This can be pandemic related or whatever. I don't think we had a rate your year over Christmas did we? Time for a catch up.
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This can be pandemic related or whatever. I don't think we had a rate your year over Christmas did we? Time for a catch up.
I'm alright, actually. Thanks for asking.
Mixed middling.
I'm good so far. Everyone in my life has stayed well, I'm glad I'm still getting out to work. Our kids at work aren't being affected badly by covid. All the time off is giving us the chance to get the house sorted.
One surprisingly big downer is we don't have a sofa :moop:
I'm OK. Although going in to the office 5 days concerns me re getting the virus, it has at least staved off cabin fever, which, living alone, is a real concern. If this goes on for any period of time, or I get furloughed later, I am quite worried about getting properly lonely.
I am normally a sort of lone wolf anyway but I have cricket which gives me a full friendship group and 3/4 social occasions every week for half the year. That is currently wiped out so I'm a bit worried about mental state.
Doing well. I live alone and am 16 days in now. I'm a sociable person, so am missing people and just being out of the house, but coping with it fine. I've got an easy mental crutch to fall back on though, which is I've suffered enforced isolation before in more difficult personal circumstances :eyemouth:
So long as a loved doesn't die I'll be sound. Touch wood.
You can’t be totally lonely with technology. So long as the wife, parents, and sister survive then the rest of it can ask my bollocks. There’s been more about bloody mental health during all this than actually avoiding the killer virus.
Yeah, I wondered if I'd drop back into an unemployment malaise but, given that this is only temporary, I'm treating it as an extended break.
Fantastic. Lockdown and/or social isolation suits me grand.
I just had a humongous shit that not only left me feeling a few pounds lighter but I legit had to unblock the toilet afterwards so other than the close scare of overflowing, I feel pretty darn alive.
You probably help, somehow. But I can text with my actual friends as well. It's the being together that I think will be missed. I've already forgotten how to speak.
I love working from home. Spend like three hours preparing my course and then the rest of the day I play videogames. I could do this full time.
I got tagged in a suicide selfie on Facebook today so all will be well now. Phew, all those urges to leap out the upstairs window because I'd to watch TV are eased.
Some "post a photo of yourself and tag 10 people to do the same" to show some gubbins about not topping yourself for avoiding this virus.
I'm ok. Used to having an extended period off work, although I'm also used to being able to fill my time with projects around the house, which is much harder to do at the moment. Did just finish painting the mantlepiece which has been sat around for the last ...4 years? Or so. One of those jobs that never quite made it to the top of the list. Just got to fit the fucker now.
The major surprise here is that Giggles is on facebook at all.
I'm doing fine, so far. I hardly miss anyone, so the lockdown has mostly just confirmed for me how anti-social I am. Though I'm not sure I'd say the same thing if I lived alone instead of with my girlfriend; I guess the daily routine interactions do help a lot.
Being able to go out more in this weather (20 degrees the whole week) would be nice, however.
I've met up with a couple of friends down the beach and for a cycle as things aren't so strict over here. I don't really crave social contact much anyway, so the only thing that was stressing me out was the lack of motivation to work, but I'm getting to grips with that. I've also managed to stop eating everything, so now I'm rooting for an extended lockdown.
I have never been on Facebook, but I don't know if that constitutes 'making a point'.
Pre-Tinder it was good for shagging, not sure now as it's been a while. Probably still decent for talking to women who think themselves above dating apps.
I am also not on Facebook. I'm just not that interested in what all the people I don't give a shit about have to say or what they're doing.
And I got over arguing on the internet about 20 years ago.
Facebook is horrific.
Facebook (like Twitter, and I suppose anything) is as good as the people you have on it.
My sleep schedule is completely out of whack now, today I woke up just after 1pm and had cheerios and slightly stale birthday cake for 'breakfast'. On the other hand all the weed is gone now so lockdown is about to get far more tedious but possibly a bit more productive.
I don't really know anybody that posts on Facebook regularly anymore. It's more for pages and events as most people have shifted to Instagram for their inane bollocks. Then there's the odd group where old people lose their shit over stuff. For example, the other night some woman in Jersey got into a text argument with a bloke that fixed her fence or something. He started getting quite abusive so she uploaded the pictures to a group slating the business. Turns out he's a pedo, and then the local pedo hunter got involved. You just don't get that anywhere else.
To be honest I feel like I'm on holiday except it's been a month and I'm not ready to go home yet.
My cigarettes were meant to be getting banned as of next month so I was planning on just giving up other than when out drinking but the ones they’ve replaced them with to dodge the ban are better. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing.
They look like joints with their brown skins and are in 10 decks with the proper logos and not that brown colouring they all changed to the other year.
I think it's day 49 for me, by my calculations. I've been doing great but it's 3am and I just spent approximately 20 minutes doing a Taxi Driver/La Haine routine in the bathroom.
My sleep schedule is back to the same madness it was when I was furloughed. Speaking of Taxi Driver, I gave a lockdown haircut a shot. Trimmed the back with some scissors and it feels rough but looks passable. I hope my local barber's not gone under, though.
I’ve just had 12 hours sleep.
I talk to myself a lot these days. I see it as healthy, which in itself might be a sign of madness. I'm scared I'll forget how to talk otherwise.
Maybe you just have an inner monologue.
I'm still 'good', but no more now. Living on my own and now not seeing anyone I like for 2 months has started to grate over the last couple of days.
It's mental that some people don't. How do you think?
It's a habit I had to train myself out of at work. "One day it'll answer back, Michael. HARHARHARHAR."
I bet the people that don't are the copper bottomed morons.
I do still talk to customers on the phone but ideally I'd like my conversational range to extend beyond whether someone requires standard or oversize conrod bearings, after lockdown is over.
"Look, Francois, one it kill you once in a while to ask how I am?"
Also I too just assumed everybody had the inner monologue thing. Or at least never considered it for long enough to think people might not.
I've woken up today fully believing it was Sunday. :\
How are we all getting on?
I'm having a great time. I think this is about ninety per cent how my life would be if I won the lottery.
Yeah, this is fine. I've kept myself busy.
It's all settled down nicely, only three things I really miss; playing football, sauna and night-time shenanigans. Those three are largely how I spent the majority of my free time tbf but two months of no commuting, minimal work and minimal seshing has me feeling the best I've ever felt physically and mentally and I can definitely do up to 12 months of this. Not a chance I could do it permanently though.
I am badly missing cricket and my cricket club - not so much the game (I've retired from playing anyway and embarking on an umpiring career, for which covid should move me up the ladder as it polishes off a few old boys) but the fact that it gives me purpose in life, gives me something to look forward to at the end of the working days/weeks, and is my main social community containing 90% of my friends.
We're going to be ok financially, unlike many clubs, but taking that out of my life, and potentially for another year to come, has been pretty horrendous and no amount of box sets/zoom quizzes/TTH/guitar playing/sim driving and everything else I'm doing to fill the time can remotely compensate.
I've noticed that Haxball players have been coping a lot better than non-players.
Hear that lads? We're not good enough for old hoity-toity cricket pants.
You do help, it must be said. Some of you, anyway.
you're welcome mate
Think we've settled into a nice routine. It helps that I'm still working and that I've got a dedicated work space (complete with stuff that I've pinched from the office). We're using Teams as well to get a bit of human interaction as well.
I will say we were worried. I mean, we've been together for nearly 12 years and married for 3 and a half but a lot of people underestimate what a change it is to be with your wife 24/7 and barring a couple of minor spats, we're doing pretty well all things considered.
The company has made it clear that WFH will be a big part of our corporate thinking going forward, as we've coped with it perfectly so I'm looking forward to pushing for regular WFH in the future.
I'm loving the fitness and rest side of all of this. Extra hour sleep everyday, more cardio, more free time. Less worrying about staying in the office. Missing things like not being able to head up to family but not overly missing football (playing or watching). I've been reading a lot more as well which is something I'm shit at finding time for.
Other than for the sake of something to have on while I do other things I'm really not missing football yet. I'll be annoyed to have no international tournament though as that's basically my favourite form of football these days.
Regarding the general theme of the thread I'm still just bored out of my mind. Probably grumpier than usual but I live alone so at least there's nobody to take it out on.
I spend half the time seething about living alone and the other half of the time delighted about it. There really is no way of holding a consistent and balanced state of mind at the moment. Just got to roll with the punches.
I think if I had flatmates I'd despise them all by now.
My parents stayed with me for about two months a couple of years ago when they'd sold their house down south but hadn't got one up here yet and I was ready to fucking murder them by the end. And I generally speaking get on really well with my parents, but the constant lack of time to myself had me angry basically all the time.
We're living mirrored lives here Jim. I spend 75% my time loving being with my family and 25% of my time considering sleeping in the car.
I have always been a person that needs my own space, but that is extremely limited at the moment. I love my family, but sometimes I just want to sit on my own, scratch my bollocks and watch a documentary with a can in my non-scratching hand.
Ive took my first day off in months Monday. Gonna see the folks.
I hadn’t had a shite since Tuesday night and now I’m on my third since 5 ish. Smells like poppadoms
I’d love a poppadom.
I’ve had them today and on Wednesday. North Indian Garlic Chilli chicken :drool:
I am oscillating on around a six day cycle of absolutely sound to completely fed up of it all and back again.
When you really focus on it, deprivation of freedom really is the worst thing ever.
That was a reasonably long post but I deleted the lot and replaced it with that second line.
There was definitely a point over the weekend where I started to feel it. I can go outside but, with barely any places open, there's so little to do.
Feel like I've done nothing but consume media for the past six weeks. I can't watch TV any more. It is mind numbing.
My mood is noticeably worse every day where I don't get myself out of breath, but I really hate exercising alone. Or maybe just running, which is fucking awful business. I'm craving a game of football or something competitive to share with someone.
Alcohol is just boredom relief. I've had spells off it with ease in the past but I have no resistance to a few glasses of wine every night at the moment. Just why would you not?
Alright beast we're not LiveJournal.
You'll be able to gamble your life away within the week.
This is the livejournal thread Lewis m8.
Play Your Heart Out For the Dead.
Dickhead.
I got on it on Saturday and my mood has been relatively foul for the past three days as a result. Shit weather and skipping my exercise on Sunday and Monday didn't help but living my life as a carefully controlled science experiment and analysing the variables, I can categorically say it's all down to the liquor and the disturbed sleep quality it led to on Saturday night. Quit it for 2 weeks, regulate your sleep and you won't be having these dips.
It’s like the lad I used to work with that always bragged about giving up smoking.
“I don’t see how anyone finds it difficult, I’ve done it 5 times already.”
I’m pulling back on it myself a bit now too as the old guts can’t take it as well as they used to and as much as I like trying a new beer, it’s not worth it.
Also I was nailing the drink early on, also because I had homebrew to drink before the next batch needed bottling, but only drinking on the weekend gives the week more structure.
I felt great up until finding out my mum has [probably] thrown away my Euro 96 ball. :(
Why was anything you cared about still at your mum's house anyway?
Asking for trouble.
Women fucking love throwing things away, don't ever trust them with any kind of possessions. There's something wired in them that sees 95% of all human/male activity as a frivolous waste of time that needs to go in the bin.
Good point.
It was ALWAYS kept under the stairs, right at the back where unless you’re a ninja or weigh less than 10 stone you simply cannot reach. Used to only get it out in special occasions (when we were going playing on the field because it was too precious to play with in the street or even the garden.)
She says it’s still in there but my dad REFUSED to take all the old coats out so she could go in and have a look, simply repeating its not when I asked him why they fell out about it this morning. :rosebud:
If she wasn’t vulnerable I’d have marched round and gone in there myself. But alas, I’ll cling on to the shred of hope that it’s still in there.
It’s not.
If it's not an Italia 90 ball then there's no point having it anyway.
This or moving it to a location that will never be known again. The wife loves moving items I frequently use to a place so it's "less messy".
