[Gust Hubb]

HiddenOne, on 05 February 2015 - 01:29 PM, said:

If Gust Hubb infects one of his "patients" then we have a whole other category of problems to worry about

What HO said. Only patients i work with are resections or autopsies

[Gnaw]

Quote

Here's another thing they say after a death. This is usually said to the surviving spouse. "Listen, if there's anything I can do, anything at all, please don't hesitate to ask". What are you going to do, a resurrection? This aint the fucking New Testament, you know. You know what you tell a guy like that who wants to help? "Well fine, why don't you come over this weekend. You can paint the garage. Bring your plunger. The upstairs toilet overflowed and there's shit all over the floor up there. Do you drive a tractor? Good. That'll come in handy. The north needs a lot of attention. Bring your chainsaw and your pick-axe. We're going to put your ass to work". He wants to help? Fuck him. Call his bluff. Call his bluff. Don't hesitate to ask. The nerve of these pricks. Here's another thing we say to the surviving spouse. "I'm keeping him in my thoughts." Where? Where exactly in your thoughts does he fit? In between my ass hurt in this chair and lets fuck the waitress? What are your priorities? We use a lot of euphemisms when we talk about death, you know. People say things like "You know, I lost my father". Ah well, he'll turn up. You've got to stay optimistic with people like that. Give them reason to hope. "Have you checked the dumpster out back? He used to like to take a nap in there." Keep it upbeat.

[Andorion]

Spent the entire day outside on one job or another, then came home pretty late only to get yelled at, while trying to eat dinner (which I also brought) and told that I don't do anything. When half the stuff I was doing today was for that same person, this kind of sucks. My blood pressure is up, and with my throbbing head and neck its bye bye sleep

[Mezla PigDog]

Gnaw, on 06 February 2015 - 12:23 AM, said:

Quote

Here's another thing they say after a death. This is usually said to the surviving spouse. "Listen, if there's anything I can do, anything at all, please don't hesitate to ask". What are you going to do, a resurrection? This aint the fucking New Testament, you know. You know what you tell a guy like that who wants to help? "Well fine, why don't you come over this weekend. You can paint the garage. Bring your plunger. The upstairs toilet overflowed and there's shit all over the floor up there. Do you drive a tractor? Good. That'll come in handy. The north needs a lot of attention. Bring your chainsaw and your pick-axe. We're going to put your ass to work". He wants to help? Fuck him. Call his bluff. Call his bluff. Don't hesitate to ask. The nerve of these pricks. Here's another thing we say to the surviving spouse. "I'm keeping him in my thoughts." Where? Where exactly in your thoughts does he fit? In between my ass hurt in this chair and lets fuck the waitress? What are your priorities? We use a lot of euphemisms when we talk about death, you know. People say things like "You know, I lost my father". Ah well, he'll turn up. You've got to stay optimistic with people like that. Give them reason to hope. "Have you checked the dumpster out back? He used to like to take a nap in there." Keep it upbeat.

I dunno Gnaw. The few times I've said that in my life I really meant it. Usually in the face of such shit news that it is the only thing that stops you feeling utterly useless and you hope the person hearing it knows you love them enough to know you really mean it, no matter how silly the request.

I'm guessing you know the people in question to know otherwise but you never know, they might surprise you.

Anyway if there's anything I can do and all that

This post has been edited by Mezla PigDog: 06 February 2015 - 09:25 PM

[amphibian]

Mezla, you may mean it. All the others may mean it. But the person hearing it may hear the phrase without getting the invisible-to-them intent.

But to the person hearing it, it could be taken as everybody saying the same sad thing and then walking away. Especially when grief and absence is here to stay for a while. What is one to do with repeated expressions of pity and sadness when your own roars and darkens the world?

Navigating someone else's greater grief while we carry our own is tricky. I've been lucky in that I've not had to do it often thus far. More such occasions will come. I will be on either side of this complicated situation and eventually be the cause of it myself.

[Mezla PigDog]

amphibian, on 06 February 2015 - 09:28 PM, said:

Mezla, you may mean it. All the others may mean it. But the person hearing it may hear the phrase without getting the invisible-to-them intent.

I know. My point is that people can really mean it. It's not for the grief striken to feel obliged to make those people feel better but just that they could ask people to do shit stuff and those people might actually be grateful for it. I had a friend dying and would have been glad to be asked to nip to the supermarket or weed their garden because I felt so shit. Not trying to cause a hoo hah, Gnaw can vent here as much as he needs to and yeah, some people are full of hot air and going to the supermarket means shit when the world has fallen in.

