Magic Eye. You remember those 3D picture things that were all the rage back in middle school or so? Yea anyways, so this morning, courtesy of the Bick, I checked out one of these stereogram things. It was with words instead of the usual blobs of color, so I spent forever trying to figure out what it meant instead of doing it how it was supposed to be done. Then I decided to look up what the word "stereogram" meant and had one of those forehead-slapping D'oh moments. So it turns out that "stereogram" aka stereograph is the fancy-pantsy term for one of them 3D Magic Eye pictures. (Most of this is straight out of Wikipedia:) So anyways, I learned that stereograms work by having patterns of pixels that repeat at different intervals, and when you cross your eyes just right to make the repeats overlap, the stuff that repeats closer together pops out at you. Mind games. All of it.

But yea, I also learned that there are actually 2 ways to do stereograms. Before, I only knew of the cross-your-eyes method, but it turns out there's another method where you stare out at "infinity." Which one works better for you depends on whther you're "naturally cross-eyed or wall-eyed." And 2% just can't see it, no matter how hard they try. But yea, I tried the infinity method out and was shocked and amazed by what I saw. I guess I'm naturally wall-eyed, cuz when I do the cross-eyed method, the 3D picture is all indentions. When I do the wall-eye (infinity) method, the picture finally popped out at me the way they're supposed to. It was like if you'd gone your whole life thinking you were deaf, and then one day, you realize that you've actually just been wearing earplugs since birth. Amazing, simply amazing. I could have cried from happiness almost, haha. I spent like an hour after my discovery looking at Magic Eye pictures online.

I remember that for the longest time, I couldn't do Magic Eyes at all. I thought I was one of that 2% I guess. It irritated me to no end how everyone would always be like, "That's awesome!" and I couldn't see anything. But one day, I decided I'd get it or die trying; so I sat down with a newspaper and stared for what must have been about 30 minutes until it finally clicked. It really wasn't all that thrilling though cuz I saw indentions instead of pop-ups. Rather anticlimactic actually; so for years I thought Magic Eyes were nothing but hype. Then today I finally saw the truth. Yowsa.

I remember as a kid, I had a friend who couldn't cross his eyes. Didn't stop him from trying like hell though, haha. He'd be like "Am I cross-eyed now? ...now? ...now?" And he'd have these goofy looks on his face, but it was never cross-eyes, hahaha. Poor guy. I wonder if he ever got it.