What's everyone up to? (2021 Edition)

[spoonitnow]

I don't think I've been around since before the pandemic? I saw an FTR hoodie today and thought I'd come see how you fucks are doing.

I'm still doing my online gambling content production thing. I work a couple of hours each morning on that. I've also been getting into the SEO game with some self-help stuff that's doing fine. I think I want to transition completely away from content production and into that over the next couple of years.

Home life is still good. We're all just doing our thing with the four of us. Nothing much has changed there if you talk with me outside of the forums.

Got my girls a Switch for Christmas, so I've been working through Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Finally got all first place finishes on all of the 200cc GPs. I didn't get anything cool for it, which was kind of disappointing, but whatever. This is the newest video game shit I've played in a very long time.

Trump lost (womp womp), but I've not been much of a fan since how he handled the riots this summer. I've avoided most discussion of politics outside of laughing at the absurdity of it since around June or July largely for that reason. I'm just happy that we didn't end up with Bernie.

[OngBonga]

Hi. Banana showed up for a week or so and then got banned again, that's pretty much the highlight of the last year on this forum. Me and poop still arguing about Brexit and whatever else he talks about. I'm suddenly into crypto, ten years too late. Plus winter appears to have finally fucked off and it's a mild 7 degrees or so instead of minus fuck off.

All good here.

[oskar]

Trump lost (womp womp), but I've not been much of a fan since how he handled the riots this summer.

Too authoritarian or not authoritarian enough?

[MadMojoMonkey]

Pandemic has me working from home most days.

I've barely left the house in about a year. I even get groceries delivered to my door to avoid going out to public spaces.

Been through a break-up and make-up that is ongoing - working with a couples' councelor to get past certain downward spirals we've experienced in the past year.

I was fine with the self-isolation for months, but it's wearing me down and I'm frequently feeling boredom or lack of ambition to even entertain myself with the same old things. Finding ways to get out of the "same old same old" rut is what it is, I guess.

At least I have to do physics homework problems a few times a week which feels good to flex those mental muscles, even if it's on the trivial introductory stuff. Nice to be able to look at a problem and solve it, I mean. My engineering skills don't come up much lately and I miss the hustle and bustle of working with my hands to build physics demos and test them and develop them, then present them to the faculty and students.

The emotional rewards are just different is all.

[spoonitnow]

Hi. Banana showed up for a week or so and then got banned again, that's pretty much the highlight of the last year on this forum. Me and poop still arguing about Brexit and whatever else he talks about. I'm suddenly into crypto, ten years too late. Plus winter appears to have finally fucked off and it's a mild 7 degrees or so instead of minus fuck off.

All good here.

Sounds good man. Keep doing your thing.

Too authoritarian or not authoritarian enough?

Not authoritarian enough. I'm not really looking to get into some game of political internet debate footsies, but he really alienated his base with that shit, and it showed come election time.

Pandemic has me working from home most days.

I've barely left the house in about a year. I even get groceries delivered to my door to avoid going out to public spaces.

Been through a break-up and make-up that is ongoing - working with a couples' councelor to get past certain downward spirals we've experienced in the past year.

I was fine with the self-isolation for months, but it's wearing me down and I'm frequently feeling boredom or lack of ambition to even entertain myself with the same old things. Finding ways to get out of the "same old same old" rut is what it is, I guess.

At least I have to do physics homework problems a few times a week which feels good to flex those mental muscles, even if it's on the trivial introductory stuff. Nice to be able to look at a problem and solve it, I mean. My engineering skills don't come up much lately and I miss the hustle and bustle of working with my hands to build physics demos and test them and develop them, then present them to the faculty and students.

The emotional rewards are just different is all.

I'm probably lucky to some extent that the pandemic hasn't really changed what I do all that much. Instead of eating out, I get something from a drive-thru or pick something up and just eat outside somewhere or in a car. For my birthday in November, I set up pizza in the trunk of the car and sat and ate in an empty YMCA parking lot with our folding chairs and that kind of thing.

[OngBonga]

YMCA is still a thing?

That 80s song was pretty funny, really. A bunch of homos dressed up like homos singing about the Young Men's Christian Association. Top trolling.