Drink wise, not been too bad. Maybe drink a glass of wine with dinner (which isn't that abnormal) and a few drinks on friday or saturday. Exercise has gone up either by running or videos. We don't have the TV on at all during the day and in the evening it's just to watch TV series so not really getting any negative bollocks.
Grab a book is my advice. Or watch Euro 96 with me.
My state of mind has improved a fair bit in the last week since I started eating a bit healthier and have found a couple of projects to do in the evenings which take my mind off everything. Running isn't my bag but I like a walk so I'm thinking of during an endurance walk up to London and back at the weekend, now we're allowed to.
No doubt it'll swing back to shit soon enough.
What are your projects?
It's not.
How long is that endurance walk?
I've currently not gone above 15 miles yet but I'm thinking of doing something similar when weather gets better, there really is nothing like it. Offie said it best, running is for oiks.
I don't know really, however long I want it to be, but I've done 22 miles before and 20 seems a reasonable target at my current level of fitness. I was thinking of Wimbledon and back which would be about 15 miles although that may be over-ambitious for starters, I haven't fully plotted it out yet.
Stamford Bridge and back would be a fun one if I ever got physically capable and had some better socks. That would be nearer marathon length I think.
I'm doing 10 miles daily but going off that 15 miler, 20+ sounds pretty serious. I'll be fucked if I'm not seeing what the realistic limits are (I estimate over 30 is asking for joint problems).
It's just walking, you big fanny.
30 is probably dawn until dusk stuff, I'm not sure that's doable except for people a lot fitter than me. I've found that about 12 is comfortable and then every mile above that adds a layer of toughness. When I did 22 I also got lost and had to walk directly through a large herd of cows which stiffened the sinews a bit and probably provided the adrenaline to get through an extra 5 miles or so than I would otherwise have been able to do.
I’m back in the office today. Doing less work than I’ve done in weeks. It’s great.
Yeah, as is the style of the time, it's an exponential growth thing type thing, once you go above a certain mileage things start to hurt/fall apart rapidly.
Longest I've done was a 39 mile round the island job a few years ago and after about 30 it's hard/impossible depending on your levels of tolerance and the quality of your feet.
Anything up to 20 is alright depending on the ground.
I did 42 for charity as a 16 year old, was in bits for a week. Probably die if I repeated that now.
Calm down Captain Tom
Hammer's famous walk from Leeds to Sheffield clocks in at around 33 miles, according to Google maps. Sod that, especially going from one northern turd dump to another.
I did about 10 walking from where I was staying to the British Museum then the Natural History Museum in London a couple of years ago (plus however long I was walking about in each) and thought my feet were going to fall off but that's likely because I am a blimp.
I'd planned to walk all the way back as well but got about as far as the pub where the Great Train Robbery was planned, thought "fuck this", had a couple of pints and did the rest of it by tube.
Urban ones are good because you see so much along the way, even if they feel longer than they are. In New York (or 'NYC', as the hip young people call it through their hip young slang-filled mouths) I did 60th down fifth avenue to Battery Park, across the bottom, then back up third to 60th with a few detours for bagels and to see a few things. It felt like walking to the moon, but Google has it as 12 miles.
I still want to know what Jim's projects are.
Yeah I loved it for that. Stopped and had a lovely (and hilariously overpriced) breakfast in some 'trendy' cafe and then picked a route that let me see some notable stuff but I know so little about London I was fascinated just by walking past normal places that were new to me.
I did a lot of it in Valencia too, just mooching about and doing the occasional u-turn when I walked into what looked like it might be stab country.
Watching it, playing it, thinking about it... Could be anything.
Remembering it exists.
Rugby league supporters thinking someone else's game is pointless, this'll definitely catch on.
They're both shit, but atleast Rugby League is a close cousin of a good one. You have Baseball for a cousin and tennis as a second cousin once removed. What a cunty family.
No, that thing you like is dumb.
By close cousin is he referring to football? Because fucking lol if it's the other one.
If I had any idea what I was doing with gifs I'd get Russ in here.
I mean we're talking 2-3 bottles of wine a week here. I've barely been pissed all lockdown. I fancy my chances.
On addiction though, my brother is probably the worst he's ever been. He's living with a load of expired crusties and it's obviously impossible to extract him from the situation for a time-out. Pretty bleak.
https://media2.giphy.com/media/f9lK1ygQGXWo0/source.gif
I don't think the job's doing me any favours. I don't read the reports but the way we're doing things now make it clear which ones are suicidal over the lockdown.
It’s the weather too. It’s rude not to drink in the sun.
I've definitely been drinking too much. I like a drink anyway, but during lockdown it's got a lot worse. I started at 5pm today because I'd had a super stressful day.
You alright?
I'm GREAT, having managed to actually get a network game going with my mate on railroad tycoon 2, involved hamachi and some mad shit that changed the registry or something. IPX wrapper. I don't really understand computers.
I built a stone bridge from Miami to Havana as a demented vanity project then did a hostile takeover of my mates failing business. Excellent way to spend 4 hours.
I never found one mate will play VP4. One of the cunts would even rather play funky pool.
I haven't been very good, but things have already started to pick up (eyyy), and I hope I've already reached my nadir.
My cocaine use had been pretty dysfunctional and fiendish for a while, but the last six months or so it's gotten really bad. Not looking for sympathy, as I'm aware it's self-inflicted. Finally realised I needed to sort my fucking life out, and reached out to my mate who is a recovered alcoholic, woman of 28 who was diagnosed with pancreatitis and told by her doctor she'd be dead in a year if she kept drinking like she was, and she still really struggled. Through her AA connections, she put me in touch with this lad who's active with CAA, and I'm now doing zoom meetings and on #1 of the 12 steps. Aforementioned lad is now also my sponsor.
This is my 12th day clean and sober, and I feel very positive and hopeful for the future and shit, though obviously wish I'd been capable of doing something meaningful about it before it got to this stage, but better late than never, ey?
The PROGRAM is fucking intense though, thank fuck it's the middle of a pandemic and I'm in a strange city with barely any mates, else I'd have no time for all of it with my notoriously packed social calendar.
In the first step (which can take ages), I'm supposed to attend THREE one hour meetings a week, and talk to my sponsor plus 3 other randoms from the "fellowship" every fucking night. I suspect all this stuff serves a secondary purpose of simply leaving you without enough time or energy to do fucking drugs. I'm not objecting per se, and absolutely accept it as a sort of penance for how much of a stupid thick twat I've been, but it is a bit intense.
Igor :cool:
I hope this sober Igor doesn't lose his sense of humor though.
I must admit there is something quite surreal about actually saying "hello my name is Igor and I'm a cocaine addict", in actual real life, in a way not that dissimilar to when a transport police bloke literally did the whole "you have the right to remain silent" thing, er, when he fined me £50 for having my feet on the seat.
Doubly surreal when it's said in your high-pitched banter-ready voice.
cunt :D
I am either reading or writing constantly, not least on this very board, but I do all sorts of other random shit 99% as a means of having an outlet for my over-active brain. When I wrote that post I'd had a good idea for a novel, did 20,000 words, realised I am not currently good enough to pull the idea off so it would be better as a short story, wrote the short story, that wasn't really any good either so I'm now turning it into a monologue which is better but will still need another five re-writes and by then I'll have thought of something else. None of it will ever see the light of day unless at some point in the future I do something which I really think is good to the extent that I become confident enough to show it to people. It's really just my own little hobby and I have no delusions of grandeur.
(one of the characters I tried to write a while back (unsuccessfully, I'm not a comedian) was based on one of my cousins, who does have delusions of grandeur to the point he has never had a real job and thinks he is an important 'writer', but actually everyone hates him. I could write him off the planet but then I could sell him off the planet, too - but his dad's richer than my dad)
The inside of my Evernote and my word document inventory are truly something, most of it a complete embarrassment.
How can you even afford a cocaine habit?
Well, that's a massive part of the problem. Luckily I never reached the stage of like, I dunno, nicking stuff (I don't think I ever would have tbh), but I'll probably be paying off the debts I've accumulated for fucking years, unless I move home and live like a hermit. Even then it'll take a while.
And all so you could tell strangers you were 'off your head'. Embarrassing really mate.
I’m kind of glad I hate drinking in the house so means I’ll never really have any issues with alcohol or drugs. Not to the point of addiction anyway. I’ve not had any alcohol for over 7 weeks.
Proper 11am binge on Friday though assuming wee Nic gives the go ahead though.
I didn't even get to enjoy the wow look how high i am bantz, it was far more grotty. Muting myself in the group skype call during a quiz at 3pm on a Saturday so they couldn't hear me snorting lines.
Doing a key in my nan's toilet on xmas day was almost cerainly the low point though.
Worst place I done it was in the work toilets a couple Christmas eves ago as we went for the usual lunch at 12pm and I got half cut in the 2 hours thinking work was shutting not long after but had to stay to answer calls until 3.30pm so had to take a line to sober up
Good luck Igor!
Aye, keep up the good work.
The next TTH meet has lost another soldier but sounds positive son, don it and never look back :thbup:
Reports of lockdown induced anxiety and psychological damage are coming in thick and fast but ignoring all that and just looking at my personal circles, I'm seeing two long-term stable relationships hit the rocks (they seem to have sorted it out but both the geezers have decided to quit drinking so they're dead to me now), a gambling addict who was years clean has fully relapsed and is back to square one with his life in tatters and a drug addict has gone from 6 months clean back to hitting the weed hard daily (not exactly a serious relapse but still). Are others seeing this phenomenon?
Sort of. Not overtly manifesting itself outright, but it's definitely bubbling among a fair few people I know.
My gut now is we're stuck with where we are now to varying degrees until Spring (when I think we'll basically be 99% back to normal), so it'll be interesting to see how people are coping after a whole year of change from this.
I've seen a couple of 4 year relationships die and a couple of others have solo problems.
Life routines have been smashed to pieces. I'm fast realising that staying in the office throughout has been a great, great thing.
UK mates do seem to be struggling and are much quieter. Jersey is fine, though, and look set to come out the other side in great shape.
100%.
A mate of mine who has basically become a hermit throughout this (his work sort of lends itself to that) couldn't believe I was going to a face to face meeting with 5 other people at the end of August when I told him about a month ago.
I'd love to know what % of the population that aren't in a risk group are scared to leave their houses. I bet it equates to a staggeringly high number of people.
It's interesting the number of people who seemingly can't stand their own company.
I feel sorry for them.
I have a mate who lives with his girlfriend, they both work from home for the foreseeable (no problems there) and, thanks to playing cricket, currently at least gets to see all his mates 3 times a week. Still descending into mental turmoil because he's lost the routine of physically going to work, and he feels his life is essentially meaningless as a result.
Probably better the relationships end now rather than later if just being around each other is enough to have brought it on.
His life was always meaningless. If corona brings widespread ego death maybe humanity stands a chance after all.
My friend was running the grill for this, so he has had the best LOCKDOWN.
I've been fine with it. The alternative is working in an empty office and then hearing the bloke behind me ask for my opinion on a game I'm not playing. Office banter is only good when there's actual drama going on.
Another one added to the list last night. We were all going to the pub after training, he said: 'I'm not ready for the pub, I'm not convinced it's safe'. Jesus Christ.
It's exploded people's heads.
He's right.
He isn't when the prevalence rate is something like 3 in 100,000 people.
This is the problem with just chucking the figures on a website. People don't bother checking them and carry on living as if it's still April/May.
Funny how many people are now fully onboard with Team #GetAGrip, even though nothing has technically changed.
Other than the huge reductions in cases, hospitalisation and mortality rates?
It's all changed.
The virus is the same.
All those went down because people stopped going out. :cab:
Yeah, other than those.
People thinking the lockdown and subsequent regulations didn't affect numbers :D
Nobody said that. Of course it effected the number of cases. It doesn't effect the percentage of people that die from it.
Too early for the victory parade, Baz. They're not ready for our bunting.
