A few nice household tooling made in china images I found:
An Excerpt ~ ‘Beard Trimming Scissors are Nitroglycerin’
Image by Viewminder
You know what else is weird?
The term ‘Duvet Cover.’
I only learned about ‘Duvet’s’ when I got myself into a long term mutually beneficial semi-monagamous relationship that was both emotionally and sexually satisfying to me and the woman that was my life partner.
A couple of life partners ago.
None of my genius buddies have a clue as to what a ‘duvet’ is.
I Love women.
If I didn’t I would never spend so much time trying to understand them and to so selflessly help them to understand that the quest for ‘hot freaky’ can bring them and their man rewards and pleasures that they’ve never considered.
Sharing ‘hot freaky’ can bring a man and a woman closer together than they’d ever thought.
Women are the most beautiful things on earth.
They’re soft and they smell good too.
Personally I’m always amazed at how good that their hair smells.
They also have unique capabilities and they can create a spectacularly color coordinated home that actually feels like it’s full of warmth and love and lots of throw pillows and organize it and run it as a dictatorship with a military like precision.
You can’t even organize the garage.
In short…
women are everything that you are not.
And you could never be no matter how hard you tried.
That’s one of the reasons that you love them and you’re willing to risk the explosive and painful soul crushing ramifications of relating to them in an intimate way.
Because they are ultimately your partner in the quest for ‘hot freaky’ that has consumed most of your thoughts for your entire life, both sleeping and awake.
Why they put up with your shit is another story entirely.
She might never be your ‘buddy’ but you’ve still got a few of those left that she doesn’t know about.
You can’t do it without them man.
Women.
Not your buddies… they’ll never get you anywhere near the promised land.
At best they’re someone that you go to to drink beers with after your progress towards your lifelong goal of entering the gates of ‘Shangri-freaky-la’ has been derailed by some stupid shit thing you’ve said to your woman at the worst possible time.
Because you’ve got a big habit of doing that.
Women are absolutely essential in the quest that will be the journey to the promised land.
Unless you like hairy guy ass.
And that’s entirely your call.
You know I love you and I’d support you even if that was your choice.
Or your genetics.
But after knowing you for as long as I have you’re pretty much hetero.
I mean…
you think maybe being gay would be easier than actualy having to think about all of this shit… particularly after one of your legendary and spectacular blowups resulting from your gahdawful ability to say the most stupid shit you possibly can to a woman at the most critical time…
But you just can’t decide all of the sudden that you’re gay.
Or at least that’s what conventional wisdom dictates.
And just because you’ve come to love and admire duvet covers doesn’t mean you’re gay.
Ask your therapist next time.
The sexy one that you sit there and tell all about your obsession with ‘hot freaky’ and you secretly wonder if one day she’ll just crack, give in and take you up on your repeated subtle offers.
You would have never discovered duvet covers if a woman didn’t bring them into your life.
Until she showed you, you had no idea that you could actually buy a cover to shove your old dirty ink stained comforter in to and that it would look like it’s brand new.
I just don’t understand whay people call them ‘duvet covers.’
I mean… a ‘duvet’ is a cover for your ugly ass comforter right?
So what’s a ‘duvet cover?’
Either it’s a redundant term…
or it’s a cover for a cover.
Maybe I’m missing something here.
That’s some brilliance right there… duvets… a product that had to be invented by a man… simply because it hides your dirty nasty old thing and makes it look new… but better than the most skillful application of duct tape ever could… at the same time given a french name and embraced by women as their own because they go for things with french names… and forgotten about by men because it was given that same french name.
‘My girl’s coming over tonight and my comforter looks like crap… I need a duvet cover quick.’
If you only had a clue as to where you could buy one.
I gotta admit that at first I thought when Snuggle Bums said that she needed to go and pick up a ‘duvet’ that it was some kind of mysterious feminine hygene product that I had no business knowing anything about.
I started to get a little nervous and wonder why in the world she would possibly be telling me this.
I remember fearing that her next move was going to be asking me to go to the store and pick one up for her.
It sounded suspiciously ‘french.’
So I was relieved when I found out what it really was.
Women think of some pretty cool stuff sometimes.
Because they’re not thinking of ‘hot freaky’ all of the time.
