The Chat Thread II: Chat Harder

Drunkalilly wrote:

Balladeer wrote:

I know, and that's why I can't jump to any conclusions - other than that it makes me want to have children of my own less.

Just saw this in the things that @#$! you off thread and it got me to thinking. How do we all feel on the subject of kids? I don't think there are many GNamerians with children but do we want them?

Personally I do want to have children but not before I'm 30.

I always assumed I would have children, despite the fact that I successfully avoided even holding a baby until I was 25. I wanted nothing to do with them. My partner had even less interest in children and made it clear she wasn't go to have any. She was convinced she had no maternal instincts. In the end, by our late 20s, she changed her mind, so it was really good I didn't make an issue of it. We had our first when we were 33, so I can say with experience, don't hurry. By the time you are in your 30s you are settled in your relationship, more mature and importantly, financially secured (hopefully). I think we were better parents for waiting 13 years after we married - no regrets at all.

I will say though, never, ever believe that your life won't change when you have kids. I laugh so hard at people who say that. They will eat those words. Accept that everything will change, go with the flow and you will enjoy it more.

If I was to describe parenting a baby in a single word it would be, RELENTLESS. Seriously, there is no time to properly relax, unless you are sexist and leave everything to the mother. If you want a successful marriage, don't do that.

I'm heading up to Edinburgh in a few weeks, anyone have any attraction/restaurant suggestions?

Attractions - You could take a walk up Arthur's Seat, although it's a little out of the way. I prefer Calton Hill, just off Princes St - nice views there. Camera Obscura off the mile is worth a look, and the Castle's really close to there. For shopping, can't go wrong with Princes St., and the St. James's shopping centre is at the end there. There's a cinema down at the Omni Centre about 5 mins from the Waverley end of Princes St.

Food - Depends what you're looking for! I'm fond of Cafe Andaluz on George St, nice tapas there. There's a glorious chicken wing restaurant off the Cowgate on Old Fishmarket Close called Wings - dozens and dozens of flavours, and Mario Kart 64 set-ups downstairs. There's a really nice Indian called Kismot, about 15-20 mins from the city centre, delicious. I'd be amiss to not mention Cosmos, an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant next to the Omni centre that do a wide selection of food, although they're a chain, if you're fussy about that.

Hope that helps!

Anyone drove from UK to mainland Europe, as my grandad has just bought a campervan (being ill for a bit has made him go slightly mad) which I will be going on the insurance.

As I've not had a holiday for ages and seeing a place like Lille, France only 5hrs away it might be worth going.

After years of undiagnosed head pain, my daughter travelled interstate to see a private specialist and got botox injections. You have to love socialised medicine, as they paid for the flights and other expenses ($1500) and the botox injections ($3000). Now we just have to wait to see if it helps the pain. I had no idea they use botox for pain management, as I thought it was mainly for chronic perspiration problems. My daughter gets more injections in a week than I have had in a lifetime - as many as 60 needles a week. I really hope this works as she has been essentially housebound for 4 years - can't drive (seizures), can't to school or work as she is bed ridden, in a dark room (hyper light sensitivity) for as much as 80% of her time. Sometimes I barely see her for four days at a time.

To break the fourth unrelated topic in as many posts (agreed, OS - don't know how the Americans manage without it.  I guess we in the UK might soon find out. Sympathies for your daughter's condition, as if I know the slightest thing about it), we apparently have our own virus!  The W32/Gnamer computer virus is, according to Google, A Thing.  So there you go.

oldschool wrote:

she is bed ridden, in a dark room (hyper light sensitivity) for as much as 80% of her time.  Sometimes I barely see her for four days at a time.

Your daughter's a vampire, get out of there man.


Seriously though, that's crap OS. Hope the botox stuff can help.

Yes, really sorry to hear that, OS. Fingers firmly crossed that she can find some relief.

Dead Lemon wrote:

oldschool wrote:

she is bed ridden, in a dark room (hyper light sensitivity) for as much as 80% of her time.  Sometimes I barely see her for four days at a time.

Your daughter's a vampire, get out of there man.

Seriously though, that's crap OS. Hope the botox stuff can help.

Well, if she is a vampire, she isn't one of those crappy sparkly Twilight ones.

oldschool wrote:

Dead Lemon wrote:

oldschool wrote:

she is bed ridden, in a dark room (hyper light sensitivity) for as much as 80% of her time.  Sometimes I barely see her for four days at a time.

Your daughter's a vampire, get out of there man.

Seriously though, that's crap OS. Hope the botox stuff can help.

Well, if she is a vampire, she isn't one of those crappy sparkly Twilight ones.  

Which, in my book, makes you and excellent father. Would be shameful to have raised a vampire daughter to sparkle. That's not how vampires work.

How on earth do normal people get up at seven each day and last until ten at night!? Never again I tell you, the years of midday to two am has made my bodyclock hate anything close to what most would call normal.

I went to the WGDS today and will being doing a piece for Gintendo as I went as Press for the site. I found it a little weird as I saw a few other press ask questions and have someone asking with another taking pics or videos. me being on my own can only do such much, hopefully when me and Drunka go EGX together should be all good also he would of loved the after party for the free Champagne & Shots also he could of been a good wingman.

Free booze and sharing birds is the whole reading I found content

Translation: free booze and shagging birds is the whole reason I founded Gintendo.

Well we've got EGX

Well, I got a job.  It is only casual, but there will be plenty of hours, and importantly, it will be a breeze to do.  It is a call centre job, which sounds horrible, but it is a pleasant open office and I am just fielding questions for a major government agency.  I really can't see it being hard in any way.  At least I will have money to buy some games.  