Take the L, Spikey. :stamford:
If you're going to use statistics like that you have to explain what you actually mean by it. The paper says it reduced deaths in ventilated patients from 40% to 29%, which you could easily present as an 11% reduction if it suited you. In non-ventilated patients only receiving oxygen it reduced the death rate from 25% in 21.5% and 17% to 13.2% (not statistically significant) in patients receiving no respiratory support.
Don't get me wrong, it's one (as I said) relatively effective treatment and the best thing we've found so far, but it's not the invitation to let Hammer's mates get back to it you're making out.
I'm sure there was another medication mentioned at some point too, but I can't find mention of it now (not the Trump one).
I think you're referring to Chashitanpheltokonsidophyl.
Apart from beating my personal best for most wanks in a day on a daily basis and scraping the barrel for films to watch I'd say I'm doing ok, could happily continue as I am but with the world opening up again. Maybe I was already immune to isolation because I had moved away from all my friends 3 years ago.
If you've been beating your personal best every day since lockdown started you must be in the hundreds by now. It'll be like mince.
He's not even sure if it's spunk or pus at this point.
I thought we were talking about Mahow's paint spillage, for a second.
Let's fire this up for it shall be active for the next month or two, rest assured.
I'm still nursing a hangover from Sat which isn't helping matters at all but I'm also trying to consider whether I should rearrange my working day to fit in an hour or two of exercise whilst it's still light (I doubt I'll go ahead with it as I don't like idea of exercising but having to come back to work).
Should we start a buddy system on here so that we can check in on each other and keep a nice live suicide tally?
Did we do any zoom drinks last time round? Family stuff was well and truly exhausted, but for the lols (for they will be few and far between) I might be up for a TTH one this time.
And Saturday was good, eh Don?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-54773047
Speaking of being a lightweight, someone gave me a joint to smoke a couple of weeks ago. I had half of it and felt so ill I had to go to bed for a few hours and sleep it off.
I'm a bit more fucked off with it all the moment than I have been previously.
Think it is just being magnified by the fact one of my friends is lying on his deathbed in a hospice (cancer) and we were asked to record videos to send to him. He's 42 with 3 kids, none of us are allowed to see him and probably won't be able to have a 'proper' funeral for him either. I'm sure it would have felt just as intense and helpless without covid etc but somehow makes a fucking horrible situation even worse.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-53283351
What the fuck is this creature's reporting about? :D This is his second similiar vid I've seen on BBC. Man's getting paid to go bosh a balloon at these raves all because he can be the next Trevor McDonald ffs.
We all know I'd make Johnny Depp look a prude if I didn't have the burden of a white middle-class career to maintain.
"It's hot and sweaty, and there's no social distancing"
I never get a hangover since I gave up the bines.
I can't remember my last hangover.
edit: actually I can. It was my birthday in March a day before lockdown.
I had a space cake at the start of lockdown and was absolutely fucked. Sat there waiting two hours then it hit me. Fell asleep around 8pm and woke up at 11am the next day. I can’t even go 5/6 hours without waking up at least once or twice any other night. Just dreadful the next day. Comedowns were easier to deal with than that.
Unfortunately it’s the in thing with all my mates smoking weed and eating shite throughout the day. Couldn’t think of anything worse
One of those really, I didn't know what to say and the instruction was to stay upbeat so ended up with a couple of crap jokes, felt like it was too difficult to do but knew I would regret not doing it, essentially the last time I will get to 'speak' to him.
As for hangovers, definitely worse with smoking but otherwise a roulette wheel for me, can wake up after 3 beers feeling rough or fresh as a daisy after half a bottle of whisky, no rhyme or reason though I did once spend a day getting involuntary erections after quaffing a lot of duty free Jim Beam.
No hangovers on the mid strength lager just the odd bout of dementia.
Why do you keep posting that?
:D
:moop:
Light fading at three in the afternoon. End it. :happycry:
I've given up all hope of life for 5 days a week, sustained purely by a diet of meaningless football and xvideos.
I stuck in 3 punnets of berries into my yoghurt lunch today though so I'm hoping to shit out all my troubles soon and be awakened to a life of fulfilling shit (pencil sketching and xvideos).
This really is going to be an awful 3 months, isn't it?
I'm starting to see why Nordic countries have appalling suicide rates, despite, lack of light aside, being fantastic places to live.
Nah, Autumn and winter is the best time of the year.
It's sim driving which is getting me through the evenings at the moment. I'm not normally a good gamer (a very bad one, in fact) but I'm OK with the wheel and it has the meditative, escapist quality whereby all you need to focus on in a ten-second period is the next corner, plus it's your feet, your hands and everything involved rather than just clicking around the internet.
I don't think I've got anything else, though.
It looks like a fairly cheap Thrustmaster wheel (£150) stuck onto a very cheap seat, crammed into the tiny space between my Ikea sofa and the telly in my odd-shaped area which passes for a living room.
It does all fold up though so I can preserve my very small amount of remaining dignity by putting it in the cupboard when anyone comes round, although no one has come round since February.
What sims are you playing?
I have Assetto Corsa Competizione but don't play a huge amount of it as my PC doesn't run it great. I play more Project Cars 2 which is an inferior (albeit still decent) sim but runs really well/immersively on my laptop.
Nowhere near plugged in enough to justify iRacing.
Yeah, iRacing is too darn expensive, but it is the best option. Haven't tried Assetto Corsa Competizione, but regular Assetto Corsa is good. There are a lot of good options nowadays, truth be told. Project Cars is quite good. I enjoy driving the Caterham.
You seem like the type to enjoy Grand Prix Legends. Will probably be a nightmare to get it running well nowadays though.
Counter-intuitively I don't get a huge kick out of single-seaters in this context, I find them a bit harem scarem, I prefer smoothing GT3s or touring cars around the place.
GPL I doubt you could make work on a modern day machine unless you knew what you were doing, which I don't. That monster BRM in it is a beast though.
I am all about the slow cars. Can't really be arsed with anything fast. Skip Barbers, Miatas, Clios, etc. all day. My best results came in the Lupo Cup back in the rFactor days.
Dirt Rally is really, really good, btw.
Whenever I get a hint that I'm into something as much as Jimmy is into computer game racing, you know I'm going out and dropping a bomb on a top end pc, wheel, gaming chair etc. Probably why only one of us owns a house.
I'm pretty obsessively into climbing at the moment, which is a good one because there's not much needless money I can sink into it aside from a gym membership and outdoor gear that's going to sit in a cupboard for the next six months. Quite a bit healthier than some past interests as well.
It's going to be ok, I am sure you will still be able to see Tronald in some reality show.
It just won't be the same.
My PC's a 2013 shitbox but I managed to get GPL working. I can't quite tell you how but I'm sure a google sorts you out. I can't run it windowed but it seems okay everywhere else.
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/g...ix-legends-9zz
My sim list is pretty stocked at the minute with Assetto Corsa, the F1 games, DiRT Rally 2.0, ACC, Project Cars and Ride 4.
I keep threatening to get myself a wheel, and I'd be the same, the Supercars and GTs were the most fun in Forza 7.
I was weeks away from doing my driving test and it seems that's all fucked now with covid.
How does covid render you incapable of driving? Or is the test cancelled?
Did you furlough the chauffeur or just sack him?
lol at billy big pasta not being able to drive
I work directly opposite a driving test centre and it has been very entertaining sitting at lunchtime over the last few months watching people fail and then throw massive screaming tantrums, ripping off their mask and chucking it in the bushes etc. Lockdown takes away all life's little pleasures.
She doesn't drive either.
None of my mates in London drive (most have licences, but they don't use them or keep a car). Probably the biggest cultural difference between London/not which neither side really understands about the other.
I just don't feel the need to learn. I can get places without one, although I always have one foot in the "Motorcycles are cool as fuck" camp. I value my collarbone and spine, though. In fact, my whole ability to walk.
There's also this weird feeling in the back of my head I'd start driving like I was in GTA.
Running red lights is fine definitely.
Also, if you see a group of Hari Krishna then it would be rude not to run them all over.
They're going to a better place.
You learn once you're old enough because it's something to get out the way.
There was a racket when I was in high school where the driving school would take the students out to beaudesert/ rural Queensland to get their licence as it was guarenteed.
I had no business passing a driving test at the time.
I had a similiar scheme minus the guarantee. Or the driving school.
The absolute jackpot for driving test viewing is the young, rich, Asian male. I saw one start a test in a brand new black E-class (with monogram on the rear bumper), and the start of the test was delayed by a good 5 or more minutes because he didn't have L plates on the car. The examiner stood to one side watching the kid desperately try to stick an L-plate on without leaving anything on the bodywork, as his sunglasses-wearing father raged at them both from a social distance.
I think laughing at Asian drivers is the only acceptable form of racism.
You would think that it would be the other way round. If that racial stereotype is completely true all the time, what else is been kept from us?
I would say spitting but plenty of bogans spit as well.
I just realised Im talking about the China side of Asia and you blokes use Asian to describe India and Pakistan.
They're all at it, driving as if nobody else uses the road. It's the same reason they litter.
:D
While we're at it turning a 5 bedroom house into a 14 room sharehouse for Asian students is another good one.
The only time I've ever been pulled over for speeding was in Japan. I was going 60km/h. They drive incredible slow and orderly and safe (and boring) there.
But of course that's not what you mean when you generalise asians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8Yyf6WKgaM
Id never include the Japanese they do rule!
When I say Asians it means south Asians, for future reference. My Korean driving experiences were they were quite slow and liked to look out of all six windows.
When I say Asians I mean people of B origin. You know, Bolton, Blackburn, Bradford...
I just mean Chinese Australians and maybe male Indian Australians and Ill add 60 year old boomers driving around in those massive American trucks.
The London Turks are the worst drivers by far. The amount of hit and runs they commit must be mental.
Better than what they've been up to down here, bits of at least two people stashed in takeaway freezers so far.
And they experiment in the Chinese.
A lot better than I've been since Tuesday.
My 11 week beard seems to have gone wooly overnight so Im happy.
Keeping head above water on day 3 of no meaningful football. Tomorrow we play Bosnia [with a weakened squad] which will have to be rationed for the following 8 days in what will probably be the bleakest stretch.
Vaccine talk has offered hope of a free summer. Work has quietened down. I went out at 16:30 for exercise and returned expecting the clock to be close to 19:00. It was 17:30. Mother is doing well. Nephew is too young to be aware.
Don.
Last entry.
For god's sake look after our people.
Well, now I have to do the two minute silence.
So far this is my best November for years. I don't know if that's the Vitamin D supplements talking (seriously, kids, stock up) or if it's just that every month is now November so I'm used to it.
Last night I got home from work, sat on the sofa, opened the laptop, watched a quick video, accidentally ended up in bed and slept for two and a half hours. Got up at about 8.45pm, went back to the sofa, watched some golf stuff on the telly, had a juice and a small bit of cheese, tried to go back to sleep, couldn't, played half an hour of audiobook, still couldn't, then went to the last resort for sleep which is playing back twenty minutes of my own voice reading something and that finally did the trick. Woke up 6.30am and managed my five alarms until 7.30am. Shower, coffee, apricots, off to work again.
Rinse, repeat. One day, boys, one day life will return.
I've also been taking vitamin d but I dunno if I've noticed much difference. I didn't realise that NHS Scotland recommend it if you live North of the wall anyway but especially this year when I'm going to be outside in daylight even less I thought it wouldn't do any harm.
What does vitamin D do and why would you not have enough of it?
Because you'd normally get most of it from sunlight and I live in Scotland.
I assume you could make a point of adding things to your diet that'd include it but that sounds like more effort.
Ah it's the sun one. Could probably do with it too as I'm never outside in daylight any more.
Do you feel wrecked without it?
One of my friends is convinced it's improved her mood and that she's less tired.
I'm not really sure if it's having any effect or not in all honesty and the tone of Jimmy's post makes me uncertain on his stance on it.
