ironSoap

On one hand, I’m so happy Heroes is back. Mondays are cool again! On the other hand, Monday’s episode was the first one I’ve been even mildly disappointed with overall. The problem is pretty clearly that this was an “aftermath” episode where they had to kind of reset the plotlines following the flurry of significant activity from the last couple of shows before the break, but to me it felt like they spent too much time going over ground we’ve already covered, sometimes literally (Claire and Zach filming her “stunts”).

Here’s some of my cobbled-together thoughts from the episode:

The Good

• I’m glad that Nathan seems to finally be getting out of his state of denial, since that was getting old. The connection between Hiro, Isaac and him seems to be the first steps toward getting the Heroes together and I think that’s what I’m really hoping gets going sooner than later; the show is really at its best when the Heroes interact with each other.
• The scene in the museum where Hiro mimicked Isaac’s painting with the stuffed Dinosaur was a bit of a relief: I’m not saying that rampaging Dinosaurs wouldn’t be kind of cool but it seems a bit early in the show’s run for it to start going that far over the edge.
• Parkman’s confrontation with Horn Rimmed Glasses was excellent, especially in the perfectly executed response by HRG. Jack Coleman’s delivery of the could-have-been-lame line, “Good luck with that” was spot on and satisfactorily sinister. Clearly HRG thinks he’s more or less invincible.
• HRG’s swagger was effectively counterpointed by the scene between Claire and the Haitian since we know that HRG is not quite as clued in as he thinks.
• Parkman finally coming clean to his wife gave me hope that we’ll soon get some sort of resolution of that more or less uninteresting thread. I don’t mind that we have some backstory on him and his family situation to give a better idea of his character but they’ve spent a lot of time on it and I think he has better chemistry with Audrey (Clea DuVall, whom I usually can’t stand but does an okay job in this show) than with his wife (played blandly by Elizabeth Lackey).
• The invisible man’s introduction was pretty well done although I wasn’t quite able to discern how Peter knew that he was supposed to help him stop the explosion. The impression I got from the dream sequences was that this guy (Wikipedia lists the character’s name as Claude) was somewhat sinister.

The Not So Good

• Not to keep harping on it, but can we do something about the Niki/Micah/DL storyline, please? It feels like those scenes are from a completely different show. Or at best from a spin-off where the continuity remains but these events are completely separate from the main show. It doesn’t help that DL’s character is written in a really bizarre way where he seems to flip-flop on his feelings for Niki and I don’t think Ali Larter’s acting chops are quite up to the split personality thing. The only redeeming part of this storyline in the last six episodes was the brief and never addressed moment where it seemed that Niki was able to use Jessica’s super strength to snap the police baton and that ain’t enough to make up for the ten minutes of otherwise wasted time.
• Claire’s scenes were almost entirely wasted. Other than the brief conversation with the Haitian, it was all retread territory going back to the pilot. The off-air drama surrounding the actor who plays Zach (I guess he or his management wasn’t happy with the revelation that Zach is gay, which I don’t really care about one way or the other except that I think it was a weak way to try and evade the obvious chemistry that he and Claire have so it didn’t turn into a “will they get together?” kind of story element) maybe didn’t help, but either way I’m more interested in seeing Claire connect with the other Heroes than seeing her try to win Zach over. Again.
• I was kind of baffled by the scenes with Ted Sprauge (the radioactive guy) in the desert until I figured out that there was supposed to be a little snippet featuring a new character (Hana, introduced in the online comics at nbc.com) and Ted. I’m not sure when it was aired, if at all, but I found it on the website. Without it though, the part with Ted sparking fire from his hands seemed really random. You know, come to think of it, even with the Hana scene, it was still pretty random.
• I wasn’t all that impressed with the time spent on the sword scenes. Most of the time whenever Hiro is onscreen I’m happy, but all that time spent for a replica? I guess it was semi-necessary to show where Hiro’s powers are at the moment and to introduce the Lieberman connection but the end result was so anticlimactic that I wished they’d either handled it differently or had something more tangible result from that sequence.
• I’m usually not a Mohinder hater, but his confrontation with HRG was kind of lame. He really needs to get his storyline into motion because he’s practically the only person who is still more or less at the same point they were during the pilot. And no, I don’t count his conviction that this is something he needs to do as progress: We all knew he’d end up back in New York so the sidetrack wasn’t entirely welcome despite it being decently executed.

So, not my favorite episode but at least they got the aftermath show out of the way so hopefully next week we can get back to moving things forward.

If you’ve ever actually met me in real life, chances are I appeared at that time unshaven. Not that I have a heavy beard or anything—although I have on occasion sported various styles of facial hair—but specifically whatever areas of my face that would reasonably require regular maintenance in the form of shaving (even full beard wearers shave some parts of their faces to keep the beard looking neat) have far greater than even odds of being unshaven at any given point in time.

