It's Personal...

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Jul 18, 2019 1:34 am

All good suggestions, time to make the chimichangas.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Jul 19, 2019 1:03 am

Just a quick rant:

So Washington state passed a law saying we'd no longer give exemptions to peeps from Oregon (or any other state) on sales tax at the register. My mom, in all her boomer glory, declared that that was taxation without representation and thus unconstitutional.

I seriously have no idea who replaced my mom with an alien. Her statement was so imbecilic. I can't even.

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Jul 26, 2019 6:09 pm

My tarantula is getting ready to molt sometime in the next month or two. This is the second most interesting thing she does (first is kill things, third is stand motionless for days on end. There isn't a fourth thing).

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 3:41 am

OK. So today, my sister posted a pic of her team at 2K games with Idris Elba. I am officially jealous of her life.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Thu Sep 12, 2019 7:44 pm

I've been in pain for a while, so I've not been sleeping. Now I'm on steroids for the pain, which is good. Except it prevents sleep and makes me angry all of the time.

Does anyone have suggestions for relaxing TV shows or games or whatever?

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Thu Sep 12, 2019 9:15 pm

Iduno wrote:I've been in pain for a while, so I've not been sleeping. Now I'm on steroids for the pain, which is good. Except it prevents sleep and makes me angry all of the time.

Does anyone have suggestions for relaxing TV shows or games or whatever?

Have you tried marijuana (assuming it won't interfere with the steroids)? If you can get it legally, or illegally for that matter,get a sativa strain and it will relax you to the point of knocking you out. Goes great with games until you turn into a potato.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Sep 12, 2019 9:32 pm

Is the strength of the dose negotiable? If a lesser dose will knock out the pain, you might be able to reduce the side effects.

Would an alternative prescription be helpful (not sure why the pain)? Could a drug like gabapentin work?

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Sep 12, 2019 9:35 pm

The most relaxing TV show is of course The Joy of Painting, which Netflix has helpfully remixed into Beauty is Everywhere and Chill With Bob Ross, but you can find long playlists on Youtube.

Game-wise, the soundtrack to Stellaris is the most amazingly soothing thing. Stellaris itself is pretty boring, but that might be what you're looking for? OTOH, since the soundtrack is on Youtube, you can have it on while playing something else.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Thu Sep 12, 2019 11:26 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:The most relaxing TV show is of course The Joy of Painting, which Netflix has helpfully remixed into Beauty is Everywhere and Chill With Bob Ross, but you can find long playlists on Youtube.

Game-wise, the soundtrack to Stellaris is the most amazingly soothing thing. Stellaris itself is pretty boring, but that might be what you're looking for? OTOH, since the soundtrack is on Youtube, you can have it on while playing something else.

I got Stellaris free as an apology for Paradox buying Battletech. The music is indeed pretty good. I'll have to look into Bob Ross.

Maj wrote:Is the strength of the dose negotiable? If a lesser dose will knock out the pain, you might be able to reduce the side effects.

Would an alternative prescription be helpful (not sure why the pain)? Could a drug like gabapentin work?

It's for 9-ish days. I started with a lot, then lower the dose each day.

It's a humid summer, and I pushed through pain too much early in the summer, and also I probably have arthritis.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote: Have you tried marijuana (assuming it won't interfere with the steroids)? If you can get it legally, or illegally for that matter,get a sativa strain and it will relax you to the point of knocking you out. Goes great with games until you turn into a potato.

Mostly for the PTSD, but yeah, it helps.

Thank you all for the advice.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:01 am

Iduno wrote:I've been in pain for a while, so I've not been sleeping. Now I'm on steroids for the pain, which is good. Except it prevents sleep and makes me angry all of the time.

Does anyone have suggestions for relaxing TV shows or games or whatever

I have a huge collection of sleep hypnosis or sleep inducing videos on youtube. If you search Dean Ruel Sleep there's a bunch of great ones. Consider lots of them suggestions to those people's entire channels as well. People like Whispercrystal, TheOneLilium ASMR, Eddini, and the king of sleep videos Dan Jones Hypnosis all have amazing sleep video content. If you just go to their most popular material it will put you to sleep I guarantee it.