One of these days I’m gonna come up with a list of the top ten inventions by women that would make single guy’s lives more worth living.
But since I’m a guy I’m gonna put it off until a woman who loves me asks me over and over again to do it.
And when she gives me an ultimatum I will make it a goal.
Then I’m gonna write that list on duct tape that I’ve fashioned into a piece of paper because I can’t find the paper… but I knew that the duct tape was right in the garage where I left it last time I decided to try and fix something a couple of years ago.
Bedskirts would be on that list if I ever wrote it.
Right on top.
Has any single guy ever gone out and purchased a bedskirt?
What an amazing invention those are!
It’s like a device that conceals all of the shit that you either throw under your bed or that just ends up there.
Like all of those socks you’ve been missing forever.
The kind of shit you usually only find after your lease expires.
Like that stuff under your dresser when you move it.
Women just do that kind of thing when they’re bored.
Looking under furniture.
It must be the female equivalent of fishing.
‘I think I’ll pull some furniture out of its place and see what’s underneath it today’ they must think ‘I don’t have anything else to do… and the paint store is closed on Sundays.’
That’s how women get their super powers of knowing where everything is.
That and the fact that they actually put it away.
But it’s not just because men are slobs… even though we obviously are… it’s easy for women to put stuff away because they’re the ones who know where to put it.
Because they unilaterally determine where stuff should go in the female dominated houshold.
Which is any household where a woman lives.
Even if a guy’s put something away you know he’s not outta the water.
He’s gotta put it in ‘the right place’ too.
You know she’s just trying to provoke you when she says ‘Honey… did you put the adjustable wrench in the china cabinet?’
You remember the first time you took your chick to your crib?
You thought she was checkin’ out your CD collection and admiring your fantastic taste in little known independently produced music?
While you were workin’ out the details of your carefully choreographed plan to show her your duvet cover…
She was really looking at all of your prized personal possessions and hoping that one day the two of you would have a fairy tale wedding and a garage big enough for all of that shit to fit into.
Guys just hide shit.
Especially from women.
It’s in our genetic programming.
It’s so that we can cope with women.
The problem is that we hide it and we forget where we hid it and then we need to ask our girl… who then tells us that we’d know where it was if we actually put it away in the right place.
The place she determined that it should go.
Without telling us.
Or more likely with us not remembering that she told us.
Of course… if she said to us ‘honey… I want to talk to you about your need for ‘hot freaky’ and those things that you’ve been asking me to try doing… I know that ‘hot freaky’ is something that you think about a lot and I want to be supportive towards you that way… and I would… I mean more… if you put your beard scissors away in the basket that I’ve purchased for all of your male grooming products that I’ve found the perfect place for in the bathroom… and since I can’t relate to chopping that much hair off of my face every day I wish you’d also be sure to clean every last whisker off of the vanity after you’re done shaving… she might see you start to fade when you ask yourself what a ‘vanity’ is because you shave at the sink… but she could snap you right back if she turns to ‘hot freaky’ and says… ‘you know if you did that for me baby I might be more inclined to actually think about doing that twisted shit you’re always trying to get me to do under the duvet cover.’
When I look back on the conversation I remember it something like this…
‘Hot freaky’… put beard trimming scissors away… ‘hot freaky’… cleaning up whiskers off sink will bring me closer to the promised land of ‘hot freaky’… women want to want ‘hot freaky’ as much as men… just clean up after yourself and you are by default one step closer to ‘hot freaky.’
Beard trimming scissors are a funny thing.
They are a ‘relationship flashpoint.’
Beard trimming scissors are ‘nitroglycerin.’
That’s because she will never use them.
She plucks her faint almost invisible whiskers off of her face with tweezers.
And she always puts them back in the first aid kit so you never even know they were gone.
Because she doesn’t want you to know that she has whiskers to pluck anyway.
And in the female mind the next logical thing to do after seeing the tweezers left out would be to ask ‘what were you doing with the tweezers.’
She doesn’t want you to ask her that.
That’s why she puts them away.
SHE knows how to hide shit from you buddy.
Your male brain wants to leave the beard scissors right next to the faucet on the thing that she calls a ‘vanity.’
