My mom rooooocks!

I was on the phone telling my mom about how I found my 1917 Aristocrat in a antiques store, and she said "Oh, I was given an old Gillette razor by your grandma's sister. Her husband worked for Gillette." Needless to say, my ears perked right up. So, she went and rummaged through a drawer for all of a few seconds and pulled out a perfect, brand stinking new British Gillette Aristocrat! As near as I can tell it was a 1953 model, but this remains to be seen once I can look at the date code and find more information on it. I've never seen the likes of the case. So, she's sending it to me! Needless to say I'm more than a little thrilled and can't wait for it to get here!

I'm bringing Saddleback!

Yes, well. I finally pulled the trigger on the last bag I'll ever buy. The last "briefcase" I'll ever buy. The last "briefcase" from Saddleback Leather in Dark Coffee that I'll ever buy... for myself.

I couldn't pass it up. I've been drooling on these things for a while now, and they finally had a sale on one of their bags in the "outlet" (Dave's Deals) that made it impossible to resist. It's this exact, pictured bag, actually. And I'm already in love with it. It's an older model and has a few minor things about it that aren't up to snuff with most of their new bags, so I got it drastically marked down. But, it still has the same 100 year warranty and includes all the awesomeness of their normal bags.

I'm massively stoked for Thursday (the day UPS claims it will be here). Hopefully, all will go as planned and I'll be packing my things in style. And, since I'm looking for work, I'll be packing my things in style when I'm living on the side of the road. :)

Oster? I hardly know her!

I shave my head. It is, therefore, imperative that I have clippers that are up to the task. Up until yesterday I was using a pair of extremely well loved Remington clippers with ceramic blades. By "well loved" I mean they'd been used so much that trying to get them to cut was something akin to taking a butter knife to your hair and just hacking away with it like a madman with a machete. It was that bad. So, I did some looking around. I almost pulled the trigger on two models - another one by Remington - and a $50 Oster set. But, the only fair reviews on the Remington scared me away.

While looking at the Oster set, I stumbled across the Oster Classic 76. At first I freaked out because I couldn't bring myself to spend that kind of money on hair clippers. (And Amazon is CHEAP!) But - get this - it has replaceable blades. Want to adjust the length a bit? Get a different blade set. "But wait!" you cry, "isn't that more expensive than just changing blade guards?" Why, yes! But for someone who just chops off their hair relentlessly it's heaven. No attachments, no adjusting. Just pure chopping pleasure.

And for the shrewd reader, you'll also deduce that this means you can basically get a new set of clippers for a dime. I had to throw out the Remington because replacement blades aren't an option. With this, I can just buy a new blade, pop it on, and I'm off to the races again. Plus there are ample places you can just get your blades sharpened. And *that* is cheap. Like $5 and your clippers can be good as new again. That's thinking ahead.

How does it work? In a word: awesome! After the merciless hacking and pulling and tugging and... (well, you get the idea) that I had to do with my Remington, this thing is just heaven. Took off huge tufts of hair with just a single pass. No bogging, no hesitation or pulling. It is great. The blade tips are very well designed, also, so that you avoid jabbing yourself with the sharp tips. Namely, the tips just aren't sharp. Even on the super short 000 size, you don't feel like you're going to draw blood if you don't maintain just the correct angle.

So, in a nutshell, I'd say that if you do a lot of hair clipping (or you just want a single pair of clippers to last until your kids are out of the house) BUY THESE CLIPPERS. They definitely fall into the category of thrifty when you factor in their lifetime. I'm all for not buying another pair of clippers again. (I've bought 3 clippers in the past decade alone.) The initial cost might seem a bit much, but in the end you'll be glade you did.