Becoming a Better You

[Draco_Argentum]

1195877386[/unixtime]]you sure are working hard to make sure that women won't fall for you.

Emo women would dig the whole nobody likes me deal. Just write some crap poetry about depressed vampires and emo chicks will go nuts.

[Crissa]

Watch the BBC series Bottom.

Don't do anything those guys do.

Check please.

-Crissa

[Koumei]

1195905408[/unixtime]]
Emo women would dig the whole nobody likes me deal. Just write some crap poetry about depressed vampires and emo chicks will go nuts.

Also, listening to the following would be essential:
My Chemical Romance
Linkin Park
Evanescence
Dashboard Confessionals
Taking Back Tuesday

I can't think of any others, preferring to mock the emo culture from afar.

[Draco_Argentum]

Evanescence is emo?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I like Finntroll. But I don't think that's emo.

[CalibronXXX]

Being emo isn't about being depressed, that's more goth, being emo is about being the absolute biggest waste of space you can possibly be and having no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

1195911568[/unixtime]]Being emo isn't about being depressed, that's more goth, being emo is about being the absolute biggest waste of space you can possibly be and having no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

I have too many redeeming qualities for that.

[CalibronXXX]

If you do your best to be emo they'll slowly go away.

[Judging__Eagle]

1195800749[/unixtime]]On exercise: It's always good. I just do a lot of walking/jogging.

But out of curiosity, say someone wants to build up their arm muscles a little. Now, the process of weight lifting is basically "eventually you damage the muscle, so the body repairs it, especially if you have plenty of protein, and then the repairs make the muscle bigger." So my question:

Would deliberate muscle damage, such as repeatedly clotheslining a metal pole or something, be a quick and easy (if moderately painful) way to get the desired effect? Because it takes far too long for my arms to show even the slightest sign of working out, and my impatience generally means I'll give up on any scheduled thing within a few days.

Yes, but it's dumb, hurts and doesn't really work the muscles evenly.

You can seriously get your arms, legs, chest and back to their limits in about half an hour of continuous weightlifting.

The trick is to hit a treadmill, exercise bike, whatever to get your heart rate at 120 beats/minute; then don't let yourself stop.

Do one set with a muscle group and then switch to a different one (I tend to start with dumbell curls, then leg curls, then modified bent-over rows, then back to legs (weighted squats)). If I've got time I'll spend an other half hour on my gut and lower back. Usually I alternate between my extremedies/chest back and my gut.

Now, that's a barely comprehensive workout, my neck, some torso and arm muscles are ignored or not worked out enough, but I use a lot of free weights so the stuff that I do spreads the workload over a larger area so I don't have to do a bajillion different exercises that someone using a Nautilus machine would have to.

The only really important tips that I can give to help with doing intense, but short, weightlifting is to keep cold and drink a lot of water to help keep your core body temprature down (seriously, iced water is really handy for this, it sucks if you have to make speeches, but for working out cold it is key).

See if you can get your hands on a copy of Bill Pearl's "Getting Stronger" from your local library or bookstore.

It's been around for years and years now and has workouts for every major sport (football to sprinting) plus tons of other information, from advice on how to be a vegetarian weightlifter (Bill Pearl has been one since... the 70's) to literally dozens of exercises for every muscle group so that you can make new workouts to keep your muscles from 'getting used' to a specific pattern of work.

If you can get your hands on his "Keys to the INNER Universe", which is basically a 600+ page (about 5 lbs and has 1,500 different exercises fully desribed and illustrated) encyclopedia of working out.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

And Maj:

I have bipolar disorder. That means I have abrupt mood shifts.

It is entirely possible for me to be okay with the fact that I'll probably be alone for the rest of my life, then a few days later be depressed because I can't find anyone that live up to the standards I have put down for a potential mate.

In fact, I find it odd that you normal people can hold onto the same emotion for years at a time, I can't even conceive of that notion.

