Mountain Man & The Mach 3:

Today's shave was pretty good. Stirling Soaps and their Mountain Man scented soap pretty much saved today's shave and kept me from getting cut far worse than I did. Gillette has fallen back onto some old & very bad habits. More on that in a moment. The scent on this soap is Stirling's take on Creed's Silver Mountain Water cologne which is insanely exspensive. So if you want this specific scent and not break the bank, this soap is perfect for you. And to finish off today's shave, I paired it with good old Pinaud's Clubman:

The Gillette Mach 3 & Mach 3 Turbo must go. I switched these blades out twice for new blades and they still got me. A brand new blade shouldn't grab me like that. And BOTH new blades really tugged and pulled a lot which shouldn't happen especially if they are new. The Gillette Track 2 doesn't do that and neither does my Gillette Fusion or my Shield razors. The Schick Quattro also doesn't do that either. So I will be getting rid of the Gillette Mach 3 series.

Turkish Bath & The Shield:

Tonight's shave was great. After a nice hot & relaxing shower, I went with Jeeves of Hudson Street and their Turkish Bath scented soap which is now called "Barbershop". The scent is a "1920's era Barbershop" scent with a really deep & rich tobacco top note. And to finish off tonight's shave I went with Stirling Soap's "Barbershop" scented aftershave to add a little sweetness to the post shave aroma:

I went ahead and installed a fresh new blade on my Gillette Shield & it had no issues at all removing my 5 day old barbed wire beard. In fact it only took 2 passes to get that sheet of ice post shave feel. I also had almost NO stinging or burning with the styptic pencil or the aftershave.

Retrobit Trio:

Well after some shock & a little disappointment today, I went to Pinnacle Shopping Plaza in Bristol, TN and purchased a Retrobit Trio from G2K Games. I'm glad that I did. It was worth the $75 dollars that I paid for it. I wanted the red & black color scheme and the packaging was really awesome as well. The first thing I noticed was that it's very light weight. It probably weighs less than half of what my Super Nintendo does:

It comes with 2 controllers that resemble the Super Nintendo but the plugs on the end are scary similar to the Sega Genesis. Also included is a combination of the old school AV cable that these game systems had & the S-Video cable that you use to be able to buy extra for it back in the day. Everything has went to HDMI cables & USB style plugs now:

They do offer an adapter for playing GameBoy Advance games & my uncle Frank did buy an adapter so my cousin could play his Sega Genesis games using the Super Nintendo slot. My uncle Frank & my cousin Paul are really rough on everything especially electronics so this is not surprising for me to hear but I'm glad that they do make that just in case my device malfunctions:

The front panel looks really cool and sleek and it's spring loaded which means you simply press it to open the front panel to gain access to the extra controls which are really awesome:

Inside the front panel you will find Nintendo, Super Nintendo & Sega Genesis controller ports which means you can use all of the controllers that were made for these systems and that's a really good thing. I use to love the Nintendo Advantage & Super Nintendo Super Advantage arcade style controllers they made for both the Super Nintendo & Nintendo systems especially for the fighting games like Final Fight, Street Fighter 2 Turbo and a few others that I had back in the day. Another thing you will notice is a controller selector which you need to use of you plan on using system specific controllers. There's also a region selector which allows you to play video games for these systems from Japan, Britain & Europe. I think that in of itself is awesome. Back in the day if you bought a Super Nintendo game from Japan then there was a 95% chance that it wouldn't work at all on your system because you had to buy a separate machine specifically for that game. This region selector eliminates that and allows you access to more games such as Final Fight Guy which was Japan & NeoGeo only back in the day. There's also a reset button and you simply turn the power switch on to the system you wish to play. Oh before I forget, these controllers will work for all 3 systems which is also a good thing because you had to buy specific controllers back in the day as well. I never knew that Retro gaming would take off like it did:

If you are wondering how it looks here's a screen shot of Final Fight. And unlike in my previous blog post, the picture is excellent and the sound is spot on as well. Plays like a brand new Super Nintendo and the controllers feel excellent. I can't hardly tell the difference between these and the original Super Nintendo controllers at all:

I definitely recommend getting this system. It's totally worth the money and it is simple to hook up and use. The sound is excellent and I can't wait to see how they did with the Sega Genesis & Nintendo sound system. They nailed it with the Super Nintendo. The graphics are also clean and very crisp refined much better than they use to be in some cases. So if you are in the market for some classic video games & don't want to do a Raspberry Pi 3 computer build, this is definitely in your wheel house and these games are extremely affordable now in most cases. I paid $17 dollars for Mortal Kombat 2 at Lukie Games this past Saturday and the 1st time I got it back in the early 90's, it was well over $60 U.S. Dollars easy.

My SNES Failed:

Well I tried ladies & gentlemen. As I suspected if it worked, it would be half way decent at best. Well I was NOT expecting it to work at all but got quite a shock when it did. I first tried Final Fight and when I heard the sound of it, I tripped out in a good way:

The sound was beyond belief if not perfect. But as you can see below, the picture was awful. It also had trouble playing the game itself. So I tried Mortal Kombat 2 and it was almost as bad and I just bought it. So for this Super Nintendo to fire up after being in storage since the mid 90's and being exposed to both the elements & extreme temperatures is simply mind blowing:

This Super Nintendo has been out in the rain and everything. Mainly because I didn't think back then that these types of games would make a come back like they have. So I ended up getting a Retrobit Trio today from G2K Games.

Mail Call: Lukie Games:

Today's mail call is from Lukie Games and it did help some. More on that in another blog post. To get my Super Nintendo up and running, I needed a power supply & AV cable. I also got a couple of specialty bits because I'm dealing with old cartridges that might need some internal care for various reasons that would take too long to list:

They could have done better at packing the order than they did because UPS is really rough on packages like this:

I also needed a new controller & I went ahead and bought Mortal Kombat 2 again:

I was very pleased with my purchase & service and all of these items worked very well under the circumstances but that's going to be my next blog post.

TTFFC Mixed & The Quattro:

Good old Through The Fire Fine Craft by Maria Arman delivers yet another top shelf performance. This is my "Mixed Soap" and the Play it again Sam which is Lime & Ginger Ale seems to stand out which is incredible. It reminds me of Canada Dry Ginger Ale with a hint of fresh squeezed lime juice. And to finish off this shave, I paired it with Pinaud's Clubman aftershave which seems to pair perfectly with this soap:

The Schick Quattro was great but it was also the last shave on this blade which I have to get more of because I seemed to have forgotten to buy some. I also went ahead and switched out my Track 2, and both the Mach 3 & Mach 3 Turbo. Those are as cheap as DE blades are and I can really afford to switch them out after so many shaves and now that I'm no longer shaving daily or frequently, they will last quite a while so my costs go down even further. Now I can't do that too much with the Fusion blades just yet but it's looking like I'll be able to with in the next few months. I also can't do it with Gillette's new Shield blades either. Those are $25 dollars for 4 and are my most expensive & comfortable blades to date.

American Blend, Coffe & The Turbo:

Tonight's shave was great. After enjoying a nice cup of Dunkin Donuts black decaf coffee, I went ahead and took me a nice hot shower which is one if not the best prep you can do before a shave. I then decided to satisfy my craving for a barbershop scent and went with Fine's American Blend and I finished it off with the matching aftershave:

The Gillette Turbo was great but I could tell that it needed a bit of stropping. So after doing a 2 pass shave, I took it to my fire hose strop & then both sides of my leather strop. So we'll see how it does the next time I use it and there's no telling when that will be. My next shave will probably be either on Wednesday or Thursday later this week. I get a much better shave experience when I go longer between shaves. I'll say this much for Fine's soaps. Go light on the loading and use extra water. You will get a much slicker & better lather if you do.