Thursday, July 27, 2006

Hmmm, that's odd... Eight minutes ago, I started experiencing my first visual migraine. Luckily, my brother had one a little while back, so I know what's going on. It started as a little blind spot, that was making it hard to see the letter on the screen that I was looking at. It has since grown and moved off to the left. It's now like if I were looking out a window where someone had frozen the letter "C" onto the glass, causing a rainbow diffraction effect, except that the ice is also shimmering. It should end within the half hour, by all reports, and I might get a slight headache after. Very strange, and it would be scaring the tar out of me right now (think: stroke) if I didn't know what it was.
Update: It passed as predicted, in about a half an hour. I got the slightest of headaches afterwards, which is also typical. I found this Flash animation that gives a very good depiction of what it was like (except that the distortion was more of a "C" shape for me).
I knew I could do it. A year or so ago I quit biting my nails, thanks to a product marketed under the great name of Stop That (in America, I think it's called Bittrex). Stop That is a highly bitter substance you put on your nails for a little instant negative feedback whenever you put them in your mouth.

The problem was, I still had the tendency to pick at my nails with my other nails (or even a nail clipper), quite incessantly. I wasn't biting, but my fingers still didn't look too good. I tried all sorts of tricks to stop that, without much luck.

In the last three days, though, I've quit the picking. How? With a little product called Stop That. I just applied it to one nail, and whenever I caught myself picking at my nails, I made myself take a lick. Gross, but effective. I had to reapply several times at the start. But now, after three days, I pick no more.