Please don't tell me to shut up because I hit a low a few days ago. Thank you.

[Koumei]

Draco: It isn't, but the Emo crowd listen to it and it fits a lot of the qualifiers. Look at the lyrics. The lyrics are Emo, the Emo crowd love it, and it's shit. The style isn't Emo, and the singer is a female, which magically gives her immunity, but essentially, it counts.

Come to think of it, Nightwish is also acceptable to listen to for the Emo crowd, despite not actually being of the genre.

Luckily, most things that I call "shit" happen to be what other, less respected subcultures listen to.

Eagle: Thanks. Still, I'm both a girl and of the crappy "skinny" body type, so this could take at least a hundred years. All I actually want is a little bit more muscle on my arms, perhaps with some nice toning rather than muscle mass for the most part. I don't even care about being able to lift more because nothing I do requires it. It's just a vanity thing.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

1195955432[/unixtime]]
Come to think of it, Nightwish is also acceptable to listen to for the Emo crowd, despite not actually being of the genre.

I like nightwish. In fact, I'm listening to nightwish right now.

[Koumei]

I heard other people listening to that "I'm walking in the air" one far too often, and it really shits me.

That's the danger of my stepsister having a room right across the corridor from me. I can hear her music playlist, and so if she listens to the same stuff too much, it gets on my nerves. Currently there's... Destination Unknown (why listen to it? I can understand watching the video, sure, but the song is shit), followed by "I'll kill her".

[Crissa]

Psychiatric medicines are available, but science doesn't completely understand how they work, and the results are highly individualistic. That doesn't stop the fact that they work in many cases, which gives a chance at training the brain to better manage its pathways.

Unfortunately, some of the more effective medicines are frowned upon because of their direct action upon healthy persons. MDMA, LSD. Strangely, though, laws are written against specific chemicals, not what they do to the human body. So it's legal to have Modafnil, but not others. And variants of lysergic acid that refuse to be named for becoming illegal.

Very weird. But you can shape your brain and body with chemical help.

It's not recommended for body-building, but much can be dealt with professionally.

-Crissa

[Surgo]

J_E: While not the intent of the thread, I found that was pretty damn helpful. Thanks!

[Koumei]

Crissa: Yes, it's very annoying. They also seem to frown on using opiates to treat, well, anything at all. They do their best not to prescribe it to people with serious pain, and they also don't like the idea of using it as an anti-depressant.

Such fools.

[JonSetanta]

1195954600[/unixtime]]
In fact, I find it odd that you normal people can hold onto the same emotion for years at a time, I can't even conceive of that notion.

I experience emotion, as most would associate with on a certain level, on average maybe 3-5 times a week, sometimes as most as 1-2 times a day. All the rest of the time, maybe 90% of my waking hours.. well.. nothing.
And that's how I live. For a long time I actually believed people that told me something was wrong with me, but nothing can change that without disrupting my core personality.

So... on the opposite end of that spectrum, if you're emotional, do you think you can work with it to your advantage?
Medication if needed, sure, but perhaps you could consider the positive aspect of actually experiencing genuine emotion???

That's a kind of living I've only witnessed while mismedicated/overdosed "for bipolar" and ended up with mood swings. It wasn't pleasant.
But ironic since I saw, for the briefest time (2 months), the emotional attachment (you people.. haha) placed on other people, events, things, to a degree I had never felt before. I was a different person.
But then I would want to kill myself in despair, so, yeah... that doesn't work for me.
Funny, how Strattera and Paxil both have suicide warnings now; I could have told the experts that personally.

Maybe it'll work for you, Count. Moody pills can't 'cure autism', apparently.

[Draco_Argentum]

1195964300[/unixtime]]That's the danger of my stepsister having a room right across the corridor from me. I can hear her music playlist, and so if she listens to the same stuff too much, it gets on my nerves. Currently there's... Destination Unknown (why listen to it? I can understand watching the video, sure, but the song is shit), followed by "I'll kill her".