Because that’s where you’ll use them next.
And you hate looking for shit.
Almost as much as asking her where it is.
NEVER ask your woman where your beard trimming scissors are.
Ask her where she got that amazing top… or where she picked up those jeans that looked like their creation was inspired by her ass and her ass alone… or those incredible shoes.
Just never ask her where your beard trimming scissors are.
You can get away scott free asking where a lot of other stuff is if you do it right and approach it with a lot of thought and incredible foresight…
especially if you use romance or your consideration of her in your quest to find your lost treasure…
‘Honey Baby Sugar Sparkles… I was thinking that one day I would like to take you on a romantic camping trip and you know… I realized that I have no idea where I put the camping stove.’
But never ask her where your beard trimming scissors are because you were supposed to put them away you slob.
It’s like telling her ‘Honey… you’re always cleaning up after me… I just don’t know how I could live without you.’
You’d be about to get whatchoo deserve smart guy.
If you have some deep need to set the lobe off and be the beneficiary of a brutal smackdown… then you can ask where your beard trimming scissors are.
They’re the one thing that you’re always leaving out that she knows she will never ever be guilty of using.
If you’ve got kids… particularly daughters… this is where they can really mess things up for you.
I love my daughters more than anything in the world.
And I’ll be the first to admit that they’ve taught me so much about women.
When they’re giving their pink glittery plastic pony its daily bubble bath in the sink they’ll sure as day spot those scissors.
And then they’ll decide that pony needs a haircut.
Because pony just realized that pony’s boyfriend doesn’t take anything in life seriously he never puts shit away and pony’s decided to dump that asshole because life would be so much better without him and pony needs a new haircut to symbolize this turning point in pony’s life.
Knowing that cutting the hair of anything results in a long lecture by mom…
Princess’ll take your beautiful stainless steel beard trimming scissors to a more secret location to give pony a radical new hairstyle.
Meanwhile, you’re safely at work without a clue as to the fact that the fuse has been lit.
You have gotta deal with this situation rather delicately.
It’s pretty much ‘two against one now.’
And that four times as much feminine power as you’ve ever proven you can handle.
The only thing you’ve ever proven is that indeed a man can live for a week eating nothing but american cheese slices.
You need to get Princess Pony Hairstyles back on your side.
If your beard trimming scissors aren’t where you left them or in the basket in the bathroom closet your woman purchased to organize your male grooming products…
you know the kid’s got them somewhere else.
And when you ask the kid she’s gonna visualize cutting ‘My Little Ponies’ hair and know that if she tells you where your beard trimming scissors are is like admitting that she’s been cutting said pony’s hair.
Even though she might only be five or six she’s already so much smarter than that.
Remember…
You’re still dealing with a woman… just a smaller version… who’s just like a regular woman except she’ll probably never fantacize about dousing you with gasoline while you sleep and burning you alive.
Because she’s your ‘Little Glitter Princess.’
And princess’ don’t do that.
Chicks who watch the Lifetime Network do.
But you gotta get those beard trimming scissors back.
You can’t just say ‘Princess… listen… my beard trimming scissors aren’t on the sink… and they’re not in the basket that mommy purchased so lovingly for me to oraganize all of my male grooming products in… and that generally means that you have them… because you’ve been cutting ponys hair with them… and if you don’t fork them over… I’ll be forced to ask your mom where they are… and then she’ll blow her freakin’ lobe and I ain’t not only not gonna get a little of the ‘hot freaky’… the pursuit of which led to the birth of my Beautiful Little Princess… but there’s a chance that not finding those beard trimming scissors might result in my life becoming a living hell for two weeks or so and we don’t want daddy to live a life of misery and hell for two weeks now do we Sweet Glitter Pony Princess?’
Besides she already knows that the ‘sink’ is that thing in the kitchen or the laundry room.
And that’s not where she stole your beard trimming scissors from anyway.
She’s already studying you dad.
Probing you with her superior feminine mind…
identifying the weakness’ and the vulnerabilities of men.
She looks to you to leave your beard trimming scissors on the vanity so she can remember her deep almost instinctive need to cut stuff with them.
Like pony’s hair.
Or construction paper.
To make you beautiful and touching greeting cards with.
