jayseven

I'm going re-insane again. Every other day, for the last week and a half, I've gone round a family friend's house to help him flog on ebay a bunch of Beatles memorabilia he found in a skip. I'm doing it effectively pro bono, but with a 10% commission on anything sold. For at least 7 hours on each trip, I've been trying to do the following; catalogue the stuff, research the value, weigh the items, put them on ebay. The problem is that the bloke who I'm doing it for was a total weedhead hippie for the last 30 years of his life and he is incapable of stringing two thoughts together without having a sit down in between. He wants me to pass by him all of the descriptions I'm writing, yet he forgets the first half of the sentence by the time he's heard the second half, so it takes literally five minutes for him to hear, understand and accept a single line of maybe 10 words. There are over 300 individual items he is trying to sell, so needless to say it's been a very long slog. So I've put in easily 30 hours in the last week or so, not even asked for a penny yet, and the whole time I'm acutely aware that ebay is saturated with people selling beatles' stuff and nobody's buying anything. Theoretically his stuff is worth in total around £450, if it all got sold, so I'd only be looking at £45 (which tbf is a week's worth of money for me at the moment). Fact is I'll be lucky even to see £10, I think. Still, despite the occasional need to vent, like this, it's been a good test of my patience. It's nice to at the least get out of the house frequently, ey.

I do agree with your sentiment, but I disagree that he should get no sympathy at all. I think it's overly harsh to consider one's life completely shaped by actions made at such a young age - what of the the youngster who shot his pregnant mother in law a few weeks back? This forum partly surmised that he must've had some sort of psychological issue, yet when it comes to a playground scrap we're not so eager to think some form of social conditioning is in play here? People can feel pressured to fit in. People can make mistakes in choosing who to hang out with and how to become part of the group. He has certainly learned about morality the hard way, and while I agree that bullying can ruin lives and he was a complete fool to partake in such an activity, I cannot cast a blanket net on all bullies and say yeah, they're fucking dicks for life. Many grow up and feel ashamed for how they acted when they were younger, and to say you'll never forgive someone for something they may spend the rest of their life regretting is to be spiteful, to go against what true freedom we have as advanced creatures on this planet - the ability to choose between hate and forgiveness, love and greed. In essence I am saying that I do despise the child for his actions, but believe he has the capacity to grow the fuck up and regret what he has done. I think holding an action against someone for the rest of their lives is in a way a form of bullying. You say that his friends will forget it eventually, yet you say that you will never forgive him. If you class yourself as one of the people that will forget about this yet you feel so strongly, why do you assume that people closer to him will be so quick to dismiss the matter entirely? As I said, one cannot cut and paste this mentality or this approach to all bullies, but one should at least have the capacity to give people a chance to evolve into better human beings after mistakes.

"HEY LOOK AT ME!!! LOOK HOW DIFFERENT I AM!!" and "I don't care about social status. I do what I like regardless of others' opinions" aren't really separate entities. Both are methods of expressing the other.

I did, but I found the root hunting vaguely soothing :P They were all marked and mostly fairly simple to solve -- one of them did piss me off -- where there's an invisible wall so you can't chuck a bomb up there, instead you have to drive a car and blah blah.. -- I did a bunch in chapter 7 so it made it simpler in chapter 8. The controls put me off initially but I got into the routine eventually. I was mostly annoyed at the lack of gun ammo, considering fire bullets were the easiest way of dealing with common enemies - also how the 'fissures' on the left of enemies was always so much harder to hit than the right. What was also annoying was how the 'powers' earned from the roots was utilised effectively twice, rather than becoming a mechanic for the puzzles. Me and shorty have been giving it a bash - he lack of 'net has made it hard, and by the time his account is back I'll have run out of my live (can't afford a renew) so maybe check in with him? That game's a little... flakey. Not sure I 'agree' with it.

Jonnas: RE: Mohinder... well from what I've seen... sorry mate

Dude! Ell's referring to an event on facebook I've set up that's been 5 years in the imagining! If you can make it then fucking turn up! I'll have a bed for you to sleep on :P

I saw it. Was beaut I definitely noticed it seemed bigger and brighter - but then I'm very aware of the moon in general. Had a great crescent shape the last few weeks (aries-related?). Always gleeful when I see the moon during the day. Random question; anyone else notice the slight redness on the left side of the moon? I figure it's something to do with the earth's shadow/the sunlight catching the atmosphere that's then projected onto the moon, but I have to say it does slightly spoil the 'full moon' every month! (yeah I love the moon. So deep.)

Goafer; in his social circle this meme will live on a hell of a lot longer. The people that interact with him daily will cause a certain change in his life, regardless of how soon the rest of the world forgets. That's the damage the tornado of internet fame does to regular lives.

I don't think he will over-retaliate, especially now the whole world is watching. I think he's been given a chance to truly think about what he's done. We see in the video an older kid, probably in casey's year, who is blates part of the reason why Richard is acting so tough, steps forwards near the beginning and at the end. Ritchechard will consider his reasons for acting like a little shit, and look at his social ties. If he's got any brains, that is. But either way, his future in education is tarnished forever - casey will be treated like a celebrity at his school for years to come. Rithchechchard is a weedy little shit who probably chose to side with the bigger boys and be their pimped weasel in order to save his own bacon -- chances are his 'mates' will turn on him and laugh at him now.