[amphibian]

I actually took some stick from my father for treating my new sister-in-law too nicely over the last few weeks.

He doesn't know that her mother just got diagnosed with breast cancer, had the exploratory surgery and will start chemotherapy soon. Since my sister-in-law doesn't have her immigration status adjusted yet from the new marriage, she's kinda trapped here in the States while her mother goes through this in Nepal. Her father and aunt are handling things and her younger brother will soon join them by taking a sabbatical from his grad school, but my sister-in-law is stuck here for a few months at least. She confided in my mother and in me and I've been succeeding in being the actually helpful person like Gnaw/Mezla are talking about.

My father doesn't know this and it's not up to me to tell him, so he gave me a 5 minute long lecture about how I have to treat her like family - not like the most important thing in my life and it wasn't going to help her or me by coddling her. I had to take all that crap quietly.

That was abominable to experience. But it's worth it to see my sister-in-law and older brother slightly happier in this tough time.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Things are...tense at home these days.

[Lady Bliss]

Came "out" to a friend about being gay a couple of days ago and they haven't talked to me since... :-(

[Gust Hubb]

Sad. Their loss.

[worry]

You've probably done this already but: the TV itself probably has buttons, so use them to make sure it's the remote and not the TV itself. Once you're sure, then I imagine you're going to have to get a replacement remote. If it's a young TV, do your best to get the replacement for free from the retailer or manufacturer. In the meantime maybe get a cheapo universal remote.

[amphibian]

Lady Bliss, on 07 February 2015 - 11:53 PM, said:

Came "out" to a friend about being gay a couple of days ago and they haven't talked to me since... :-(

That stinks.

If you're in NY, I'm in the Albany area and headed to see Jupiter Ascending tomorrow with a friend of two. You're welcome to come along, have a pizza or something and not think about this for a while.

Edit: To make it clear, I have a SO who lives in Manhattan. She's nice. Not a Malazan fan yet. I'll see her for a bunch of days next week. So it's not one of *those things* I'm trying here.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 08 February 2015 - 05:58 AM

[Lady Bliss]

amphibian, on 08 February 2015 - 05:56 AM, said:

Lady Bliss, on 07 February 2015 - 11:53 PM, said:

Came "out" to a friend about being gay a couple of days ago and they haven't talked to me since... :-(

That stinks.

If you're in NY, I'm in the Albany area and headed to see Jupiter Ascending tomorrow with a friend of two. You're welcome to come along, have a pizza or something and not think about this for a while.

Edit: To make it clear, I have a SO who lives in Manhattan. She's nice. Not a Malazan fan yet. I'll see her for a bunch of days next week. So it's not one of *those things* I'm trying here.

Thanks Amph! That really means a lot to me. Alas I am in Dallas at the moment or I'd take you up on the offer!

[Maark Abbott]

Lady Bliss, on 07 February 2015 - 11:53 PM, said:

Came "out" to a friend about being gay a couple of days ago and they haven't talked to me since... :-(

Ballsy move. I know it doesn't mean very much but you've my support in this. I'm not gay, but I dearly hope for a day where those who are experience no stigma from it, anywhere.

[Mentalist]

Yesterday was a complete mess.

The day started with me trying to replace a CPU on my gaming desktop-a fairly routine upgrade (except I'm still fairly new to the whole PC hardware thing, and already had to exchange one new CPU, b/c. The one picked up at a ridiculously low price for a 4.0 GHz. Turned out to be the wrong socket type for my motherboard).

So there I was, having finally taken off the fan from the damn thing. I take out the old CPU, and it slips out of my hand, and falls from the height of about maybe a meter onto the soft, thick carpet. I don't pay much heed, pick it up, stick it gingerly into the casing for the new CPU, put the new CPU in, put the fan on, hook up the power, turn the tower on... and nothing happens. having tried that a few more. Time's, I turn to Google for answers. Ah, ok, so the most common reason for the complaint is, I need to update the BIOS. No problem. Off comes. The fan, I take out the new CPU, /rab the old one, stick it in, close the locking mechanism... and the CPU fallls out.

Puzzled, I turn it over... to my utmost HORROR, some of the 130-odd pins are visibly bent.

What followed is what seemed like an eternity of painstakingly spinning the chip this way and that under the light of a powerful flashlight (which incidentally, gave me another scare, as I've put the convenient little dealie on top of my brand-new GPU to better see the fan lock, failing to realize THERE'S A MINI-MAGNET IN THE BACK OF THE FLASHLIGHT (thankfully, the GPU seems intact), and trying to see a pin that sticks out of the neatly lined arrangement and then, ever so gently, nudge it back with a precision screwdriver.

