casual

This might be a bit weird, but I just wanted to share it somewhere and thought 'casual' might be a good place.

I will sometimes have a few hours or even a day through which I can feel my heart palpitate every few minutes at random. This has always worried me because my heart is... well... rather important to me. I once spoke to a doctor about this, but there was nothing to measure because I can't trigger these events on command. The doctor did say that palpitations are common and usually benign.

Still, it bothered me to not know specifically what is happening with my heart when I feel a palpitation. So, about two years ago I bought a small personal electrocardiogram monitor. This morning, finally, I woke up with palpitations. I stuck the leads of the ECG, monitored for a few minutes, and was able to measure my heart as it palpitates!

In the image that I have attached, you can see that in between the regular beats there are a few irregular beats that are closer than usual to the preceding beat and have an extra deep depression and a broad and tall peak. With this image I was able to do some online research and figure out what I am observing: a 'premature ventricular contraction', or 'PVC'. Basically, shortly after a hearbeat a second heartbeat is triggered from the other side of the heart. This delays the following heartbeat, causing the next heartbeat to deliver an even stronger beat. The delay of the beat makes it feel like a 'skipped' heartbeat, and the following heartbeat is stronger because there was more time for the heart to recover - this is felt as a palpitation.

I found this video on the topic to be very instructive. It turns out that these 'PVC's are quite commonly present in healthy individuals and they are general demand. They may sometimes have an underlying cause such as an electrolyte imbalance, but stress, lack of sleep, and coffee can cause them too. Unless they occur continuously over a very long period of time, they are generally not a problem.

Anyone remember how Trump started Space Force? I was on Space Force, and I got sent to the moon. We were called Moon Force, and there was only one other soldier there on the moon with me.

Back home on Earth, I wanted to mail her a card, so I looked in the card aisle for cards related to Moon Force. They only had one relevant card, it said "Don't Moon Force me to go". I thought it was funny so I got it for her and mailed it.

In my theory of the world, the pipe tobaccos that win big are the ones that taste like foods. Escudo for example tastes like a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich; My Mixture 965 tastes like gingerbread, and those Virginia flakes taste like sourdough bread toast with honey (if you want it really tasty, take a spare honey jar and fill it with strips of fresh ginger).

Sutliff Dark Decadence comes from this school of thought because it tastes like pancakes and maple syrup:

Summary: a cool-burning aromatic with maple, whisky, and vanilla notes.

 

I started out, before I knew just about anything, smoking a blend called Blender's Gold "Golden Burley." It was a Cavendish blend with maple, vanilla, and whisky toppings, at nearly medium strength, and it may not be highly ranked by the Instagram and forum pipe-smokers, but it was pretty good for the price and a very comfortable smoke. "Dark Decadence" follows the same path at full medium strength, being what looks like Burley Cavendish which has been treated with a topping that includes vanilla and whisky flavors. Maybe there is "fruit" in there as well, but mostly, I taste maple syrup. This blend takes a bit of work to light, since it is moist and treated with humectants, but once it gets going, it burns smoothly and delivers a fair amount of flavor, mostly whisky, to the bottom of the bowl. It leaves a bit of moisture, but smolders well, so if you breath-smoke this one can last you for hours. Since it is dense, I would pack it very lightly. I remain open-minded to aromatics, but if I had to pick one from the big shops, I would consider this option for being strong enough and not cloying in its flavor or sweetness. If you want the old school tobacco store smell, open a jar of this next to a jar of an English and drink in that rich scent. I tend to mix this one 1:2 with a basic Burley like Ohm "Natural" to make a better-burning and slightly stronger blend that still has the maple syrup with pancakes flavor and scent.

I enjoyed the Blender's Gold Golden Burley because it had a rich, familiar scent. If you have some of it in a room with an open tin of My Mixture 965 present, the scent of a tobacconist or old school barbershop comes to mind. It was, however, only about mild-to-medium strength. This blend fixes that but, like most aromatics, is almost unsmokeable in its diluted condition.

However, if you cut it with a decent Burley -- I recommend Ohm Natural, CD Dark Burley to CD White Burley in a 3:1 ratio, or even Sutliff TS4 White Cube Burley -- this blend comes alive. You still get the great room note, which means that people will actually stand near you instead of fleeing like they do when you break out the Engine #99 or Nightcap, and all of the flavor, but you can actually light it, where this tobacco in its unadulterated form is a bit too full of flavoring agents, humectants, and sugars to get started and keep lit.

For contrast, here is my review of Ohm Natural:

Summary: mostly Burley flavor in natural form comes from this Virginia-accented blend.

