Life

[Gormongous]

Wait, who caused all of this? I got confused with with the order barking and sink bailing.

Senile next-door neighbor. She was basically sitting in the middle of her flooding apartment, babbling to herself and doing nothing, and I had to take over because it was spilling into the hall and my apartment.

[syntheticgerbil]

  How gross was the water?

 

Oh yeah, I've been doing "intern" work for this game development camp in Austin for the last two sessions for my former art director/boss for about a year or so at my last company. She sort of quit games to create a camp to teach kids how to program and do art for games as well as just have fun and socialize with other like minded kids, usually sort of dorky and quiet.

 

I've been having fun. I mostly just fetch things or help kids use Photoshop or animate as well as basic Construct 2 tutorials, but I'm no help on actually programming. But doing work there and hanging out with all of these kids has been a really different and enjoyable experience for me. It's ages 10-18 so I was nervous before I took the job because I remember kids being really mean in the 11-15 age gap, but most of these kids are super lovable. And it's so strange on how the younger groups tend to get more accomplished in a smaller amount of time, although this time there are some crazy advanced 17 and 18 year olds that might have some super serious prototype to show Friday.

 

Also best part, my favorite kid to hang out with got my attention by yelling, "Shaaauuuunnnn!" It took me a second to realize he was referring to the Heavy Rain bug. Also this kid thinks the Shrek is Love thing is funny. He's 10 so I don't know what's up with his internet usage, but that's cool for the shock value I suppose. He's actually in his second session at the camp, as most kids usually do one. He's really eager to create games and do all of his own art even when he's not working with the group he's in and he goes home and does little tutorials and prototypes and brings them back to show on a USB drive. I was never as insanely productive as him as a kid and no one in the camp seems as enthusiastic as him even though he's sort of loud and rowdy.

 

Another programmer kid was really mean to him today and made him cry, but later in the afternoon my boss and I played a bunch of Spelunky deathmatch with bombs turned up to 99 until he went home. I think he had fun.

 

Anyway, I don't hate kids like I thought.

[Gormongous]

I don't have a response to the rest of your post, but it reminds me of the reasons why I love teaching, even though I'm not great with kids. Granted, my kids are eighteen or nineteen, but the relationships are largely the same. Anyway, the important question:

 

  How gross was the water?

 

It wasn't clear, that's for sure, although I have no idea how much of that was because it had flowed through the rarely-cleaned hallway into my apartment.

 

Bleach now covers most of my bathroom floor. I'll do the entryway tomorrow. I borrowed a friend's fancy washing machine to clean all my towels and rugs. The only real problem that remains, besides the gross sense of invasion from having a neighbor's water flood my apartment, is that there's a distinct and unpleasant "old person" funk that's survived the vacuuming and bleaching. I've already got some money from my birthday coming up, so tomorrow may also be cause for a trip to Target to buy all the amber-scented candles I can carry. Sorry, mother, I told you it'd be for new shoes, but something came up!

[neonrev]

If the carpet is fairly dry, the stench isn't too bad, and you access to a vacuum with decent suction, I'd try spreading baking powder over the affected areas, letting it sit a day or two, then vacuuming it up (I don't know how widespread the water was, but for areas you can limit walking on it works.). I recently moved into a house more or less ruined by the previous tenants without the landlords noticing, and had to spend a couple weeks in an above-the-garage sort of thing that just reeked of cat piss, mold and weed/cigarette smoke. The baking soda trick worked well for the cat piss and mold, and that seems like the sort of issue you're having.

(Also personally tear out walls and remove moldy sheetrock and insulation, and be effectively homeless for a week or two. It's been a fun time, but a long story.)

[Dewar]

Should I look up this Shrek is Love thing at work, or would that be a bad idea. These kids and their memes these days, I lose track.

[Ucantalas]

Should I look up this Shrek is Love thing at work, or would that be a bad idea. These kids and their memes these days, I lose track.

Eh, I'd wait until after work.

