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Cake day: June 4th, 2025

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  • Dishwashers are not a thing where I live.

    I wash my dishes in at least two passes. First (optional) pass is to remove the gunk, no soap, as little water as possible. Second is to apply soap, with just enough water to wet the surface for the soap to work. Third pass is the rinse, and this is where most of the water consumption happens. I plug the sink, put the soapy dishes in the sink, and let the slightly soapy water from the current item fill it, making sure that the rest of the items consume as little water as possible even in this step.

    I think for an after dinner washing for a family of four, I take around 10 minutes for the entire thing.


  • I tend not to think too much about my handwriting, but that’s not what you’re asking. However, let me just address that “I tend not to think too much…” bit.

    Many people, including myself, don’t think about their handwriting past a certain point (having their own style, being happy about how it looked, or have stopped caring about how it looked), or when it doesn’t really matter (making a quick note, for example). The focus is more about what is being communicated, and how legible it needs to be to serve the purpose.


    Now, to answer your questions. I am assuming something closer to calligraphy, as this is the mode that I think is closest to what you’re asking about.

    1. How are you focused mentally?

      When I think it matters, I focus on the act itself. Writing in this mode takes a certain amount focus, and lack of focus can manifest in uneven strokes or movements that result in, when writing in cursive, strokes that don’t belong. However, too much focus can result in the same, uneven strokes or worse, characters that look uneven. Keeping a good balance between focus and confidence and spontaneity yields the best results.

    1. Do you think about other things at the same time?

      No, my focus on this mode is total.

    1. Are you focused on the lines, the imaginary half line, the staring points, the previous letter alignment, spacing, what comes next, what will fit on the line, the artistic expression of style, or simply the pure minimal effort required to communicate written thought?

      On this mode, the focus is on the composition not just of the letter, but also the line, and also the entire snippet or piece of writing. How the letter would look in relation with the others, how the word looks in relation to the line, how the line would look in relation to the entire thing.

    1. Do you often find yourself bored and evolving or changing your style of writing as an outlet of secondary creativity along with whatever task is at hand?

      I used to change my handwriting style, but now it has coalesced into a few: cursive and print. And for print, one is “all caps” and the other has lowercase. My default is now “all caps” print, but sometimes I switch to cursive. The print with lowercase is the rarest, and takes the most focus for me.

    1. Are you concerned with the impact your writing style has upon others, or are you only concerned with the expansion of your own short/long term memory and usefulness?

      For cursive, I don’t tend to worry about legibility, as it’s mostly used for notes for my own consumption. For cursive, the only concern is if it’s legible for myself. When I use print, I tend to believe it’s generally legible enough (coming from my training in technical drafting), so it’s not really a concern.

    1. Are you aware of the loose correlation between intellect and handwriting? What does that mean to you personally.

      No, I am not aware of that connection. I believe anyone can learn how to write legibly, given enough training and practice. Maybe the capacity for practice is the connection to intellect, but I think it’s more connected to the capacity for discipline than anything else.

    1. Are the ergonomics a point of conscious focus?

      Ergonomics is a consideration before the act, not during, so no. Keeping the proper posture is a consideration during the act, but at this point, I consider it a given. Once I made sure the writing surface is stable enough, and I can maintain a good posture throughout the act, I just try to maintain it throughout the act.




  • With the set-up in the comic, you’d try to shoot your opppnent’s marks. First one to lose all marks and/or their base destroyed would lose.

    That’s at least how I remember it being played. I think there’s a variant where you try to destroy the enemy base (the corners in the paper in the comic), but I am more familiar with the simpler version.

    At the start of the game, there’s no marks, and both players try to reach the other’s corner (basically the base). However, you can only start either from your own corner or from a previous mark you’ve made. You make a mark by putting a ball point pen on its tip, then with a finger pressing on the top (like in the comic) try to make it fall down such that it makes a line towards your target. A new mark is made by noting the end of the line you’ve made.

    On your turn, you can choose to do one of the following:

    • make a mark
    • attempt to destroy an enemy mark

    You can’t use a mark that’s already destroyed, so that’s one way of halting progress. A mark is destroyed if you “hit” it with the line you make during your turn.

    I think that’s it? There are some variations on the kind of base the game starts with, and it can get pretty elaborate. Some even draw levels where the two bases are separated by terrain with certain no-go zones (marks can’t be made in those zones).






  • “Comfy”? My go-to answer would be Aria (the Animation, the Natural, the Origination), but lately, that has been matched by Natsume Yuujinchou as my go-to when I just want to relax. There’s also “Tanaka-kun is Always Listless” but it has enough humor that breaks the “relaxing” mood. Bakaramon might be a better match, but it isn’t really fitting the bill.

    Thus, my answer would be these two:

    • Aria (the Animation, the Natural, the Origination)
    • Natsume Yuujinchou

  • Read all the chapters in one go, and I noticed what the author might have cooked up had this not gotten the axe.

    An wasn’t depressed at when she met Hiiragi. An was just overwhelmed, but this meeting set-up An’s presence in Hiiragi’s life. It was An’s infectious cheerfulness and plucky attitude that got rubbed off Hiiragi. Even the manager’s gruff and no-nonsense attitude helped as well.

    Shiriaishi likely would have been Hiiragi’s foil, and would have served a couple of purposes: to remind Hiiragi of her progress thus far, and a way for her to pay it forward. Shiraishi would also help An move forward by identifying (through analogy, I suppose) which areas she would need more work in–not through rumination, but by witnessing someone else act in the way they’ve been acting.


  • If it’s a civilization that hasn’t yet had a writing system, a writing system.

    However, I will teach them a (semi-)featural alphabet, kinda like if the Hangeul jamo were its own alphabet. It’d be fun how long the orthography will diverge from the spoken sounds, and how fossilized the orthography can be–and more interestingly, how they might evolve the writing system.

    If it’s a civilization that already is using a writing system, emojis that they can use alongside their writing system. It’d be interesting to see if they’d eventually turn into ideograms for human feelings and thoughts.



  • I was actually thinking that the first isn’t necessary given that the second already limits breathing. No one can ever hold their breath for long, and an assumption I made (which I should have made explicit) is that you can’t use the power unconsciously. So if you lose consciousness (like from holding your breath for long), time resumes.

    So I guess the second bullet point is all that it needs, it limits the power from being abused. If one can “power through” all the stopped air particles and whatnot (another superpower–super strength) and have quite an amount of air in one’s lungs, one can actually do some stuff with it. It’d be weird though, as dropped things will just float midair (no time to start falling).

    I can imagine someone stopping time for a bit, move all the way to the other end of the room, and make it seem like one “teleported” from one end of the room to another.

    But yeah, might be limiting, but in conjunction with a few other superpowers (like super strength) it can be quite useful.


  • The way I imagined it, the first stipulation is the “price” of the power. It also discourages someone from just stopping time for “long periods of time”. The third stipulation is a result of the second–if time is stopped except for your own body, your body will continue to age. But this will only be relevant or noticeable if the user is making too much use of their time stop power, that they spend years in time stop.

    But yes, I think in terms of limiting the power’s OP’ness, only the second stipulation is relevant.