~~~SANDBOX 77~~~

were they transparent/translucent?

yes

You probably were noticing some floaters in your visual field.

whoa, holy shit, that's it! yes, that.

yeah - i see floaters semi-regularly

nice. if only they weren't called "floaters". we could have the "floaters" club or something, but then most people would wonder why we were in a club about poop

related: i can't really describe it, but if you flex a certain muscle (it seems to happen automatically sometimes when you yawn) you get a rushing sound in your ears. someone please explain what this is to me

yeah - poop or drowned women

I know what you're talking about, mookieproof. This was happening to me a lot for months after I got a concussion. It would happen when I moved my head fast, and go WOOMP WOOMP WOOMP WOOMP. The otolaryngologist said it was me hearing my pulse in my head, but he didn't explain it much more.

I was just making it happen right now. But now it only happens when I'm actively making it happen.

When I was a toddler, floaters and seeing things at night with my eyes closed drove me CRAZY. Especially the latter. I mean, you expect closing your eyes to make you stop seeing things.

yeah. it's weird to actively make it happen. at any moment, you can choose to turn it on (for me it's this little muscle near the temple) and get instantaneous NOIZEJAM2004

I can make my eyes go blurry. I've never met anyone else who could. My optometrist said I was just changing the focus length like you do w/ a magic eye image, but it's not that at all. I asked him to look at my eyes while I did it, and he didn't see anything happening.

When I say blurry, I mean going from 20/20 sharp focus to this:

http://ohdeardesign.com/dearblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/blurry-holiday-lights.jpg

without using my eyelids. I can only hold it for a while b/c my eyes get tired, so I guess I'm doing something w/ muscles.

I'd love to be able to turn that sound OFF /hatemytinnitus :(

What if the the constant roaring sounding like the MGM lion?

I think I would go into mourning if my favorite floater were to vanish someday. he's a cute tubular thing with a distinct round head, and he bunches and unbunches himself like an inchworm as he moves across my field of view. if I flex the muscles around my ears (à la mookieproof) as he passes by, it almost sounds like he's growling at me.

i'm so glad to not be insane!

what's going on sane crew? *high fives*

oh, neat:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_tympani#Voluntary_control

Contracting muscles produce vibration and sound.[4] Slow twitch fibers produce 10 to 30 contractions per second (equivalent to 10 to 30 Hz sound frequency). Fast twitch fibers produce 30 to 70 contractions per second (equivalent to 30 to 70 Hz sound frequency).[5] The vibration can be witnessed and felt by highly tensing one's muscles, as when making a firm fist. The sound can be heard by pressing a highly tensed muscle against the ear, again a firm fist is a good example. The sound is usually described as a rumbling sound. Some individuals can voluntarily produce this rumbling sound by contracting the tensor tympani muscle of the middle ear. The rumbling sound can also be heard when the neck or jaw muscles are highly tensed as when yawning deeply.

pleased to know i'm not insane

otoh could humans be any weirder

people who figured out how to live: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/books/george-whitman-paris-bookseller-and-cultural-beacon-is-dead-at-98.html

Some individuals can voluntarily produce this rumbling sound by contracting the tensor tympani muscle of the middle ear

this will be useful next time i'm trying to put the moves on someone. "you know...i am tensor tympani muscle "enabled", if you know what i mean."

yes, I know what you mean

INNER EAR BONER

i do find that people sometimes appreciate when someone brings up boners in a new and unexpected context

I may need surgery on mah eardrum and its called "tympanoplasty" which is stupidly cute even tho I am horrified by the whole idea argh

Anyone ever see something that looks like a drop of light dropping down from a doorframe? My mum and I both see this every so often - it's out of the corner of my eye when I'm turning away. Must be a thing... right?

you guys
http://i40.tinypic.com/118j9tj.png
i am so scared

even the little squigglies next to 77 look scared

inner ear boner!

- looked at my checking account today. :(:(:(
- but paycheck gets deposited tomorrow. can't believe how much i spent this week, tho.
