Knuckledragger

I've been meaning to make a thread about this for over a year at this point. Last July I bought a Lord dual edge razor. It was like $12 and worth about as much as I paid for it. I also bought a 100 pack of Astra Platinum blades. Astras are made by Gillette in Russia. They offer a decent, but not amazing shave. The quality control is about as good as one might expect. After a few tentative weeks, I stopped using spray shaving cream and bought a Van Der Hagen brush, soap and bowl set. Unsurprisingly, shaving soap offers a much better experience than canned foam. I also invested in some pre-shave glycerine soap as well as some post-shave products (an alum block and bottle of witch hazel). A couple months after my initial purpose, I bought a pair of vintage Gillette razors off eBay. One is a 3-piece and the other is a 1-piece. 1 piece DEs are almost universally "too clever by half." Mechanically they're amusing, but the shave they offer is usually inferior to a 3-piece. The head on the Gillette 1 piece I bought was quite nice, but the handle was too small and my carpal tunnel howled every time I used it. In short order, I determined that I could mount the Gillette head on the (substantially larger) Lord handle. I used that combo until quite recently. About a month after I bought the two Gillettes, I ordered a blade and soap sampler set. I tried out the Sharks (good for like 3 shaves, then they turn to crap in short order) and Feathers (just about the best) first. Full disclosure: I still haven't bothered to try any of the others. Unsurprisingly, I bought a box of 100 Feathers a month after the sampler pack arrived. Blade-wise, I haven't looked back since. Feathers are comparatively expensive per blade ($25-ish for a 100 pack vs $10 for Astras), but they are so much better the point is moot. I get 5 good shaves out of each blade, and the quality control is exceptional. My right wrist has continued to ache, and even the Lord handle has become a challenge. I've toyed with the idea of getting a Merkur "Blue Barrel" ...but it's maybe TOO big. I've heard reports that it's only good for certain angles. I ended up buying the Merk pictured in the photo at the top. It's a heavy piece of German steel. The grip has thusfar been pretty comfortable. The head is significantly more aggressive than the vintage Gillette I had been using and I have had to re-learn shaving with a dual edge. I've nicked myself with it a number of times, but it is clearly capable of offering a very close shave. I've had to shave since I was about 14. I've hated it for nearly a quarter century. I'd put it off as long as possible. I had to use 2 electrics and a disposable razor to go from 3 day's growth to clean shaven. By investing in WWII-era technology, shaving has gone from being a hated chore to a nice hour-long ritual I do in the evening. I've likened shaving with soap and a DE to driving a manual transmission. It's not for everyone, but for some of us it's the only acceptable option.

$9 on AMZN.

The Twiggy Mac Lives! The Quest To Resurrect The World’s Oldest Macintosh

Godwin's Rule 34.

Posty!

False color shot of a texas CAFO.

First this: The the 2007 BBC documentary Hawkwind: Do Not Panic (2007). I'm a bit biased on the subject, but Lemmy was the coolest thing about them. This afternoon I really upset a friend of mine who is a huge Hawkwind fan when I said Silver Machine was their best song.

Peter Lorre and some friends, ca. 1944. This is what capturing a moment looks like.

Motorhead - No Remorse. I'm listening to a vinyl rip of the original 1984 pressing, as every CD version I've ever heard of this release has had something wrong with it.

Many of the pictures I post in Slow come from the randompictures RSS feed on LiveJournal. One of the former top contributors was a guy named Kevin who posted under the name John Mark Karr. He was a kind of unstable guy, but he posted a lot of really strange and interesting pictures. He was found in a coma on the 20th and died yesterday. Randompictures will be a little less surreal from now on.

.de vending machine.

^ Even that image is pretty NSFL.

Kinda busy, no time for a real post.