Gizmodo's Brian Lam describes in grisly detail a sensation I have often imagined in lurid detail in the waiting room of my optometrist's office: what it is like to have your retina sliced open with a laser beam.

The nurse applied a series of numbing drops to my eyeball, each stronger than the previous. The doctor clamped my lids back with a metal tool. I felt a bracket hold my eye down and someone in the operating room gave the order, "Suction."

A whirring sound commenced and my eyeball felt like it was being sucked up and out of my skull, elongated like a green grape between a Roman emperor's fingers, ready to burst. The bright blue-white light grew closer. As the pressure killed circulation in the eye things went black and I felt an arcing slice in the surface of my cornea—I did not move my jaw or tongue or mouth, but deep in my throat I uncontrollably whimpered...

Amazingly, Lam says that most LASIK customers, eager to save a few bucks, opt to have the surgery done with a scalpel instead. Meanwhile, it takes me a bottle of scotch every morning to work up the nerve to put my contacts in.

What LASIK really feels like [Gizmodo]

A hemophiliac himself, Riedle's three brothers died of bleed outs as children, and the disorder prevented him from keeping a proper job. While shoveling snow as an adult, Riedle's nose began to bleed, and while bunching a snowball to the bridge of his nose, he had the inspiration to invent an ice pack that specifically targeted nosebleeds.

It's not exactly some amazing insight that cold stops nose bleeds. But it appears Riedle's project really works — a BBG reader specifically wrote in to kudos the product — and it's a reminder that just as simple problems that most of us take frivolously can end people's lives, incremental revisions of simple, existing applications can save them.

Nose Budd [Official Site]

Turns out she'd been the pliant partner of a 60-year-old man from Izu, who decided to toss the sex doll after deciding to move in with one of his children. He didn't have the heart to cut her up, he claims, but had no problem wrapping her in a sleeping bag and leaving her in a ditch. Even a silicone heart is softer than that.

Man charged with dumping silicone girlfriend [Pink Tentacle]

"It's like a shower poof," I said, giving it a squeeze. "And they included some Axe body wash, too."

"I bet that stuff smells like rapists, if rapists wanted to advertise they were approaching." I gave him a sniff but he wasn't impressed. Personally, I thought it smelled fine, if generically masculine. Besides, it's just soap.

So I put that Detailer up against every part of my sagging, pockmarked body and I cleaned myself like it mattered if my skin were exfoliated or not.

It's pretty decent! The tire-like handle at the top actually gives you something to hold on to unlike most fake loofa poofs, while the rough scouring pad on the top is good for thick skin like heels and elbows. I've used it every day for a week and found myself growing to like it quite a bit, despite its dubious branding lineage. I'd go so far as to say it's probably the best poof I've ever used — if for the rubber grip alone. (And while its name is a cute nod to men and car culture, it's just as useful for women. Not to say women can't like cars, either. You know what I'm saying.)

Fifty people can have one for free, they tell me, by becoming an Axe fan on Facebook and saying "I'm from Boing Boing. I need a Detailer." Or you can just buy them: a pack of four on Amazon is $17. In stores they should cost about $5.

The Body Hair Groomer comes with three different comb attachments, in case you simply want to trim your ape cape, not remove it entirely. It's $50, plus shipping. It will be our secret.

Product Page [Hammacher.com via Coolest Gadgets]