I haven't timed how long it took, though I suspect noo more than a half hour passed. In the end, I DID manage to fix it (well, enough to stick it in, and have the PC boot up). I felt weak in my knees though. For about an hour.

But that was just the prelude of the day to come. In the evening, I had a soccer game. I normally play on 2 teams, but yesterday my "main" team was to finally cash in our Boston pizza voucher for winning the championship last season about a month back. So I tell the guy running the second team "won't makes it tonight, sorry". Then all a suddennI get a text from my friend runnibg the "main" team, that we're moving the party to next week, as one of the 2 guys running the team couldn't get time off work. So -'m back to layong 2 games. First is @ 6PM, the second's @ 10:30.

I get to the first game (had to endure a brisk 25 min walk in -15 weather, but that's ok, I don't actually mind that) we play the game--we're short, so my position has 1 sub for 2 defenders--which means more individual playing time. We play a young team, the run like lunatics, and they play offensively, and pressure like crazy. But their keeper's a rookie. So we win 7:5, having allowed a bunch of absolutely silly goals, due to not handling pressure.

Ok, hard-fought victory, and now it's 7 PM. What to do for 3.5 h? A bunch of my friends suggest we hit up a nearby Montana's--we often go there after the game, they got a good deal on beer on Sundays. So we gogo-our goalie also has a late game, so he's good with driving me backto the game after.

At Montana's I'm starving. I order a burger w / fries, and then an extra plate of fries and devour the whole thing. Stupid, I know. I don't drink, as I never drink before soccer, so I guzzle down like 4-5 glasses of 7Up.

Back to the game. The guy running th eteam couldn't come-he had to watch his kids or smth. And here the bad news hit.

Apparently, my friend, the manager, runs 3 separate teams in this place. Naturally, as it always is with friends, they "share" players. And it just so happened due to a cosmic misfortune, that the scheduling has put all 3 teams playing at the same time slot (there could be up to 4 games at a time in the complex). What this meant, in practice, was that my team barely scraped together a skeleton crew (we got a last-minute "donation" so we weren't a man down, at least), against a full team that had I thonk 3 full lines to rotate.

The other guys weren't that good. We scored 3 on them, but the availability of fresh legs paid off. The final score was 7:3. When I stopped running, I felt I'll. I was short of breath in a way I havwnt felt for years, since I outgrew asthma attacks. When I got home, my entire body was ablaze with some weird sweat rash--welts the type you get from poison ivy (went away in the morning, thankfully). I've ended up throwing up about an hour after getting home.

So now I'm at work, having had very little sleep. Physically i'm mostly fine (except I think I pulled my groin/hamstring injury again, which never healed 100% before). But I feel old, as what happened yesterday has never happened before. So although ultimately, for all its lows yesterday turned out well (oh, right: about the computer: I flashed the BIOS, but then digging deeper discovered my motherboard can only handle 95W CPUS, so running my new 125W precious would be a fire hazard waiting to happen. So now looking for a new motherboard, I suppose), it stiL left my groove throughly messed, as I couldn't imagine smth like this happening even a few years ago.

[Tiste Simeon]

Strangely compelling tale there... could do with a Tl;Dr or something but good nonetheless...

[Gnaw]

Mentalist, on 09 February 2015 - 03:06 PM, said:

Yesterday was a complete mess.

The day started with me trying to replace a CPU on my gaming desktop-a fairly routine upgrade (except I'm still fairly new to the whole PC hardware thing, and already had to exchange one new CPU, b/c. The one picked up at a ridiculously low price for a 4.0 GHz. Turned out to be the wrong socket type for my motherboard).

So there I was, having finally taken off the fan from the damn thing. I take out the old CPU, and it slips out of my hand, and falls from the height of about maybe a meter onto the soft, thick carpet. I don't pay much heed, pick it up, stick it gingerly into the casing for the new CPU, put the new CPU in, put the fan on, hook up the power, turn the tower on... and nothing happens. having tried that a few more. Time's, I turn to Google for answers. Ah, ok, so the most common reason for the complaint is, I need to update the BIOS. No problem. Off comes. The fan, I take out the new CPU, /rab the old one, stick it in, close the locking mechanism... and the CPU fallls out.

Puzzled, I turn it over... to my utmost HORROR, some of the 130-odd pins are visibly bent.

