September 25, 2007

Well as anyone who knows me knows, the main blight on my otherwise perfect appearance is my teeth! I was born without a couple of teeth in my gums which means I have two really quite big front teeth and gaps.

I know it’s not ugly but it probably will be when I’m older so I want to get that fixed before the inevitable occurs.

I have been doing some research and I want to go to Thailand because it’s cheaper. It’s by no means Santa Barbara plastic surgery but from what I have read the quality of the service is reasonable. Importantly I haven’t read any horror stories either. (For those that don’t know Thailand is one of the best countries in Asia for medical procedures due to high training standards.)

What I need is a diastema closure - that is, getting rid of the gap between my front teeth - and two implants either side of my front teeth. Expected cost is about $4000. Veneers will cost more.

 I apologise in advance for talking about sweat. It’s yuck I know, but this post could help a lot of people! 

Last night I was sitting in a perfectly temperate room. But there was one problem : my feet were sweating. My feet don’t sweat to an above average level but this time I was and it was very uncomfortable. When I got home it was a relief to take the shoes off and give my feet a little bit of air to breathe. (The smell was an added bonus.)

 Why were my feet sweating, I hear you ask?

Because my shoes and socks were made entirely of synthetic materials.

The typical black suit seen on the street is either 100% polyester (such as my first suit… I curse the memory) or a poly-blend. Not only do those black suits absorb the sunlight, making you hot, there’s another reason why you’re baking…

An important factor in clothing is whether it ‘breathes’. That is where is allowed to circulate through the garment, allowing a renewal of the air close to your body and also encouraging evaporation of the small amounts of sweat coming out of your glands.

If you look at a single strand cotton or wool through a microscope, you can see that it not a single strand but a collection of fibres bound together. The gaps between these fibres are tiny but still porous and allow the movement of air.

With synthetic materials, zooming in will still show single, solid strands. These do not breathe at all, trapping the air against your body, not only heating you up but giving that newly generated sweat no chance to escape.

It makes a difference. That’s why all the shirts I sell are 100% cotton, the suits I buy are wool and my shoes generally cotton or leather. Unfortunately I forgot this fact while buying the particular pair of shoes and socks mentioned in the example above. And boy, did I pay the price!

 Win some style points with the nasal glands of those around you : buy clothes made of natural materials.

Thanks Harmony and Anthony for your comments.

The internet is an amazing place.

I don’t know how many times I have thought that or said that to others but it never stops being true.

I was a member of a forum for the great Aussie rock band The Living End. A community built from that and we would often meet at gigs. We also got to go to ’secret gigs’ with only 50 or 100 fans invitational only.

From absolutely nothing we built friendships from Christmas presents being sent in the mail to each other to many real offline relationships being formed.

Most were interstate but kicked off through the joys of travelling to see a gig.

Online community can form in the most random of places. For example, Fairfax has a blog called Sam In The City who blogs her relationship advice. The regular commenters now regularly meet in Sydney and Melbourne for a beer.

Free chat clubs such as Wireclub.com are the kinds of places where one can go and talk about all sorts of different things.

Using the internet online to DIRECTLY look for love is not a recommended option for mine. It’s much better to join communities where people share certain interests. The, members often gravitate to each other according to their likemindedness. (I’ve become friends with a lot of Melbourne Victory fans who are also believers in liberal economics, for example.)

There’s so much paranoia that stops people from joining chat clubs but if you’re bored, why not?

I’m very busy online but I still log on every day to see what my community is talking about. At first everyone is strangers but now I count some of them as genuine, real life friends. It’s not a ‘loser’ or ‘geek’ thing anymore. There’s no shame in meeting people through the internet.