The reason for this is not actually (well, not completely) attributed to laziness. Truthfully, shaving is and has always been a problem for me.

There are a couple of reasons why shaving has been a pain ever since I matured to the point where not shaving was something that had a noticeable effect. And really that hasn’t been all that long. I probably first shaved a few wisps of facial hair around my Sophomore year in high school, but it wasn’t until I was twenty or so before I could claim any sort of legitimate facial hair that might require regular shaving. It probably wasn’t for a year or two after that before I could let it grow and the result would appear to be something akin to a real beard.

But even now my full “beard” is pretty sad: It grows uneven and inconsistently hued. It doesn’t grow much on my cheeks other than in a few select patches and the whole thing is plagued by the same affliction as my (lately ever more absent) head hair, which is what my dad always called “cowlicky” but really means that the grain or direction of growth is not uniform. I’ve experimented with various styles of facial hair in the past to varying degrees of success, but any style is still going to suffer from its composition of thick, coarse hair that pretty much does its own thing regardless of other neighboring hairs. Plus my mustache is really pathetic with the hair along the ridges of my philtrum growing far, far darker than anywhere else across my upper lip so that in anything save direct natural lighting I have a vaguely Hitler-esque appearance. I’ve tried many combinations of mustache-less beard configurations but the end result is almost always that I have more surface area to maintain than growing facial hair would suppose and, indeed, is designed to prevent.

The really unfortunate part is that I don’t particularly care for facial hair. It’s uncomfortable to me (although I inherited my father’s penchant for tugging my facial hair when I’m deep in thought which is why I almost always leave at least a little soul patch under my lower lip, just to have something to play with while I think—I never was able to fully mimic my father’s preference for the corner of his mustache, probably due to the fact that my mustache corners consist of about four wispy strands). I would prefer to be mostly clean shaven, which returns from my digression so I can finish telling you why shaving has been a pain.

The primary factor is that I received a genetic gift from my dear maternal grandmother of intensely sensitive skin. I have to use certain kinds of soap, both in the shower and on my laundry. I generally have to just be really careful about what kinds of deodorants, lotions or ointments I use because I’ve had some pretty rough reactions to things on occasion. I suspect that heavy dyes and perfumes are the worst offenders which is why things like All Free & Clear laundry detergent work pretty well but fabric softener sheets are big negatives. Even when using “sensitive skin” shaving foam, the mere act of scraping the hair off my face is generally enough to give my skin fits.

The other factor is less easily identifiable but I suspect has something to do with the weird growth patterns and thickness of my hair which is that if I try to shave stubble, that is hair that isn’t at least a few days worth of growth long, I get the worst razor burn ever.

Now, I’ve tried for the past ten years or so various methods of having a reasonably presentable face (such as is possible with a mug like mine). I heard that the key was to just shave every single day at the same time and eventually the razor burn would go away. I don’t know exactly how long that regimen is supposed to happen, but two weeks later and I was basically just shaving off scabs from the previous day every morning so I figured that was both really gross and pointless. I’ve tried electric razors that are generally less close shaves thinking that might be better since it may not get the blades on my actual skin as much, but it doesn’t work because I both don’t feel like I really shaved that much and I still get razor burn. And each time the razor companies add another blade to their disposable or cartridge lines, I give it a shot thinking it might be better. It isn’t.

The only routine that sort of works is my current regimen which involves literally shaving only once per week. But again, I really would prefer to be clean shaven much more often, not to mention the fact that I’m sure Nik would appreciate it and her own fairly tender skin is often razed a deep red after even mild smootching by my almost permanently sandpaper-like face. Not ideal.

And a couple of weeks ago a new problem appeared that started me thinking about shaving options again: I rushed home from work and had a short period of time to shave after having gone for nearly two weeks without. I grabbed one of the generic triple-bladed disposables that we buy as the best option I’ve yet found and started in. About two-thirds of the way through I noticed that a few clumps of my thick beard had gotten lodged in the tiny gaps between the blades, which essentially rendered those sections of the razor’s head useless at best and painful at worst, and no amount of rapping the razor on the edge of the sink would dislodge the clogs. Ouch.

So it is curiously timely that I happened to run across this article on old-school style wetshaving today. Basically wetshaving is the method of shaving used in the past with the lather brush and either a double-bladed safety razor or a (gulp!) straight razor. According to this guy and a bunch of other people whose writings I tracked down after reading it, wetshaving is the way to go for smooth, burnless shaves especially if you’re among those with coarse or thick facial hair.

My first instinct might be to dismiss these people as lunatics because in a certain mathematical sense the modern multi-blade razors seem more logical. But on the other hand I’ve long suspected that Gilette et al are really not too concerned about the closeness of their customers’ shaves and just want to have something new to peddle to a blindly accepting population. Hi, my name is Paul and I’m kind of cynical.