What followed is what seemed like an eternity of painstakingly spinning the chip this way and that under the light of a powerful flashlight (which incidentally, gave me another scare, as I've put the convenient little dealie on top of my brand-new GPU to better see the fan lock, failing to realize THERE'S A MINI-MAGNET IN THE BACK OF THE FLASHLIGHT (thankfully, the GPU seems intact), and trying to see a pin that sticks out of the neatly lined arrangement and then, ever so gently, nudge it back with a precision screwdriver.

I haven't timed how long it took, though I suspect noo more than a half hour passed. In the end, I DID manage to fix it (well, enough to stick it in, and have the PC boot up). I felt weak in my knees though. For about an hour.

But that was just the prelude of the day to come. In the evening, I had a soccer game. I normally play on 2 teams, but yesterday my "main" team was to finally cash in our Boston pizza voucher for winning the championship last season about a month back. So I tell the guy running the second team "won't makes it tonight, sorry". Then all a suddennI get a text from my friend runnibg the "main" team, that we're moving the party to next week, as one of the 2 guys running the team couldn't get time off work. So -'m back to layong 2 games. First is @ 6PM, the second's @ 10:30.

I get to the first game (had to endure a brisk 25 min walk in -15 weather, but that's ok, I don't actually mind that) we play the game--we're short, so my position has 1 sub for 2 defenders--which means more individual playing time. We play a young team, the run like lunatics, and they play offensively, and pressure like crazy. But their keeper's a rookie. So we win 7:5, having allowed a bunch of absolutely silly goals, due to not handling pressure.

Ok, hard-fought victory, and now it's 7 PM. What to do for 3.5 h? A bunch of my friends suggest we hit up a nearby Montana's--we often go there after the game, they got a good deal on beer on Sundays. So we gogo-our goalie also has a late game, so he's good with driving me backto the game after.

At Montana's I'm starving. I order a burger w / fries, and then an extra plate of fries and devour the whole thing. Stupid, I know. I don't drink, as I never drink before soccer, so I guzzle down like 4-5 glasses of 7Up.

Back to the game. The guy running th eteam couldn't come-he had to watch his kids or smth. And here the bad news hit.

Apparently, my friend, the manager, runs 3 separate teams in this place. Naturally, as it always is with friends, they "share" players. And it just so happened due to a cosmic misfortune, that the scheduling has put all 3 teams playing at the same time slot (there could be up to 4 games at a time in the complex). What this meant, in practice, was that my team barely scraped together a skeleton crew (we got a last-minute "donation" so we weren't a man down, at least), against a full team that had I thonk 3 full lines to rotate.

The other guys weren't that good. We scored 3 on them, but the availability of fresh legs paid off. The final score was 7:3. When I stopped running, I felt I'll. I was short of breath in a way I havwnt felt for years, since I outgrew asthma attacks. When I got home, my entire body was ablaze with some weird sweat rash--welts the type you get from poison ivy (went away in the morning, thankfully). I've ended up throwing up about an hour after getting home.

So now I'm at work, having had very little sleep. Physically i'm mostly fine (except I think I pulled my groin/hamstring injury again, which never healed 100% before). But I feel old, as what happened yesterday has never happened before. So although ultimately, for all its lows yesterday turned out well (oh, right: about the computer: I flashed the BIOS, but then digging deeper discovered my motherboard can only handle 95W CPUS, so running my new 125W precious would be a fire hazard waiting to happen. So now looking for a new motherboard, I suppose), it stiL left my groove throughly messed, as I couldn't imagine smth like this happening even a few years ago.

In short:

You can be a nerd.
You can be a jock.

Pick one.

[Mentalist]

Gnaw, on 09 February 2015 - 11:27 PM, said:

Mentalist, on 09 February 2015 - 03:06 PM, said:

Yesterday was a complete mess.

The day started with me trying to replace a CPU on my gaming desktop-a fairly routine upgrade (except I'm still fairly new to the whole PC hardware thing, and already had to exchange one new CPU, b/c. The one picked up at a ridiculously low price for a 4.0 GHz. Turned out to be the wrong socket type for my motherboard).

So there I was, having finally taken off the fan from the damn thing. I take out the old CPU, and it slips out of my hand, and falls from the height of about maybe a meter onto the soft, thick carpet. I don't pay much heed, pick it up, stick it gingerly into the casing for the new CPU, put the new CPU in, put the fan on, hook up the power, turn the tower on... and nothing happens. having tried that a few more. Time's, I turn to Google for answers. Ah, ok, so the most common reason for the complaint is, I need to update the BIOS. No problem. Off comes. The fan, I take out the new CPU, /rab the old one, stick it in, close the locking mechanism... and the CPU fallls out.

