Ennovy.org

• Long distance:: Charges
• Meant to be:: Fate
• Here:: and Now
• Endless:: Nights
• Resentment:: Hatred
• Insipid:: Fools
• Bunny:: Rabbit
• Slogan:: Sign
• Naked:: Pants
• Sarcasm:: Wit

(from Unconscious Mutterings)

It’s the Chinese New Year today. It’s the Year of the Dog, and it’s special for me as I was born in the Year of the Dog. Kung Hei Fat Choi! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

I have been reading this book called The Science of Harry Potter by Roger Highfield. It’s a very interesting book. The other day, I got to this one part in the book about sleep paralysis, which is described as “a kind of breakdown between brain and body that takes place on the fringes of sleep, either when falling asleep or awakening”.

This sleep paralysis has happened to me twice.

The first time it happened, I was lying on my back, on my bed at home. I was trying to get up and I realized I couldn’t move. I tried as hard as I could to move my arms and legs and my head, or even just a finger – and nothing responded. It was scary. I panicked and I started breathing heavily – that was all I could do, breathe. I was so worried that I was in a coma and that eventually my lungs would stop working too. I don’t know how long I was stuck like that but when I started moving again, I decided it was just a bad dream.

The second time it happened, I had fallen asleep on the sofa in the living room. I was lying on my side, and dreaming. I was all alone in the house. Then I was awakened from my dream when I heard the sound of the door opening, and some muffled voices and plastic bags ruffling. I couldn’t figure out who it would be. But when I tried to get up to see who it was, I couldn’t! I panicked because they could be burglars. When I finally was able to move I saw that there was no one there. Again I thought it must have been a bad dream. This one happened about a year ago.

The book mentions a study done on sleep paralysis.

Sleep paralysis was once thought rare. But recent studies by Kazuhiko Fukuda at Fukushima University in Japan, suggest that it may strike between 40 percent and 60 percent of all people at least once. About 4 percent of the population experiences sleep paralysis on a regular basis. Fukuda also found that while sleep paralysis was equally prevalent in Japan and Canada, citizens of the latter often wrote off the experience as a dream because there was no common expression for the condition. In Japan, in contrast, it is known by the name kanashibari.

How true is that study? I live in Canada, I thought I was dreaming, I was shocked to know that this happened to other people, and that there was a term for it!

You can read more about sleep paralysis on Wikipedia.

According to TVshowsonDVD.com, the Dawson’s Creek Season 6 DVD set is being released on April 4th. It will include a scrapbook with triva and photos. I’ll be really glad to get my hands on this!

While looking at this year’s Bloggies nominees, I found Drawn!. On the site, I found some news about a new Sam and Max computer game. I loved the game Sam and Max Hit the Road when I was a kid! There was once plans for another game, called Freelance Police, but it was cancelled. Now, Telltale Games is developing a new game with these characters. Here’s an interview with Steve Purcell, the creator of Sam and Max. I can’t wait for it!

In the meantime, there is a Sam and Max webcomic. You need to put your mouse over each panel to get the whole story. It’s awesome.

I’ve changed the setting in EE so that URL titles now have dashes instead of underscores.

Also, I’m using famfamfam.com’s flag icons with the IP-to-nation module. Famfamfam also has a lot of other nifty icon sets. I’m using the Mini set on my journal.

• Alone:: in the Dark
• Science:: Fiction
• Deposit:: Bank
• Faithful:: Sticky
• Tender:: Soft
• Chocolate:: Cake
• Homework:: School
• Tamper:: Fix
• Friend:: Family
• Wire:: Trap

(from Unconscious Mutterings)

Gmail has now added in a delete button. Awesome. I noticed it when the Greasemonkey script (which does the same thing) stopped working.

LiveJournal has made some changes to their URLs. Now all LJs are accessed using a subdomain, username.livejournal.com. Old URLs (that look like livejournal.com/users/username) are automatically forwarded to the new ones. I don’t like this, because of the way I browse through LJ. I like being able to go to my browser’s address bar, typing the letter l, and getting the auto-complete feature to list all of the LiveJournal addresses that I’ve recently visited. With the new URL changes this won’t be possible.

The above comic is from Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson. Some people decided to imitate the many faces of Calvin, and the result is hilarious! The cutest one is of this little boy, Nathan, who is sooo adorable.