[spoonitnow]

YMCA is still a thing?

Yeah we have them everywhere around here. They basically function like gyms and childcare now and run some kids and adults sports leagues.

That 80s song was pretty funny, really. A bunch of homos dressed up like homos singing about the Young Men's Christian Association. Top trolling.

In the United States, the YMCAs at the time (not so much now) would act like a shelter/hostel system a lot of the time, and that's how all of that came to be.

[OngBonga]

Apparently they're still active in the UK but I have no idea where the nearest centre is. I don't think there's one in my local town.

I mean the work they do is great, Christians are for the most part good people doing good things. But I can't help thinking the YMCA are mostly just pussies who don't get drunk or laid, and just play table tennis and sing songs about Jesus. I suppose it's better than injecting heroin and listening to Lou Reed.

[spoonitnow]

Apparently they're still active in the UK but I have no idea where the nearest centre is. I don't think there's one in my local town.

I mean the work they do is great, Christians are for the most part good people doing good things. But I can't help thinking the YMCA are mostly just pussies who don't get drunk or laid, and just play table tennis and sing songs about Jesus. I suppose it's better than injecting heroin and listening to Lou Reed.

Well what's funny about it, at least around here, is that there's not really emphasis on the Christian part that much. It's just a set of gyms with childcare that do community outreach for the most part.

And I mean, I live in what's considered the "Bible Belt," so take that for what you will.

[OngBonga]

I might just have wrongly imagined what YMCA is all about. I've never actually been.

[Poopadoop]

YMCA was the same where I grew up. It was not at all a religious type of place, just a community center.

I mean obviously someone went to the trouble of putting the C in there when they made it up, but afaik that was like 100 years ago or something and maybe they just thought it sounded good. Dunno.

[spoonitnow]

I mean, it was started in Switzerland in the 1840s.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I went to YMCA a few times as a teenager. It's just basically a gymnasium and sporting facility - nearly the equivalent to a university recreation center. There was a pool for swimming, table tennis, and Foosball style games, indoor and outdoor sporting courts. There was a daily fee or maybe an hourly fee (my mom would've paid it and I wasn't really paying attention). Once inside, you basically had unrestricted use of all the facilities and there were other kids there to get a pick-up game of whatever going.

I only went a couple times, but it kinda felt like a day at a budget amusement park. There were no roller coasters, but the vibe was about right.

[Poopadoop]

Went to the local YMCA loads of times in my twenties to play sports. Never had a bible thumped at me. I think it's basically just what everyone is saying - a community center.

[OngBonga]

I still imagine twats with bumfluff moustaches and light blue jeans slightly too short, singing Kumbaya.

Leave me to my delusions.

[spoonitnow]

I still imagine twats with bumfluff moustaches and light blue jeans slightly too short, singing Kumbaya.

Leave me to my delusions.

Whatever floats your boat.

[OngBonga]

I used to live in a kids home and school, and the headteacher there was a bible bashing campfire guitar playing Jesus lover. He was a right horrible bastard, he got a kick out of restraining naughty boys and causing pain. He'd smirk if you begged him to stop hurting you.

I enjoyed telling him to fuck off when I left that school.

[Poopadoop]

Probably got a hardon while he was doing it too.

One of the problems I have with Christianity is the idea that anything is forgivable by God. There's gotta be some things that if you do them you're going to burn in hell whether you're sorry or not later. Hurting kids would definitely be on the list.

[spoonitnow]

I used to live in a kids home and school, and the headteacher there was a bible bashing campfire guitar playing Jesus lover. He was a right horrible bastard, he got a kick out of restraining naughty boys and causing pain. He'd smirk if you begged him to stop hurting you.

I enjoyed telling him to fuck off when I left that school.

That sucks man. I'm sorry to hear that.

Probably got a hardon while he was doing it too.

One of the problems I have with Christianity is the idea that anything is forgivable by God. There's gotta be some things that if you do them you're going to burn in hell whether you're sorry or not later. Hurting kids would definitely be on the list.

Yeah I can definitely understand feeling that way.

