WULAD's Konsumer Korner

Well, I had a busy holiday weekend, spent memorializing our nation's honored dead in most American way possible--shopping. The first stop was Circuit City, where I showed how last-century I am by attempting to purchase a stereo. (For those of you under the age of 100, a "stereo" is a primitive machine which only plays audio sounds, and probably entertained your grandparents after a hard day's dinosaur hunt.)

The first thing I discovered upon arriving at the store was that Circuit City makes all their money off ginormous $3000 televisions now. The "home audio" section was dark and deserted, and filled with dusty "open box" specials, none of which were connected to anything. After ten minutes or so, I managed to abduct an employee in between TV sales. He showed me a few cobweb-covered receivers before demonstrating his awesome knowledge with this tidbit:

Salesman: Now I know the Sony says "100 Watts" and the Onkyo says "100 Watts" too, but what you really gotta pay attention to is the RMS. That's what makes the difference.

Me: Okay, and what is RMS?

Salesman: [pauses] I don't know.

He also showed me a home theater system which he suggested might work well for audio only--and it was actually plugged in, and with speakers connected! Unfortunately it was tuned to a non-existent radio station, and when I asked how to change it, he said, "Yeah, you need the remote for that." And where was the remote? He didn't know. (The RMS really kicked ass on that dead air, though.)

Eventually I gave up, and C-Baby graciously agreed to go with me to another store branch. The second store actually was much better--the salesman tried to be helpful, and I settled on a receiver and some speakers. In fact, the experience was perfect, right up to the moment when I opened the box at home to find one single speaker inside.

When I called Circuit City, a helpful employee informed me that "those speakers are sold as singles." As you can imagine, I was so thrilled to receive this information that I nearly shat my pants with gratitude.

The second adventure involved the assembly of a giant behemoth of a bookshelf from a certain Nordic mass-produced discount furniture emporium which is better at making meatballs than furniture. Everything was going fine, until I reached the diagram at right--looks easy, doesn't it? What the picture fails to illustrate is that the shelf on the left doesn't exactly fit, and each time you attempt to guide the little pegs into the little holes, five or six pegs on the other shelves pop out, and your heart rate rises exponentially as you increase your effort, both in force and profanity, causing more pegs to pop out, until the entire structure collapses into a giant plywood pile of hubris, with yourself pinned underneath, a quivering, bloody, broken man. The instruction manual actually includes an accurate representation of this process:



Thankfully C-Baby stepped in at the last minute to prevent me from murdering the shelf, and with equal parts blood, sweat, tears, and chipped beech veneer, we were eventually able to complete the mission. The moral of the story is: don't buy things!

WULAD's Konsumer Korner

After a decade or so spent living in noisy metropolitan areas, often surrounded by discourteous neighbors, roommates, prostitutes, and roommates who are also prostitutes, I have become a connoisseur of ear plug technology. So I greet every new addition to the field with interest, and look forward to the happy moment when I can wedge their spongy goodness into my hungry ear canals.

However, last weekend I came across a perplexing new product from the already-well-respected-by-me Hearos® brand, which I just had to share with you:

My friends, I'm talking about ear plugs... for women.

Why, you might ask, do women need their own brand of ear plugs? I asked myself the same question, but luckily, the fine folks at Hearos® have addressed this query in the FAQ section of their exquisitely feminine website:

Why should I consider the Sleep Pretty in Pink products?

The Sleep Pretty in Pink products were introduced because there was a void in the marketplace for a high quality, branded line of ear products... for women. Whether you have a need for noise reduction (sleeping, snoring solution, traveling), hearing protection (concerts), or blocking light (sleeping) the Sleep Pretty in Pink line has a high quality product that can work for women AND children.

Psst... Hearos: they work for men, too, bitches!

That's right——the author of your very own WULAD is secure enough in his masculinity to test ear plugs which purport to be strong enough for a man, but... anyway, I've prepared my own take on the Frequently Asked Questions, which will give you the information you've been dying for ever since you read about this fifteen seconds ago. Let's begin!

How do Sleep Pretty in Pink brand women's ear filters differ from ear plugs for manly men?

They're pink.

That's it? Really?

