Life

[brkl]

This might sound condescending, sorry if it does. If you plan on being okay with her being religious, don't think of it as a crutch she needs. Just accept it. If she wasn't religious or lost her faith, she could be a completely different person. I'm only saying this because I had to figure out my own stance in a similar situation.

[Nappi]

Holy shit! That's fucked up. :( Were those threats.. erm.. to be taken seriously* or was someone just trying to scare you "a bit" or something? (sorry if you prefer not to talk about it)

Nice to hear that, apart from that issue, things seem to be getting better for you.

*I guess they should always be taken pretty seriously.

[Thyroid]

Holy shit! That's fucked up. :( Were those threats.. erm.. to be taken seriously* or was someone just trying to scare you "a bit" or something? (sorry if you prefer not to talk about it)

They were made "in jest". I got creeped out because the debate stemmed from an argument about the controversy around the new South Park episodes, "200" and "201". And the threats that episode spawned, too, were "not threats".

And when I mentioned that I was able to become tolerant of everything on my own...well. I might as well have raped they're collective mother or something. It's pretty scary seeing people flare up like that. I've been called "too educated" as well (as in, I think too much), so I don't know if I'm offended or what.

Either way, it's fucking shit and I'm blabbing.

This might sound condescending, sorry if it does. If you plan on being okay with her being religious, don't think of it as a crutch she needs. Just accept it. If she wasn't religious or lost her faith, she could be a completely different person. I'm only saying this because I had to figure out my own stance in a similar situation.

Yeah, I sort of know what you mean. I'm not exactly anti-religion. My stance is pretty...err...complicated and complex (it basically goes both ways). My point is that she was on the brink of complete defeat, but used religion as a way to get back up. Her life is in no way ruled by religion, aka we'd be hanging out and people would be drunk and she doesn't give a shit, she's had boyfriends, she isn't anti-gay (holy crap! In JORDAN?) or anti-Semitic and so on. She's a clear thinker, that's what I like about her. But she needs something to help her, and she chose religion. I can live with that. Beats alcohol, I guess.

[brkl]

Oh shit, I guess I missed that bit of the post. That's scary stuff.

[MrHoatzin]

It is always humbling to read about the adventures of people living in societies afraid of free speech.

On one hand because it must be excruciating to have to hold your trap shut and tiptoe through life careful of what you say and to whom, and be wary of rivals who will accuse you of all kinds of thought crime transgressions. On the other, the western laissez-faire trans-national corporate structure has somehow attained a degree of self-confidence where it doesn't seem to give a shit about what people say and think about it.

The power of speech has either been grossly devalued in the west, or has been equally inflated in more totalitarian regimes. Is it just that the west has realized that soft propaganda is more effective than open oppression?

[Patters]

I'm making a concerted effort to get fitter. The past few days I have played walked just shy of 10 miles and played football (Soccer to the yanks) twice. This has a bi-product though: I have lost blood from both of my legs, both yesterday and today, Football and me do not go together until you add slide tackling.

[Squid Division]

Why don't you play REAL football? You know, the one you play with your hands?

[Lu]

If you don't refer to it as handegg, most of us Europeans won't know what you're talking about.

[James]

On Saturday my friend and I found another flat superior to the one that feel through. The main downside is that it's not available until mid-July. The rooms are pretty massive for the area, though, and the bedrooms are of equal size, avoiding the messy issue of deciding who gets the better one. All in all, pretty good. I expect it'll all go wrong somehow, though. We'll find ourselves without utilities for months, or, even worse, unable to access high-speed Internet. Or one of us will die before July. I can't possibly be engaging in a real-life activity.

[toblix]

the one that feel through.

You're an embarrassment to the forums, man. Come back when you've learned some English.

Glad to hear about the new apartment, though. Hope it works out for you guys!

[syntheticgerbil]

I hope you feel through your new apartment!

[Patters]

Why don't you play REAL football? You know, the one you play with your hands?

The football hierarchy for me goes (from best to worst): Aussie rules, Football, American football, Rugby.

[Armchair General]

Why don't you play REAL football? You know, the one you play with your hands?

I rest my case your honour

[James]

Yes, that was the joke he was making.

You're an embarrassment to the forums, man. Come back when you've learned some English.

I generally post using my phone, on which I've recently been trying out ShapeWriter, which is an alternative touch keyboard along the same lines as that Swipe thing the T9 guy invented. Because of the way it works, it guesses at double letters. Unfortunately, some words follow the exact same pattern, such as "fell" and "feel". It picked the wrong one, and I failed to proofread my message (obviously).

On the subject of exercise and healthy living, I should probably do some odd that. I'm naturally skinny, and left to my own devices I often put of eating for most of the day, but when I get bored at work I keep snacking to pass the time (not that it passes much time) and I get bored at work quite a lot, so I now have a belly disproportionate with the rest of me. The problem is that I'm pretty lazy and weak-willed so I barely even entertain the thought of exercise or dieting.