Also, I am doing a course online through MiT, on Philosophy, around time-travel.  I did a Philosophy course through them earlier on God and well, this is a damn sight harder.  So hard, I completed the questions for the first week and did not get a single answer right.  Not one.  They were multiple choice!  If I randomly picked my answers, statistically, I would have done much better.  It was quite the shock.

Oh well.  Learning isn't about the destination, it is the journey that matters.  It doesn't matter if you fail, as you still know more than you did before you started.  Look at me, I am philosophical about failing my philosophy class.  

Congrats, man! And good luck with the course, it genuinely sounds super interesting.

Congrats with the job, OS!

Learning is absolutely about the journey, you're right. You can leave with a qualification, but it doesn't mean as much as the knowledge you acquired along the way.

Nice one, OS - as depressing as it is to say, money is always handy.

Nice one OS. Couldn't do (outbound) call centre work myself. Absolutely hate using the phone, worst part of my current job is being on the phones.

Luckily I good at avoiding that side of the job.

Dead Lemon wrote:

Nice one OS. Couldn't do (outbound) call centre work myself. Absolutely hate using the phone, worst part of my current job is being on the phones.

Luckily I good at avoiding that side of the job.

I am the same DL, I really do hate phones, avoid them like the plague, but these are inbound calls, so they are after me to help them, so I am confidant I can deal with that. As long as I stick to the rules/laws in place to what I can do for them, then there won't be any issues. I hope to quickly move up the ranks to supervisor, so I can get away from the phones and with my management background, it is a real chance.

Otherwise, a job is a means to an end, as long as you don't hate it and it negatively affects your life, you just take the money and enjoy the better part of your life.

oldschool wrote:

Dead Lemon wrote:

Nice one OS. Couldn't do (outbound) call centre work myself. Absolutely hate using the phone, worst part of my current job is being on the phones.

Luckily I good at avoiding that side of the job.

I am the same DL, I really do hate phones, avoid them like the plague, but these are inbound calls, so they are after me to help them, so I am confidant I can deal with that.  As long as I stick to the rules/laws in place to what I can do for them, then there won't be any issues.  I hope to quickly move up the ranks to supervisor, so I can get away from the phones and with my management background, it is a real chance.  

Otherwise, a job is a means to an end, as long as you don't hate it and it negatively affects your life, you just take the money and enjoy the better part of your life.

Inbound calls are what I'm faced with - when not sneakily avoiding them.

Think inbound and outbound both have their pro's and con's, I could never do outbound call work as I hate phoning people. But with inbound calls if you're not prepared you can be caught off guard by what's being asked.

Hope you're able to move up through the ranks, I'm trying to do the same myself - having previously (and stupidly) chickening out of going for a promotion last year when even my manager assured me I'd most likely get it if I applied. Now I have to bide my time waiting for the next opportunity - though I have picked up a load new responsibilities (and pay rise) since then that keeps me off the phones for good portions of the day.

I'm back!  :

Much has no doubt happened since my disappearance  almost 5 months ago, in fact it was so close to being exactly 5 months ago that I nearly postponed my return until tomorrow, when it would've been exactly 5 months. It actually annoys me how close I was to being exactly 5 months gone. I feel premature- almost unclean. Should I try again tomorrow? Ever? Are there people who are still reading this? I bloody well doubt it.

But that's enough chat of time and early baths for now. You see I have been away not because of whimsy, nor have I been abducted and only recently set free. Oh no, I have actual reasons.
The first of those reasons is school, I had much work to do this past while- mostly dull ICT coursework, and it is seriously dull. 300 pages of utter drivel that no one shall ever actually read all about how I made, then designed a database for an imaginary company of my choosing. Utter bollocks. Still, I got 110/120 so it was very good bollocks.

The good bollocks ended at around Easter and I got into what I am reliably informed is called "revision" but was really just "vision" because some (not much, but some) of the stuff was completely new to me (My fault, not the teacher's).
Easter wasn't all fun though, I also did some gaming (the last until just recently) and competed in the NI Open (Judo, that is). The gaming bit involved redeeming my club Nintendo points for Fire emblem the sacred stones and the first MK8 DLC pack the former I played in french for the sake of revision and the latter I played for almost an entire hour. The judo bit went really well, I came joint thirteenth in a group of 15 fighters.
After Easter the shit hit the fan, got real and was stirred- all at the same time. There were exams of many kinds, practical, written, spoken and listening. It was all so exciting I had to get a haircut. And then, in the space of just seven (yes, seven) weeks it was all over and the most unique set of subjects probably in the history of the school had been completed to a reasonable standard and on time by little old me. The subjects being ICT, French and Physics

Despite abstaining from forums, social media and anime I did have time to listen to the rotating podcast which continues to be glorious. I have also been following kind of closely Mario Maker and I watched Nintendo's E3 attempt.
Since becoming a free man at last  I have devoted much of my time to Splatoon, it really is marvelous, I can sea it becoming my favorite game this year until Star Fox inevitably takes the throne.

TL;DR Got busy, got sporty, emptied my club Nintendo account, got Splatoon, watched E3, finished school for good at 11:30am today, Naruto went on filler for the entire exam period, listened to TRP, Probably going to De Montfort next year.

P.S I'm buggering off to the USA for a fortnight on Thursday so will only be able to post when free wifi allows, but It's America so that's probably often.

Wahey, welcome back Duck! Exams are a shiter - I think we can all agree on that!

Got any plans for next year now that you're all free?

Sir Duck! Welcome back - you have been missed. Also, "It was all so exciting I had to get a haircut" is now on the future tagline list.