Really. No little flowers or inspirational sayings or suggestions for spicing up your marital bed whatsoever.

Did Sleep Pretty in Pink brand women's ear filters block sound as effectively as those made for manly men?

Yes. Once I put those beautiful pink babies in, I could barely make out the screams coming from my basement.

Did this experience provide you with witty ideas for further women-only personal care products?

I'm already looking into patenting women's dental floss (it'll be pink), women's Drano (pink and lavender-scented), a woman's calculator (pink, and all operations result in "Don't worry your pretty little head about it"), and a women's dictionary (pink, and doesn't include the words "science" or "promotion"). Also tampons for men.

Are you serious with that chauvinist crap? I thought you were a bleeding-heart liberal and all that.

That was mock-chauvinism. Lighten up, and try some Sleep Pretty in Pink brand women's ear filters so you can get your beauty rest, Sugartits.

Did you really buy these because you were curious about how well they worked, or is this a prelude to "testing" women's shoes, support hose, underwear, and/or feminine hygiene products?

I'm busy. Go away.

WULAD's Konsumer Korner

While there's some truth to the rumor that your friendly webnorhood WULAD may be hanging up the ol' bloggin' shoes soon, I didn't want to leave you without sharing my thoughts on an issue that is among the most pressing of contemporary concerns... I'm speaking, of course, of the newly-introduced Gillette Fusion™™ razor.

Wregular WULAD Wreaders will know that I have been a fierce advocate for Gillette's fine Mach 3 Turbo™™ since its introduction several years ago (supplanting my previous allegiance to the original Mach 3™™, which, compared to the Turbo, felt like dragging a three-week old dead armadillo across one's face). So after sticking with my beloved Turbo through such flashes in the pan as Shick's Quattro (more like Nottro!) and Gillette's own M3 Power line (forgive me for passing on the chance to see what vibrating blades could do to my Adonis-like visage) I had similarly high hopes when the sultans of shave rolled out this newest addition to their storied personal grooming line.

Let me first say that I was impressed by the audacity of Gillette's new product, which it humbly calls "the Future of Shaving"; after all, the company's next move had already been preemptively parodied in the Onion ("Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades")--an appreciation of which I'd like to think is responsible for the just-because-we-can addition of a sixth, useless blade on the back of the new razor. (I imagine some Gillette peon humbly suggesting to his boss that the way to beat the Onion at their own game was to out-blade even their humorous hyperbolic version. "Six blades... McTavish--you're a genius!")

So with my new-found respect for Gillette's marketing savvy and a nifty Mets-friendly color scheme just in time for Opening Day, I finally picked up my new (non-vibrating) Fusion, expecting to be transported to a world of hitherto-unimagined shaving pleasure. The verdict is: it's not that great.

Unfortunately, it seems that there is a point of diminishing returns in the blade-adding equation; the Fusion wasn't bad, but it seemed to lack the flexibility and ruggedly-masculine-jaw-hugging ability of the Turbo. (Twice I even nicked myself in the lip-corner area, requiring the dreaded toilet paper wad.) The Fuck-You-Onion sixth blade was not effective at trimming sideburns like in the commercial, although it worked OK for those hard-to-reach upper-lip/lower-nostril border whiskers.

Believe me, I gave Fusion a chance; for several days I even shaved one side of my face with it and the other with the Turbo--and the Turbo side was stroked by more adoring fans every time. I wanted that orange-and-blue beauty to be better; but sometimes, you just have to follow the ancient Confucian axiom: "He Who Shaves With More than Three Blades is Wasting His $12.99."

WULAD KONSUMER KORNER GRADE: B-

A Note to Readers of the Animal-Rights Persuasion: It might be suggested by some that I, as a forward-thinking bleeding-heart liberal, should boycott the Gillette Corporation due to their fondness for Dr. Mengele-like laboratories filled with a variety of cyborg rabbits and monkeys with supercomputers grafted on to their brain-stems, who will likely overthrow their evil white-coated masters someday, subjugate the pitiful humans and unleash a brutal campaign of terror upon the human race which will make their earlier torment seem like a Dutch Rub. I'm sensitive to these concerns, but c'mon--it's my face, man.