Are you happy?

[randombs]

This is a mixture of emotional and material happiness, but I don't care:

1) Wife and I have finally started going to restaurants for dinner since February. It was our 3-year anniversary a few weeks ago and my wife booked a Greek restaurant we like. Work was busy so we had to re-book for that weekend but we had an impromptu dinner at a small, Russian restaurant nearby, then second dinner at the Greek place a few days later

2) We watched Tenet after dinner at the Greek place. Bear in mind we were walking towards Hibiya Park where our wedding venue was but that romantic walk down memory lane was replaced with time-travelling action nonsense at 10pm after we'd had more than a little wine. We hadn't been to the cinema since we saw Downton Abbey back in February, so that was nice

3) My new best finally arrived in Japan last month to live with his wife. He went back to Italy in January to sort out paperwork, then Corona happened. Before he left, I promised him we'd build an arcade cabinet when he got back here so that's on the to-do list. I made the promise in front of both our wives, so we already have authorisation

4) I bought an iPhone SE as a birthday present for myself. It's lovely

5) I bought an Apple Pencil "to let me take notes during Japanese lessons", but really it's for doodling

6) I upgraded my Rakuten Mobile plan from the old one to their cool new Rakuten Mobile Unlimit(sic) which is free for the first year. It's fast, and there's no download limit. Yet. It's not so great on iPhone SE, though, but it's free so I don't care(and there's no minimum contract, and I could even cancel during the free year and pay nothing)

7) I'm about to sign up for a CCNA and MCP course. If I pass these, they'll be my first ever IT qualifications

8) Japanese lessons are going well. After my nervous breakdowns during the early stages(the lessons were too difficult), I dropped to the lower level but recently she seemed a bit bored so I went back up to intermediate and managed just fine. No freezing, no shaking, nothing!

9)We've thrown a bunch of stuff away. We had super mold/mildew trouble this summer. The air conditioning broke(no idea how, honest!) and it took two weeks to get new ones. This was late August when temps were around 38'C. It was an awful time. My wife had to throw away so many of her vintage clothes with so many great memories. Thank Breakbot the dress she wore when we first 'went out' is fine. Anyway, this has forced us to reconsider our living situation and it was nice throwing away my old stuff as well

10) Speaking of old clothes, I've lost around 14kg this year with minimal lifestyle changes and working from home half the year. It's all thanks to my Apple Watch which my wife bought me for last year's birthday(I was 91kg at the time). I've gone down from 36" trousers to 34" with a bit of room to spare. I've lost so much weight that my wedding ring keeps slipping off! Four years ago I had to fly to the UK for my grandfather's funeral and needed to buy a suit. 36" trousers wouldn't fit and I had to buy 38". Basically, all my 36" trousers had been gradually stretching so I never noticed!

9) My wife managed to grab a Series S for my birthday present within ten minutes of pre-orders going live, despite Bic Camera's site going haywire. This is the same wife who stayed online for two hours on a Saturday morning three years ago, scouring Twitter for tips on where to pre-order an SFC Mini after I'd given up and gone back to bed.

10) The Series S is arriving NEXT WEEK

tl;dr:

[charlesr]

Excellent!
Although your numbering system enraged me

[Atticus]

Hope everyone's doing okay at present. Lockdown 1 didn't affect me as I was in work full-time but now I'm working from home until at least March and it kind of caught me off guard. Too much time to worry about things that I'd normally be too distracted to over-think. I haven't got a lot to moan about really but the shadow of the pandemic is pressing just that bit harder. Glad we have this place as another outlet to feel connected. Hope you're all doing okay.

[wakka]

Great to hear all that @randombs.

And like Atticus, I hope people are doing OK. Stuff’s been getting to me a bit lately but my smile is that my Mum and Dad have been brilliantly supportive.

EDIT: Just realised I thought I was in the smile thread. Ah well, you get the general idea.

[QualityChimp]

A friend I've known since junior school had her mom pass away last week from cancer.
Out moms were friends since then and she was really supportive to each other as they went for cancer treatment.
It's still pretty raw with my mom and the similarities with their passing has been tough.

I'm OK, though. Just trying to appreciate what I have got, not what I haven't, especially my family, as we seem to be getting closer of late.

I recently read this sad story, but it makes you appreciate what's important:

https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/playing-games-with-elizabeth/

[vanpeebles]

Hope everyone's doing okay at present. Lockdown 1 didn't affect me as I was in work full-time but now I'm working from home until at least March and it kind of caught me off guard. Too much time to worry about things that I'd normally be too distracted to over-think. I haven't got a lot to moan about really but the shadow of the pandemic is pressing just that bit harder. Glad we have this place as another outlet to feel connected. Hope you're all doing okay.

I'm having to work this lockdown, most unhappy!!

[Anpanman]

We are working, wife is on the bus everyday, I used to travel a lot but tended to work from home when I wasn't away, I'm now just working from home even though my office is open again.

I can't see myself ever going back into the office unless it's to cadge free paper and stationary supplies. Once everyone is vaccinated then I'll be back training and planeing but I'll work from home when I'm not out and about.

[ascensionaquila]

for brief moments, i worry about these measures 'sold as a good thing' that will make life more and more a form of metaphysical prison for the whole world, if it is true at least, it's true theres less freedom today than yesterday and the years before that, so the future worries sound to have credance maybe more than you wish?

like most people
most of the time
im like shut in a metaphysical locker
and told not to complain for the 15 seconds
im ever in the public gaze, if at all

it helps if you learn to live with things, than just protest things that are certainly not going to change

[randombs]

I’ve been phoning/video calling people a lot recently. Even colleagues and my manager. I’ll just call them up like an old codger instead of using Teams or email. It’s often quicker than sending emails(in Japanese at least) and just feels better. More human.

