… but I did get something kind of fun in today's snail mail: a free razor.
This is the new Gillette Fusion, it sez here. I am wondering why anyone would name a product after an energy source that remains an unfulfilled dream after decades of promising. Or maybe, why would they name it after bad '70s music?
The more important consideration: why does any razor need five blades?
I did get a Mach 3 in the mail a few years ago, and I have to say, I liked it enough to make it my daily razor. I don't care so much about the three blades. To my mind, the real breakthrough in its design was the open back. All multi-blade razors (remember when two seemed astounding?) get gunked up before they get dull, but the Mach 3 seems to be quite rinsable. It takes me weeks and weeks to feel like I need to change cartridges.
I know your heart is pounding with excitment already from this post, but hang in there. I'll let you know how the Fusion shaving experience turns out, in a day or two.
6 comments:
I got a free Fusion razor in the mail a couple of weeks ago too. I tried it and didn't like it as well as my Mach 3. It did something funny to my sideburns so that they felt that they were standing on edge. I went back to the Mach 3 and problem cured. I like the trim feature on the back of the Fusion for doing the hard spots around the nose though. Razors are given away free because all the money is in selling blades for them. Both the Mach 3 and the Fusion have very expensive blades. Over a dollar pre refill for something that costs about five cents to make.
They're like printers for computers. You give the printers away and then kill people with the price of ink cartridges to run them. Lexmark is the worst printer in the world for this. The printers are the cheapest around, but the cartridges are $25 and they only make about 20 b/w copies. So that b/w copies cost about $1.25 each. Copies at Kinkos are much cheaper and you get a better copy too. Those refill kits don't work worth a damn either. I had my Lexmark printer for about 3 weeks and finally gave it away for free to get rid of it. I strike back at those bastards by posting comments about Lexmark like this whenever I get a chance. I'd never own another. Thanks. I feel better now.
Proprietary design, trademarked form factors, consequent monopolist pricing power, and last but not least, planned obsolescence are the cornerstones of consumer lock-in. Add to these the policy of requiring retailers to provide shelf space for all of our items if they want to sell any of them, and that's how we do business around here.
That is to say, you're dissing our free market economy, mister. So don't go supporting the terrorists by spilling the details.
Cripes, where's Dick Cheney when you really need to restrict the flow of information?
You're absolutely right about the price of the refills, though, TC. I understand that when the Mach 3 first came out, the refills were one of the two most frequently stolen retail items that year. (Some brand of disposable diaper was the other, if memory serves.) There was a thriving black market for these items.
So I can add the giving away of razors whose blades are outrageously expensive to my general paranoia about the growth of the prison-industrial complex, I guess.
And I just noticed, with one minor slip of the finger, one instead spells "tazor."
Either it's all connected, or I need coffee.
BTW in answer to your question, "Why does any razor need 5 blades?" It's quite simple...they can charge you more for a 5 blade replacement than they can for a 3 blade replacement cartridge and the difference in manufacturing cost is minuscule. Say, shouldn't that be spelled "miniscule?" Nope, the OED says that miniscule is not an alternative spelling, but a mis-spelling of minuscule. Do you really say min-oos-kule rather than min-iss-kule. You do? Then you probably say "tis-soo" rather than tis-shoe when referring to Kleenex also. Good for you.
I agree with you about "minuscule" looking write. I mean, right. That whole "minus-" root. But it's hard to argue with the equally suggestive "mini-" root.
Taking the second syllable, we'll have to go to back to "-scule" on this one.
Ah, not quite. Call it a visual pun.
As I remember reading somewhere, something like 60% of all vowel sounds in spoken English are pronounced the same, whether signified by the appearance of a, e, i, o, or u. Or even y. (Maybe the percentage only counts the non-long vowel sounds, ey?)
This sound is typically specified in pronunciation guides as an upside down e (ə), and this character is called a schwa.
My bloviations on trivial matters aside (jeez, what else is a blog for?), we are then left with the tyranny of the majority (aka convention) to decide whether something should be characterized as misspelled or accepted as an alternate spelling.
Speaking in support of "minuscule," if you were to start a petition, I'd probably sign it.
Oh, and BTW, I used the Fusion this morning. Remarkably unimpressive, I thought.
I can't decide whether I think the single blade thing is just something added on by Marketing, or if it's a kludge, because the five blades together are unable to do what (single-blade) razors could do for centuries, namely, shave under your nose.
I've added the Fusion to the big pile o' crap in the medicine cabinet that's there in case of emergency. I mean, the nearest place to buy blades for my Mach 3 is over 18000 inches away from my house, and it's only open 24 hours a day. You never know.
I'll probably never use it again, and throw it out the next time I've moved.
All of you readers who were awaiting my verdict can now, once again, breathe.
And I now see that, two comments ago, I completely lost track of the correct spelling of "minuscule."
My bad. I always prefer the trivial, anyway.
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