Just realized my last performance was in January because I’ve been busy playing guitar in my bedroom instead. Tonight I step out of my shell and head back onto the stage.
New venue, should be fun! Drop by if you’re in the area.
Google Maps | Instagram | 21 Jul | 8.00 PM
Update 9/6/26: had my dental appointment this evening, and when the dentist was done, he told me that I can reduce my visits to once a year instead of every six months. According to him, what I was doing is working and there was nothing much for him to do. I guess this guide is useful after all 😁
As the month of June approaches, two things come to mind. Holy shit, we’re halfway through the year and it’s almost time to pay the dentist a visit.
Ever since our company started providing dental coverage, I’ve been visiting the dentist regularly. And after each appointment, the dentist gives me some tips to follow. It’s like they’re actively making me take care of my teeth – don’t they want me to come back more often?
But also, they seem to give me only one tip each time, as if it’s too difficult to follow if they gave me the whole book. Here are some tips (I remembered) to make life for your forensic odontologist easier the next time you die in the middle of nowhere, without your ID.
I believe this is the tip everyone gets from the dentist during their first visit, and probably the least followed one. I’ll be the first to admit – I don’t floss every day, but I’ve managed to consistently floss once a week, and after every meal where I get tons of food stuck in between my teeth (usually it’s chicken).
It’s such a pain in the ass, and it’s time-consuming but it probably does the most work for your oral hygiene. Stuck food decays and breaks down, mixing with bacteria in your mouth, creating an environment that plaque thrives in. And we all know how bad plaque is for you.
If you don’t want cavities, tooth decay, inflamed gums, and bad breath, floss your calcium crushers. It’s worth it. Dental floss is also so cheap and painless compared to the alternative.
This was from a memorable exchange I had with the dentist. He asked me, “do you brush your gums?” I said “no, because they bleed if I do,” thinking it was the right answer. He told me, “your gums bleed because they are inflamed. Healthy gums are firm and do not bleed when you brush or floss.”
Mind blown. He told me to start brushing my gums that day and I followed his advice. After a few days, they started bleeding less. It wasn’t long before they stopped bleeding at all. It was crazy. After all these years I always thought gums were just sensitive, and not meant to be brushed. I felt like I had unlocked a new ability.
Don’t clench your smile stones when brushing. You’re not in a race. Take your time and go row by row. When cleaning the crown of your jaw jewels, go back and forth or use small gentle circles. Don’t go side to side. This helps maintain your protective tooth enamel.
Since each tooth isn’t completely straight, scrubbing horizontally also makes the toothbrush glide over the gaps, missing the plaque hiding in the curved edges.
Maybe this one is a tie-in with the neighborhood pharmacy, but the dentist told me to change my toothbrush every 6 months. I used to use my toothbrushes until they looked like I scrubbed the toilet floor with them. Apparently that wasn’t a good idea.
They always gave me a new toothbrush after every visit but they recently stopped. I guess times are tough. Don’t wait too long to switch toothbrushes. Also, they aren’t that expensive for a bi-annual purchase.
Now you know how to take care of your flavor fossils, you can get a smile of approval from your dentist the next time you pay them a visit. Just don’t tell them they’re not a real doctor.
Listening to podcasts is quite a lonely hobby, if you think about it. Especially if you’re like me, and listen to podcasts on drives.
They’re probably the best way to pass time in traffic. 30-minute bumper-to-bumper drive to the city? No problem, that’s like an episode of a TV show, and we all know how fast time passes when you’re enjoying yourself.
However, I’ve come to realize that this only works when you’re driving alone. For those of you who have friends that enjoy the same podcasts as you, this might not be an issue. This is for the rest of us.
When you have passengers in the car, you have to account for the fact that they might want to talk. Not everyone is as interested in the origin of the A note as you are.
Once in a while you might put on something that appeals to everybody, but that would mean getting everyone to keep quiet and interested in the episode.
If people talk, it distracts you, and you’d have to relisten to catch everything (ugh, imagine relistening to a podcast episode with the limited amount of time you have).
Or worse, you might be listening to something interesting to your passengers, and they ask you to rewind it from the start. Come on, they’re not going to listen to the whole thing anyway!
Once they get out of your car, you’re stuck trying to find where you left off, good luck if there are no chapters on Spotify.
Or they might just talk amongst each other, and you have to decide if you want to participate in the conversation or ignore them, which is anti-social, especially since your car is now a social environment.
So if you’re like me, you save podcasts for when you’re driving solo. When you can actually focus. Listening to people talk to each other, while you sit alone in the car.
Maybe that’s the point. Podcasts are kind of a private experience. They only really work when you’re alone.
And so, to not be a weirdo; when you have passengers, put on some music and let them talk over it. Because it’s just the soundtrack for the drive.