If using my playlist or any sleep playlist it's important to know that youtube removed the ability to stop playlists from autoplaying. Meaning if you use a playlist for sleep it will play a loud ad between every video. What you can do to stop that is go to the address bar and remove "&list" and everything following it and it won't autoplay anymore. This was a big deal for me.

Here's a selection of some of the best single videos on the entire internet from people who's entire channels are invaluable if you have sleep difficulties. These are literally the best of the best.
Dan Jones with a D&D themed six hour long relaxing adventure story. One of the best sleep aids on the internet and a guys channel that probably has a thousand hours of sleep content. It can also be good because it's a little more "exciting" at the start than most peoples videos which go right into trying to make you sleep and sometimes you need to trick your mind a little.
Lilium has this and a few other videos that are heavy hitters I save for really tough nights.
Whispercrystal is one of the creators of the ASMR movement from before anyone even had a name for it. The video I've linked there is literally the most powerful sleep video in existence in my opinion. It's the only one I keep downloaded all the time for nights I have to sleep on a plane or camping or something else. This single video changed my life. It's unbelievable.
Eddini is a talented hypnotist and his videos can be very effective.
Whisperinginblue is a sorely missed talent who had an ability to make funny and slightly goofy videos which were nevertheless incredibly powerful and relaxing. This entspanned video and another she has about headache treatments are ones I've watched dozens of times apiece.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Sep 21, 2019 1:31 pm

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Mon Sep 23, 2019 3:49 pm

Ancient History wrote:

Cool. Good work.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Sep 23, 2019 5:10 pm

Danke.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:41 pm

OK. So Christmas is my jam; it starts early in our house. And I've been worried about it because I have no idea what our traditions are gonna look like without Ess.

So I talked to Gi about it. And one of the things he said was that we needed to think about getting a fake tree. We usually go to a tree farm and cut one and haul it home. And we are fond of having a large tree in reaction to the small ones we had when we lived in our shithole apartment. But there is no way the two of us can manhandle a tree; that's just not happening.

So we made a list of all the qualities we desired in a tree, and I started looking online. My budget was $25, and this far out from Christmas, there's a good chance of something close happening. I wasn't actually expecting to get everything we wanted, but I had backup plans.

I saw the perfect tree for $75 on Facebook. It had everything we were looking for. I took a deep breath, doubled my budget, and sent the seller a message asking if she'd consider selling it for $50 if it didn't sell to someone else. She wrote back and said that she wasn't sure if it worked (but was pretty sure it did), and was so desperate to get it out of her storage unit that she'd just give it to me if I could pick it up ASAP.

So I now have a 7-1/2 foot tree, prelit with color-changing LEDs that works just fine. And it was in budget. I am so grateful it makes me cry every time I think about it; this is a really big deal for us. (Gi is ready to set it up and decorate it now.)

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Thu Sep 26, 2019 12:09 am

The great advantage of fake trees (besides the fact that you don’t have to throw it out) is that there aren’t any nasty insects hiding in them waiting to infest your home. We had that happen one year when we brought back a corker of a tree. A whole continent’s worth of beetles and moths invaded our living room for the whole of December. I hate trees.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Sep 26, 2019 1:37 am

Dude. I live in Washington. We don't have nasty insects.

I also live in a county nearly the size of Rhode Island that's covered in evergreens. We have tons of Christmas tree farms around. So getting a live tree [with no nasty insects] involves walking outside.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Sep 28, 2019 12:59 am

Well, according to a completely thorough Google search, Washington has EXACTLY 426 individual insects in it. So they must live in the seedier parts of the state.

As for getting a live tree in Boston, that involves going out somewhere to the western ass-end of Massachusetts, like Springfield or some shit, then tying the tree to the roof of the car, driving all the way back, navigating the twisted hellscape that is driving in Boston then having the tree fall off the roof while stuck in traffic on the Zakim Bridge where it gets run over by a Citgo tanker.

Or at least, it was for me.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Sep 28, 2019 5:33 am

Well you did specify nasty insects...