But one thing that does give a bit of anecdotal support to the assertions these people are making is that I’ve actually had a real barbershop shave with a straight razor in the past (back when visiting a barber wasn’t completely pointless for me) and I have to say, it was the most comfortable, closest shave I’ve ever had before or since and, as the article mentions but which is otherwise apropos of nothing, it was possibly in my top five most relaxing experiences of my life.

After some additional thought I decided that it is perfectly reasonable that old style shaving may be just the ticket for me, and I have to try something different since my once-per-week method may be okay for some hack working the graveyard shift but doesn’t become someone who might ever wish to appear professional somewhere down the line. As it is I try very hard to schedule my weekly shaves around events where it is most appropriate to be fully shaven and if it falls that I need a shave before my allotted time has past, I resort to the half-shave where I clean up my neck and cheeks and appear as though I’m in the early stages of growing a full beard. A questionable workaround at best.

But before I dive in I needed to evaluate the relative costs. I may have shaving issues, but I’m also a cheapskate, especially when it comes to annoying personal grooming expenses. So I figured that it costs me roughly $1.60 per week to shave. Of course that is with me shaving once per week, and one of the ideas here is to shave once per day instead. For the sake of simplicity I’ll round the numbers to about $1.00 per day with my current set up stretched out over six days (I probably won’t ever consistently shave on Saturdays) for a weekly total of $6.00 using the cheap sensitive skin formula shave foam and the generic triple blade disposables that have been my staple for three or four years now.

Now if I go with the recommendations from the article, the Merkur Safety Razor (I actually think I’d prefer the “Classic” model over the bigger “Hefty” one) is $26.00 plus shipping. A pack of 10 double edged blades is roughly $5.00 and a jar of nice European shaving cream runs about $15.00 plus shipping. I’ll assume the total shipping costs are fairly small and infrequent since only the razor and the shaving cream need be shipped (assuming I can find someone who sells the blades at a brick and mortar somewhere), so to compensate I’ll just add an additional dollar to the blade costs.

I can’t be sure how many shaves you get out of a double edged razor blade but I’ll go with the same formula as the disposable and say once per blade (double-edged blades then get two uses each). The total therefore comes to $0.85 per day for the razor and blades which leaves the cream. Unfortunately I have no idea how far a 5.3 ounce jar of European shaving cream goes. Is that five shaves worth? Fifty? The amount is slightly less than a tube of toothpaste and those usually last a month so I’ll guess it’s roughly the same. After the math that means the daily cost for wetshaving would be roughly $1.50, so obviously there is an increased cost factor for wetshaving, by about a half a magnitude.

So here is the question: Is it worth it? Are these people on crack? Have you ever tried wetshaving on yourself? Does it make a difference?

My inclination is to give it a shot. I figure one month would be reasonable and would more or less recoup the investment cost in the razor and shaving cream. Plus that would give me a better idea of how often the materials need to be replaced which might adjust the cost factor up or down and give me enough time to get used to adding a few extra minutes to my daily routine.

If you have insight or suggestions, by all means, leave a comment or drop me an email. My face thanks you.

One can only.

Yes, yes, I’m old. Har. I turned 30 on Saturday, with mercifully minimal fanfare although I did get a chance to talk to my brother and a few friends who called with warm (and welcome) birthday wishes. I spent nearly the entire day playing XBox which was as much of a celebration as I wanted so even if from the outside it looked like I didn’t do anything, I spent the day more or less exactly as I wanted. And, you know, clearly turning 30 has not sparked any sort of spontaneous maturation so I dodged that bullet.

The real downside of Saturday was the passing of Gin’s father after a long struggle with heart problems. He had been undergoing some treatments to try and get him healthy enough to get on the heart transplant list but sadly his health was just too poor to get to that point and he passed away sometime in the wee hours of the morning surrounded by his family.

Now I didn’t know Dan all that well, although I met and spoke with him on a number of occasions. He came to our wedding and as he danced with Nikki during the obligatory “money dance” she thanked him for coming. His only reply was, in his typical deadpan simplicity, “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” But I do know that he was a genuine war hero, having served in Vietnam and been awarded the Purple Heart, which is now displayed with honor in Gin’s home. I know that Gin was very close to her dad and she is suffering a great deal right now. I also know that Dan will be missed, for all the world.

If you’re of the disposition to pray, I know Gin and her family could use some prayers for strength and peace. If not, perhaps take a moment to reflect on your own family and how precious they are. Take the time to call them and say, “I love you,” without self-consciousness or ambiguity. Let ‘em know for sure. Give them a hug if you can. Make a point to appreciate the everyday heroes all around us who sacrifice on our behalf. We all owe them that much, at the very least.

