2017-04-01 11:50:30

Yes the bad news is it's finally April (wow it doesn't seem so long since crimbo), and also it's April fool's day.
I was very tempted to tell Mrs. Dark this morning that there had been news that Trump had reinstated his travel ban in spirit of the day, but decided against it big_smile.

Well as people know this is the monthly chat topic for, well chatting about months, or indeed weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds, nanoseconds or picoseconds, ---- ut not years! talking about years is definitely out! big_smile.

Either way feel free to discuss anything (accept years), what your listening to, playing, watching, reading, brutalising murdering, or inserting into your nose (hay we're not hear to judge), right now, how university/school/work/anything else is going, you know, all those generally lify little matters that you might be doing this month, ---- but not this year!

Anyway for me things continue moderately quiet. as is getting to be a habbit these days I couldn't decide what to read so have started another nebula collection which are fun, even if all the essays about different science fiction authors saying how great other science fiction authors are, and how good it is to be a science fiction author since all science fiction authors are such good friends and spend so much time saying how great other science fiction authors are while they themselves say how great the science fiction authors who say how great they are are.

But despite all the circula cleaquiness there are some pretty good stories in there, though it is a trifle depressing reading the nebula awards reviews for films from the nineties and cmplaints about things like terminator and batman considering the drectacula mess we have now.

Oh well, on the other hand Mrs. dark and I watched Starwars last night, since having watched revenge of the sith she wanted to do the original films again, and surprise surprise it was as good as ever big_smile.

This morning have been checking out the 7th plane mud, though methinks I'll start a new topic about that. It's odd, since i'm liking the game, but not! the total lack of descriptions, really it reads like the hole thing is in brief mode, which is sort of a shame and why i suspect I won't be playing this one for too long, that and the fact that it's very hard to get questions answered.

I've been trying it since I really want a crafting mud as I've been a bit heavy into things like aardwolf recently, though maybe I should just give in and give avalon another go since I suspect there is a good game in there somewhere, that if I don't finally! get around to starting manamon, which is something jI've been looking at doing for a while.
I've also been racquainting myself with some arcade titles, in partiucla rthe esp pinball games and beatstar, and yee gods it's nice to play something simple occasionally.

Of course I still have lots of things related to windows 10 to sort out, from mail to the amazon ecco to learning more about nvda, not to mention fixing for music school in a few weeks, but hay it's nice just to relax a bit, drink coffee, spend time with mrs. dark, read and casually wander in and out of some games on a nice saturday morning.

As to the conversation in Last months thread, I can't really speak for Nocturnus' problems with his son, but I do hope things work out and resolve, since that really did sound pretty dire, though as someone who has no skill with kids at all I don't know what to suggest.

indeed, Ironically I'm quite happy looking after babies, ---- hay when you've looked after a puppy it's remarkably how similar the principles are, and obviously I get on with adults, so I've always joked that if I ever had kids I'd be quite happy taking care of them until about the age of 18 months or so, after which point they'd have to go in a box and only be allowed out once  they were rational big_smile.

Well in fairness I suspect I could've got used to the idea, but by a random twist of fortune , since Mrs. Dark cannot have, and does not actually want kids, it's not something I'm ever going to have to worry about, and the gene pool is likely already getting pretty scummy even without my nutty dna in the mix, ---- oooh dear, before this metaphore gets anymore synical methinks I'd better stop.

Good luck to everyone out there who actually does! face the business of having children, your a braver woman/man than I big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-01 16:23:09

Anyone ever had the problem where a big, complicated project is not done, but you're happy enough with it that motivation to go the rest of the way becomes hard to hold on to; 'cause that's about where I am with the game I've been secretly working on for the past few months. I have a to-do list nearly 70 items long, but it's far enough along that the missing stuff doesn't feel as important as it is.

