Tag Archives: blogging

A Close Shave

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I’ve never been one to shave regularly, for various reasons I usually have some degree of facial hair. One reason for not shaving a lot is that my skin is very sensitive; if I shave everyday, my face gets red and sore after about 3 days. Because of this, I usually shave twice a week at the most. Another reason is I just don’t want to put the time into shaving every day so often I just let my facial hair grow and save myself the time. Finally, I don’t really have that much facial hair to begin with, so I can get away with not shaving for a week or so at a time and when I do let it grow longer than that I usually shave it into a goatee and it looks okay.

I’ve been using Gillette razors for many years, the last one I bought was a Fusion. It’s a great razor but there always comes the time when I need to buy new cartridges for it and I find myself being reluctant to shell out the cash for them. I can’t justify spending $20 for 3 or 4 cartridges, it just seems like too much.

Recently I decided to start shaving regularly so I started looking for a new razor, something that’s not only cheaper but somewhat equal in quality to the Gillette Fusion. I thought about buying those blue disposable razors that you see in every store that sells shaving supplies, but I wanted to look for something a little fancier first. I found a razor from a company called Exact, it had a triple blade razor, a stand and 2 extra cartridges for about $6, the cartridge refills are about $5 so I decided to buy it and try it out.

I lathered my face up with shaving cream and started using the razor. Immediately I thought it wasn’t going to be up to par as it glided over the cream and left some of it behind. I kept shaving my whole face and it wasn’t comfortable, the razor wasn’t cutting close and it seemed to grab onto the stubble which was a little painful. It missed some areas and around supper time that day I looked like I already had a full day’s growth or more, it didn’t give me a close shave at all.

Okay, this was a bust so I decided to try something else. Yesterday I found a razor made by Bic called Flex 4. They also have one called Flex 3, which has a triple blade, but I decided to go with the quadruple blade razor. This setup is a little different, it doesn’t have the interchangeable heads, it came as a pack of 3 disposable razors with a swivel head. Overall it costed $6.68 so it seemed like a good deal.

I’m about to go take a shower now and try it out, I’m hoping it works out for me. If not, I’ll continue my search and if worse comes to worse, I’ll go back to buying the Gillette Fusion cartridge refills. I plan on keeping it anyway because I like the precision blade on the back of the blade head, it really comes in handy for cropping my sideburns.

Wish me luck.

The Lockout League

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With its 3rd lockout in 18 years, averaging 1 lockout every 6 years, is this league the worst in its regard for fans? Is there any other league that seems to be so ready to sacrifice games in order to get a new labor agreement?

Personally, I’m a huge fan of hockey. This league? Not so much. The business side of the game has completely taken over what could be a great, if not just a competent, league. If it continues like this, I may stop supporting this league altogether.

I don’t follow any other major sport but I seem to recall the NFL avoiding a lockout and getting a deal done just before this season started. I may be wrong but I remember something like that happening and hoping that the NHL would follow suit. If not to completely avoid a lockout altogether, then to at least get a deal done quickly. That should be their first priority but there’s no indication that it’s even a blip on their radar screen.

I’ve also been disappointed in the frequency of meetings between the 2 sides, so far I’ve heard of them meeting 2 or 3 times since the lockout was announced almost a month ago. As a fan, I think they should be meeting every day if possible. The more meetings, the quicker they can hammer out a deal. At least that’s what would ideally happen, there’s no way of telling if this ordeal would be resolved with more meetings happening more frequently because it’s not happening now and probably never will occur.

Every day they don’t meet, they lose more money. You’d think that would be more motivation but apparently they couldn’t care less. This is the only league that has ever cancelled an entire season due to a labor dispute, and if they did it once they could do it again.

Something needs to be done to fix the negotiating process, because what they’ve been doing for nearly 2 decades clearly isn’t working. What we have here, it seems, is a failure to communicate. Isn’t there a mediator that could handle this? The problem appears to be that both sides are unwilling to compromise and are very slow to make concessions, maybe an outside party could force them to speed things up. 

With so little consideration for the fans and their seeming eagerness to not play games, I think the NHL should change its logo to this:

After all, that’s what they’re best at.

Flies Suck

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Literally. The ones that have been assaulting me since summer, that is.

I have no idea exactly what kind of flies they are but they’re probably about 4 times smaller than houseflies and about as many times bigger than sandflies, or no-see-um’s. While we do have our fair share of the latter, they don’t seem to bother me much when I’m outside doing yardwork. For the most part, they leave me alone, it’s the mid-sized, as-of-yet-unnamed biters that torment me.

Today, while trying to clear a path through some bushes, I was left alone at first and I thought maybe I’d get lucky and they’d leave me alone. For once. After letting me live in that wistful, delusional world for about a minute, they then proceeded to swarm around my face, fly up my nose, into my mouth, into every orifice available. It’s quite fortunate that I was wearing pants, otherwise they might’ve found another place to fly up into.

They bit me on the face ruthlessly, drawing blood at least three times. Once on the side of my nose which proceeded to swell up and feel a little numb for a while.

I tried to work for as long as I could but after 1½ hours I’d had enough of being a human pincushion and fled.

Nothing seems to deter these flying little vampires, no amount of waving or arm thrashing keeps them away, and they seem completely impervious to bug spray. There doesn’t seem to be any escape from them, I encounter them no matter where I go in Kitamaat Village. The strange thing is, I don’t remember being bothered by them so much before this summer, now they instinctively flock to me like the salmon of Capistrano anytime I step outside.

Where did they come from? Why are there so bloody many of them? Why aren’t they dead yet when it’s almost winter? It’s bizarre and aggravating.

I’m quite sure that they have a proper name, I don’t what that could be but I call them PITA flies.

PITA is a term I’ve been using a fair bit lately. No, it has nothing to do with pocket bread.

I came up with it myself. It’s possible someone else might have thought of and used it before I did but I’m taking credit for it. It’s an acronym that stands for:

Pain-In-The-Ass.

If there’s a more fitting name for these pests, I have yet to hear it. They definitely deserve and live up to it.