Just because I was genuinely curious, I looked up the number of insects in, say, Texas - because I know they have more bugs there than we do. But I really have no sense of comparison. Here's what I found:

Learn about Texas Insects, by Texas Parks and Wildlife wrote:There are 100,000 or so species of insects native to the United States. More than 1/3 of these have been found in Texas.

So there it is. I maintain my previous statement.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Sep 28, 2019 6:27 pm

My current ex-gf has taught me a new-found respect for my ex-wife. Despite my many problems with her, at least she's a functional adult who didn't stick me with any $600 bills despite me paying between $400-$600 a month towards said bills. And didn't threaten a restraining order because I threatened to file a lawsuit over said bills (note: cops deal with relationship drama every day and tend to be annoyed when someone attempts to file a restraining order when no crime has been committed).

They make sex dolls with the face of an Angel and the body of the Venus of Willendorf. Starting to look like a great investment.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Oct 14, 2019 1:57 pm

My work has a Halloween secret Santa thing. Three Monday’s we give 5$ of spooky themed whatever. I got Halloween zombie skittles and should have read the fine print. Apparently a few among each bag are not fruit flavored but are “rotten zombie” flavor. My mouth was like wtf, is that pumpkin? Gone bad? Then read the package more closely.

https://www.eater.com/platform/amp/2019 ... ndy-flavor

I usually eat the colors one by one. Saving my favorites red and purple for last. Now I’m traumatized and staring at red and purple knowing betrayal awaits.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Mon Oct 14, 2019 2:41 pm

See, this is why I only eat the classic flavored skittles. You never get any nasty surprises in the red bags.

... except for that time an ant got inside the bag somehow and I accidentally ate it, not knowing it was there until I tasted something EXTREMELY bitter. Then I had to have my stomach pumped in order to remove the vile arthopod poisons. I almost died. Despite that, though, I still eat them. Skittles, that is, not ants.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Mon Oct 14, 2019 10:26 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:They make sex dolls with the face of an Angel and the body of the Venus of Willendorf. Starting to look like a great investment.

What, you don't have one of those dakimakura pillows with the "extra attachments"? Why not?

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Wed Oct 16, 2019 1:04 pm

Apartment bullshit lead to low-level PTSD freakout for the last...12 hours, looks like? Fuck, I miss having real insurance that let me see doctors and get medications like I need.

Crazy person story:

Had another bad experience with the new head landlady at my apartment complex for about 2 months. It started with them changing the rules about dogs being off-leash, then trying to fine me for having broken a rule they hadn't gotten me to agree with yet because she wanted the open area with no people to be for her personally. Then they changed the system for our laundry facilities the day after I bought a new card, and I was told that they don't need to warn me about that, and it's my own problem that I lost money. Then she lied about me getting my FedEx package delivered. Plus the normal "I hate you" stares. Last night, while she was wandering around outside staring at me, I hear the police. So my terrible brain decided, "this is how she's going to get rid of me. She's going to have the police kill me." So all night I had nightmares about the police breaking into my apartment while I'm gone and killing my dog, or reliving memories of them trying to kick down the door and pointing guns at me, or threatening to kill me for not knowing there's a legally correct way to wear a seatbelt. And the dog was hiding from the thunderstorm, so I couldn't hold her for comfort. I got up for work over an hour ago, and my heart is still pounding.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Wed Oct 16, 2019 4:40 pm

How much longer is your lease? Because you need to get the hell out of there.

In the meantime, if you can get your hands on supplements, grab two. Take a mega dose of Vitamin C to help stop the cortisol and adrenaline in your system. And take some GABA to help your body relax and your mind stop thinking repeating negative thoughts.

You can also try for conversion: compliments and cookies (or some other investment-minimal goodie).

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Wed Oct 16, 2019 5:56 pm

Maj wrote:How much longer is your lease? Because you need to get the hell out of there.

May? I'll have to look. The problem is that all of the leasing companies operate the same way, because they're owned by the same people. Plus, they're not going to lobby to have consumer protections removed, and then just treat us like humans.

I do need cookies/similar, though. I legit don't know where a person would go for compliments, though.

Now I need to go make potstickers. Anxiety is better than depression, because I at least think I can take care of myself and get stuff done.