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One of the nice things about shaving with a safety razor is the sheer number of different options you have. If you go with a traditional DE, there are dozens of razors to choose from -- vintage Gillette adjustables (long or short handles, stainless steel or gold), vintage Gillette non-adjustables (both twist-to-open and screw-off models, as well as open-comb and safety-bar), modern Merkurs (as well as all the razors that use Merkur heads on fancy handles -- Edwin Jagger, Trumper, et al), old (and even new) Wilkinsons, Schicks, and I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting.

Speaking of Schick, if you decide to go with an Injector-type safety razor, the company made all kinds of different versions -- the oldest pre-Injector magazine repeaters in solid brass, the bakelite and celluloid handled 1940's models with the gold-plated brass heads, the plastic handled 70s and 80s models (some with tennis racket style handles and stick shift knobs), the adjustables, and the final version that still sold in Japan until very recently. Schick even made ladies Injectors (as did Gillette with its DE's) in several styles, with long handle, short handle, and no handle.

So with all these choices for what type of razor best suits each individual, you'd think even the most quarrelsome and obtuse shavegeek would recognize the lunacy of the very notion of a "best" razor, as well as the lunacy of arguing with others that they're idiots for not agreeing with him.

And you'd be wrong.

It's really quite a fascinating phenomenon, this shavegeek fascism. There's one geek in particular who I'm fairly certain is really just an auto-bot -- a line or two of code some prankster dumped into the shavegeek forums like a virus that pops up and spits out the same hostile text every time certain keywords are posted:

1. IF "feather" THEN "Feather DE blades are the best blades and make everything else look like a joke, and if you don't like them then you don't know how to shave because I've been doing it for 40 years and you're WRONG!"

2. IF "gillette" THEN "Gillette DE razors are cheap toys compared to Merkurs and you obviously don't know what a great razor is because I can't get a good shave with a Gillette and I've been shaving for 40 years and you're WRONG!"

3. IF "futur" THEN "The Merkur Futur razor has been around since 1965 because I got one in 1965 and you don't know anything so why don't you shut up because I have proof that the Futur existed in 1965 because here is the one that I have and I got it in 1965 and I've been shaving for 40 years and you're WRONG!"

The last line of code is particularly amusing, given that Merkur itself says it introduced the Futur in the 1985, there isn't a single record anywhere on the Web of this razor ever existing before that date, and other wetshavers who've also been shaving for 40 years don't recall ever seeing this Merkur till the mid-80's, when the company says it first hit the market.

Normally I cut guys slack with dates because I'm bad about them myself, but twenty years off? Can someone really confuse 1965 with 1985? The Beatles with Ah-Ha (the only group ever to have their tour sponsored by Agree Shampoo)?

None of this really matters except that it's funny, like someone peeing their name in the snow and getting a letter backwards. You chuckle and then you give that guy a wide berth, because he might not be through marking.

Anyway, back to reality. I couldn't bring myself to shave with that Wallace and Gromit shaving foam I wrote about yesterday. Just couldn't do it. Wanted to. Thought about it. But once the nostalgia of that foamy scent and the theme music from "The Way We Were" faded away, I remembered that razor burn I used to get from this kind of stuff back in the day -- that scrapy, scratchy kind of shave that left me red and stinging, and led me, finally, to seek out the kind of high-quality shaving creams I get much more comfortable shaves with today.

So I lathered up with Trumper's Violet cream on a Vulfix #2234 brush, loaded a fresh Swedish Gillette blade into my 1940s Gillette Super Speed DE, and got one of those easy, comfortable, perfectly close shaves that this rig tosses off so nonchalantly.

I swear, this razor has completely up-ended my views on wetshaving. Whereas a year ago I was cranking my Merkur adjustables all the way up for the most aggressive shave possible from these beasts (and beating my face up), now I'm getting consistently closer shaves from a little old Gillette non-adjustable that looks like it's barely showing blade.