I've been taking it since late September and I feel like I'm less despondent than I would otherwise be in these circumstances. The clocks going back is normally a serious harbinger of doom for me.
It's hard to measure, though.
I get you, it's one of those wellbeing things rather than anything actually wrong. I thought it would combat tiredness or something but I could probably fix that with some water in fairness.
Multivitamins are a must. I'd reccomend Wellman.
A must for being scammed, ya. Get your diet sorted instead.
Captain Long Covid wants to tell us how to stay healthy lads.
There are only two ways you can get significant amounts of vitamin D into your diet which are:
- Changing career to become an 18th century Scottish fisherman
- Feasting on the livers of the children you have murdered
I'm not prepared to do either.
If I wasn't such a 1337 bodyhacker I wouldn't be alive today given the barrage my immune system must have received to date.
https://rhculp.files.wordpress.com/2...mansionfam.jpg
All the STDs you've picked up from cheap prostitutes trying to attack your immune system.
Sorry, I thought it was an illicit substances joke.
Vitamin D is supposedly decent for fighting off the dreaded covid too, according to Dr John Campbell of Youtube. It transpired from people contacting him that loads of people have been told to take it anyway if they don't live in sunnier climates but it is a bit under the radar here for some reason. Been on it since March and happy enough all things considered, though unfettered access to pornography may be a factor.
It's the perfect time to go mushroom foraging as it happens.
I missed that. Absolutely psychopathic behaviour.
That sounds like a crisis.
His WDYTOE entry went to his head.
Language learning innit.
"Good job you weren't here 5 mins ago..."
https://youtu.be/t4mFEA0Mfp4?t=71
Is that the cabin fever episode? Q.e.d.
:D
It's unbelievable. There was literally no pictures of her kids or grandkids and there on the mantel piece was some fucking mushroom.
Can you get a picture for us?
I suppose if she wants pictures of her favourite fungi up there there's not mushroom for the grandkids.
:lol:
Repped.
I could maybe understand if the mushroom was the size of a pumpkin.
I know a thing or two about an oversized mushroom.
There is no fucking way it's still Wednesday. Nah, not having it. Fuck international football.
If the prospect of England deploying 9 defensive players against Iceland in a Nations League dead rubber can't even get you excited then I think you may be too far gone.
Here's something to cheer you up Taz: https://www.theguardian.com/business...P=share_btn_tw
Perhaps you could start a vigilante murder spree to get rid of the 1% and save the planet in the process.
https://www.thethirdhalf.co.uk/showt...l=1#post386303
We covered this on Page 60 of the thread over 8 months back. Fuck your exclusives on 'researchers' and 'studies' Guardian, come hither and drink in the wisdom of the community.
There are too many hours in the day at the moment.
+1 to that, work is totally dead, seriously considering bringing a book.
Our business is booming. Owing to the fact we did nothing through the first lockdown. :moop:
If it makes you feel better my ex lived with her grandma and grandad, they looked after her aunt's dog basically full time and fed him properly cooked steak dinners. Someone did a painted portrait of the dog and they took her picture down in favour of the painting :D
:D fucking hell.
I am now two hours away from 16 days off and I don't think I've smiled as much all year.
3 days in and mans are struggling. Fucking gone from wanting clubs open to praying gyms are open in NY. What a state of affairs, we truly have lost the war.
When people started referring to themselves as ‘mans’ it was all downhill from there.
I'm currently a massive ball of anxiety, thanks for asking.
Won’t do you any harm if you do get it though, you’ll be grand.
You don't have narrow airways along with the narrow cranium do you?
(I'm sure you'll be fine).
It's the wife I'm worried about. The Flu landed her with Pneumonia last winter and she has scarring on the lungs off the back of it.
Bruv can you stop using that terminology, it's deeply disturbing to read.
I'm not sure what you mean, but is:
'Da bitchez, lungs is proppa fucked' better?
You're right, mine was chav circa 2004 I reckon.
In seriousness though, need to get her isolated as much as you possibly can. Mine spent a week in hospital before with pleurisy and it’s only minor compared to pneumonia.
Is it possible to be alerted when someone posts? Giggles & Don seem absolutely obsessed with one another.
What he said. I've got a particularly significant bit of toxicity overspill currently both on here and on my whatsapp groups.
Fuck them all Taz, including me :cool:
Here me now breadbin.
I've decided to cancel my weekly big shop and do daily trips (possibly twice on some days). Just went Waitrose and the queue was long and provided the exhilarating social experience I needed to try and break free from the current mire. One thing is for sure, you're fucking having a laugh if you think the mental scars of this 12 months will heal quickly.
They will. Summer was pretty much back to normal whenever we went anywhere.
Waitrose? Wind it in.
It's just the local shop. I did my weekly shop at Lidl, I'm not a fucking nonce.
How are we all getting on?
I'm big time fucked off with stuff going on at the minute but there's nothing can be done about it so, onwards.
Struggling with absolutely zero to look forward to at the moment (this 'just a few more weeks' rhetoric is total bullshit, even if it's true, because there's no certainty). Have started obsessing on daily covid stats in the hope that it will improve my state of mind when they eventually start to turn.
This is probably the worst time ever to start a diet. But my eating and drinking had hit DEFCON 1 levels, so something had to be done.
Just dream of the clubs.
Monday was a struggle, today's better really. It's a bit of a slog really at the moment and hard to fully motivate myself for work.
My coping strategy for the last year has been (outside of work) to try and completely immerse myself in things to make the stretches of time go by. I've read an unbelievable amount of books, watched a certain amount of TV, played loads of FM last year, and although I haven't got into the new FM at all I've got an OOTP save going and an F1 2020 championship on 100% race distances.
Last night alone I must have done about 5 of those things in turn because I can't concentrate on any of them, my brain has almost stopped working. I've also forgotten how to talk to people and have conversations.
I was hovering over upping this thread in the morning before Manc but I decided against it when I saw I had posted last and didn't want to seem too whiny but let me tell you, this isn't fucking fair and waaaaaaaaaaaa.
No but seriously, it's as bleak as it gets. I did some exercise yesterday (indoors obvs as THERE'S NO FUCKING SUN) and that improved matters considerably so I'm going to just try keep that up like the classic prisoner stereotype that we all basically are now. I picked up a strange non-impact foot injury a couple days ago though which is complicating things.
If you want to be really challenged , me and the missus have been following this guy religiously:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9wFgB4AkP4
No weights required, just fucks you up.
I only have a small percentage of the usual new year enthusiasm, which translates to doing quite well in achieving personal goals but I really do just want to jack in the job for almost anything else. Sometimes I can't believe I've chosen to sit at a computer all day for however many decades.
On top of that, I've got an exam on the 15th and I'm struggling to take anything in. Concentration levels were already low as my mind seems to flirt with absolutely anything other than what I need to do, but the effects of working from home full time are starting to become more and more clear.
I'd be up for following something new like that for a month, I can't be doing with that music though, might try it muted and with subtitles.
What happened to your walking? Invest in some good waterproof and windproof gear and get out whatever the weather. I was running in a forest on a hill in a hail / sleet blizzard the other day and it was peak exhilaration. The running top underneath my Montane jacket was bone dry (other than sweat).
Are you doing it during daylight? The darkness has really killed off the buzz for me and just made it downright annoying in parts with minimal lighting and I don't want to be following streetlights or getting one of those horrific head torches. The weather I'm fine with and actually relish.
I can cope with the cold, but the darkness at this time of the year, on top of everything else, is truly awful. The only real sunlight I see is when I walk the dog at lunchtime.
Working from home is great and I hope this turns into a full time thing. I can understand why folk wouldn’t like it though, especially if you’re living alone or stuck with your partner/whoever 24/7.
It does fuck your routine up though. I’d been waking up after 1pm over the Christmas period so trying to sleep at 11pm before work yesterday was grim. It’s been snowing here too which stops it from being fully dark which is nice
We're going to two days a week which is ideal because I would have been stuck here otherwise.
I suspect we'll end up with having to do a day or two in the office and working the rest from home but there's no talk of anybody going back at all yet so I dunno what the script will be. I don't hate the idea of doing a day or two in the office to mix it up a bit.
Usually get out of bed and straight to work at 9. Just postponed by alarm till 10:15 and still really struggled to get out of bed today. Long COVID is back baby.
Physical or mental?
If you had to attend the office you'd have been up surely.
I see we're now using "long COVID" as an excuse for being a workshy freeloader. As if Smiffy needed any other ideas.
I reckon if you placed ten 'long covid' sufferers in a room of a hundred people I could pick between seven and nine of them out. First up, all the women with short hair. Get a good look at them. Anyone who looks like they have 'husband/dad' in their social media...
In all seriousness, it sounds more like depression than long Covid.
Post viral fatigue syndromes are well established clinical fact.
Sufferers have demonstrable structural and functional changes on brain MRI.
In wrestling terminology it's known as 'working yourself into a shoot'.
It's clearly mental as seen by the fact once I'd got over the intial hurdle yesterday, I did my physical exercise fine and felt much better after. But it has a clear knock-on effect, physically.
As you say, if I had to be up I would have. The fact it was so fucking cold outside my covers was also not of help.
I was in the Lewis camp but I imagine if some fat mess was going through the same thing as me, they would milk it so I'm also thinking this is what long COVID is. Mood seems fine (relatively speaking ofc).
Yes it's clearly mental based on your anecdotal sample on 1.
Clearly.Quote:
but I imagine if some fat mess was going through the same thing as me, they would milk it so I'm also thinking this is what long COVID is.
The assertion that 'this is clearly mental' is separate from that excerpt. Although I can see an argument for the link to be muddying the waters but I think it's clear that I'm merely hypothesising based on personal experience.The long COVID means I haven't the energy to conclude this as I would like so let's end it here.
Give yourself a shake and get a move on.
It's not working yourself into a shoot if it was a shoot to begin with.
Brother.
I've noticed a recent phenomenon of forgetting people's names. Recent cases have involved partners of two close friends and an old work colleague from 3 years ago.
Also have a real growing feeling of being mentally boxed-in.
Other than that, doing great, cheers.
My attention has turned to what to do when this is over, in a world that's then my oyster. Quite pleasant thinking along those lines for now, but when that thought inevitably turns to the reality that I still can't do anything it's going to be, well, shit.
I'm not dreaming of round the world trips and orgies (nice though those would be) but I could really handle a draught pint and the sun on my back with a couple of mates in earshot.
For now though I will have to concentrate on making sure I don't forget how to speak, which is becoming a real challenge.
Pint of Guinness on a high stool, elbows on the bar.
Imagine just being able to text a few mates to see if they fancy a beer? Scenes.
Now you're being farfetched.
I've forgotten what that feels like tbh. Much of normal life is a distant memory now that I have to struggle to recall.
Jesus wept you’re all so dramatic.
Don't lump me in with them. I'm on my own in my scenario.
None of us are dramatic. We're just not psychopaths.
Baz would do well in prison.
Are you calling him ugly?
Baz would be used as a toilet brush in prison.
If he didn't like people taking his seat in the office...
Jill the desk snatcher wouldn’t be in prison with me would she? If so, I wouldn’t last a week.
Mike would probably get put in a woman's prison but I don't think you would.
Fully addicted to sugar at the moment. A biscuit every three hours is all that's keeping me going.
Unpopular opinion: biscuits are shit.
lol
You've mixed up the word "Unpopular" with "Incorrect" there, Spikey.
Fuck sake Spikey.
They aren't shit but I don't bother buying them these days, crisps are the far superior snack.
The ones covered in chocolate are alright, but Malted Milks? Rich Tea? Fuck off.
Malted milk and rich tea? I'm beginning to think it's possible you've just never had a good biscuit.
I'm on team spikey. Biscuits are shit.
:nono:
Malted milks are good.
See how wrong you are @Spikey M? See?
Dipping them in drinks is for perverts and children.
Dipping them takes away the best element of a biscuit.
