The latter being:
Synesthesia is an involuntary joining in which the real information of one sense is accompanied by a perception in another sense. In addition to being involuntary, this additional perception is regarded by the synesthete as real, often outside the body, instead of imagined in the mind's eye. It also has some other interesting features that clearly separate it from artistic fancy or purple prose. Its reality and vividness are what make synesthesia so interesting in its violation of conventional perception. Synesthesia is also fascinating because logically it should not be a product of the human brain, where the evolutionary trend has been for increasing separation of function anatomically.
From The Synesthetic Experience, found at the Google Web Directory page on the subject.
Also (more or less) the name of a character in Top Ten:
Syn has "synaesthesia," which is a mental disorder in which people perceive input in non-standard ways, seeing sounds and hearing colors. In Syn's case this means she can read people and objects empathically and has vague precognitive abilities.
Gene Ha added to this description:
She can't see the future exactly (like Irma's husband), but she can see omens of the future others can't see. And these synaesthetic impressions can make her very nervous. She was originally, in the script, a much more jittery person than I drew.
Top Ten, for the non-comics readers, was a book written by Alan Moore, and by illustrated Gene Ha and Zander Cannon. Mr. Cannon is currently living and working in Japan, and keeps one of those other kinds of blogs, with interesting personal details, because he actually has a life.
Okay, the enkai went just fine, and Julie and I came through it with flying colors. One thing of interest is that a certain percentage of Southeast Asian people are missing a gene that allows them to metabolize alcohol properly. So one or two drinks down, and they are flying. Their faces turn red and they giggle their heads off. Entertaining to say the least, particularly when the person in question knows about 30 words in English and is trying to talk to us about the Minnesota Twins being in the playoffs. Okay, that's enough talk about drinking. Sorry. This journal will now be about things other than drinking for the sake of readers under 21 (US), 19 (Canada), 18 (UK), and 20 or tall enough to buy from a vending machine (Japan).
He also knows that site design doesn't mean choosing a default template, but this may tie into that whole "artist" deal.
I find the big blue bar calming. It sounds like Lanterna, and tastes like green tea ice cream.
Do they make blue tea ice cream?
A friend of mine is synaesthetic -- he tastes and sometimes smells words, particularly nouns and to a lesser extent, verbs and adjectives. He tells me that my name tastes like toasted marshmallows (first name) and the smell of lemon furniture wax (last name). I was enchanted to learn that to him, the name "Claire" tastes of butter, "Greg" tastes like iceberg lettuce, and "Maria" tastes like waxed paper.
They only make blue tea ice cream for the blue-green colorblind. Sorry.