I solve this by not listening to the radio and lumping all my music into one huge playlist on random.

PS: You have crap taste in music and therefore are lame.

[CalibronXXX]

Eh? Koumei hasn't revealed her taste in music.

Personally I'm kind of weird when it comes to music. I'm into Death Metal, Folk Music, Irish/Celtic Music, old-timey 20s/30s/40s/50s music, Praise and Worship Music, Opera, Classical, pre-90s country music, pre-90s rap music, alternative/progressive rock/metal, operatic/fantasy/folk metal, and probably some other things I'm forgetting; the thing is, I hate at least 60% of the music in all of those categories.

It's no wonder my two favorite bands are Dog Fashion Disco and the Dave Mathews Band.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

1195981081[/unixtime]]

1195954600[/unixtime]]
In fact, I find it odd that you normal people can hold onto the same emotion for years at a time, I can't even conceive of that notion.

I experience emotion, as most would associate with on a certain level, on average maybe 3-5 times a week, sometimes as most as 1-2 times a day. All the rest of the time, maybe 90% of my waking hours.. well.. nothing.
And that's how I live. For a long time I actually believed people that told me something was wrong with me, but nothing can change that without disrupting my core personality.

So... on the opposite end of that spectrum, if you're emotional, do you think you can work with it to your advantage?
Medication if needed, sure, but perhaps you could consider the positive aspect of actually experiencing genuine emotion???

That's a kind of living I've only witnessed while mismedicated/overdosed "for bipolar" and ended up with mood swings. It wasn't pleasant.
But ironic since I saw, for the briefest time (2 months), the emotional attachment (you people.. haha) placed on other people, events, things, to a degree I had never felt before. I was a different person.
But then I would want to kill myself in despair, so, yeah... that doesn't work for me.
Funny, how Strattera and Paxil both have suicide warnings now; I could have told the experts that personally.

Maybe it'll work for you, Count. Moody pills can't 'cure autism', apparently.

I do happen to have found a medication that I've found less offensive than the others I've taken before. It keeps me from having my highs, so I don't literally think I can say or do anything and everyone will give me deference because I'm so awesome, but I still feel the lows.

(PReviously, the medications they've put me on made me not feel anything at all, and I can't live like that.)

[Judging__Eagle]

1195955432[/unixtime]]
Eagle: Thanks. Still, I'm both a girl and of the crappy "skinny" body type, so this could take at least a hundred years. All I actually want is a little bit more muscle on my arms, perhaps with some nice toning rather than muscle mass for the most part. I don't even care about being able to lift more because nothing I do requires it. It's just a vanity thing.

You want tone then. Tone you can do with a single low weight dumbell sitting at your computer or watching TV.

Grab a 2-5 lb dumbell and start at 15 dumbell curls in one set. Once you can do 15 and the last curl doesn't feel like you can't do any more, try to add 5 or 10 more.

You will want to work your way up to 50, 75 or 100+ eventually. Work your way up by 5 or 10 once every two weeks.

In a half year you should have extremely toned arms.

You will hurt at the end of a set though, so keep those muscles cool if you can.

I don't really build up a ton of mass with what I do, mostly b/c I don't do it that often and I skip days to do homework or am lazy.

The only real benefit that I've got is that weight squats, leg presses plus 4 months of biking 6-12 km every other day really toned my legs until there is nothing but solid muscle when I flex (and if I pinch the skin to see where it's flabby, I can't in a lot of places and where I can actually pinch the skin I get only skin and not fat/flab). My arms and upper torso are the same, my gut is still flabby, but I don't really care.

I'm weighing in at 162=163 lbs now and that's almost no fat, but I'm a guy and guys can shed fat exceedingly easily compared to girls.



On the topic of ... 'emo' music.

I can only say the following four words:

"It is not Coldplay."

Also, you guys are not actually including actual Emo bands like Atreyu, Alkaline Trio or Motion City Soundtrack.