I have a long list of unpopular opinions. It could even be a confession. Where is the thread?
@Don does it cheer you up any to know that you are member no. 69 here?
I noticed this when I idly opened my own profile for the first time and noticed I’m 42. Phonics is 1, which makes me assume it’s assigned in order of sign up. We’re basically the Stonecutters.
That has raised a smile tbf. Having 69 on my polo for the meet once this is all over :cool:
I am number seventy. Lads! Lads! Lads! Lads!
Where do you see your number?
And more importantly, why is somebody called huongkkk99 among the last ten viewers of my profile? :uhoh:
Number One :cool:
Your URL, no. 44.
We should just get rid of usernames given we're living the dystopian dream.
Ah, thanks Number 69. I was making it more complicated than it was.
44, eh. Well according to Wikipedia "since the greatest prime factor of 442 + 1 = 1937 is 149 and thus more than 44 twice, 44 is a Størmer number." So, y'know, I've got that going for me.
Member 111. Nelson.
I didn't sign up here for like a week in blissful ignorance of its existence, so that explains that.
Number 2. :moop:
68. Not as nice.
Employee #53. I think I sent out the form/email to get everyone on here (or the previous iteration, thethirdhalf.ml), so I was expecting this to be lower.
Phonics set it up (and by “it” I mean this new, TTH-only message board) because thedugout.tv was dying. I then think the .ml domain then had some challenges, so a bunch of folks chipped in to buy legit hosting and a .co.uk domain - the board software and database was then just ported over from the .ml to .co.uk domain.
@phonics will know the story better.
I think the ml was free but went down a bit?
Number three here.
Number 25.
https://thesecretofthetarot.com/numerology-number-25/
That is me.Quote:
The number 25 is introspective, spiritual, team-oriented, and curious enough to continue searching for knowledge and wisdom for all of her life.
People with 25s are generally good at communicating with a wide array of people and are usually well-liked.
Number 25 was the kid whose mum had to bail him out from the abuse, right?
That is also Mahow.
#10
at last i have the hard evidence that i'm a top 10 poster
Employee 5. The Zidane of the board.
Or more likely Harry Maguire.
5ive
57. Fascinating.
75. Reversed.
A few factors yesterday really made the evening bleak. The cage is feeling increasingly claustrophobic. At these bad times, it's the struggle to break the monotony. It's fucking Friday ffs. Godbless the lockdown wifey at least for without her I don't know how many people I would have taken down with me in the inevitable terrorist attack.
Jesus man, snap out of it.
My cure of late has just been watching the vaccine numbers tick up and the case numbers very slowly tick down. Each day better than the last.
He's not gone mental enough to care what member number he is yet, so there's still hope.
I thought Taz would hold up, so if it's just me and Baz left I win because I'm not a testing nonce dipping out for Pokemon cards.
I've had a couple of wobbles along the way but I'm tip top at the moment.
People with triple digits should have smaller posts or something.
*heads
There’s just been a “wellness advocate” on the telly.
Fuck sake.
Mate had a kundalini awakening last night. For the uninitiated, what that means is his decision to go cold turkey on his £600 a month weed habit coincided with his developing pursuit of meditation so he can call his mental breakdown a cool name.
I look forward to hearing more about kundalini awakenings across society.
Mid-February and still no end in sight is when I expect everyone to start going fully crackers. I have good days and bad days at the moment. I had a realisation driving in to work this morning that I've only been into 3 buildings (my flat, my office, and Sainsbury's in Chertsey) so far in 2021. Actually, 4, I filled up with petrol once.
Before you all off yourselves, please sell me all your old Pokémon cards and/or wrestling figures.
This week off has made me realise how knackered I am.
Did we have a WDYTOE thread at Christmas? Biscuits are excellent, by the way.
I think the last one was when a couple of people did audio ones but I don't think there were that many other lists.
I haven't had a biscuit in years, I don't think. If I buy a packet there's just no way it's seeing out the day on which I opened it. Same goes for crisps. Just don't eat them.
The former. He was getting all kinds of bullshit strains with fanciful names shipped over in the most impressive of professional packaging and branding.
A friend of mine has started the Wim Hof method. 5am start, 5k run then a freezing cold shower - he says it's mentally improved him. The whole method is based around controlled breathing techniques but it just sounds like a shit sandwich where the bread is actually more shit.
Win can suck on my fried foreskin if he thinks he's getting credit for putting 2 things that are good for you together and slapping his own name on it.
I can attest to the cold showers. Besides manning little melts up both mentally and physically to a bit of pain, the effects on mood and well-being carry long into the night. Start slow (get under the shower from the off if yours takes a few seconds to heat up) and build yourself up to a minute.
It was so much easier with the showers at my spa and being able to look forward to walking into the sauna straight after :happycry:
Yeah someone at work got on board with that but he soon fell off when he realised he kept getting colds.
It's meant to improve the immune system. Someone give our guy £200 for his 10 hour video course so we can find out the truth.
What by leaving you never quite clean and getting you used to filth?
Got a bit of work that's been hanging over me for weeks that I will hopefully clear this week and feel a nice lift from but generally, the state of play is poor with still no sauna date to fucking pin some hopes to.
Just caught that Prince William and the footballers documentary on mental health after MOTD2 and it was quite lol listening to the 4 geezers who had developed problems, one cited a serious car accident that meant he had to quit all his sport for a long spell of rehab and isolation within his hospital room and the other said sport was what he clung to as his release for troubled times. Try all of those turned up to 11 and all at once, you soft shites. But no, real talk, be interesting to note how many of them should have had a tribute at the end of that show with a framed mugshot titled "...-2021".
Yesterday was a wobble. I think it was the stuff about having a picnic with my 'household' in 4 weeks. This government doesn't understand messaging at all, you have to give people hope. Life is utterly pointless atm except as day by day survival.
It's partly my own fault and my biases for being a deviant etc but sometimes I think people with kids and nice houses just don't get it.
In the first wave, having the garden (and the weather) really did make the world of difference, but this time around, being stuck at home with 2 bored and needy children is a massive loss for team parent.
I should have phrased that better, what I meant was the north London townhouse crowd making the decisions.
I don't think any of us normies are having too much of a barrel of laughs.
It's currently stopping me buying a gaff but what can you do?
Women on radio just now describing the crumbling mental health of her teenage son and in tears asking for him to be allowed to play football :happycry:
No, Taz. Just no. People are dying.
Buy him an Xbox. That's all he's probably after anyway.
I thought face to face socialising died in the under 20's a long time ago.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000s7vt
47 mins in.
I feel like shit today. Think I'm just exhausted from working weekends recently.
I'm weary as hell with work too - feels like I've been there for some epic year-long vigil, when of course I've done the same hours and only a bit more actual work than I would normally have done, it's just there's been no mental break from it with holidays / weekends out / literally anything to do, so it builds up in your head I think.
I've tried a little go-slow to try and give myself a break but there's no real way of doing that in my business, either you do deals or you don't.
I had one of our team drop out last weekend (Sunday afternoon) ahead of a presentation on Tuesday with the dreaded covid (don't buy it- think he bottled it) so had to work throughout the rest of Sunday on Monday on a presentation. I've also got this marketing assignment due for the end of the month which includes handing in an advert (my laptop can't deal with editing).
Still, at least it's warming up.
Yeah it’s beyond tiresome now. If it wasn’t for FM and the prospect of horse racing to look forward to, it would be the pits. Liverpool being dogshit is a major contributing factor m, not gonna lie. I don’t even get the ‘zone out and pretend everything’s class for 2 hours’ at the weekend anymore.
So Cheltenham on 16th-19th March and then rugby leagues back on 26th March, so that’s my light and the end of the tunnel. Can’t come soon enough tbh. Also got a stag do (previously mentioned in the job thread) in July as a massive milestone for 2021. If that goes ahead, the year could be saved. And then a holiday abroad in August? Wait, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to the horses.
I'm starting to flag, possibly for the first time in the entire shitshow. I'm struggling to motivate myself for work, even when we're going through a really busy period (which could leard to serious growth, if we take advantage of it). Normally I'd be excited and spending evenings working on strategies and processes, but right now I just want to go to bed.
I've booked a couple of days off next week for a long weekend. Nothing much to do but will try and get out for a cycle and mooch about.
That's it, physical exercise is the only way out of this. The Beast from the East is asleep for 12 more months. I went out in shorts and t-shirt earlier to the shop and it was glorious in the daytime sun. I've got a long road to undo all the physical and mental damage of the last 3/4 months through exercise in the coming months.
Alright, take it to wellness instagram.
He can finally dig the kid's bike out of the cupboard.
Hit a low this morning and I'm not really sure why. It's something about the sheer monotony I think.
Yesterday I went into the local town to get a takeaway burger for lunch (normally I'd have a boredom sandwich / salad) and on the way back to the car I took a slightly different route which went through a very short underpass where I hadn't been before. Whilst in this underpass - ten yards of grey concrete covered in rain water and bird shit - I suddenly felt this immense excitement because just for a second, I was actually in a place where I don't normally go. It felt so liberating.
The joy of finding new walks..
We've found a couple of new running paths locally and it's like unlocking Narnia for the brain.
Jimmy trying to get mugged just for some social interaction. :(
Sounds like you need some time away from the office, Jim.
On the topic of liberation, I've stopped watching/reading the news and my mood has improved greatly.
Jimmy hoping somebody would tell him to "Fuck off, clean shirt" no doubt.
I think there's definitely a correlation between the people on here going through the more obvious lockdown meltdowns and those who are exposing themselves to as much news around this as possible.
The news is my way of coping, I feel powerless unless armed with knowledge and information. Nothing in life will improve until the pandemic ends, so I have to have detailed expectations about when that might be.
If I switched off from it then it would just be me, the office and the inside of a 1 bed flat in perpetuity. My brain is far too active to deal with that.
I'm with Manc on avoiding the news. I still check in with it to keep up to date, but it's not the constant background noise it used to be.
I've found getting a new hobbie invaluable. Learning how to trade on the stockmarket keeps my brain busy, gives me something to do in my spare time and gives me what feels like an entirely different world to escape too.
The only time I'm really interested in the next bit of news is when they talk about the next phase of lockdown. Otherwise, it's just continued hysteria and misreporting.
I've also started actively avoiding the news. It's all bollocks, as evidenced by the complete 180 they've done in focussing on the daily numbers since they've started to drop.
I started obsessively keeping track of the statistics at about New Year, a) because I like keeping track statistics, and b) believing (as things were going very wrong at that point) that it would afford me a nice mental boost when things turned around. That did indeed happen, but now that boost has gone into reverse because the numbers are still doing the right thing but gov policy / media coverage isn't reflecting that, which has also convinced me that the media needs tearing down completely.
I very rarely read the actual news in the conventional sense.
I can't believe so many people bothered with the news up until now.
I've just eaten a load of Chocolate Digestives, so I feel fantastic (biscuits) but sad (no more biscuits).
I’m so bored I’m considering dying my hair.
I'm so bored I nearly want to hear more.
I'm so bored I drew you an artists impression. Gonna dye it all black and then shave off the sides only so it's black on top and blonde on the sides.
https://i.imgur.com/7mX56Nd.png
Like if Sadio Mane wore giant white trainers
Lord Bendtner vibes.
What a difference the sunshine makes. I'm filled with hope.
Yeah, I can sniff [20% of] my extended climbs into mother nature's bosom and it's glorious. Work is looking better, I have a new workout, Liverpool are back...much to be grateful for. Allahuakbar.
Meant to be 16 degrees here over the weekend (which is, of course, not the one I have booked off)
I'm going to look at some castles. Probably.
Happy it’s almost 5pm ayyy
Why have you deactivated your DMs?
I’m too cool for DMs u no
He had a hissy fit playing werewolf
I won’t make that mistake again!
Sad thing is had you done it in the next game you'd have been seen as some sort of savant
Why would you have a tantrum about a werewolf game? It’s it all just blind luck anyway?
