Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger

---

Fusion rules the world

IT'S KIND of eerie that a new five-bladed shaving razor should arrive mysteriously in the mail just in time for today, Halloween. It isn't that I predicted that shaving razors eventually would have so many blades, although I did. (My prediction was memorialized in a "Bizarro" cartoon by Dan Piraro as the "8-Blade Razor of Justice." See: Honolulu Lite, Aug. 13) Anyone who saw shaving razors go from one blade to two to three knew they would never stop. So you didn't need psychic Jeanne Dixon to predict that particular future.

No, the weird thing about the five-bladed freebie razor I received was that it was called Fusion. Gazing at the curious appliance, the term "déjà vu" crept from my lips, as well as several other French words. Then I realized I had just seen a TV commercial about a toothbrush named Fusion. And, wait, isn't there a Fusion tennis shoe on the market? What's going on here?

With ghosts and goblins floating in my head, I did some research and uncovered the ghastly truth: Every consumer item in the world eventually will be named Fusion. Already, along with razors, toothbrushes and cars, several kinds of athletic shoes are called Fusion. There's the Puma Fusion "sports casual" shoe, the Mossimo Sport Fusion Ath-leisure shoe that curiously fuses the words "athletic" and "leisure" into one meaningless jumble of letters. There's the peculiar Earth Fusion Vegan shoe, a "bold, street-smart" item of footwear for people who don't eat or wear dead animals. There is no leather in the Earth Fusion Vegan shoe and, at $115, you pay for it not being there.

IT GETS worse. There are "Fusion" door knobs, vitamin hair treatments, skin rehydrators, golf clubs and the Royal Doulton Fusion Ice Tumbler. (Is this ice tumbler used to create the cold fusion nuclear reaction that supposedly will provide endless energy? If so, at $24.95 it's quite a deal.)

During a pre-Halloween séance where I contacted Jeanne Dixon, the dead psychic told me to keep an eye out for Fusion Dog Food, Fusion Paper Clips, Fusion French Fries, Fusion Heart Defibrillators and Fusion Underwear.

Dixon told me not only to watch out for Fusion but also, Ultra. Ultra is trying to cut into Fusion's quest for world domination. There are Ultra shoes, boots, sun block, toothbrushes, kiddie car seats, fishing rods and computer parts. There's even the 2006 Ford Ultra Fusion sedan, which means the people who name consumer products have completely run out of ideas or the future is fusing into an ultra scary place, indeed.