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ASMR and the Dreaded Dentist
One medical phenomenon about which I've begun to rave with due frequency is ASMR, which is "Automated Sensory Meridian Response." You LiveJournal veterans may recall me writing about this back in around 2005(!), when I still knew it only by the name I had come up with on my own--the Housefly Effect. This differed from the "Butterfly Effect" in a ( Read more... ) -
Hon'né and Tatémaé - Two Things You Have
A think you'll see a lot in Japan:
Guy X, in the presence of Guy Y, does something not so much rude as marginally acknowledging of his own needs as a living organism. For example, he might sit down. Perhaps he will gently move aside an object that is in his way. Perhaps he will go away so as to make it in time for a separate engagement ( Read more... ) -
My Worst Nightmares Part One of Question Mark
It's a funny term to just throw around. In theory, there can only be one worst. But I submit that all of these are equally worst. Please add to my list in the comments ( Read more... ) -
The Sidewalk Buddha Looks After All of Us
Okay, first a little note about Live Journal ( Read more... ) -
"He meant everything to me. But there's a new Doctor Who on so let's make this snappy."
Hey, so I been thinkin ( Read more... ) -
Twenty-Six in Review
For the last 364 days, I have been, for all intents and purposes, EXACTLY 26 years old. Tomorrow and for the following year, I will be exactly 27 of them. So let us look back at this period of being twenty-six, which would have in reality been several separate periods if not for that unifying number. But I don't make the rules on how we gauge age ( ( Read more... ) -
The Death of Romantic Greg - Part 2
We loved and hugged and tumbled down grassy hills together, and then we got to know each other, and then we got to know ourselves, and then things started to crumble, brick by brick, heart by heart ( Read more... ) -
Heard in a coffeeshop
Good father-like figure: "The earthquake caused damage to a nuclear power plant, and it's very dangerous when that happens ( Read more... ) -
The Car Horn: My Least Favorite Household Invention
The problem with the common American car horn, by which I mean every car horn, is that it simply isn't expressive enough, and yet it's every single driver's go-to method for on-the-road communication. Really, when you sound your car horn, what you're doing is shouting to the surrounding crowd, "BLARRRRR!" and I think it's important to bear in mind ( Read more... ) -
Cologne Again, Naturally?
In a month's time, I've been approached on the street by strangers and asked about my cologne-wearing habits twice. It had never come up in the other 26.6 years of my life, so you can see how it might've caught me off guard. The first time, a girl spotted me and simply asked, y ( Read more... )