Author: Gary

I don’t really know how many people read this site. I know I’ve had people come out of the blue and tell me they read it, but other than the Apple fanboi incident, I really don’t suppose I get that much traffic.

I do want some help on something(s) from the few people who do read it. In particular:

1) I need a new image for the top of the site. I’m looking for a collage of photos I’ve taken. You can find those on my Flickr account. The text in the image is actually text and not part of the image, so you need to put the white space in. I have no talent in Photoshop.

2) You may or may not have noticed that I don’t have an “about me” part of the website. I’ve tried doing it, but I can’t write stuff about myself. I just can’t. Everything comes across as boasting or self deprecating. I have a Friendster profile, and I don’t have anything written about me there either. What I’d like is for one or more people to write and “about me” section for me. Feel free to do it in the comments, expand on what other people write, or email me. Feel free to be honest. I can’t get my feelings hurt. The only requirment is that you have to know me in real life, not just through reading this site.

You have your assignments. Godspeed.

I saw Elizabethtown tonight.

It didn’t get very good reviews, but I loved it. I’m not sure if its becuase a lot of movie resonated with me personally, or it was the mood I was in or what, but I really really liked it.

I’m a BIG Kirsten Dunst fan. I’ve liked her in everything I’ve seen her in, and in Elizabeth town her character is absolutely totally adorable. It may even surpass Mary Jane Watson. (In which she delivers one of the best lines I think in movie history in Spiderman 2 at the end of the film which she says “go get em tiger”. Its what she said, combined with how she said it that made it great.) I even liked Wimbeldon.

I haven’t seen many movies since summer started. I still want to see Proof and Wallace and Gromit.

Cherian, in a brilliant post, put up the comments from Ratemyteacher.com on some teachers in the debate/speech community.

There is a common thread which runs through most of these: they are mean and only like kids in debate.

There are some other really salient things in the comments which I’m not going to go into here.

I’m cooped up on the computer lab in Pillsbury Hall today. I got a small iPod boombox to keep my company.

Songs on the playlist today:

• Man in a Shed – Nick Drake
• Love Will Tear Us Apart – Yat Kha
• My Wife – The Who
• Diamonds on the Sole of her Shoes – Paul Simon
• Zach and Sara – Ben Folds

There are certain products that you keep seeing new designs of that really have no reason to be improved. Toothbrushes, tennis shoes and razors come to mind.

I admit, when Gillette came out with the Mach 3, I switched over to it and still use it today. But when Schick came out with the 4 blade razor, I balked. Well, now Gillette has come back with the 5 blade razor. FIVE fucking blades.

A good history of the proliferation of blades can be found here.

The marginal improvement of 5 blades over 3 blades is not 66%. I dare say its even 5%. Even if I can accept that the 5 blade razor is better, I doubt it would be worth the extra cost. I already pay way more than I should to use the Mach 3. As a result, I tend to let my razor blades go way longer than I should becuase it costs so much to purchase them. When I was in Argentina I looked for razors, and the Mach 3 was kept under lock and key at the grocery store and cost more than any item I could find in the store.

I would really like to see them put some innovation into the area of decresing the price of blades, rather than trying to technically improve something that can’t really be improved.

There is something else afoot here, however. I decided to a little analysis of my own…..

Here is a summary of the dates major advances in shaving technology were made.

Unknown – 1 Blade. Straight Edge Razor
1904 – 1 Blade Saftey Razor
1971 – 2 Blades. Gillette Sensor Excel
1999- 3 Blades. Gillette Mach 3
2004 – 4 Blades. Schick Quattro
2005 – 5 Blades. Gillette Fusion

Here it is in a graphical form:

You can see we are quickly approaching a shaving singularity. A point in time where the number of blades on razors will be increasing so fast, the total metal reserves of the world will be unable to keep up in making blades. This is the shaving singularity. The end of mankind and stubble.

Pray for us.