This is pretty cool, and a dance style that i've always really wanted to learn. One of my favorite authors is Pat Conroy, as his imagery/sense of place are among the best i've ever encountered; he feels about the American south as i feel about my own home turf, that it's pretty much a gift made for us by a generous creator. Anyhow, his books frequently reference the Southern partnered dance called the Carolina shag, and it seems to be nearly as much fun as two-stepping. Yup.
i have addressed my bar soap junkie tendencies on this blog before, and i assure you that this remains a strong personal interest. While traveling, i stopped by a market and brought home soaps as souvenirs for myself. One of the more common ones used in Kolkata was Dettol, which has a remarkably strong antiseptic scent, so i picked up one of those, as well as a seemingly popular sandalwood-scented one. Also common were rose-scented varieties, but rose scents aren't quite my thing. This lead to the question; are various soap scents more popular in some places than others, due to local preferences? And exactly what does 'American' soap smell like? i couldn't find any hard data on soap scent preferences sorted by country. There are articles out there attempting to tie scent to that which underscores a person's own unique MHC signature, okay, and as others have pointed out, it's less science and more subjective/context dependent. There are a lot of articles out there looking at the scents of household cleansers, and how those have gone from relying on ammonia, pine tar and lemon for odor (and subsequent indication of effectiveness) to, as " New surfactants and solvents that have boosted cleaning efficacy over the years also tend to have less odor than older formulas that used bleach and ammonia. Consumers have gradually accepted that cleaning products work even without a chemical smell. ", from this well researched Wall Street Journal article, which goes on to cite fashion, food and even popular color fads as current inspirations for cleanser scents. Googling to determine the most popular soap purchased anywhere is super annoying, as google wants to direct you to soap operas, but carefully refined search terms indicate that Palmolive soap is the most popular brand of soap purchased in the US (please note; i don't necessarily trust this data, as it's produced by the Colgate company, and can't really seem to find any actual quantization to support it.) Given that the main bar soap produced by Palmolive is Irish Spring, the smell of America, then, might be that. Another popular soap is Dial's Gold, apparently having a " non-medicinal clover-like smell" (and wth is "a fragrance as fresh as a new morning"? seriously.), and Dove, which claims to be " named the most popular soap bar in the world, according to a major survey ", but those numbers eluded me tonight, as well. Dove's white soap bar apparently smells 'clean and fresh', and gets a lot of compares to Clean's Shower Fresh, with "quintessential soapy, fresh-from-the-shower clean scent is a soft and sexy musky floral". If you know of or come across any actual data, or any studies regarding soap scent preferences by location, please let me know.
Interesting articles kicked up while researching this is a huff post article regarding bar v/s liquid soap (bar soap being both cheaper and with an estimated 25% less carbon footprint), and a NYTimes article concerning facial bar soap.
i have had two very interesting technological issues lately. i had taken my laptop home one night carefully ensconced in my backpack, slipped on some ice and landed directly on my pack. The laptop still works, thankfully, but the sound system developed a massively annoying high pitched whine. Happily, the computer specialist in the building in which i work helped me remove the case and use an exacto knife to remove the left speaker. There's still a slight whistle when using headphones, but the high pitched whine is gone, so i feel it was a worthy sacrifice. Secondly, my truck refused to start on Wednesday morning. i'd driven it the night before, for good 20 miles, and the lights/radio/air all still worked, but turning a key in the ignition only resulted in a 'click', and nothing more. Took it in (the dude who showed up in a tow truck managed to jiggle around the key enough for the starter to work), and it turns out that there's apparently a dead zone in my starter (and check out this coolness). There are supposedly several causes, including a burned spot on the armature or starter relay windings, or issues with the fly-wheel. In my truck's case, it's not quite bad enough to replace just yet, but if it ever happens again, i'm supposed to attempt to shift the vehicle (the car repair shop said to jump up and down in the truck bed, and my dad suggested putting it in neutral and rocking it, but i don't think i can shift it to neutral without starting it) and try it again. Man, i wish i knew more about automotive repair and could just fix it myself. Maybe future goals?
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