It was a scene from a TV commercial … i was standing around at a party and i noticed that Rob Reid has a really clean shave. commenting on this, Rob launches into a log product pitch on the Gillette M3 Power razor and tells me that his fiancée was also impressed with his close shave. Nearby at the same party, fellow shaver Alan Peterson chimes in that he loves the M3 Power too. they both made the switch right when the product come out — and neither will ever go back.

of course, i ran out to my local Walgreen’s the next day to pick up the $10 shaver and the $2 blades. pricey. is it worth it? well Rob and Alan swear by it. my tests for one week are very positive and i’m liking it enough to spend the time blogging it.

Gillette M3 Power razor is part of their Mach3 line. but unlike those shavers, the M3 Power has room for a AAA battery and it buzzes while it shaves — so it gets really close. And it is shower safe which is key. i’m not totally sure why it works, but it does. it is really cool. of course, when buzzing the handle on the shaver looks exactly like a marital aid … but that is another story …

Summation: this is definitely a product worth testing.

I asked Alan Peterson, who is my new maven on all things shaving, a question where to get cheap blades.

Alan:

Ah, cheap blades. That’s a tough one. Even at Costco there doesn’t seem to be a huge discount, so I’m not sure what to tell you. However, don’t feel that you have to get the blades housed in matching green plastic. Results from my test lab indicate that you can use the plain old blue “Mach 3” blades with the vibrating green handle. The only difference, as far as I can tell, is that the green cartridges have more yellow than the blue ones.

Alan also has a really good travel tip:

When traveling, I now take the battery out of the handle–sometimes the button gets pushed by the baggage handlers/inspectors, and then you arrive with a button that when pushed has no perceivable effect.

it would be great if most people put a little code on their paper business card.

you could give the card to someone you want to make contact with. if they saw the code they could, instead of typing in your contact information into their PIN (or using a card-scan reader), they could just type in the code and it would automatically download your most current information.

of course, ideally this would also work on a mobile phone.

i can’t imagine why plaxo (or even linkedin, skype, or numerous sites that collect your information) couldn’t do this today. if just a small portion of people adopted it, it would be a lifesaver for people that collect a lot of business cards (and very helpful to even the average person that collects a few). and it would be a great way of further advertising the service. i know i’d put it on my business card immediately…

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a great article about how scented bowling balls are all the rage amongst hard core bowlers.

snip:

“The couple next sniffed a ball perfumed in strawberry … Ms. Gonzalez liked that one, too, but after sampling other balls smelling of amaretto and banana, she wound up buying a $139 ball that had cinnamon-apple fragrance.”

AP has another story: MAKING SCENTS by Carrie Antlfinger.

amazing how innovation can breath life into a staid product line…

GQ online (men.style.com) published a fun article about the Silicon Valley 100 yesterday:

Geek Alert — What’s on Silicon Valley insiders’ radar

Snip:

“Eighty percent of the first sales for products like the iPod, TiVo, and Netflix happened in just a few ZIP codes in Silicon Valley,” claims Auren Hoffman, adding that “the whole country looks to Silicon Valley for advice on these types of products.”

Wally’s Food Company does food prep and gourmet food delivery in San Francisco. what a fantastic idea.

Last month, Dave Popowitz and Julia Schwartzman introduced me to Wally Cheng, the CEO. And a few days after that Wally himself comes to my home to deliver some great food for me. He brings a mushroom stuffed organic chicken leg, a potato and caramelized onion gratin, cracked half Dungeness crab, and a molten chocolate cake. enough food for two meals.

the food comes in vacuum seal plastic bags with beautiful instructions on how to prepare it (put in microwave for 3 minutes or put in over for 15 minutes were the extent of the directions).

and overall taste – excellent!

this is a great service for people who want a good meal now and again or for families with young kids where the parents need to eat in and don’t have time to cook. essentially you get all the benefits of a personal chef without someone messing up your kitchen (and for a much cheaper price).

visit Wally’s Food Company

Alan Peterson sent me this link to the The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time from Mobile PC Magazine.

This is probably the best billboard or marketing display i have seen in a long time:
3M Security Glass Ad (Signal vs. Noise).

i’ve been using the Etymotic Research ER*6i Isolator earphones for about 4 weeks now and i have been duly impressed. This is another product of the Silicon Valley 100.

If you’re like me, you’ve been struggling to find good quality headphones that are highly portable. So last month I went to CES with a mission to discover the best headphones. I tried out a bunch of headphones (and shared my ear wax with way too many people).

I came across the Etymotic Research ER*6i Isolator earphones and immediately fell in love.

The pros: My top two criteria are portability and noice reduction. Noise reduction comes in very handy while listening to Weird Al Yankovich and Right Said Fred on my mp3 player and running by the noisy San Francisco streets. A few independent tests shows that ER’s noise cancellation matches electrostatic headphones that cost several thousand dollars.

The cons: If you are afriad of putting something in your ear, you might not like these. And the headphones only work well when they are inserted properly (read the instructions).

Mac Daily News has a good review of the product including a sighting of President Bush using the headphones with his iPod.

So Bose headphones are amazing for listening to music at home. they are even good for a plane (though they are a bit bulky). but you cannot work out in them, go for a run, or be mobile. the ER*6i Isolators are the answer.

I talked to phillip m. torrone today — he’s got one of the coolest websites for any product geek.

Phillip essentially takes products that you have in your home and hacks them into uber-products that are much more powerful. he’s one of those guys that originally hacks things like Tivo to put on a bigger hard drive but ends up also turning it into a coffee-maker and a robot that feeds your fish.

definitely worth checking out his site: http://flashenabled.com/

Peter Harter from In2Books pointed out this story in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine: Magazine > Domains: A Film Critic’s Windy City Home” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/magazine/13DOMAINS.html?”>Domains: A Film Critic’s Windy City Home — an interview with Roger Ebert.

Snip:

What’s always with him: I wear a pedometer, a little device that counts every step. It works as a goad, because you walk additional distances to pile up the numbers. The average person walks 2,000 to 3,000 steps a day. I walk 10,000 steps a day. I have lost a lot of weight as a result.

good find Peter.

Chris Alden does it. I even convinced Sonia Arrison to do it.

is measuring your life a new fad? I decided to find out. at the beginning of the year, flush with new years resolutions, i decided to buy the Sportline 360 Fitness Pedometer and have been tracking my steps ever since. According to the walking experts, you should get at least 10,000 steps per day. Me? my average is 5410 steps — a far cry from what’s necessary. in fact, i have only beat the 10,000 mark one day — and that was a day full of soccer and a short hike — so either my pedometer undercounts or 10,000 is not very realistic.

regardless, i have found that i am walking more and running more. in fact, my 7-day running average is currently 6,265. Not too shabby!.

Of course, you’ll also find you start wearing a lot of sweaters to cover up your geeky obsession with counting and because the pager-look-alike-pedometer makes one resemble a 1980s drug dealer.

Brondell was featured in today’s San Francisco Chronicle:
Bottom line means more to this firm.