Sleepless in Silicon Valley

I started my regular shifts at work this week. I, of course, use the term “regular” extremely loosely. I start at midnight and get off work at ten o’clock in the morning so there is pretty much nothing regular about it. One odd thing I didn’t really think about before starting this schedule is that when I used to work from home (way back in the very beginning of ironSoap, remember that? Anyone? No? Okay, then) and I’d work through the night, I would technically be working a similar schedule to what I have now except that even then I would go to bed early in the morning, usually between six and eight. That meant I was up sometime in the early to mid afternoon which isn’t all that different from just sleeping in really late. But now I don’t even get home until almost noon and Nik and I have sort of agreed that in order to spend at least some time together every day I get up around the time she gets home from work.

But that’s like six o’clock in the evening so it’s this truly bizarre state where I go to sleep when it’s all light outside and when I get up it’s dark.

I was given a couple of extra days off last week to try and get my sleep schedule adjusted but I had the hardest time making that happen so instead I’ve been kind of zombie-like all week. Mercifully today is my Friday so I should be able to catch up a bit and continue to adjust and hopefully by next week I’ll start to settle into a groove.

Other Bits

I realize this post is kind of all over the map, but I haven’t done much updating lately so I’m just kind of brain dumping. Sorry.

• Nik’s car got broken into last night and they ripped out her new stereo that I just got her for her birthday back in October. This, you may recall, is the second break-in at our apartment complex in about a year and is the third car-related theft (including the swiping of the entire vehicle last summer) in the same time frame. It’s getting really old and while part of the fault lies with us (we’re not always the most diligent about keeping our cars free of enticing bait), it annoys me that car crimes are at the absolute top of the list of incidents in our otherwise pretty safe little community and yet the police seem generally uninterested in doing much about it such as increasing street presence.
• We also lost both of our iPods which were stashed in the center console where the adapter for the stereo interface runs, and annoyingly our insurance is threatening to cancel our renter’s policy as a liability if we file a claim. Which makes me wonder, if they’re going to do this the first time we file a claim, what’s the point of having it again?
• By the way, for those keeping score, that makes all three iPods that we’ve owned, stolen. Someone must sure like our taste in music.
• In a strange twist of fate, the same day Nikki’s Sirius-capable stereo was stolen, her birthday gift to me arrived via UPS. It is a Stiletto portable satellite receiver and it’s really slick. It has built-in WiFi so you can connect to Sirius’ internet feed when you’re indoors (the satellite signal doesn’t work too well when the antenna isn’t outdoors) and it has a 2GB storage feature and TiVo-esque recording/scheduling function so you can load MP3s on it or queue up radio content to listen to later. Which should work great for Sharks games since Sirius gets all the NHL feeds.
• The only problem with the Stiletto (okay, two problems) is that the portable antenna is integrated with the special headphones and they’re a it bulky and dorky-looking. Not that I really care, especially since I’ll probably be using it mostly in the car, but it is kind of funny. Also the software for loading music files is Windows-only so I have to fire up Virtual PC which is just dog slow on my aging iBook. Fortunately I prefer iPods for digital music anyway (stop laughing, it ain’t funny) so it doesn’t really matter it’s just kind of a hassle.
• So Apple announced the incessantly-rumored iPhone today. As much as I usually like what Apple does, I’m pretty underwhelmed by this one. I’m sure it’s a very nice phone but what about some scoop on Leopard? Nothing? Anyone? Is this thing on?
• Meanwhile, TiVo finally, finally announced that they finished TiVo2Go for Macs. Hoorays and street-dancing all around, right? Well, no. See, here’s a snippet from the announcement in TiVo’s newsletter:
  

  We’ve partnered with Roxio to enable TiVoToGo in Toast 8 Titanium, available TODAY! Yes, you can now transfer your favorite TiVo recordings to your Mac, watch them in a player, burn them to DVD, and convert them for
  playback on iPod or PSP. […] And yes, Toast is the standard for disc burning software on the Mac. The new version 8 is truly awesome.

  Standard for disc burning? O RLY? That’s so funny because OS X Tiger supports system-wide disc burning on the OS level. I’d say that’s pretty durn standard. So in order to get the same functionality as a Windows PC I have to spend at least $40 for software that does something the system does natively? Unless I’m missing something I’m gonna have to say thanks, but no.

• Nik and I continue to discuss the possibility of moving closer to my work, but after looking at some affordable places in the area we were pretty underwhelmed. Also I forgot just how stupidly expensive moving is so we’re still kicking the idea around, we’re just not sure if it is still going to happen or when. At this point, we’re taking a sort of wait and see approach and keeping our eyes open. The commute isn’t all that bad when I don’t hit any traffic (which I don’t, typically, for this shift) but I wouldn’t mind finding a better use for those hours than driving and burning through my paycheck gas.