Her point, really, is on the 'demonisation' of her son. It's true - why should this one event shape his life? While i understand that bullying is lame, it is ultimately something that people endure in some way through their social development. I know there are extremes, such as kids taking their own lives, but her point stands - Ritchard (or however he spells it) will have to deal with this reputation, and this worldwide focus will change who he will become far more than it should. He's just 12 years old and yes, he made a mistake of trying to be 'cool' and yes, he picked on the wrong kid, but... he's only 12! I'm really starting to feel sorry for him, now.

You said it :P Make it so!

Paj; YeS. Today was a pertinent remnder that sunshine does indeed Save Lives. I'm no SADist but I do find that hope tends to bloom best beneath the beams of sunbreeze. Babysat for a few hours. Envisioned my futurehood. Want There Now Plz. Capillary devestation forgiven by the articulate amoebas that have begun their birthing within my soul. Breathing once again, no longer mentally shackled by the cause and defect of living as a square in a circular world, instead the sunshine brings with the weather a grander power - a smile on a good day doth good fortunes flower. I'm reconnecting with my good energies, powerful thoughts are befriending me, insulating the hazards and defending me, intending only the best consequences ahead for me. A blanket of loopholes spreads in all directions, warming and soothing with no objection, swarming and teething with life and strife-less projections of wealthy restrictionless worthwhile inflictions. You dig a dark tunnel with your disdane and apathy, you forget what it's like to get fortune or sympathy. A walk becomes a lecture in sociology; people-watching instead of thinking only of me. Rationalising to get to the truth of the matter. What has been an impossible task for so long - of cleansing my brain and letting 'mares scatter - becomes real, turgid, mobile and rigid. Why not play with the words as the notions unfurl? If it causes fun, then give it a whirl. Potential is not decreed by the world around you, instead it's the limitations you place on yourself that confound you. There is no roadmap to achieve personal satisfaction; for one man it's thinking, another it's action. For me it's the subtle contemplation, the assessment of me and the world and all the interrelations. I raise my gob and yet you listen. I spoke my words and saw what was missing.

Can we arrange an N-E drunken thread meet?

Didn't know he was a musician too. :P

I have no info to add, but I just want to say that Heroes is blatantly a fantastic theme for a mafia game!

Cheers mundi - I'll give you a holla if I see us both online. I don't have a mic at the moment, so it'll be all awkward and stuff :P And shorty - I consider the 1000G for AitD to be a badge to show how resilient and patient I am

Finished Alone in the Dark (with 1000G) yesterday. Very, very mixed bag of a game. It's similar to Alan Wake and The Darkness, partly for the whole light-vs-dark mechanic but also because you're effectively playing a movie. AitD tries too hard to have combat in the game when its puzzles are its strong point. It encompasses a fair few genres, effectively becoming a fairly linear sandbox game that doesn't truly open up 'til nearly the end of the game, and even then you quickly realise there's little scope to the game; drive over there, search for ammo/explosive bottles, kill those guys, blow that thing up, get back in the car and drive over there. There was an opportunity here to present the player with some more thought-out areas of the map. Rather than devising a minutae of a puzzle for each Root, they should've reduced the combat element and figured in some proper puzzles. The end of the game had some interesting ones! Similarly, the start of the game seems to focus on the climbing element, which again I felt was greatly underused. To compensate for the relatively short length of the game they seemed to ramp up the difficulty and drag down the AI tolerance of errors; there was typically little to no leeway given - the car sequence in chapter 2 is a great example of this. The game offers you the ability to skip forwards in the sequence, which is a cop-out excuse. The controls are hard to get into but do become familiar as the game continues - especially knowing when to press the Y button to switch back to 1st person mode after the game takes you out of it again. So yeah. 6/10, really. The length of the game means that you won't be grimacing for too long. Definitely not the worst game by a fair stretch, just demanding and uncompromising. Having said that, it's a relatively easy 1000/1000. Condemned 2 may be next! I see it has a multiplayer element to it, so if anyone wants to boost to get their Condemned 2 online achievements let me know! :P

Shh diageo. The intro write-up should not provide any clues whatsoever. Vote: Let's get the fucking game started yeah?

noticed it had 'fixed' itself this morning. the "messages" section seems to have been integrated with the chat, so messages sent when the other person is offline get messaged quicker. I presume texts will be tied in here, Iunno/care.

Kamikaze lives on!

Jonnas; Negative :P I'll roll my new line out, providing Dyson doesn't get all active and stuff.

Like rummy, I've not seen all of Heroes so I imagine I'll get a little spoilered in here! But count me in anyway; should be epic. I'll start mine when one of these finishes

LEG-END! On the flip-side; got to be so surreal thinking "I just want to last the rest of the week" then BLAM. Dead. Beyond comprehension.

It won't even let me see my messages page - as soon as it loads then so do the in-window 'pop-ups' that are trying to guide me through this BULLSHITTERY.

Ok so contrary to what I said earlier... facebook is now 'offering' you a facebook email address. I can't read my message until I get a new email and set up mobile bullshit. BULLSHIT. Like, I'd be all "ok..." if I could have the email I wanted. Liek, the first ten things I'd have are taken. bacefook wasn't taken THEN IT WAS after I clicked it. Lies. Gay. I want to read my message.