You’re not thinkin’ here man.
Because you’re pretty good at doing that.
Always ask yourself… everytime you’re looking at a woman… even a mini version… ask yourself what it is that they ‘want.’
It’s the only thing that matters really.
To them.
And therefore to you… the ‘modern sensitive man’ who is actually trying to understand ‘them’ in order to coexist in peace and love and the quest for ‘freaky hot.’
Because ultimately they are going to get what they want so you might as well just identify it as soon as possible and capitulate you dufus.
And Princess wants another pony… and some glitter… and some smelly markers.
That have glittery ink.
So she can draw ponies prancing around fairy tale castles overlooked by dominant all knowing unicorns who symbolize the superiority of womanhood.
Work with her man.
Work with her.
It is the only way.
She can teach you a lot about women.
Your little Princess wants to give daddy what he wants.
But daddy’s gotta remember the genetics at work.
Because even at this point Princess’ little genetic deck is all stacked up against daddy.
You gotta do the right thing Daddy.
‘I’ll tell you what sweet little Princess Glitter Rainbow… I’m going to go up to my room and lay in bed and stare wide eyed at the ceiling and think of the ramifications of asking mommy where my beard trimming scissors are… and when I do that I just want you to know that if you find my beard trimming scissors and return them to me without letting mommy know that they were ever out of my possession… I will not only not even ask you where they were when you found them… I will reward you for helping daddy out by buying you that purple plastic pony you’ve been really wanting… with the long hair… the one that comes with the brush.’
This is where your panicked ass just sold out the entire male race.
Yes… you’ll get your beard trimming scissors back… probably within five minutes… but now you’ve just reinforced in that girl that knowing where shit is gives her power and dominion over the entire male species.
Because it gets her exactly what she wants.
That purple plastic pony with a hairbrush.
The one mom wouldn’t get her.
Because you’ve already bought her thirty of them and she keeps cutting all of their hair off.
Not to mention your beard scissors will be kidnapped and held for ransom time and time again dude.
You should at least ‘try’ to find shit yourself sometimes and not just ‘wonder’ where it might be.
That’s why when I’m missing something I always start my search in the garage.
I really enjoy tooling around in the garage looking for stuff.
Every box and plastic bin I open is like a time capsule of my life.
Sometimes it brings me to tears… the nostalgia I find in there.
The emotions I get when I realize… there he is… my ‘Talking Billy Bass!’
I always loved that talking bass.
What a revolutionary invention.
He looked so real and happy when he sang that song.
‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ by Bobby McFerrin.
I’m so amazed that the battery is even still good after all these years.
And from the contents of the box… the newspaper packing and stuff… I can tell that he’s been buiried alive in there for almost seven years!
All my shit’s seemed to migrate to the garage slowly over time.
I used to think a garage was a place for putting a car away.
But that’s only for single guys.
Little did we know that ‘garage’ is french for ‘a place to dump all of a guys shit.’
‘Un lieu de jeter tout de merde d’un homme est dans le garage.’
You see that dipshit?
I got that right from google translate.
I typed in ‘a place to put all of a man’s shit is the garage.’
Then I hit ‘translate’ and ‘to french.’
The word garage is in there.
Just like we say it.
Only the french say it differently.
With contempt.
Like they say everything.
While stomping out a cigarette on the floor.
In a cafe.
Before they demand more strong black coffee.
And another ‘kwaaaaaaasant.’
In a black and white film.
That you only took your woman to see so you could impress her.
So she’d tell her friends all about it so you could secure their all important vote in the matter.
‘He’s amazing and sensitive and he loves french cinema!’
Now she knows damn well that the only thing ‘french’ you like are french fries.
Back to ‘le garage’ you idiot… if I can’t find it in the garage, then and only then will I consider even going and asking her if she knows where ‘it’ is… and we both know full well that she knows exactly where it is… and therefor risk blowing the lobe when she gets all over my ass about it.
Because I’ve come to see this as the ‘third oldest woman trap’ that there is.
Asking your woman where something is.
She knows where that camping stove is.
She knew it from the day you left it on the counter in the kitchen hoping that she’d do the loving and supportive thing with some miracle product she purchased from gahd knows where and clean it for you.