I think you'll find it is pure skill. :mad::mad::mad:
"Right lads we just lynching anybody who's actually bothering to post again, yeah?"
Cause I was having a pretty rough time with real life so I dove into it trying to bring joy to others with my participation only to be thwarted by some virgin basement dweller whose blind rage to what amounts to a series of 0’s and 1’s lead him incapable of picking up any strategy or code - who then was so embarrassed he loudly blamed it on me for trying too hard bc he was scared of losing internet points with his cool friends by fucking up what was a fun game prior with his petty, pedantic, and pathetic misconceptions.
Mind you I’d happily have forgotten about this place until Baz followed me on twitter for the 5th time - which was why I closed my DMs to begin with as we found out last time I tried to stop being bothered by this bullshit if you change your email you get locked out of your account so I just turned off every light on my way out.
But lets keep making this a thing I guess.
Bruh, quick tip for the internet. Don’t post 2 massive diatribes and then say other people are making a thing of it. Just don’t reply.
I think it was Mahow, but that's a slightly odd recollection of events.
Bruh being the American Mahow is just too perfect.
They even look like brothers.
Look you goofy little fuck, my offer of free money (as a means to talk to you openly to confirm a suspicion) being refuted for you to then ban bet me knowing exactly what the money bet implied is either
1) You’re being too stupid to pick it up or
2) Being so blindly annoyed by someone you’ve never met you couldn’t think straight in my presence, or
3) You really are such a pedantic little cunt you’d rather fuck up a fun game than play with someone you e-hate
Either way you’re a fuckin herb and I feel very, very sorry for you.
I've never seen herb used as an insult before. :D
I'm Team Bruh.
How is a herb pass it on.
historically, it's been the received wisdom (especially on places like this) to adopt a kind of kevin nash too cool for school not arsed mate kind of persona in online disagreements, but now there's only about 50 of us posting i fully support bruh going postal
Herb.
1. To be wack. Worthy of being mocked. Weak, chumpish, and generally to be avoided.
2. Mocking term of friends and/ or enemies.
It's origins lie in New York City, and with a national commercial campaign by Burger King where it stated "Don't be a herb, get the Whopper." In it Herb was a combination of a nerd and a moron.
Yo wassup herbs, what time we drinking?
This party got way too many herbs, I'm out.
That kid asks way too many questions, he's a straight herb son.
:D
I thought it was a drugs reference.
slightly spoiled when you remember how americans pronounce it
Change Mahows name to Maherb please @SvN
I'm Team Bruh.
Firstly the money bet was a trap because whatever I said you'd have turned it against me. "Oh look he only wants to bet £5? He's not confident. WOLF. "He wants to bet £100? Why so much? WOLF." "He doesn't want to bet? WOLF"
I didn't bring up the ban thing you did.
I was not annoyed by it at all you strange fuck. It was a game which you took too far, as always, and are now trying to shift blame.
Can one of the werewolf losers explain this beef-cum-ruthless donning to me?
He was so sure I was a wolf for no reason that he went mental for my death. Everyone thought he was a seer (a player who can investigate someone and know their role) because he was pushing so much.
I argued that if he was a seer he's an idiot because I'm not a wolf and secondly it was the first day. A seer wouldn't tip their hand that early (day 1) for a wolf even if they had one.
He then suggested a bet to which I said "Name your price" which he took as me claiming I'm a wolf and told SvN to ban him if I wasn't a wolf.
I wasn't a wolf and he left the board for a bit until Baz messaged him on Twitter to come crawling back.
Bruh, I like you, but Jesus man. Have some self-awareness. Chimp outs are a common occurence in werewolf, and they're typically forgotten about within 24 hours unless you leave the board in protest and continue to post mental ramblings about it months later.
Werewolf is forum AIDS.
Super Mario versions excluded.
Is that Mahow or Bruhnaldo?
Bruh.
I'd never grow my hair that long.
I was fully onboard with Bruh at the time, and definitely egged him on to the point of all-or-nothing, and still have the same stance. :harold:
It's worth remembering that in the following game Mahow was, in fact, a wolf. And Me and Offy donned him and his dickhead Discord server off the stage. :cool:
There will never be a Werewolf game where killing Mahow would not be the main priority.
Nobody bothered with the last one, cos Pleb effectively ruined it by telling a select few who had what role.
5 weeks seems a real long stretch atm before saunas can see me right. Football in 3 should see the last 2 weeks off but fucking hell, hurry up.
Those of us without kids are a doing a fucking stretch in March. Could do with it at least exceeding 7 degrees soon.
The weather does need to Buck its ideas up. I want in the garden ffs.
Considering nothing has actually changed for me today, I'm surprisingly chipper. No idea why.
I have days like that. Today isn't one.
Was properly fucked off yesterday because I didn't make the scaled back guest list for a good friend's wedding, which I was expecting but I think that was in the back of my mind as the thing to look forward to and see people again. I left the office the day Boris announced the pubs were shutting for lockdown last year and have never been back, I have barely seen anyone except my wife and in laws during that time.
Hopefully this is the run in back to normal service because I really need to go and get drunk at the football with friends and get that release, the lack of anything to look forward too is really hitting me now. It's my birthday next week and I couldn't give a fuck.
You guys need to man up. My wife did fish cakes for dinner tonight. Fucking fish cakes? "Well, we never have them, thought it would make a change". So would smashed glass on toast, love.
Open the clubs.
Fish cakes are nice if done well.
Shut the fuck up.
Fish cakes > the clubs.
Facts.
Would you rather have fishcakes or Lofty at your wedding?
Did Lofty bring fish cakes?
Fishcakes at the wedding, Lofty at Da Club.
Got to be Lofty every time.
I once shat in the first hole of a golf course at a wedding reception for a bet so concede I might not be the best wedding guest.
Are you ranking yourself below fishcakes?
Iceland ones no, chip shop ones maybe.
I'm going to need a proper answer. You are up against These.
Those melt in the middle ones are shit.
I'll take Lofty.
They are all shit.
Yeah I'm better than them.
How are we all getting on this semi-lockdown life? The mundanity of WFH has really hit me this past month. It's absolutely relentless.
Although I'm not WFH, and despite having things to do at weekends, I have slipped into being bored shitless with the grind. Give me something else, ffs.
Gone into proper phone-it-in mode at work, doing the bare minimum, watching the figures roll in. This week, my field boss has asked me to ring round 20 French companies cold calling for contact details which he can then spam with offers. I detest cold calling, properly makes me shiver with anxiety, so I've decided I'm just not going to do it. He can go fly. I'm not making myself stressed for a pointless load of shit. I think many people will come to this conclusion.
Isn't most stuff open there now?
Only outdoors, and shops. You can't be in buildings with people socially.
Yeah but at least you can go sit in a beer garden.
That wasn't really what I was driving at. Boredom is just around doing the same thing every day ad infinitum, which doesn't really change with a beer once a week (which I have been doing).
There was some fake heat last week in that it at least looked warm until you sat outside in it but even that's gone this week so the sesh needs indoors to be reopened really.
WFH and general workload is disgusting and has made me think frequently about the future and whether this career is sustainable at all.
None of it matters though as I got football back in my life and beyond the initial scare that my lungs had long COVID or some shit, my fitness seems back. You could run a stream of hot shit into my mouth for 7 hours a day and I'd still probably be okay with it if I'm allowed to chase a ball for an hour a day. True love.
Shall I squander some money booking us another pitch?
I was loving the fake sun as Taz aptly put it, but now even that's decided to hide it's gone back to being a bit of a grind again. Off to for a jaunt over the weekend, but the weather looks miserable.
I need a foreign holiday to somewhere obscenely hot. Which reminds me, I'm now being trolled by the vaccine rollout it seems. Everyone I know my age and even some a bit younger have had their first jab, but mine is still nowhere to be seen. Phoned my GP last week and they told me they're only doing them for the vulnerable so have just about finished now and I'd need to book through the government website, which at the time was only accepting 45 year olds and above.
Driving in the car for a meeting yesterday and heard on the radio that the government are now inviting forty-(this must be it, my time has come)-two year olds. Forty-two? Seriously?
Fucksticks.
Not good. I think it's largely down to the thumb injury in combination with the weather preventing me from doing absolutely anything. I've got a 2nd x-ray and inspection on Thursday and I'm trying to be a big boy and not be tempted to take the brace off for a sauna sesh at least until then but it's hard :cry: This weather tho is the stuff of pondering second emigrations ffs.
Got your smell back yet?
Nope.
Jesus. That's more than enough for me to want to avoid COVID forever...
Was meant to be going to see Stuart Lee in June, but that's now been pushed back to 2022.
Which sort of sums up the weird limbo type time we're in at the moment. Things are open, there should be fun to be had, but other than a week or two when pub gardens first opened, I'm just not feeling it yet.
Nothing is the same with these measures still in place.
All the fun to be had at the moment is underground. Bigger corporate type fun is going to be very slow and very cautious, and will contain 0% spontaneity for ages.
It would have indeed been that. Apparently he's re-writing one of the sections now in light of recent events, so if I get to go and see it next year it'll be different.
'What, you want me to wear a mask? Why don't I just cut off an arm and...'
*audience loving it*
'A mask? What, like the stars the Jews had to wear when they were being forced onto trains and...'
*twenty minutes of this, audience is in bits*
'This little fabric mask, which is actually like being murdered for being gay...'
*forty-five minutes, people are being stretchered out laughing*
You missed the bit where he admonishes a portion of the audience for being the wrong sort of audience.
Haha gypsies.
This won’t come as a surprise to any of you, but not good. I think it’s time I admitted that.
I’m sorry TTH.
What's changed that's made you post that today?
What's wrong? Have you had any sleep yet?
Not yet and while that will help, I'm genuinely not sue how much more of this I can do.
I sort of don't know what's true any more at times, which is batshit, but there we are.
Maybe you just need a disconnect. It's been a pretty stressful period in most of our lives.
But talk about it. We're the greatest bunch of strangers you can have.
Think he's gone to sleep now, he'll be fine after a good kip. :charm:
England reaching a major final has broken him.
Hello.
Send him an affiliate link for a bromine ball.
Can't say I'm surprised the man with the most posts in the Covid and Euros thread has had a break with reality.
The world is chaos. Roll with it. Concentrate on your doorstep and let the shit beyond that do what it do.
Evening gents, thanks for the kind words.
Slept reasonably well last night and that's helped a lot. Basically I keep getting brain fog, which has been brought on by not sleeping properly for 15 months, which was brought on by every fucking day being the same since then. With one day blurring into the next, what's the point in sleeping? Well, apparently you need to, who knew.
Hot take here but I think sleep is pretty good and I don't care who knows it.
Also, I'm a big fan of routine. Hopefully returning to the office can give me some of that back.
Yep. Routine is so key.
And despite best efforts, when you're working from home for this long exclusively, it all goes to shit. Work is the only thing in life that's got me up in the morning over that period and probably the only thing that's kept me semi-sane. How people who've lost their jobs have coped, I've no idea.
Absolutely. Going to the next town over and being knackered just reminds me how I felt during unemployment. At present, my work day consists of working for half of every hour and then flicking the Playstation back on for the rest.
Are you exercising, Yev?
Nope and haven't for ages. Don't think I have this year yet. I just get up, work, finish work and play Xbox. Weekends are different as they're just get up and play xbox, with no work.
Write your sitcom.
I'm too old to be in it now. :moop:
Might as well tell us what it was about if you're going to neck yourself.
I would quite like to write some stand up mind, but my brain is too broken to do that at the moment. I need a week of (good) sleep to get it back again.
Fresh air (and a change of scenery) goes a long way.
I spent a few days in the highlands and it was properly nice just being in a place I haven’t been in a bit.
If you can, I’d encourage you to get away from your local area for a day or two just to see different stuff. Makes an enormous difference.
Staying house bound is probably the worst thing you could do at the moment.