[toblix]

I generally post using my phone, on which I've recently been trying out ShapeWriter, which is an alternative touch keyboard along the same lines as that Swipe thing the T9 guy invented. Because of the way it works, it guesses at double letters. Unfortunately, some words follow the exact same pattern, such as "fell" and "feel". It picked the wrong one, and I failed to proofread my message (obviously).

Your combined explanation and good excuse has made me feel as though I overreacted. Also, that new keyboard tech looks pretty interesting. How fast do you fell you're typing with it compared to the usual keyboard?

[James]

Your combined explanation and good excuse has made me feel as though I overreacted. Also, that new keyboard tech looks pretty interesting. How fast do you fell you're typing with it compared to the usual keyboard?

a) HAR HAR HAR

The alternative explanation was that I made a simple typo, which is really equivalent to this, so you probably would have been overreacting anyway

c) That's OK. I'm as bad if not worse about that stuff

d) I'm not really sure about overall speed gain. It feels quite fluid, but I suspect a lot of the time saved is lost on fishing around correcting errors and entering stuff outside the format it favours. You can use it like the default keyboard, which is good for entering words not in the dictionary (and adding them to the dictionary is very quick and easy), but its support for non-alphabetic characters is quite poor. Some fairly significant stuff like square brackets are entirely absent, as far as I can tell. There should be a catch-all list when you long-press on the punctuation key or something. Or it could replace the superfluous smiley button. Another peeve is that it auto-inserts a space before every ne word, even if it comes after a hyphen. There is a literal mode that disables that, but it's fiddly to turn it on and off every time I want to hyphenate something.

e) Enough moaning. I've been using it for a while now, so it must be good. Like I said, I'm not convinced it makes me much faster (although it's probably a bit better than the default keyboard, and I imagine I'll improve as I go), but it's a more pleasant way to type overall, I think, and it's easier (but still tricky) to type one-handed. I've heard out claimed that it makes it possible to type blind, but I'm having to manually correct way too much stuff for that to be realistic. Anyway, overall it's pretty good.

Incidentally, that's also the reason for my bizarre message on Twitter yesterday.

EDIT: Woah, the start of this post reads way more confrontational than I intended. I'm not actually angry, 'blix! We are pals and everything is OK!

Edited May 26, 2010 by JamesM

[toblix]

EDIT: Woah, the start of this post reads way more confrontational than I intended. I'm not actually angry, 'blix! We are pals and everything is OK!

Did you change anything? Does your post have deleted scenes!?

[Roderick]

You'd better be okay, because otherwise the Toblix Free Games Gift Train is passing through your station unnoticed!

My kendo is going pretty well. I'm having some difficulty getting motivated ever since I got to wear my bogu armour, because it's super hard (and increasingly hot as the months progress). Once I'm training I always love it though. I had a big round of sparring yesterday with a fighter who was superior to me. He held himself back, but it was still too much for me to handle. I managed to score a point though, and held out for quite long. I'm getting there.

[Armchair General]

Hey Rodi (and sorry if this an uber dumb question) but does Kendo hurt?

[Nachimir]

I'm having some difficulty getting motivated ever since I got to wear my bogu armour, because it's super hard (and increasingly hot as the months progress). Once I'm training I always love it though.

Learn to sweat

Not joking, I used to really hold back from exercising because I didn't like getting sweaty. Accept sweatiness and your exercise will be better

[James]

Did you change anything? Does your post have deleted scenes!?

No, it's just when I read back the sarcastic laughter and stuff about typos being OK regardless of what causes them it seemed like I was having a go at you. No secret bilious ranting, I'm afraid.

For the record, I'm typing this post on my phone's hardware keyboard, which is still probably best for anything long (not that this is that).

[toblix]

I like how we can have these awkward exchanges without even meeting face to face. And they say the internet is no replacement for real human contact.

[James]

If anything, the Internet enhances my ability to be awkward. It truly is a marvelous thing.

[Sombre]

Currently cursing the UK Royal Mail. I sent the contract to my new flat on the 20th of May, by First Class, and by recorded delivery. The best of the best, basically. Now it's the 26th, and I'm tracking it. It's still at the sorting offices, and it's going no more than 20/30 miles. Normally, this wouldn't bother me, but because it's meant to be in by Friday/Saturday, it's making me increasinly worried and frustrated. I've since e-mailed the accomodation place to inform them of this terrible situation. I hope it's sorted soon or I'm in trouble.

[toblix]

If you call in a bomb threat to the sorting office, I bet they'll be in a real hurry to get all the mail out of there.

Edited May 26, 2010 by toblix