I'm heading to LCB monday for a friends graduation" Knowing my luck, my travel teacher will be out on bus-travel again, and I still won't be able to get him in the same room as any of my parents. Eh, my dad won't be there, anyway, and between the things he's said and their mutual dislike of Trump and extremely similar personalities and taleats,that's a meeting I'd very much like to see.
(I have not reactivated the internet at my house; it was turned off while I was away last year. So I'm stuck using my phone, and for some reason this version of iOS doesn't let me do linebreaks with braille screen input in the forum's reply box. This is annoying because braille screen input is the only way long messages on my phone are tolerable.)

Talk of Star Wars reminds me that I still haven't seen Rogue 1. I did see the Power Rangers movie last weekend. I can't really muster the enthusiasm to review it the way I generally do. I'm not sure why. I did not dislike it. I feel like calling it a reboot of the 1993 series is a bit much, what with the characters being so dramatically different. Eh, if I keep typing long enough, this will probably turn into a disorganized review or something... but let's not.
I need to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender, from start to finish. It's one of the only shows I'm aware  of from the 2005-2015 era that seems to me like it would fit well enough in the animation renaissance. Maybe the 2003 Ninja Turtles, but let's not open that can of worms.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-04-02 02:26:09

Dark,
If you want another one just like you there's always cloning.
I was happy to notice Fantastic Beasts and where to find them was in the Blind Mice movie list.
After reading the screenplay by J. K. Rowling that was in Bookshare I was set to enjoy it.
I do wish she had done a novilization of the
script as there was too much action towards the end of the movie which the nariater didn't have time to describe.
I liked the plot but by introducing so many creatures it became mentally tedious.
I figure they will all show up in the plush animal section in toy stores before Christmas.
One thing they didn't describe was a necklace that had three small silver Deathly Hallows hanging on it.

2017-04-02 16:42:59

@Cae, Avatar last airbend rocks, as does legend of Kora, it's sequel series about the next avatar set roughly a century later, I'd recommend both and am a big fan, ---- though not of the 2010 shimalan film, should not be mentioned ever! other than being mentioned in so much as mentioning that it should not be mentioned! either way it was a terrible terrible terrible! travesty of a wonderful series.

That out of the way, if your going to go into last airbender teretory, you should check out http://www.avatarspiritmedia.net/index.php since they have transcripts of all avatar episodes, including in depth descriptions of all the fight scens (and since martial arts plus magical throwing water/air/fire/earth/lightning/sand/ice/swamp weeds/steel and various other things around is just awesome, you definitely need as complete an experience as possible.

As regards Trump, right now Mrs. Dark is prettymuch having to observe the same rules talking to her father (and at least partly her sister), as holly did when talking to the robotic talky toaster did in Red dwarf, namely discuss religion, politics or toast, since unfortunately her family are rather of the "republican = good trump = republican so trump = good" political spectrum, irrespective of what Trump actually does or says.

We actually had a very scary moment of this watching revenge of the sith recently in the scene when Padme remarks "this is how democracy dies" as the republican  senit applaud palpatine.

@Phil. I think we've got a topic about fantastic beasts. I actually saw it with description at the cinema when it came out. I enjoyed it as far as it went, especially with the beasts, but it really did feel a bit thin in terms of plot, background and potter information. Really Rowling should make proper novelizations of these to give them the same depth rather than relying on source  to flesh out Hollywood pomp for such a rich universe.

As for me, a nice quiet sunday, indeed we've spent most of it reading of all things Kipling's original Jungle book (which surprisingly features no jaz playing monkeys or swinging bears or rather camp tigers).

It's a book I read as a child and was shocked that Mrs. Dark never had, and ironically I'm finding it surprisingly compelling, then again MRs. Dark and I do do strange things.