She did.
She cleaned it for your sorry ‘helpless in all things domestic’ ass and she put it away in the garage where she has determined that it belongs.
And then she mentally photographed it sitting there on the counter in her otherwise dream kitchen.
Just to store it in the lobe for use against you one day.
When you say the stupid thing that you’re destined to say that will set her off.
The reason you couldn’t find it in the garage is because she put it in the bag that it’s supposed to be stored in.
Three years later when you ask her if she knows where it is the day before you are supposed to go on a family camping trip and incidentally the day after you went out until three in the morning with your buddies when she assumed that your understanding and supportive self would be available to help her pack…
You ignorantly asked her ‘baby… have you seen the camping stove?’
Depending on her volatility at the moment and her propensity to want to make your life miserable you might get away with it.
But odds are, since you’ll be leaving tommorow you are in for it.
Especially if you add ‘you know the one I left out on the counter for you to clean last time we went camping three years ago?’
You just did it again.
You should visualize that ‘plunger box’ with the big ‘T’ shaped handle that they use to set off dynamite with on cartoons.
You know the one.
It’s in the garage.
Because your dumb guy brain just put both hands on that handle and pushed it down with everything you’ve got.
You’ve admitted to her that you have ‘a memory.’
And that’s gonna set her off a million ways to Sunday you watch.
Because you been tryin’ to convince her that with all the pot you’ve smoked in college that she’s right… you can’t remember shit.’
She’s always known you could remember SOME things… like the names of car parts or esoteric and rare, little known and used ‘species secific’ types of fishing gear… but not things that matter to her…
like anniversaries and stuff…
She’s accepted your ‘memory problems’ at times and coped with it.
It’s gotten you out of quite a few jambs in the past.
But now the gig is up dude.
If she actually lets the primitive lobe come to dominate her in this moment… and why wouldn’t she… and she ‘visualizes’ that camping stove on the counter three years ago… after recalling her perfect mental photograph of it that’s been quietly tucked away in the lobe for all this time just waiting for you to set it off like some kind of progressive slot machine in Las Vegas…
That’s guaranteed to make her blow unless you took her to the ‘Valley of Love’ within’ the last twenty four hours.
And I hope to gahd for your sake that you did.
A recent ‘religious experience’ in the Valley of Love is the only thing that’ll save you right now.
Because havin’ the lobe erupt before a long road trip is the fucking very worst time you can set it off Asshole.
You are gonna be sittin’ in a car in tight proximity to her for hours, pointing out historical landmark plaques and their interest and significance while she says absolutely nothing and fiddles with the climate controls incessantly.
And pissed off women fiddle with the climate control knobs and buttons in the car like nothing I’ve ever seen.
I know because I’ve seen a lot of pissed off women try to micromanage the climate controls.
Talk about brutal.
Why can’t you just be freakin’ considerate for once in your miserable life?
If not of your girl, then maybe just every other guy in the world?
Now your relationship junk is gonna be spillin’ all of its black death mojo vibes on innocent guys in towns hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
They didn’t ask for that.
Thanks a lot dickhead.
I’ve learned something about women that’s as close to a ‘universal truth’ as it comes.
Their ‘volatility’ grows to near epic and catastrophic proportions the closer that you get to departure for any trip for which ‘packing’ is required.
You’ve gotta be on your best game right before going on vacation.
Screwing it all up on vacation is disasterous because you won’t have work to shield you from the ramifications of being your guy self.
You’ve got to be on top of your game man.
Go the extra mile and help your woman pack to the greatest extent of your ability.
And don’t do that thing where you fuck it up intentionally just to make sure that she never asks you to do it again.
You really want this to be a nice vacation don’t you?
Then don’t fuck it all up idiot.
You have been warned.
Repeat: You HAVE been WARNED.
Made in Italy!
Image by Canadian Pacific
When I first launched the "things NOT made in China" photo group, I was hoping to see household items not made in China. Needless to say, not too many things are not made in China these days.
Of the things still made outside of China, they’re mostly processed foods, heavy machinery like automobiles and airplanes.
I was quite delighted the other day, when I bought my first ever shave brush, to find out that it’s made in Italy!
Injection Mold China Maker 