Well, several things all coming together at once. I guess for me the thing that gave me the nudge was finally getting fed up with flaking that strip of gooey crap off of the twin-blade cartridges I'd been using, coupled with the fact that twin-blade cartridges were getting harder and harder to find, and not liking the idea of the major razor-makers dictating to me what I was going to shave with--they're all making the same crap. If one decides that they're going to make a 4-blade cartridge, they ALL start making 4-blade cartridges . . . but I digress . . . the other major things were my growing antiquarian tendencies--I really enjoy activities that give me a sense of tangible connection with the past--and, just as those frustrations mentioned above were all sort of coalescing, happening upon an article at The Art of Manliness about shaving with a straight, which had a link to SRP. Once I realized that there were a good number of folks who shaved with straights, I was hooked and took the plunge. And like Obie, I look forward to my daily trip back to the 19th century.