Over the past few weeks I’ve called:

• a mate who’s in quarantine at the Narita airport hotel because his COVID test upon landing was positive
• my grandma’s Japanese friend who calls me occasionally on a Sunday. I surprised her with a weekday afternoon call
• a mate from my old work who I haven’t seen in around 15 years - that was a 4 hour call which finished at 2am
• my big bro
• my big bro's kids. I found out they have a Switch so I bought them a year of Nintendo Online and we’ve been playing Mario Kart with our phones on loudspeaker. It's wicked fun but they usually kick my arse and then have to leave and do homework

It seems Phone A Friend really is a lifeline.

[ascensionaquila]

at least you have games! keep the feeling alive once extinguished becomes hard to unextinguish! keep the feeling alive!

we can all know how chris whitty feels about life, just stop playing games for a few days! oof! what a feeling ( a bad one)

[randombs]

[MENTION=16810]ascensionaquila[/MENTION]

Our parents looked at our gaming habits with disdain, but they're the ones who get bored as they get older - their motor skills ain't what they used to be, so things like footy and cricket are out.

We'll be playing games when we're old codgers. And even if our motor skills go to pot, we could play many games using accessible controllers like the Xbox one, and even mind control is coming along slowly.

[ascensionaquila]

[MENTION=16810]ascensionaquila[/MENTION]

Our parents looked at our gaming habits with disdain, but they're the ones who get bored as they get older - their motor skills ain't what they used to be, so things like footy and cricket are out.

We'll be playing games when we're old codgers. And even if our motor skills go to pot, we could play many games using accessible controllers like the Xbox one, and even mind control is coming along slowly.

Well put.

Not sure about losing motor skills, I've always researched my own medicines, and neurological science and chemicals you can use to help protect cell degradation for the reason that only you care about yourself and family in life and nobody can say that's not the truth - than accept anything I'm told to take to help big pharma get richer at the expense of my health, when confronted by big pharma salesman and their range of 'known highly toxic substances' it helps to keep my mouth shut and try to leave lol if theres a good excuse to leave helps. Feel sorry for the people that took statins. I went for plant stenols instead which didn't later be found out to eraze brain matter. Other things like colloids for the brain, silver, gold, platinum and copper are supposedly help maintain synapse and good cholestrols for the brain cells. In theory people that go on fad diets ( such as avoiding good cholesterols) in their life and take whatever a smiling hyperdermic needle tells them to take without an ingredients list probably more likely to end up cookoo in later life.

Hopefully one day they'll be able to reverse the damage 'going along with the program' has caused so many people and continues to cause harm to people. Not all science is destructive, there's still a few doctors finding ways to reverse things like Alzheimer, but of course they're considered paraihs as wheres the money in that. Strange world where cures aren't produced for conditions, only treatments, and coincidentally make a heck more money than cures.

I remember reading in New Scientist a long time ago about how cures would be on the table by now, not just for brain degradation but lots of issues modern living has caused. Of course that never happened. Only more causes of harming people and more treatments, how profitable. Let alone how widespread not talking about prevention is and what a pariah you'd be to mention prevention or ever bring it up in think tanking forums. Again how profitable.

Nice to talk to you, you sound like you have your head screwed on right. I liked your post.

[endo]

Yeah, big pharma conspiracies are bollocks. Where did you train in pharmacology?

[ascensionaquila]

Yeah, big pharma conspiracies are bollocks. Where did you train in pharmacology?

Not very friendly, which is a strange stance to decide to throw stones in a peaceful place for the sake of creating a bad mood, and a bit thick and uneducated response. Here are my complaints in detail:

Very random, unrelated to the discussion, randomly fabricating things seemingly with the intent of causing hostility for your own hostile gratification, asking 'response questions' as though to a statement that existed, but no such statement found.

You sir are a little bit ****ed in the head in 'the ways detailed'. Also very rude and unfriendly, which is uncommon in that you did not receive any form of provocation. In the days of bad manners there would be ways to make your right for all these wrongs the modern world you find allows a bad apple without education like yourself to 'get away with'.

Unfortunately we no longer live in a world where appalling or atrocious manners receive the required responses to deter them. So I have the feeling this will allow you to continue throwing stones with dust for brain cells, google for knowledge checking, and appraisals to reassure you when you doubt yourself. You may even enjoy our world where being wrong and saying wrong things is always is 'free of fear'.

Perhaps I will try making an official complaint? Or perhaps I am feeling kind. Who knows.

If you're worried about chemical khoshes or vaccine ingredients. I believe your best bet is to speak to former prisoners about how they developed ways to filter out or buffer the toxic effects of such things.

Of course with only only wild fabrication, hostility and intimidation blurting out badly from you it's hard to know what you are wanting or how to deliver what you're wanting to you.

My kind sir. I hope next time you decide to post. That you consider the rules. i.e that there is at least any point in your post

Good day sir. Have a deep breath if you wish and think about your actions before you do things you cannot later explain.

[QualityChimp]

When questioned about where you got your facts from, you called them thick, uneducated, ****ed in the head, rude unfriendly, uneducated again, dust for brain cells, hostile and intimidating.


Have 2 weeks ban to cool off and think about the irony.