What sort of hobbies did you have pre covid? Are any of them even remotely feasible at the moment?
I had a spell where I didn't sleep for 5 days about a year ago and I would happily have killed myself.
All good advice, but COVID has sucked the fun out of absolutely everything and I don't know how to get that back.
I feel your pain to an extent Yev. I am in a bit of a funk at the moment that whenever I get a bit of time to myself I end up doing nothing because I don't fancy doing anything, then regret it. Read somewhere it can be a side effect of stress.
The screen time can't be helping with your sleep. I'd try cutting that in half for a start.
randomlegend has killed himself... HERE WE GO! #insomnia #suicide
This is my suicide note. Done deal confirmed. Can no longer bear to live. Overdosed on what I swiped from the hospital.
:D
Magic and Taz would be on here hearse-tracking.
I was only off for five weeks last year but the lack of routine was a fucker at the start, making sure I at least went for a walk or something every day and kept a vaguely sensible sleep schedule made a big difference.
Left to my own devices for a year and more I would probably have been trying to manipulate global betting markets from the hot tub too.
Read before bed instead of looking at your phone. I started doing it and it helps. Square everything away on your phone for bed (I turn my vibrate off), then just read for half an hour and turn in.
The first thing to do is exercise your right leg loads (take long walks with a fanny bag and regatta shoes if needs be) and get it limber enough to give yourself a good kick up the hole. Then give yourself a good shake and stop being such a fucking blanket. It’s been a few restrictions for a while, pain in the hole but not world war 3. Straighten yourself up, you’re a grown adult man, not one of these Twitter fannys looking for a reason not to work.
:cool:
Look at the manlets giving it large.
Alright, that's the real Giggles.
See if his IP says Hatfield.
Problems with sleep and general health? Sauna. Thank me later.
And when I do go to bed at a reasonable time I wake up at 7am. Wide awake. And it's raining. On the 10th of July. Unbelievable.
It's Saturday. Get back to bed.
Nobody should need more than 8 hours anyway. I’m at my least tired if I get around 7 hours. Over 8 and I’ll have headaches all day.
Yeah, I don't tend to break 8 unless I'm jetlagged.
On a similar theme to what Foe has said - are you going outside, Yev? Since making it routine to get 10 minutes sunlight in the morning my sleep has improved, and it contributed to a routine in the various lockdowns. The morning light is meant to shut down melatonin production, making it work better later (when you want to sleep). I get at least two hours outside every day and feel rough if I don't get out at all. I think it's normal and human, we're not meant to be in a box all day.
Hey Reg.
So a week of sleeping properly, spending time in the garden (mostly looking for rat corpses admittedly) and drinking plenty of water has fixed me a bit. The brain fog has cleared up and I can function again.
AZ2 seems to have been far better than 1 as well, albeit it has made me tired again.
Yeah, Yev, in the pits of last year I found that a change of scenery was incredibly helpful. Did a day trip out into wine country (really the ‘where’ didn’t matter) and it completely changed my mood.
Even just getting in the car for a long drive somewhere - giving yourself a goal and something to look forward to to replace the monotony - could be helpful.
How are you killing the rats Yev?
Standard baits/poison or something more exotic?
:D
I was hoping he'd come in and post up a pic of him in full Rambo/Sniper mode, but Bam's idea is just as good.
I'm not, a chap I'm paying is.
Problem is, they're coming from next door, which is an HMO (nice people, pretty quiet) with a dreadful landlord. Their garden, which I saw on Tuesday properly for the first time is half full of space for them and half full of his crap and has a shed they can't get into. I saw my first while at the kitchen window a few months ago and thought nothing of it, but on Saturday I had my Mum over and one was about a metre away from my stepdad walking across the garden wall before hiding in a tree for a bit and coming back out again. Said wall is about 2 metres from my kitchen so I thought fuck this and put a letter through next door's box to ask if they'd seen any and that I'd get it sorted. It transpires they first noticed the little cunts last year, told their landlord repeatedly and he did nothing. He's now on my shitlist.
Some of you may remember when the broom and I had them in a flat we shared back in 2008, caused by poor cavity use in modern builds and some idiots downstairs emptying unwanted noodles into a bush outside their kitchen window. I want to say it was Fox who helped establish they were rats, on the back of yet another legendary thread I'd started at the time. Either way, being a farmer's son and that experience has helped me become accustomed to their ways - seeing them in daylight is not good, but that close to people and in daylight? It means you have families of the cunts.
So, I phoned a local firm on Monday, who had a surprisingly good receptionist (I may go back to her for tips on wellbeing as she seemed very chipper for someone 16 months into a pandemic) and they sent Jack out on Tuesday. Jack was ex-retail so we bonded immediately and I could tell he knew he wasn't dealing with a mere civilian when it came to vermin. I explained the situation and liked the cut of his jib, so I accepted his proposal to do some work. Normally this would have seen me back in the house and onto another spreadsheet, but oh no, Jack wanted to walk the grounds with me and explain his tactics.
I let him know that I would show him what I'd seen, which he was very impressed by, but he sadly also pointed out many things I hadn't (hold that thought). This made my initial estimates of 'families of them' probably on the thin side. I may know about rats, but I'm no expert, I'm Yevrah. It's now I type this that I realise I neglected to offer Jack a hot beverage, it was a warm day, but some people believe that myth about a warm drink cooling you down, so I must address this when he comes back.
By this time it's clear that my garden is riddled with the fuckers and we move onto the garage. This is a bad garage that will be knocked down when I can a) get someone to remove the asbestos and b) timber (to replace it with) doesn't cost more than gold per cubic metre. However, I didn't think there were rats in there and Jack was impressed when I suggested that I wasn't sure we needed to treat it as a location of concern for fear it becomes one.
Done at mine we go next door and (let's call her) Amy, who tried to seduce me under the guise of being worried about me two months ago opens the door and let's us into the garden. Utter shitfest and the landlord should be ashamed. Half of it is full of bricks, blocks, scaffolding, tiles and other broken shit that started to make me think Bamster had been round and left a job unfinished. I tried to apologise to Amy and her two confused housemates (they were not expecting me, let alone Jack and his box of poison/contraptions) on behalf of TTH, but she assured me no rogue trader had been in her garden and that it was just her arsehole landlord using the space. Phew! The board's reputation is intact.
Still, Jack is now very worried and I don't know why. But, with him being the expert I calmly ask what the matter is and that's when he tells all four of us. This is a PERFECT over ground arrangement for rats and here is where we will find the source. So he starts digging around, moving shit, finding droppings and other evidence of rat movement and sure enough, by the side of this weirdly locked shed is a hole, a hole that rats have dug into their underground nest. Feeling pleased with them not living on my turf I'm quickly dis-abused of that notion when he asserts "oh, they're likely living under your decking too". With that news in hand I'm now keen to know what the plan is. Turns out I wasn't part of the next phase as I go back indoors and Jack sets to work. I'll admit I was disappointed, but also appreciate I am not qualified to handle traps or deadly poisons, so I leave him to it.
Half an hour later a respectful knock at the window is heard and he's done. There was no doubt in my mind he'd done a thorough job, but he wanted to show me. We go around my garden and there's boxes he's laid out (with poison) where they would likely run, he shows me the holes in the ground under the decking that he'd spotted earlier, which are now filled (with poison) and finally we visit the garage, where he's gone for conventional traps (rather than poison). I thought we'd previously agreed nothing was needed here, but he explains the traps won't encourage them, but will kill them should they wander in of their own accord. I close the garage door, which I shan't be opening until he comes back and we head next door. Same arrangement there except he's also chucked a fuckton of poison down the hole he found.
Will this work? I ask. He's confident it will, but explains rats are neophobic (I felt I'd let myself down by forgetting this, but may have just managed to blag that I hadn't) and it will take a while for them to touch anything, so the next visit should be scheduled for two weeks hence. We talk dates and he leaves, but not before telling me about his next job, which is dealing with a fox terrorising a school. We're now in an area of joint expertise and the energy that's generating is palpable. I ask if it's a cage he'll be using or does he prefer a shotgun (there's a chance he won't have a license, tricky), but true to the consummate professional he is he says (while acknowledging they're both sound choices) he'll have to weigh the situation up when he gets there.
Is Amy going to be the new Broom?
Is it a school for chickens?
What a post.
Do you know what's in the shed?
Probably more rats.
I for one, can not wait for the next thrilling instalment in two weeks time.
We ended up with mice in our house a few years back because our old neighbours didn't look after their garden and it became a towering mass of brambles. Eventually someone complained and they cut it all back and disturbed the mice.
Unfortunately we had our back door open at the time and the cunts found their way in. Getting rid of them was a miserable experience.
"I've had to get a man out to draw an X on the front door. I've been told I have the plague but my more immediate concern is how to beat the Cavs in the playoffs."
I used to walk past a bag of rats on the way into work. I'd cut behind some of the restaurants and they were always getting at the rubbish bags/skip. One day a load of them burst out the bag. I erm ... haven't gone that way since.
IÂ’m surprised I havenÂ’t seen rats yet. Had a shrew in from the corn field next door but thatÂ’s it so far. One thing a lad told me was to give them a food source far away on the perimeter so I do throw grain around the back field when I can. And train the wife to close doors, which is harder.
Also, that's a top 10 post from Yev. :D
Good to hear, Yev. You know what they say - a rat corpse a day keeps the doctor away.
We had rats round here (I knew it was likely being neighbours to a train station plus I saw an old rat trap box when viewing the place).
A build killed one that sprinted into the garden once by impaling it with a stick, he then decided to leave it where it was to, as he said, scare off any others.
We ended up buying some rat poison boxes and filling them up (which will still do as a precaution) and at one point we called a man who said there weren't any rats around right now as he couldn't smell them. Which was clearly bullshit and I imagine he just didn't want the job as I think most of them had gone by that time.
I only saw one once. I came home one night, opened the gate and it was just staring at me, I then stamped my foot but he went under some black landscape fabric so I lobbed a rock at it and it ran of the property.
I remember cracking some excellent memes in that thread. You should get a dog Yev. Some little hunter bastard to get at them.
I believe that the thread was called 'What's in my cupboard?' After a few days, Yev posted a picture of said cupboard, in which the reflection of the inner part of a bag of crisps could be seen. That reflection looked like a rat at first glance to many people, me included.
Hard to believe that was 2008. Thirteen fucking years ago.
We were years ahead of the blue/white dress business.
TTH :cool:
Poison is the only way you're really getting rid of rats, a dog might get one or two but it's more likely to be shit scared of more than one at a time.
I'm still throwing custard creams out for the foxes, and they're still loving them.
100% guaranteed Yev dropped in a sly reference to the hot tub in his conversation with "Amy"
Amy must be a unit if Yev passed on it after what he's been going through.
Unsurprisingly my neighbours live next door to me and knew I had one without me specifically telling them. And I actually fancied her a bit when I moved in and saw her first months after, but as you'll know from over the years, I don't talk about that side of my life on here.
I assume there's a joke in there, but that'll actually do the opposite. I didn't know this until Jack told me, but rats apparently quite like moving into places where they can smell other rats have been and seemingly aren't bothered by where the previous rats went.
Doesn't bode well for this situation, that.
"So..."
:charm:
"...wanna see my rat infestation?"
Yep. The 2008 idiots that attracted the rats back then had a fucking dog in their flat that would run away from them.
The first sign we had we had anything was when I got home one evening and Mrs Yev said why did you put an empty family size pack of Doritos back into the cupboard? Is this how you live? We'd just moved in together and (IIRC) it was Fox who read that part of the post and suggested it was rats as he had some pet ones and they were amazing at moving food. Still makes me shudder when I think of it. The one that died in the loft particularly.
This is in Oxford, right? I had a landlord there who had a locked shed in the backyard of a house I rented there that was full of shewees. He had some business selling them or something. He apparently owned quite a few houses in the city so was wondering if it was maybe him.
He was also a fucking useless landlord.