Puzzled, I turn it over... to my utmost HORROR, some of the 130-odd pins are visibly bent.

What followed is what seemed like an eternity of painstakingly spinning the chip this way and that under the light of a powerful flashlight (which incidentally, gave me another scare, as I've put the convenient little dealie on top of my brand-new GPU to better see the fan lock, failing to realize THERE'S A MINI-MAGNET IN THE BACK OF THE FLASHLIGHT (thankfully, the GPU seems intact), and trying to see a pin that sticks out of the neatly lined arrangement and then, ever so gently, nudge it back with a precision screwdriver.

I haven't timed how long it took, though I suspect noo more than a half hour passed. In the end, I DID manage to fix it (well, enough to stick it in, and have the PC boot up). I felt weak in my knees though. For about an hour.

But that was just the prelude of the day to come. In the evening, I had a soccer game. I normally play on 2 teams, but yesterday my "main" team was to finally cash in our Boston pizza voucher for winning the championship last season about a month back. So I tell the guy running the second team "won't makes it tonight, sorry". Then all a suddennI get a text from my friend runnibg the "main" team, that we're moving the party to next week, as one of the 2 guys running the team couldn't get time off work. So -'m back to layong 2 games. First is @ 6PM, the second's @ 10:30.

I get to the first game (had to endure a brisk 25 min walk in -15 weather, but that's ok, I don't actually mind that) we play the game--we're short, so my position has 1 sub for 2 defenders--which means more individual playing time. We play a young team, the run like lunatics, and they play offensively, and pressure like crazy. But their keeper's a rookie. So we win 7:5, having allowed a bunch of absolutely silly goals, due to not handling pressure.

Ok, hard-fought victory, and now it's 7 PM. What to do for 3.5 h? A bunch of my friends suggest we hit up a nearby Montana's--we often go there after the game, they got a good deal on beer on Sundays. So we gogo-our goalie also has a late game, so he's good with driving me backto the game after.

At Montana's I'm starving. I order a burger w / fries, and then an extra plate of fries and devour the whole thing. Stupid, I know. I don't drink, as I never drink before soccer, so I guzzle down like 4-5 glasses of 7Up.

Back to the game. The guy running th eteam couldn't come-he had to watch his kids or smth. And here the bad news hit.

Apparently, my friend, the manager, runs 3 separate teams in this place. Naturally, as it always is with friends, they "share" players. And it just so happened due to a cosmic misfortune, that the scheduling has put all 3 teams playing at the same time slot (there could be up to 4 games at a time in the complex). What this meant, in practice, was that my team barely scraped together a skeleton crew (we got a last-minute "donation" so we weren't a man down, at least), against a full team that had I thonk 3 full lines to rotate.

The other guys weren't that good. We scored 3 on them, but the availability of fresh legs paid off. The final score was 7:3. When I stopped running, I felt I'll. I was short of breath in a way I havwnt felt for years, since I outgrew asthma attacks. When I got home, my entire body was ablaze with some weird sweat rash--welts the type you get from poison ivy (went away in the morning, thankfully). I've ended up throwing up about an hour after getting home.

So now I'm at work, having had very little sleep. Physically i'm mostly fine (except I think I pulled my groin/hamstring injury again, which never healed 100% before). But I feel old, as what happened yesterday has never happened before. So although ultimately, for all its lows yesterday turned out well (oh, right: about the computer: I flashed the BIOS, but then digging deeper discovered my motherboard can only handle 95W CPUS, so running my new 125W precious would be a fire hazard waiting to happen. So now looking for a new motherboard, I suppose), it stiL left my groove throughly messed, as I couldn't imagine smth like this happening even a few years ago.

In short:

You can be a nerd.
You can be a jock.

Pick one.

pftt, you westerners, with your categories,

I choose to be awell-rounded individual.

[Maark Abbott]

Getting preachy private messages on the Fez Bewk from christians in an attempt to convert me.

It's very tempting to go back to him and tell him how Belgarion will save him from Torak.

[Traveller]

Maark, on 10 February 2015 - 07:47 AM, said:

Getting preachy private messages on the Fez Bewk from christians in an attempt to convert me.

It's very tempting to go back to him and tell him how Belgarion will save him from Torak.

So they're trawling fantasy book sites for heathens now.. good luck with that!

My groove is only really very slightly messed, maybe just a little, by the fact that I'm at work, and I have a training day. Which will mostly involve being stuck in a chair for hours listening to some fucktard reading his own powerpoint notes from a screen; which, after an hour or so, he will present to us on a few pieces of a4.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 10 February 2015 - 08:39 AM