I do still have my iron council review to finish though, and as I have started Avalon mud again I want to get back, albeit I'm feeling a bit lazy today to try any sort of interaction big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-05 04:12:24

Hello.
Well the end of last month and the beginning of this month have been pretty good so far. I went to a festival this Saturday the wild flower festival. It was pretty fun, hanging out there I got some cool stuff. I got a polished stone with a cross carved into it, which the lady selling the things gave to me for free. I also got a nice ring made out of a spoon. It's hard finding rings in my size their either too big or too small. This one fits me perfectly which is nice.
Right now I'm reading never go back by lee child. I'm a huge Lee Child fan his jack reacher series is awesome! Jack Reacher usually goes up against very bad people and beats them down at the end which is definitely my kind of story lol. It's a pretty unique series, since Jack Reacher is ex-military, he doesn't have a job or a home, he just moves around the united states solving problems. I think the reason I like it so much is because it's not your typical thriller series. Plus I like the unique names the villains in the series have- Plato, Hook Hobie, weird names like that lol!
As far as games I've been playing VgStorm's games a lot and I'm in love lol! Paladin of the sky and manamon are my favorite. Although I'm liking paladin a little more than manamon to tell the truth lol. I'm glad i have these games to tide me over until a hero's call comes out. I'm playing the gate too which is fun but it is not scary like I hoped it would be. It's definitely not as terrifying as somethin else's games. It's still a lot of fun though I always love a side-scroller.
@Dark, thank you for posting about China Mieville the other day. I read the first little bit of perdido street station and I liked it although  the way Mieville writes his stuff, he must be one twisted guy lol! I'll check out your review of iron council when it comes out. Btw, I wondered if I made the cut for moderator? I haven't heard back from you so I just wondered what's going on.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-04-05 20:29:44

@Guitarman, we have posed the question but we haven't had a discussion about moderation etc, I'll let you  know when a decision comes up.
The trinkits sound cool, mrs. dark and I love things like that.

I can't say lee child is a favourite author, then I've never really been a fan of military or crime fiction, or at least those things I enjoyed when I've read books like that I much more readily get from fatnasy and sf.
The review of iron council is done but it might have to wait a little since I need to install and check out libre office to have a way of spellchecking things, perdido street station is imho the best of the bas-lag novels though, the other two pretty awesome, but Perdido street station really is something special.
Not a lot to report today. I still need to get back on avalon and try to do some of these here badges and actually get into the game propper.
I keep meaning to try manamon again and see how I go but I never seem to get around to a frame of mind where I fancy trying anything that epic, though I probably should just roll up my sleeves and dive in.
gate I probably need to try again now I have a halfway decent keyboard with responsive keys as I'll likely find it more fun.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-05 21:41:47

Hi Dark.
I'm sorry if that sounded impatient I'm just eager that's all.
You should definitely play manamon it's a lot of fun. At the moment I'm a little stuck but I'm still having fun. It's really fun playing both manamon and paladin with eloquence it has such a nice voice for reading the story. I like that manamon has sounds when you do attacks, that's my only complaint about paladin so far it doesn't have attack sounds. The gate is fun but like i said I wish it was a lot more terrifying than it is. Lol that would be hard playing the gate with an unresponsive keyboard, since sometimes you have to perform actions very quickly.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-04-14 03:52:35

Hi Guitarman.

Well apologise for the long wait both for this topic and as regards your request to be an admin.
I've sent you a private message on the subject.

Manamon I'm enjoying, indeed after a long time playing muds it's great to have a break and play a single player game for a change although it is getting rather grindy. I also would love a list of all the manamon, where to get them and roughly what their stats were as compared to other Manamon. I've got Jayde's guide and am getting on far better than I did previously by following his recommendations (and also training my manamon rather more), but it would be nice to not have to know where to go and still get a little more of the manamon information.
I also seem to have trouble remembering elemental weaknesses which is a bit of a pest, indeed I do wish you could find that information in the game rather than in a fairly messy text file, say by hitting a key on a manamon's description.

I am a little worried about manamon trading, since I do remember getting morghoul in my previous game who rocked, and I'm not sure if I have the open port thing on this machine or not.
Anyway I should probably reserve that discussion for a manamon topic.