[OngBonga]

Don't get me wrong, it's a naughty boys school and naughty kids need to be restrained to stop them fighting or smashing shit up or whatever. But only the sadistic fuckers enjoyed it.

[OngBonga]

That sucks man. I'm sorry to hear that.

It left no mental scars. On the whole, that school turned me from an angry little shit into a calm teenager ready to integrate into society. Most of the staff there were great. The head was the exception.

[OngBonga]

There was a female member of staff who restrained me once by employing the "Boston crab". I knocked myself out by smashing my head on the floor. She didn't try that again.

[spoonitnow]

There was a female member of staff who restrained me once by employing the "Boston crab". I knocked myself out by smashing my head on the floor. She didn't try that again.

Okay, that's pretty funny.

[OngBonga]

I think that's probably the most pain I've experienced in my life.

I'm in no doubt I was being a cunt and deserved restraining but that was a bit much.

[spoonitnow]

I just mean that you got beat up by a girl.

[OngBonga]

I was 14 and she was an adult trained to deal with little cunts like me. But if that amuses you, I'm glad.

[spoonitnow]

Should have done the Kurt Angle roll-through to an ankle lock.

Joking aside, I am kind of surprised to read that you were a bit of a hellion. It seems like it would have been way too much effort for you (not that that's a bad thing).

[OngBonga]

I had a turbulent childhood. Between the ages of 10 and 15 I was a right little cunt, I rejected any kind of authority and made life difficult for any adult who tried to control me. When I was around 15 I started to mature and realised that being angry wasn't going to help me have a better life as an adult.

At 16 I left school and became independent. I quickly made new friends, and thankfully made the right kind of friends... skateboarders, so I basically started listening to ska and smoking weed. From that moment I lost any aggression in me and started to enjoy life.

[Poopadoop]

#MOGA

[spoonitnow]

I had a turbulent childhood. Between the ages of 10 and 15 I was a right little cunt, I rejected any kind of authority and made life difficult for any adult who tried to control me. When I was around 15 I started to mature and realised that being angry wasn't going to help me have a better life as an adult.

At 16 I left school and became independent. I quickly made new friends, and thankfully made the right kind of friends... skateboarders, so I basically started listening to ska and smoking weed. From that moment I lost any aggression in me and started to enjoy life.

It sounds like that all turned out a lot better than it could have.

[Poopadoop]

Yeah you did well to end up as something other than a serial criminal really.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Should have done the Kurt Angle roll-through to an ankle lock.

Then you'd have 141 2/3% chance of winning.

[OngBonga]

It sounds like that all turned out a lot better than it could have.

Yeah very much so. Ok I'm 42 and unemployed, single and living with friends as their lodger, but that's better than many other outcomes. I've never seen the inside of a prison, I haven't been arrested since my 20th birthday (weed), haven't been arrested for theft since 16 (I was very good at shoplifting), haven't had a proper fight since school, I've never touched heroin or crack, not got kids from failed relationships, all I've really done is wasted my intelligence and achieved fuck all with my life. It's kind of middle ground really. With a better childhood I would have left school with good grades and a decent chance of social success, but frankly I measure success in happiness, and I've spent the vast majority of my adult life happy, so for me that is success.

[spoonitnow]

Go Ong.

[spoonitnow]

Last year with this pandemic mess going on, I'd considered getting back into chess. I went so far as to switch over to playing 1. d4 (from 1. e4) and worked out my entire opening repertoire in training software to practice. But I just can't make myself give a fuck. There's nothing in it for me anymore.

[OngBonga]

This is kinda why I play variant chess. Something a bit different. I've been playing chess since I was 10, it's the only productive thing I did through my little cunt years. Kinda weird really that a disruptive and angry child would take up chess as a hobby but there you go. But after like 25 years of playing chess and hitting a rating wall of just under 2000 I kinda got a bit bored of the same openings, it took so long to get to an interesting position and often I was already lost by that time and just didn't realise it. So that's why I like these games with novelty pieces. It's freshened chess up for me.

[spoonitnow]

Anyone do the prepping thing?

