front of the tube.

Yes, progress has marched inexorably forward, but miraculously, you can still buy safety razor handles and blades. While in Vancouver this past week, I picked out a Merkur 83C matte barber-pole model for about the cost of four sets of Atra cartridges:

Single blade, front & back. No lubricating strip. No vibrating action. No reverse moustache and sideburns trimmer. Just 100% pure manliness carved out of a quarter-pound of chrome steel.

I’m still learning the proper technique for shaving with this bad boy, but the good news is that the blades are less than half the cost of my old cartridges.

I guess I’ll need to install a disposal slit in the bathroom.