 

Ohm "Natural" may be the classic American blend: mostly Burley with some Virginia to sweeten it, offered at a low cost because it is bulk leaf run through a shredder. Its tin note smells much like that of the Semois tobaccos from Europe, a sweetness with a faint overtone of almonds or hazelnuts. The mixture is slightly moist, and seems to be a combination of some white Burley with mostly dark Burley with smaller amounts of bright Virginia in a supporting role. It lights easily, and produces at first a nut-and-oats Burley flavor, but then the lighter wheat and honey flavor of the Virginia rises. The two form a chord that then smokes down to the bottom of the bowl easily, leaving the fine grey ash that implies complete and even burning. For those who like classic American Burley blends, this is an all-day smoke at a very reasonable price.

When I am out in the field, my modus operandi consists of going to the local tobacco shack and picking up a big bag of Ohm Natural and whatever my best option from the aromatic rack is. It used to be Prince Albert, which I mixed 1:1 with the Ohm, but sometimes nowadays it is various Sutliff or Lane aromatics which I mix with the 1:3 to the Ohm formula. That way, you get all of the flavor and scent, but a mite more nicotine and natural flavor, which makes these a lot tastier, satisfying, and less bitey.

Now, I know that most of you are thinking: this guy is a poseur; he's recommending an aromatic! I share your concerns about aromatics just like I avoid soda pop and boxed food in real life. If you look at my tobacco reviews and pipe smoking articles, not to mention my information for new pipe smokers and learning to smoke a pipe, you will see that I favor naturals quite a bit. Sometimes, however, one would like something a little aromatic for social events or just a light, easy smoke with natural-ish food flavors. It's better than snacking at least.

I do not trust the industrial habit of taking something natural, adding emulsifiers and conditioners and preservatives and humectants with flavoring and coloring and extra sugar, fat, and salt, and then declaring it a new improved product, when really they downgraded the quality -- mostly through labor costs -- of the original and are using the goop to mask that.

Most aromatics still strike me as like most sodas, an inferior replacement for old-fashioned home-brewed root beer, cream soda, or ginger soda. They are too sweet for me as well. However, this may be the best of the breed, and it fills the role taken by Lane 1-Q and Captain Black Regular for a sugary culinary tobacco that you can smoke around normals and get away with it. -

Does anyone else find that their ability to tackle a to-do list scales inversely to the size of the to-do list?

That you end up doing no steps of a multi-step task far more often than one-step tasks?

Sometimes someone will ask me to do something and I will start doing it immediately and they will say, Oh, It's Not Urgent and I don't know how to explain that if I don't do it right then it will fall off the list.

Dear comrades, If you feel a bit out of it today, here is a little video I made some time ago. Folks've been telling me it makes them feel better.

Is it a social experiment?

Am I wrong? There are bits of it that just feel -- generated!

There's even a fully automated toaster that capitalism won't let us have.

This one I want to say has to be trained on their writing, though?

But we don't have a toaster in our house. We have a toaster oven. And a toaster oven is a very simple appliance to make. All you need is a toaster and a bit of time. It's very easy to make. It takes about 10 minutes and you can use it to toast your eggs, toast your toast, toast your toast and toast your toast. It's that simple. But it's not that simple. It's not that easy to make. And it's not that easy to do. We have no toaster oven in our house. We have a toaster oven that we buy at the store.

The topic drift... it has to be. It has to be. Right?

I'll be X.

This one is just what was recommended by someone on Hacker News talking about the Studio Ghibli images that were just released, and it got me thinking. Anyone gone through those 2000s old digital photos with this stuff? Had any luck with it?

I would make related communities, but I don't know how to identifie birds and bugs.

People talking about the Analogue led me to the Nanoloop app. I am trying to learn how to put simple things together and I'm curious if anyone here has used it (or any other really simple sequencer)

I mean, I haven't gotten it to work yet. but if or when it does, it is going to revolutionize my quarantine.

anybody been watching anything good with friends?

There's an article I read a while ago about the inventor of a product who started acting irrationally and now is a shell of his former self, does anyone know what I'm talking about? I forget the person's name or the company

Just curious, if your workplace has a union or not. If not, are you gonna push for one?

I have mostly played Ubisoft games.

Their battle royale game Hyper Scape was on an open beta on which I got an invitation. Even though battle royale is as worn out as "open world zombie survival", I found the game fun to play. My skills aren't the best for competitive online shooters and I died many times but still I found the game funny. The game's environments are more vertical compared to the competition, which I liked.

The second Ubisoft game I have played is Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. The game shows that Ubisoft is breaking out of the mould they have set with their previous games with more emphasis on player choice and RPG elements. The game series benefits really much from the added RPG elements, with Odyssey being a logical continuation from Origins. I just finished the game's main storyline and it had emotional depth at times, contrasted with really comedic moments. Considering how Ubisoft has done stupid and repetitive things with their games in the past, I didn't set my expecations too high. This is a really good game with high production values, but not "the best thing ever". Hopefully Ubisoft learns a lot of things from this game and iterates the gameplay elements further with Valhalla.

The third game I have been playing is the Hitman reboot, something not made by Ubisoft. I have only played the first few missions but the gameplay is still likable. Tinkering with all kinds of objects, masquerading as diferent people and trying to be stealthy enough to get a person killed is fun!