[Blambo]

Just ended a relationship. She recently moved back to Russia and felt like she wanted to leave her old life behind and I can respect that, but she also tells me that she wants to be independent and self-reliant. That last bit disappoints me because I had been under the impression that she was staying with me as an independent, free person and the relationship had no semblance of codependency. But I guess she was mostly with me for the sake of having someone, and looking back the relationship was pretty rocky because of dependence and jealousy problems. I'm coming to realize that I was basically there to provide validation and that she didn't see anything concrete in me to begin with.

I guess it's for the best but it's a weird sensation to have my perception of the relationship over the last year change so drastically. I had totally thought we were engaging in a weird sartrean mutual relationship but I guess not.

[coldbloom]

Just ended a relationship. She recently moved back to Russia and felt like she wanted to leave her old life behind and I can respect that, but she also tells me that she wants to be independent and self-reliant. That last bit disappoints me because I had been under the impression that she was staying with me as an independent, free person and the relationship had no semblance of codependency. But I guess she was mostly with me for the sake of having someone, and looking back the relationship was pretty rocky because of dependence and jealousy problems. I'm coming to realize that I was basically there to provide validation and that she didn't see anything concrete in me to begin with.

I guess it's for the best but it's a weird sensation to have my perception of the relationship over the last year change so drastically. I had totally thought we were engaging in a weird sartrean mutual relationship but I guess not.

 

I'm sorry to hear that. Sounds like you've really thought through things though. I'm curious how long the relationship was? A year? 

 

That sensation you're describing is familiar to me, though. I feel my perception of my relationships (as well as shit in general) changes so much as a year passes on. It is often hard to understand why I thought certain things as early as a year ago. I think relationships change, to me it seems like they have to. 

[Blambo]

Thanks. It lasted a year, though we were close friends for a long time. I think the thing that ruptured it was the fact that she left for a while and we started a relationship long distance. She essentially found a new life that didn't include me, and decided to be more autonomous. I'm happy that she feels more independent now, but that definitely casts our past relationship in a weird light, as if she had perceived herself to be chained to me in some way. I dunno. Maybe I haven't been the best boyfriend, maybe it's the emotional/psychological baggage she brought into the relationship.

 

Eugh gross feeling.

[syntheticgerbil]

Should I look up this Shrek is Love thing at work, or would that be a bad idea. These kids and their memes these days, I lose track.

Depends if they can hear your audio. There's one with an animation with the Source engine movie maker thing that's definitely not work safe.

Also sorry to hear Blambo. Unfortunately all long distance seems to end up that way. Totally sucks.

[Erkki]

The Bronstring tweeted about duolingo.com (which I didn't know) and that was somehow the trigger to finally set me on a course of learning another language (Spanish). Weird, I've been meaning to learn for years, guess I was just almost ready.

[osmosisch]

I was really enjoying duolingo but they do the gamifying thing where it tracks your streak, and I broke mine which caused me to not feel like doing it for a while. So yeah, that backfired I guess.

[dibs]

I kept getting the gender of German foods wrong so I gave up in frustration. Also, what Osm said didn't help!

[SecretAsianMan]

Briefly touching again on the earlier discussion about rent, I saw this infographic that seems relevant.  Hidden behind spoiler in case you don't care.

 

 

In more recent news, I'm currently at work on my day off.  Jobs are fun.

[tegan]

It bothers me that that graph never actually uses the lowest value in the key.

 

 

Also this kid thinks the Shrek is Love thing is funny. He's 10 so I don't know what's up with his internet usage, but that's cool for the shock value I suppose.

 

This probably isn't my place to say, but I feel like you should probably tell that kid that sexual assault jokes are usually not okay.

[syntheticgerbil]

Well it could be debated that the kid wished Shrek alive to do that so I don't know. But yeah it's not my place at all to lecture any kid.

[Codicier]

Got randomly attacked by a dog while on my lunchtime walk today, if that sounds overly dramatic that's because it is slightly. "worried" is perhaps more accurate a term because thankfully it didn't break the skin on my ankle, but it was still a bit of a shock to be walking along in the sun listening to ep 170 & suddenly feel a sharp pain on my ankle and look down and see a dog there.