I don't really equate most of the following bands with "emo" really:

My Chemical Romance [these guys sersiously remind my of The Barenaked Ladies; using really upbeat tunes and songs to sing about really depressing shit; they also sound remeiscent of Simon and no one bitched about those two being too emotional in the 60's]

Linkin Park [uhm, no, they just suck balls, over played, over hyped and they don't have too much of a range of styles for how 'popular' they are]

Evanescence [...meh, the only real opnion that I have is the video of the dumb girl who has -20 ranks in climb and pushes herself off of a wall; they should have had her climbing, and the rope wearing away on a ledge or something, the way that video was done was annoying]

Dashboard Confessionals [more.... pop rock than emo, kind of boring]

Taking Back Tuesday [I think you meant Taking Back Sunday; which is definately a classic emo harcore type of band, they can actually play and sing pretty well]

Usually I tend to hate or like a band based on how well they can actually sing (range of notes, being able to maintain harmonics, being able to reach specifically uncommon tones; I like Robert Plant for his ability to stay in the really high tenor range and Barry White to rumble in the Bass-Baritones), how well they can play, how well they can communicate their message and how honest they sound. Singing about unusual topics or being different in some other manner

I don't like listing my playlists genres or bands, b/c it takes too long, but I'll give a sample.

It's a mix of: new bands like Coheed and Cambria, classic rock, classical music, operas (Wagner mostly, I can't get enough of the Ring Cycle), actually written rap (aka, not free-style shit like G-Unit); industral/electronica, darkwave, 90's alt. rock, a mix of different metal types (novelty rock-metal like Gwar, Death Metal like MegaDeth, Country Metal like Metallica); and... other stuff.

My real problem is that the more I add to my playlist, the more I know that there is more to add. So I've gone from 1000 tracks to 5000 to 10000 to 15000 to 17000+ with no real end in sight.

Right now I'm DLing Derek Trucks Band, Turbonegro, Deep Purple, Chopin and Taking back Sunday via eMule.

[CalibronXXX]

Eagle, you're pretty awesome, you know that?

[Bigode]

Heh, I thought you, Calibron, was also of the fitness crowd: not only you talk about exercise a lot, but you've also mentioned your "5000-calorie diet". But yeah, I agree, and would lump the same comment on you: reagrdless of the deep-seated hatred I have for the very concept of religion, I actually respect devotion (in the moral sense) to no end.

On bands: I like Evanescence (and Nightwish's older stuff), and while it techincally isn't emo (which I hate), I'm painfully aware that it gets listened to by those folks. And there's absolutely no way for Finntroll (easily one of my favorites) to be emo; despite the ocasional oddity like the ones above, I'm basically into folk/power metal.

[CalibronXXX]

Yes, I am, and thank you...I think.

[power_word_wedgie]

Ok, let me expand on Maj's point (and she can correct me if I am going in the wrong direction):

Count, it is most understandable that you suffer from depression and mood swings. However, it is probably best for you to get those under control before you try to get a woman.

Why? You need to have a goal and your actions need to be consistant towards obtaining that goal. Otherwise, women are going to take you as either indecisive (if you're lucky) or just plain mentally unstable (if you're not).

And it isn't a woman's fault to think that way. Too many women end up in ditches dead after being sexually molested these days, so they've got to at least get a good vibe from a guy they plan on dating. And frankly from some of what you've typed on the subject, you're sounding like Robert Smith from The Cure on the subject - I sure hope that it isn't reflective of how you interact with women.

Finally, also note that it is cool if you're going into "relationship hibernation" for a while. I'm planning on doing that myself, and I admitted such to Pyxie via IM a few days ago. I recently got divorced so cooling my jets is probably the best for me right now. Unfortunately, I learned this from a few first dates where it just clicked to me that I wasn't ready to start another relationship. The reason why I bring this up is because it might not be so "chemical imbalance" for you - maybe deep down you aren't ready for another relationship.