:D
It is annoying that I've done nothing to attract these fuckers either time I've had to share living space with them. 2008 was genuinely horrible, if I have to cope with that on my own this year I'm not sure I'll bother. By which I mean move out until it's sorted rather than kill myself.
Now I think about it, I think it was Intergalatic Jester, not Fox. What happened to him?
Lewis, can you remember whether it was IJ?
IJ had pet rats, the goth dweeb, so it was more likely him.
Me and him used to PM loads on here until he started getting pissy about my non-moderating. I wonder if he is still a goth. Nothing sadder than an old goth. He was also a massive, MASSIVE homophobe, which always struck me as a bit weird for a goth.
Was he really? I never clocked that, or if I did I can't remember doing so. Disappointing.
First week of dry July was rough but now I think I'll go another month off the booze.
IJ was such a loser. How did he gain power? How could anybody like him enough to talk to him, let alone give him the keys to the gaff?
Remember when Jacky posted that picture of him with a blue mohawk and a giant hooter and he went mental?
To be fair, I got on with him quite well. As for how he got the keys, I genuinely don't know.
Cheers. Might be the same landlord, but we're looking at different parts of town.
I haven't quite thought of a way to get to him (by which I mean make his life as difficult as his shitty landlord behaviour has made his tenants and could potentially make mine), but he already owes me money, so if I have to I will.
Amazing post Yev. Dogs can be useless and also you have to let the fucker out which isn't ideal if there is poison down as they are also thick. Your new mate seems on the ball so fingers crossed he wins the day and takes the bunny boiler off your hands on his triumphant return.
You probably should keep reading :eyemouth:
Epic post Yev.
We've got rats in our garden, I see them occasionally. Lockdown definitely seems to have been a boon for them (or maybe just being at home more you see them). They seem to have assumed to role of squirrels here (we don't have squirrels) in that they climb up shit and raid bird feeders. I took a video of one doing it recently but I can't seem to find it.
I'm not that bothered by them. It's not like they're the sort of cat sized monsters I used to see in London.
Came across a baby one whilst cleaning out some brush/overgrown shit at my parents recently. Heard some cheep cheeping coming out of a grassy outcrop and wondered if it was baby birds (being the time of year and all). Then came across a tiny tailed wriggler. Probably should have put the mower over it but I'm not a monster.
Or the required attention span, which will be never.
Ooooof.
You boys need to up the levels if you want to main card over RL-Magic.
Do some homophobia, Bam.
I'm back to 100%. The Weather is glorious. 2022 could see me in a new job or out of one. Either way that's a cracking result.
Life is properly good again.
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Oh and one thing I have learnt from this is NEVER TELL ANYONE beyond a professional (or a forum you post on) that you're having problems. It creates more.
Why do you say that?
I see where you're coming from, but I'd say a better description is 'know who and who not to tell'.
A few reasons.
There were times when random things happened, I'll list some when I can be arsed, that people start to doubt did as you do yourself.
People don't know which version of you they're getting and assume always it's the fucked up one.
But people are always asking you how you are. Constantly and by text. Which is lovely, but annoying and not remotely helpful.
If you tell work, thank God I didn't and doing so never crossed my mind, you'd be signed off and on a list for far longer than you're ill for, which (unless work is the reason, maybe it was 10% in my case as I've been doing some stressful but great stuff this year) it doesn't address the root cause and creates another one.
I already had a deep scepticism of it as you know, but the mental health awareness and wellbeing stuff would have been worse than useless had I gone down that road.
Honestly, if you're lucky and it's mild mental issues like I had (which may still come back), work out what's caused it (see a professional if you have to to help ascertain that) and fucking get it sorted. I could imagine how not doing so would see you in a spiral that's almost impossible to get out of.
As a qualified mental health first aider, I’m here for you all.
I just PM Bam.
The sort of twee 'It's good to talk' media-friendly approach to dealing with mental health is a load of bollocks. Everyone responds differently to different scenarios, there is no cast iron rule. You just have to do what feels right to you.
I think there's a happy medium between my approach and what you're getting at, but the difficulty I found was that you don't know what feels right and it takes two weeks (or it did in my case) for the effects of doing the right things to be felt.
Agree on the media friendly approach being horseshit and would personally take that a step further in that to me at least there seems to be a narrative (much as there is with being fat) that it's ok. It isn't. Find out what needs to be done to sort it and do so.
I had a glimpse (and thankfully only a glimpse, so I don't want to be insensitive to those who have had far more) as to what that might have been like if you don't get it early enough and it was terrifying. My brain literally didn't work and I'd have lost my job, my friends, family, my hot tub and eventually my home if that had continued.
Psychology is a load of BS. A good psychiatrist might be a good call, but good luck getting a good one. Also, even psychiatry is mostly trial and error.
I haven't actually seen one yet. I diagnosed the cause of my issue from reading what causes brain fog. I'm seeing one on Wednesday but I've gone for a relationship councillor as everything (including almost all people) is irritating me at the moment, although that has improved since I started sleeping properly.
The lesson here is that sometimes people just get a bit fucked off at times and not everything is “mental health issues”.
This could be a really long post but I'll cut to the chase:
Let's just assume my life has been a 2/10 since COVID shutdown the world.
Here's my latest update to a friend: "Saw the friendzone chick again, once again a highlight of my year, once again going home sad as fuck."
I cant wait to leave.
I have seen a Psychiatrist and a Psychologist since I was first diagnosed with Bipolar. Huge benefit that I got in early and stuck with it. I feel very lucky because bipolar can be really rubbish I feel sorry feel people with zero support.
Rat Update
0 bodies found, but not sure if the poison's been taken yet. Did find this this morning though.
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:nono:
Things that I've seen/found in my garden in the last month:
Hedgehog family, badgers family, dead hedgehog fetus, a badger corpse, a fucking lynx.
Fucking circle of life happening in my garden.
edit: proof of Lynx
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...428/image0.png
I didn’t get that.
Me neither, but it sounds serious. I wouldn't mess with him.
Proof of Lynx sounds like an advertising campaign executed through the medium of a glossy film trailer for something that will never exist.
Also, what on earth is that picture meant to be showing?
The lynx must be one of those eight pixels you can see.
The two lights being it's eyes?
That's the only thing I can think of as possibly being proof of a "lynx".
I would like to know what road Bamster was taken. Maybe I will pm him.
I'd watch a sitcom written by Bamster, to be fair. It'll just be Til Death Do Us Part with more swearing but Britain's ready for it.
Rat Update
Jack is back on Wednesday, but in the meantime just had a baffling conversation with one of my neighbours (not Amy) through a gap in the fence. She's Spanish so while she does speak English some of this may be lost in translation.
I lit a fag and sat down to smoke it and heard:
Her: There are no rats in the box yet
Me: No, there won't be, it's just the poison in there
Her: Is it one box for both houses?
Me: No, there's another box where the nest is in your garden and I've got two over here
Her: Oh, ok, who paid for those? Was it the owners of the houses
Me: In a way, I own this house and I paid for all the boxes and traps
Her: Why did you do that?
Me: Because I don't want to live with rats
Her: You're not living with them are you?
Me: No, they're not in the house yet, but there's fuck all to stop them getting in if they want to, so I'd rather they were dead, the rat man is back on Wednesday
Her: Why?
Me: To check what poison has been eaten and take next steps
Her: How will he know?
Me: Know what?
Her: How much poison has been eaten?
Me: He'll check the boxes and assume whatever isn't in there will have been eaten.
Her: But how will he know how much was in there?
Me: He put it in there
At which point she just sort of gave up.
Fuck me :D
This second episode is much better.
I know, right. I swear random shit like this is happening to me all of the time lately. I also kicked a rat across a pathway today, completely inadvertently and nowhere near my home. The thing went fucking flying.
They've clearly sent a scout out to track your movements. God rest his soul.
I had to go to the Post Office, again, which is sort of behind where the Coventry is on this map.
https://i.postimg.cc/FzzF0MV9/Cowley.jpg
The red bit circled is a pathway with loads of bushes either side that zigzags down to the car park where my car was parked. On the way back to the car I ran down this zigzag pathway as I had to get back home for a 5pm call (who puts a call in for 5pm btw) and while running I felt this thing land on my right foot. I looked down expecting to see a child's ball or something and it's a fucking rat, that is in the process of being launched down the pathway. Unreal.
Kicking rats now. What's next? Dogs?
Scratch my initial theory. The rat has clearly escaped from Oriental Express. Hopefully you booted him closer to freedom.
To be fair, I knew about as much about that as the dog did.
Were you looking the other way?
I can't see through wooden doors. Neither could the dog.
Actually a dog could see through a wooden door quite easily if there was a window in it.
A door with a window in it? Such fanciful talk. Who would so such a thing to a perfectly good door?
Someone who doesn't hate dogs.
Well, you know what they say. When dog closes a door he opens a window.
BOOM.
PAYOFF.
You kicked a dog Shindig?
Also comes as a surprise to me. Might have to edit my WDYTOE list.
No, I kicked a door a dog was behind. Caught the dog in the process.
Kicked it to death in a Geordie rage I heard.
He’s been dead for years. The door was not a factor.
Situation Report - Jack's second visit
My garden
3 sets of poison under the decking. 2 sets untouched, but the 3rd completely ravaged! Have at it you little cunts.
2 Boxes of poison. 1 untouched, 1 a bit nibbled at.
Garage Traps. 1 dead rat. Nothing left of it bar a tail and bones. Honestly, most minging thing I've seen this year.
Scores on the Board - 1 confirmed kill and at least 1 suspected.
He's gone next door now.
Neighbour's Garden
Bait boxes untouched, but the poison he'd put in the burrow is all gone. :chief:
Back next week to "wrap things up" as he put it.
Next step is getting hold of that shithouse landlord to get all the crap out of his garden.
I found a rotting rat behind a kitchen plinth a few inches ago, as soon as I broke the silicone seal and started moving the plinth the whole room stank. Straight on the phone to rentokill, horrid.
Probably stating the obvious, but lock your house up tight when they're clearing the garden because any remaining cunts will look for a new gaff when disturbed. That's how we ended up with a couple of mice when our old Neighbour let his garden get in a state.
Will do Spikey. Cheers. I don't even leave the back door open now.
Oh and Jack will wipe all of this lot out. Just depends whether we get others before I can get hold of the shit landlord.
I went for a really good massage this morning, followed by a half hour swim and a walk home through the park, and I just say fellas, my disposition is a solid 8/10.
I need to get your job (well, not your job, but a job like it). 8am-6pm nailed to an office chair is not conducive to massages, swims, walks home, or 8/10 dispositions.
I'm sure we average out to the same.
Well I suppose at 3am tonight I will be in peaceful slumber rather than punching the wall as Philippines Dwarves concede a last minute equaliser, if that's what you mean.
I bet your paycheck for the month of June was even a positive number.
Found my old report card today lol:
https://i.imgur.com/lQkEHTo.jpg
What is Theory of Knowledge?
Is what the website saysQuote:
How is TOK structured?
As a thoughtful and purposeful inquiry into different ways of knowing, and into different kinds of knowledge, TOK is composed almost entirely of questions.
The most central of these is "How do we know?", while other questions include:
- What counts as evidence for X?
- How do we judge which is the best model of Y?
- What does theory Z mean in the real world?
Through discussions of these and other questions, students gain greater awareness of their personal and ideological assumptions, as well as developing an appreciation of the diversity and richness of cultural perspectives.
Interesting. I'm sure you'll be stunned to hear that my High School didn't have anything close to TOK.
Sounds like ghetto philosophy.
Considering that says effort not my grade. It seems you could do with a lesson in it.
:happycry:
I had to do Theory of Knowledge. You must be a fellow International Baccalaureate kid.
For the record, I hated ToK. I later majored in Philosophy.
Sounds like some 'University of Life' bullshit.
Sounds like Phonics was sucking off the PE teacher.
He made the effort.