 

It seemed more excited than vicious but still I wasn't keen on testing that so I tried to in a nice calm tone of voice and calm it a little, saying"hello there, what are you after" and backing away, the dog immediately hared off down to the bottom of the playing field (I'm not sure what the correct term for this sort of thing is US readers but basically its green public land) I was walking across to its owners. I decided i didn't want to make a fuss because A: i had no idea if they could see what their dog was up to from down there & B: I really didn't want to get bitten again (and this time properly).

 

After getting home I took of my sock's & checked my ankle, thankfully although there were two red marks & a the beginnings of a bruise it's clear the skin wasn't broken, but all the same I got some anti-septic soap out & cleaned the area. Gave my GP a quick call to check that was ok and thankfully was reassured as long as the skins not broken there's nothing to worry about.

 

Ended up making a quick phonecall to the non-urgent police number for my local force, and spending a quick 5 mins explaining what happened to a very helpful operator while saying to her, that i didn't feel any follow up was needed unless there had been other reports in the area.

It felt the right thing to do, I'm a relatively strong, big adult who kept calm, but if the same thing had happened to someone smaller, who had panicked maybe it wouldn't have ended quite the same.

 

That said i'm prob going to be jumpy for the next few weeks around any dog i run into off it's leash on a walk. 

[syntheticgerbil]

So many people should not own dogs. Are there not leash laws to deal with those types of irresponsible owners?

[Codicier]

So many people should not own dogs. Are there not leash laws to deal with those types of irresponsible owners?

 

There's what's called "the dangerous dogs act" in the uk, but the likelihood is there's no easy way to identify the people who owned this dog, they were a good distance from me & I could only give a vague description of them and of the dog (brown, quite squat, and with a jowly face, a bit pitbulish i guess? but idk dog breeds enough and it din't stick around for long enough for me to say with any certainty).

 

It's possible because of the way the landscape and hedges create line of sight that the owners didn't know I was there until I crested the hill, that plus the fact I just have a nasty bruise on my ankle and nothing more would make me uncomfortable about pressing charges even if they could be identified.

[syntheticgerbil]

I guess I just have this thing against dogs people don't look after. All the times riding bikes as a kid and dogs chasing me. Dogs hate bikes.

 

Glad you aren't severly injured though.

[Dewar]

You probably did what was smart and somewhat less satisfying than my instinct, which would have been to try and kick a fieldgoal with the dog's head.

 

Edit: I have a history of dogs not really liking me, this is probably why.

[Dewar]

Briefly touching again on the earlier discussion about rent, I saw this infographic that seems relevant.  Hidden behind spoiler in case you don't care.

 

 

In more recent news, I'm currently at work on my day off.  Jobs are fun.

 

It would be interesting to corolate that with wage increases (or lack there of.) Still, it's supply versus demand. Recent housing crisises make people less likely to buy and more likely to rent. Thus demand for rentals goes up.Thus prices go up.

[SecretAsianMan]

It would be interesting to corolate that with wage increases (or lack there of.) Still, it's supply versus demand. Recent housing crisises make people less likely to buy and more likely to rent. Thus demand for rentals goes up.Thus prices go up.

 

Actually the last few years have really been a buyer's market.  Interest rates on mortgages dropped to all time lows and tons of cheap houses came on the market.  Of course it also means a lot of people lost their houses/jobs or were forced to sell at a substantially lower price and ended up renting.

[Codicier]

I guess I just have this thing against dogs people don't look after. All the times riding bikes as a kid and dogs chasing me. Dogs hate bikes.

 

Glad you aren't severly injured though.

  

You probably did what was smart and somewhat less satisfying than my instinct, which would have been to try and kick a fieldgoal with the dog's head.

 

Edit: I have a history of dogs not really liking me, this is probably why.

I think the fact that I didn't see it coming is why I stayed calm, if I'd seen it running at me it would have been far harder to not to panic or act aggressive myself.

But all in all, it could have been far worse, almost all of the bad things that could have happened didn't.

[syntheticgerbil]

"Im sorry I couldn't say goodbye, I had to poop. I'll see you next year! I learned a lot!"