I was sort of just raised by so many people who did it that I thought it was a normal thing everyone did. Next thing I know, motherfuckers have TV shows like Doomsday Preppers that are basically like the Jerry Springer version with no practical application. Now pretty much everyone thinks it's just some kind of nutjob conspiracy theorist pastime.

[OngBonga]

I've got a shelf full of food I'd only ever eat if I had to, like instant noodles and tinned potatoes, but that's the extent of my prepping.

If I was a millionaire, I'd have a bunker stocked up with at least five years of supplies.

[Poopadoop]

My grandparents kept a lot of tinned food stored but they went through the Depression and two WW, so it didn't seem that crazy or anything. Never really done it myself though.

[OngBonga]

Government should encourage prepping, but they want us to be more reliant on them. If shit hits the fan, we'd be begging them for help. That gives them an unbelievable amount of power.

[CoccoBill]

Government should encourage prepping, but they want us to be more reliant on them. If shit hits the fan, we'd be begging them for help. That gives them an unbelievable amount of power.

There's no "they" collective cabal there where they plot world domination, there's various people with various agendas. There's a bunch of regular folks there, many of them out of touch with regular life and seems like quite a few willing to do selfish stuff to benefit themselves. We're already reliant on them, they don't need to do anything and I find it really hard any majority of them would.

[spoonitnow]

A few years back, we had severe flooding on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in the Southeastern United States. This is a really, really good read from a guy who prepped a lot while living in a decent suburb type area and still found himself in some shit: https://www.reddit.com/r/VEDC/commen...from_preppers/

[CoccoBill]

https://www.reddit.com/r/VEDC/commen...from_preppers/

Lol what a prick. Can't have these poor folk around. What if someone starving might want some of our rations. This guy is 100% zombie apocalypse mode after some heavy rain. This guy is why our societies can't handle more than a week of power loss without falling to anarchy.

[spoonitnow]

My grandparents kept a lot of tinned food stored but they went through the Depression and two WW, so it didn't seem that crazy or anything.

Yeah I feel you on that. I grew up in an incredibly rural area (I'm talking a 15-20 minute drive to the nearest stoplight) and around a lot of family members who were in Vietnam and that sort of thing. I grew up hunting, trapping, farming, canning and all of that kind of stuff on a pretty regular basis from a really, really young age.

I've got a shelf full of food I'd only ever eat if I had to, like instant noodles and tinned potatoes, but that's the extent of my prepping.

If I was a millionaire, I'd have a bunker stocked up with at least five years of supplies.

My prepping, like most people who aren't total psychos about it, is based primarily around the most likely situation I could face that would be a problem. For me, it's being snowed in without power for a few days. Along these lines, I have food, water, entertainment, heat, a means to charge our phones, etc. for three people for seven days. It's all on shelves in my basement just out of the way, and I cycle the food and water out throughout the year so that nothing ever really gets close to its expiration date.

Added to that are a few other supplemental things. If our power goes out in the summer, it's hot and humid as fuck here, so I have a portable AC solution that runs on 9V batteries (a 5-gallon bucket with a couple of holes in the lid a PVC elbow for directional AC, a battery-powered fan, fill it with ice and turn the fan on etc.). Our septic line has the potential to freeze as well, so I have a toilet seat that attaches to a 5-gallon bucket along with small baggies and that kind of thing so that we can poop.

In the early days of the pandemic, I was making my own masks too. I'll try to find a picture.

Edit: https://i.imgur.com/3HxIGXV.jpg, based on this model - https://twitter.com/LivingCrimson/st...86293676040193

And of course, I have a shitload of toilet paper.

[boost]

Yeah, I think that show really did a disservice to many of its viewers in that it convinced them that having a plan for disaster scenarios is weird, and anyone who enjoys navigating that plan is legit nutty.

It definitely can get out of hand, but also sometimes it's grown from being reasonably prepared into an eccentric but perfectly healthy hobby.

At a very base level, it costs a bit of time and several hundred dollars to ready a household for a once in a hundred years sort of disaster. When faced with those odds, in reality it's people who don't have this minimal level of planning that are a bit crazy.

