Maniacal [common: muh-NEYE-uh-kul, Carole: MAIN-ee-ah-kul]
adj. Of or pertaining to a maniac.

My Carole is as bilingual as one can be in French and English. It’s as if the Leafs and Habs hooked up and had a baby girl. English speakers might be able to detect a slight un-placeable  accent, and French speakers can tell that she is from outside Québec — either Ontario or New Brunswick — but both languages sound native. This is just one of the benefits of being raised in Timmins, a town that is actually trilingual: English, French, and Shania.

Groin [common: GROYN, Carole: GROW-in]
n. The fold where the thighs join the abdomen.

And yet she is utterly mystified by the pronunciation of certain English words. The problem is usually in deciding which syllable to emphasize. French doesn’t stress syllables in the same way as English, and it also has all sorts of little decorative ticks on the letters to aid pronunciation. She’s less likely to use French pronunciation rules on English words the way many francophones do, but that does happen.

Horizon [common: ho-REYE-zun, Carole: HORE-ih-zon]
n. The boundary between the earth and sky.

Most unilingual English speakers also have difficulty with these words, a result of the language’s  near complete disregard for rules when it comes to grammar, spelling, and pronunciation. Even I, the son of a linguist and a librarian, must confess trouble with “eschew”, “salve”, and “facetious”, to name just a few.

Stir [common: STUR, Carole: STEER]
v.t. To move an implement repeatedly through a substance to agitate it.

When Carole stumbles over these, I occasionally try to point out that French is similarly disorganized when it comes to deciding whether to le or la arbitrary nouns, but more often than not I apologize for English’s endless exceptions. She almost always comes close enough to be understandable anyway.

Melancholy [common: MEL-un-call-ee, Carole: mul-ANK-oh-lee]
n. A gloomy state of mind.

Oh dear. Now I’m feeling a little mulankohlee.

Years ago, my brother sent me a flying Astroboy toy from Korea. I never quite figured out what to do with it, but I did look up the instructions online. While cleaning out some old folders this morning, I came across those very instructions:

Of course, Asian folks probably scream with laughter at the instructions we translate for them.

In my opinion, there just aren’t enough manuals featuring the phrase “Til the cowcomes home.”

Strangely, I never did get Astroboy to fly. Prythee, must’ve skipped a tatelage somewhere.

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 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.