When I decided to shave off my beard, I had no idea how much more effort it would be, every day, to shave the chin, around the mouth and upper lip, compared to all the rest of the face. That area is complicated and not very flat, and spiky stubble can poke unpleasantly. Plus I have a lot more bluish beard shadow there than anywhere else.
I’ve tried multiple things so far to improve shaving. I’ve had some half-decent results but nothing super great, and it’s a bigger time commitment. So I’ve been considering alternatives.
None of those alternatives is growing the beard back though.
I actually bought some wax strips. But apparently they need 1/4 inch of hair to work, and that’s a long time to leave a lot of stubble. I just tried it after a mere 4 days of stubble (which I quite dislike) and it had basically zero effect other than making my face sticky until I cleaned it off with the provided wipes, and then it just smelled weird. 0/10 would not do again.
So I’m getting myself an at-home IPL device. There’s some up-front cost but considering how much razor cartridges (*) cost, in the long term it’s cheaper. IPL isn’t permanent but is pretty long-term, and you can always touch it up. I have the requisite light skin, and the beard hair I’m concerned with is dark enough that it should work well. Certainly it seems like a better choice for relatively sensitive skin than using an epilator (think: small combine harvester made of tweezers), or even shaving really.
(*) double-edged safety razor blades are cheaper, but they don’t *actually* shave closer than multi-blade cartridges. They just encourage people to slow down and learn better technique by necessity. And some people prefer the more old-fashioned methods.
I watched the first season of the Netflix series Arcane when it was pretty new. I don’t play League of Legends, but I don’t think I really missed anything important by coming into that universe cold. It was enjoyable, but it didn’t occur to me to catch up on season 2 until just yesterday when I found it too awkward to eat hot soup and read a paperback in a recliner at the same time.
One thing I didn’t like about the first season was… Imagine Dragons. I don’t actively dislike them, I just am not into them. They did the opening credits song, which I always skipped after the first episode… and then I was chagrined when one of the episodes basically had a music video for that song in its entirety. Feh.
Well, I’ve watched three episodes of season 2 and all three of them had music videos. Plus action scenes that were almost a second music video per episode (the music being mixed well above any other sounds and the action more or less synchronized to it). Some of these are better than others, in terms of how abstracted the storytelling is and how much it feels like a proper part of the episode rather than a kind of interruption. I’d really just rather they didn’t, though.
The visual styles (for there are a few, and they shift with context) are gorgeous and awesome — even though some of the weapons, clothing and equipment are videogame-level silly and impractical, and some of the intelligent races of people are very Jim Henson silly and feel out of place. Some of the characters are extremely cool though, and despite the punching and shooting and exploding and magical weirdness it’s still a very character-driven show. I’m enjoying it overall. I just groan when the music videos start.
Something I used to do on Instagram is post a collection of album covers whenever Bandcamp Friday rolled around and I acquired some music. Today they’re donating proceeds to LA fire recovery, so I picked out several things.
This is an album I had in my collection on Google Play Music, which means I never actually owned it and lost access to it when I cancelled my subscription. Basically, a chiptune and piano duo; they did some music for Steven Universe, and the album has a great cover of “Lonely Rolling Star” from the Katamari Damacy soundtrack.
If I remember right, this is someone who posted the link to their album on either the Lines or ModWiggler forums. Generally chill but not super ambient stuff.
Hiroshi Yoshimura was a pioneer of “environmental music” (kankyō ongaku) in Japan — starting before the US went through its brief New Age frenzy. The genre typically included nature recordings, birds and running water and so on, but this particularly album only had it in the US release, and this reissue is a remastered version of the Japanese original, full of FM sounds and a generally optimistic vibe.
Oren Ambarchi got his start with minimal ambient music with electric guitar, but this album moves into percussion (tuned and not), strings and pianos and sine waves and other things.
This is a composer and sound engineer trained in classical violin and Renaissance lute, turning them (plus processing) into something completely new and different.
I’m just going to call it techno. Berlin techno maybe, dark and heavy with an industrialized feel. But then I have trouble differentiating a lot of dance-oriented genres. Anyway, it’s good.
Alma Laprida plays the tromba marina, a medieval stringed instrument that’s four to seven feet long, processed with effects pedals and an overdriven 18-inch subwoofer and feedback. Whatever you imagine that sounds like, you’re probably wrong. It’s oddly delicate at times.
This is Ezra Buchla on the electric viola (with some overdrive and/or echo at times) and a looper. It’s absolutely lovely stuff!