Pre pandemic, it wasn't that I didn't think it was rational, I just hadn't gotten around to it. Still need to tune things up and get in the habit of cycling the food, but I suppose it's always a process.

[spoonitnow]

Still need to tune things up and get in the habit of cycling the food, but I suppose it's always a process.

Since a lot of mine is canned goods, when I need to cycle out stuff that I'm not going to use before it expires, I donate it to food banks a few months before it expires and just buy new food to replace it. This has made cycling the food sooo much easier than trying to force myself to use stuff I wasn't going to use much otherwise (ie: canned chili or certain types of beans as a random example). I write expirations dates on the tops of cans when it put them on the shelves to make it easier to navigate this.

[daven]

Was going to head to europe to live mid-2020. Covid happened, which vetoed that plan - and didn't do much good for the relationship which was going to commit to being in one place for a while. I guess we got lucky after all that she didn't get pregnant during the couple of months she was here around Dec-2019-Jan 2020. Basically impossible to sustain a relationship with no plan to be in the same place anytime soon... Anyway, I'm still here in New Zealand. Working full-time and living in Wellington.

Had 17 weeks paid leave last year, not a bad amount of leave to use up. That was great. Did plenty of cool stuff.

This year, autumn is approaching, it's been a summer with probably a little too much beer to accompany working fulltime.
A little running, some tramping (that's nz for hiking), beekeeping, swimming. Not enough of any of those things.

I'm on a work secondment for six months, to another organisation to deliver some really interesting project work. Learning heaps through the process. Might be time to take a year off after that, see how things end up rolling though.

Haven't played a hand of poker in years. I wondered today whether the money I had on stars is still there. From memory it wasn't much. Anyway, that lead me to opening up FTR.

hope life's doing well for y'all.

[OngBonga]

My friends are in Welly, up in the hills apparently. I only know that because they told me they don't have to worry about tsunamis.

I have no idea why anyone would want to move to Europe from NZ. Either you're terrified of earthquakes or that woman was absolutely beautiful.

[daven]

My friends are in Welly, up in the hills apparently. I only know that because they told me they don't have to worry about tsunamis.

I have no idea why anyone would want to move to Europe from NZ. Either you're terrified of earthquakes or that woman was absolutely beautiful.

ha, cos it's wellington I probably work with your mates or something.
Also, I'm not terrified of earthquakes, so....

[frosst]

Played in a few home games in Oct/Nov'19, which built up a decent enough roll to go to the casino. Started playing 1/2NL live almost every weekend (~2hr trip to get there). Was about to move up to 2/5NL in Feb '20, test out the Las Vegas rooms during the draft, travel, etc. but then Covid happened. Started playing online periodically again. Got Covid last month, so I have to wait until June before I get vaccinated. Hoping for things to be open this summer and then I'll be back on the live grind.

[OngBonga]

If you've had covid, why do you need a vaccine? You should have a natural immunity.

[OngBonga]

ha, cos it's wellington I probably work with your mates or something.
Also, I'm not terrified of earthquakes, so....

If you've been treated by a hot petite redhead with an English accent in Wellington hospital, you may well have met her. He's a carpenter.

[boost]

If you've had covid, why do you need a vaccine? You should have a natural immunity.

From what I understand, how long the immunity from having been infected lasts is unknown. There have been cases of reinfections. It's definitely not as much of a rush to get the vaccine though. In an ideal world where added instructions didn't run the risk of muddying the waters and risking uptake rates, they'd have advised people who have had confirmed infections to wait to receive the vaccine and prioritize people who have no known immunity.

[OngBonga]

I'm sure there are cases of reinfections, but there will also be cases of vaccinated people becoming infected. I'd consider a previous infection to be sufficient protection, but that's me.

[frosst]

If you've had covid, why do you need a vaccine? You should have a natural immunity.

The immunity doesn't last. The memory cells needed to have long-term immunity don't really get created until a 2nd infection. Not trying to wait for that since the first time sucked pretty bad.

[OngBonga]

I guess this is why we need two vaccines.

[daven]

If you've been treated by a hot petite redhead with an English accent in Wellington hospital, you may well have met her. He's a carpenter.

i'll keep my eyes open.