Paladin of the skies I played through a good bit of when it was first released (I got to the tower of judgement in heaven I believe). I loved the plot and atmosphere, but I was less keen on the boppit style battle system, also the and plot progression did strike me as rather childish and in places improbable, eg, a drunk having his own palace. That's actually something I really like in manamon, the that the over all writing quality seemed vastly improved.

Having a new keyboard makes a huuuuuuge! difference, indeed I didn't really realize how buggered the other one was.
it is odd, they weren't old models, but the keys on them were just bad, they didn't react quickly and many keys simply gave out, a fact which really frustrated my lady.
Indeed for some weerd reason computer equipment just doesn't behave around here. The keyboard was rather destroyedd and having a new one really help[s, but her windows 7 lapaop is super slow, indeed far slower than my old windows xp machine despite having nearly twice the ram. When setting up dropbox I could barely read the commands.

We thought this was supernova, but the same is happening with nvda. It might be the ahm, interesting version of ms office she has on there, we don't know. We've run plenty of virus, spybot and malware scans, and c cleaner so goodness knows.
We are thinking therefore of upgrading her machine to windows 10 given that I'm not getting on too badly, indeed I personally much prefer windows 10 to windows 7, since things like windows explorer are far more logical and with classic shell you can even have the start menu back.
In view of this I bought Microsoft office today.

I've played abround with libre office, but just not found it good enough for editing text or even spellchecking.
While I resent paying for essentially just Microsoft word, --- -since I really dislike outlook, and have no use for xl, at the same time word is really a necessity especially between writing book reviews, working on my thesis etc.

I also decided in the end to go with the five licenses model and the subscription being that we'll need office on my desktop, my lady's laptop and  second hand windows 10 laptop which my parents are keeping for me and which I intend to put nvda on.

Actually I'm getting on very well with Nvda these days and have worked out several keys to do stuff that I used to rely on in supernova such as looking at additional mouseover text. the only thing I don't like in nvda is the way that sometimes it gets stuck in the internet explorer task bar.
Btw, I know people recommend firefox, but I really! can't do without my favourites folder and I hate the bookmarks system that firefox uses with it's drag and drop nonsense and random subfolders.

Next windows  related jobs are to sort out a decent email program and to finally see if I can get some good out of my amazon echoe, a project which sort of went on hold owing learning how to use windows 10 and Nvda.

I'm currently preparing a review for Sheri S tepper's a  plague of angels, which I just finished, one of the most weerd sf novels I've ever read, albeit with a lot of preaching and bit of misandry, making writing the review a rather complex business as there are both really good and really off things in the book.

As a break I'm now reading nation by terry Pratchett, which I've been meaning to read for a long while.

next week we're off to  for another music school, so we have to decide what music we're doing before then, though I haven't sung for a while, indeed I'm looking forward to when my thesis is finished and I can finally go off and do something else like study music as right now both mrs. Dark and I are in something of a holding pattern.

Anyway that is probably enough for yet another midnight rant, --- or at least a nearly three in the morning rant (as yes, once again Mr. Sleep is not my friend! big_smile).

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-14 07:09:56

So far, April hasn't gone to well for me. I've been losing a few valuable things like my blue tooth headset and my voice sense. I put them in a certain place, but when I checked that spot they were gone. I've also had late night depression for several years, but it's gotten worse this month, thinking of checking into a doctor to see what the problem is. other than that stuff though, this month has been kind of dull for me. I've been lacking in activities that I'm interested in.

Discord: dangero#0750
Steam: dangero2000
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2017-04-14 08:22:10

Hi shotgunshell.
Well I'm sorry to hear about all your troubles. I'm sure your stuff will turn up soon. As for the depressions, go to your doctor but do not and I mean do not get started on those head medications. I'm speaking from true life experience, I started taking meds and now I'm stuck on them. I've been stuck on them for six years and I won't be able to get off without going through some tough stuff. I started out taking one pill now I have to take three to keep my self even. If these depressions you're talking about are like I think they are then they are very hard to get through. You don't have to take my word for it, but if you do decide to go on meds, make sure it's really what you want. I know when I'm feeling depressed talking to people helps a little.
well that's enough of that. I hope your month improves, just take it one day at a time, or even one hour at a time if you need to.