- one of the regular volunteers at my workplace is this woman in her late 40s, sweet as pie, probably autistic? (on more than a few occasions i have walked into a room and she starts telling me about something that happened to her, beginning in the middle of the story and talking about people/things i don't know anything about.) anyway, today she came up to me while i was working at my computer and told me how she always enjoys seeing me because "your face helps me calm down." considering i've been anything but calm this week at work, it was super-nice to hear that.
- jules dassin double-feature tonight was great (rififi/topkapi)

have spent the ilx downime chillin with my step-ish sister who's over with my dad. She's ok for an american tbh

Anyone ever see something that looks like a drop of light dropping down from a doorframe?

OMG yes I get this sometimes!

should not say anything bad about our new Amaz0nian overlords but
- got email from them y/day telling me that 4 things I'd ordered last week for Christmas would not be arriving until mid-Jan
- thought this was kinda weird/annoying since all 4 still listed as "in stock" "eligible for free super-saver delivery by 24 Dec"
- panicked, ordered new copies via their mktplace, did not cancel originals for fear that in a week I'd get the same email about the new orders, wishing to hedge bets that something might actually arrive before Christmas
- now both sets have been dispatched ffffuuuu etc

so neat hearing about floaters upthread. i always had the exact same thing, with the same reasoning that i was probably seeing air, & eventually figured out they were scratches. they reminded me of roads on street maps, i guess because a couple intersected or kinked in certain ways. the 'magnetism' of how they drift, like a jerk in tandem with whatever weird turning-satellite-style readjustment your eye is making, is really something.

god can't believe so many people rub poop into their eyes YOU ALL ARE SO GROSS

i used to think they were the souls of dead people :/

i always thought they were bacteria, which for all i know is the case tbh

George Whitman is dead??? Aw, I knew he was ailing but that's so sad. Always wanted to stay at S&Co.

i used to think they were the souls of dead people :/

― c sharp major, Thursday, December 15, 2011 6:15 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Permalink

My bff in second and third grade (we moved to a new school and then moved again - I was not a fickle child) had a whole conceit wherein eye floaters were angels, and one in particular, named Maybe-Maybe-Not, would talk to us a lot.

I can also unfocus my vision to the extent Jesse described upthread.

I cannot make that whooshing sound when I yawn, but I can press on my tear ducts and make my eyeballs squeak loud enough that people in the same room but not sitting next to me can hear it.

Those are my only talents in this world. ;_;

these are important skills for the 21st century workforce!

"Ellison, we're going to need you to unfocus your vision and then make that whooshing sound on your temple as much as you possibly can, to be frank. Any chance you can stay late tonight?"

an opening for assistant eyeball squeaker w/ career path towards executive eyeball squicker just opened up, please submit your resume ASAP to HR

Anyone ever see something that looks like a drop of light dropping down from a doorframe?

Why from a doorframe?

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv4q8aYQJB1qg39ewo1_500.gif

Re: light dropping down from door frames - http://m.io9.com/5868098/in-the-short-movie-light-los-angeles-is-overrun-by-viscous-blobs-of-oozing-luminescence

just spent too much time pruning my fb after switching over to timeline

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-TaiLWIzCHU/TLGVCBr0SWI/AAAAAAAADPg/7vm5zpwYHqw/s1600/edward-scissorhands_l.jpg

l-r: timeline, markers, timeline

woooooooo!!!!

oh, sorry. i was thinking i was the first to rediscover the sandbox. now i see that others were enjoying the sandbox literally 15 minutes ago

Anyone ever see something that looks like a drop of light dropping down from a doorframe?

OMG yes I get this sometimes!

Glad I'm not the only one! I've no idea why it's from doorframes, it just is. Usually from an open doorway into a dark room, I see something dropping very fast. I've checked for water lots of times and there's nothing there.

It sounds like it's a reflection, or light through a gap between the door and the frame, when the door is not perfectly straight and vertical. As you move the light reflection (or view through a gap) slides up or down.