good stuff thread.

[martinist]

Happy world AIDS day! woo!!

Edited December 1, 2017 by martinist

[bob]

WTF I love AIDS now!

[bob]

Comrade Snow!

[Happenstance]

Edited December 10, 2017 by Happenstance

[drahkon]

Aaron Rodgers has been cleared to play next Sunday.

[Ganepark32]

Looks like I've got a new flat to move into in 3 weeks time and I couldn't be happier to finally see the back of my current place. It's been one problem after another and the agency I'm with has passed the buck on every problem I've brought to their attention, saying that the landlord likes to get involved in sorting things even though as the agency overseeing things they should be sorting them out. We've had damp, mould, plaster mites, an abandoned flat below us with a broken window that has been letting cold and wet in which rose up through our carpets, a freezer that randomly switches itself (and when they sent out an engineer he said he freezer was too low so that was the problem, except we've had it turned to the coldest setting and have lost god knows how much food so far from it constantly defrosting itself and refreezing) and have no real heating in the property so the issues of damp ingress from the masonry can't be stopped.

So yeah, really excited to get away from this flat and into my new one. It's a smaller place and outside the city but it's unfurnished so we can get our own stuff and going round it the other week, there were none of the issues that we've faced up till now with the current flat. Can't wait to get everything packed up and move out of here and into there.

Just the stress of trying to get the deposit back now but thankfully they've screwed themselves out of being able to claim for anything as the flat we're in wasn't cleaned for us entering, all the problems we've had were noted in an amendment to the inventory I gave them (17 pages of faults which they took 4 months to realise were there), we could have been electrocuted with the bathroom as the extractor fan and light were not up to BSI and electrical standards but were only informed by the electrician who was replacing smoke alarms when we moved in and he did it as an extra for free as he had to change the fuse box, the switch for the cooker is above the cooker itself which again is against safety standards and they've at no point attempted to rectify any problem even when told multiple times so we should have a solid case for getting it all back, hopefully.

[Nolan]

Not going to post a thread just for this and don’t really have a good place to pose this query. 

My buddy was talking about Root Beer and made the comment that he’s heard people in the UK (/europe?) think it’s a really gross flavored soda/pop. Any truth to that? He’d like to know.

[bob]

Not going to post a thread just for this and don’t really have a good place to pose this query. 
My buddy was talking about Root Beer and made the comment that he’s heard people in the UK (/europe?) think it’s a really gross flavored soda/pop. Any truth to that? He’d like to know.

Any truth that it's a gross flavoured soda, or any truth that Europeans think that it is?

Because the answer is yes.

[Nolan]

5 hours ago, bob said:

Any truth that it's a gross flavoured soda, or any truth that Europeans think that it is?

Because the answer is yes.

Thanks! He was glad to find out the answer. Us Americans shall continue enjoying our delicious root beer. 

[Ashley]

Saw @Rummy briefly. What a Sunday.

[drahkon]

Watched the Super Bowl last night with my best mate.

What a game. Right down to the last second. Thank God the New England Patriots lost

I slept for one hour...now I'm back at my place and will go back to sleep.

[Raining_again]

On 1/27/2018 at 7:31 PM, Nolan said:

Not going to post a thread just for this and don’t really have a good place to pose this query. 

My buddy was talking about Root Beer and made the comment that he’s heard people in the UK (/europe?) think it’s a really gross flavored soda/pop. Any truth to that? He’d like to know.

if its anything like Ginger Beer (basically ginger flavoured fizzy pop, not alcoholic) its amazeballs. 

[Nolan]

1 hour ago, Raining_again said:

if its anything like Ginger Beer (basically ginger flavoured fizzy pop, not alcoholic) its amazeballs. 

Nope, nothing like Ginger Beer. Well the core concept is the same, but is based in Sarsaparilla instead of Ginger. 

[bob]

It tastes like mouthwash. It's pretty grim.

[Nolan]

2 hours ago, bob said:

It tastes like mouthwash. It's pretty grim.

The hell do use for mouthwash?! They’re exactly nothing alike. I can understand if you don’t like it but if it’s comparable to mouthwash I must assume you need to get your tastebuds checked.

Upon reading about it on Wikipedia apparently “flavored” root beer is a thing. I’ve never seen anything like that, much less a wintergreen type. 

The typical root beer flavor is based in molasses and kind of hard to describe. Not minty and not really beer like either. 

[drahkon]

It's so satisfying to win a football match against opponents who are assholes.

I'm playing in a hobby team that's playing in a hobby league. It's all good fun for the most part. We have some rules, most importantly: you call out when you're fouled, and you call out when someone's offside.

Today we played against the best team in the whole league. It was the semi-final of our league's "Cup". Let me give you a short summary:

Pretty evenly-matched first 30 minutes, very fair, some questionable call outs on both sides but it happens. Opposing team scored in the 35th minute, they were happy as can be. After that we dominated them. It was only a matter of time before we equalized, which was probably the reason why suddenly every single one of our call outs (foul and offside) resulted in "WHAT THE FUCK?" and "ARE YOU BLIND, YOU IDIOT?" exclamations. We stayed calm and quiet, because when someone calls "foul" or "offside" you get a free kick; it's as easy as that. Last second of the first half, we scored. 1:1, halftime.

Second half started equally even-matched as the first, however, the opposing team was pissed. They started calling out bullshit. Almost every contact was a foul, almost every deep pass was offside. We stayed calm.
Then I called offside (it was offside, 100%)...and oh boy, were they mad.

"How can you even see that?", "you son of a bitch.", "learn the rules, asshole"...I stayed calm, my team stayed calm.

Minute 70. We went ahead 2:1. And the match turned to shit.

The opposing team played very unfairly. It wasn't fun. Whenever we said it was a foul we were insulted ("pussy, stand up and play" was said quite often). We stayed calm. We defended with everything we had. And...we won.

 

And it was glorious. One of the most satisfying wins I've ever been a part of in football

[Ganepark32]

I'm in the process of moving house at the moment and despite some issues with the place I'm moving into, things are slowly coming together and seeing my own furniture and stuff sitting in the new place is definitely putting a smile on my face. It's the first place I'm moving into completely unfurnished (where I am now, it's part furnished) so it's been good, albeit slightly stressful, finding furniture and appliances and organising things but it's coming together. Can't wait to have it all moved next week and be set up properly.

And while this might not sound like a good things, to me it's something that's taken a rather large stressful load off of my shoulders. I've been thinking about doing it for some time now but today I requested to withdraw from my Ph.D. studies. Having had to take 6 months off last year and getting no support and then having had some health issues which I'm still dealing with, it's just been one long drawn out process with one stressor after another. Ultimately, I didn't see much merit in finishing up the project (though I easily could, it's just the job benefits are slim) and just really want to get out of the department I'm in and start enjoying things again and not having this thing hanging over me. As I say, it might not sound like good news but I feel much happier for drawing a line under things and I'm ready to step away and go and see what happens next. I think it's the push I need to go and do something a bit more productive with my life so I'm happy and excited at the prospect of what lies ahead. I don't know what that is but I look forward to it  and for the first time in a long while, I feel genuinely buzzing about the prospect of going out into the world to start something.

[Iun]

8 hours ago, Ganepark32 said:

I feel genuinely buzzing about the prospect of going out into the world to start something.

That's a good feeling! Glad to see you on a positive road.

[Kav]

Having a little’n! 

[bob]

Having a little’n! [emoji3]

Amazing! Let's hope it gets your eyes, and Blades nose.

[drahkon]

Cleaned my room today.

Threw away lots of stuff I didn't need anymore and lots of stuff I got from my two ex girlfriends.

Feels good.

Edited March 3, 2018 by drahkon

[drahkon]

Decided to text a friend (not a particularly close friend, but a friend nonetheless) of mine a couple of days ago. She spent a semester in Portugal and I wanted to know what it was like. We texted a bit and then she asked if I'd like to get a drink some time.

That time has come We spent a lovely evening in a bar, talked for 5 hours about everything.

It was also clear that it wasn't a date. We didn't address it but it was somehow obvious. And even though she's beautiful and a great person it was good that it wasn't a date as I'm still not ready. I did, however, have a wonderful time and I feel fucking great.

[drahkon]

Went to the theatre tonight (with the lady from last night ) to watch White Rabbit, Red Rabbit.

If you get the chance to see it, I urge you to do so. Go in without reading anything about it. It's wonderfully thought-provoking.

[drahkon]

Fourth post in a row.

For a year I've been having a weird sleep schedule. Mostly going to bed very late and waking up depending on university, work, or free time. I tried to change that this year but failed until two weeks ago.

I've installed f.lux on my PC and the Twilight app on my mobile devices. They change the screen colour at sunset so it doesn't have that blue glow which keeps you from becoming tired. I use my screens every night so I figured why not give these programs a try. And they seem to work. I get tired much earlier now and have less trouble falling asleep.

Another app I installed on my phone: Sleep Cycle. It analyses your sleep cycles (deep sleep, R.E.M.) and wakes you up in the lightest sleep phase, which makes you wake up "softer". It also seems to work. It's still not very easy to wake up because, well, it never is But it's easier and I feel better every morning.

Maybe it's placebo, maybe not. I don't care. It works. Now I usually go to bed around 11pm and wake up between 6.30am-7.00am (or later depending on what's in store for the day) and am much more engertic throughout the morning. Throughout the whole day, for that matter.

 

Will be interesting to see if an occasional long night out (with or without drinks) and having a lie-in will have a huge impact.

Edited March 7, 2018 by drahkon

[Ashley]

After spending practically every moment at home for the last two weeks cleaning (or being ill) I decided to have a chill day. Spent the morning in bed and just been watching TV and playing Kirby for the rest of the day.