Well things have been going okay for me lately. I've been practicing bass a lot and doing some awesome reading! I'm working hard on learning programming. Which is a ton of fun. I like writing a script, and then debug it if it doesn't run right. It gives me a nice rush lol. I started reading a cool book called summer of night by dan simmons. It's very good about a small town where something is very wrong, although what is wrong I don't know but weird things are happening. The way it's written it's a lot like a stephen king book. I hope it can compete with him.
Today was a lot of fun, I went to a bass lesson and learned the bass part to no rain by blind melon. That is a great song even though it's very sad. Now I just have to practice! practice! practice! lol!

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-04-14 09:40:14

Hey there Guitarman.
I've tried the talking method a lot but I haven't found it to be that helpful. I've had the depression problem sense I was a kid, and it only gets worse. I've heard the stuff that those meds do to you, so if I can find some other way of dealing with it I'd be happy.

Discord: dangero#0750
Steam: dangero2000
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2017-04-14 13:03:28 (edited by CAE_Jones 2017-04-14 13:43:00)

Eh. I was adamantly against psych meds for the longest time. Then the longest time stretched on way too flippin' long and I decided I needed to slay the Demon Lord of Sloth and Despair more than I needed to maintain my no mind-altering substances streak.
Here is a guide to things that sometimes help if you're depressed. Half of it isn't actionable for me, but that might or might not apply to you. [edit: For some reason the blog got formatted funky. The article starts on a heading at level1.]
What I've tried, medication-wise:

  • Focalin (basically super ritalin). Because I am more worried about the Sloth part than the Despair part, personally. This may or may not have helped, but I wouldn't recommend it generally. There's a trick to using this class of drug effectively, and that does me little to no good. And, if you're severely depressed, it can make things much worse. Basically, it works by restricting your ability to get distracted. So, if it kicks in while you're focusing on something negative, you're in for a terrible night.

  • Abillify. Made me feel so incredibly worse I stopped taking it immediately.

  • Prozac. Umm. I have no idea if this did anything. That is a common reaction--the patient doesn't notice anything, but their family/friends notice a change. It also gets a bad wrap because some people flip out and kill themselves after starting on it. The consensus is that, since it takes a while to take effect, it's getting them better enough to pull off a suicide attempt, but not better enough to not be suicidal, and sufficient precautions for the first month or so are a very good idea. Personally, though, I find Prozac boring and pointless and I quit after half a year because I didn't feel like it was making enough of a difference. In retrospect, I might have been mistaken.

  • Wellburtrin (buproprion). 150mg didn't seem to do much, but missing a couple days when I forgot to refill the prescription was awful. 300mg actually did help. It's basically the opposite of Prozac--SSRIs have sort of a reputation for muting emotions, whereas buproprion enhances them to comical levels. And by comical, I mean I went looking for my copy of Mortal Kombat 4 (to re-rip the soundtrack, because my previous rip is inaccessible behind ancient DRM), found my copy of Sonic3K instead, and for some reason got excited to the point of having to actively try not to start making happy noises. So... yeah, that's weird. I don't usually mind that, though. I do kinda mind how little it takes to get me shouting at my computer tongue.
    The big thing to watch out for with buproprion is seizure risk. It gives me these annoying ticks whenever I'm tired or stressed, but hasn't gone into full-blown seizure territory. How big a risk there is varies from person to person, however, and other than a past history of seizure-like activity, I don't know of a way to predict it.

I hear good things about Modafinil, other than the fact that it's illegal without a prescription in the US and Canada, and with a prescription it's still ~5times the cost of importing it from India. It sounds like prescription criteria have loosened, recently, else I might well have decided that it was worth importing anyway, like, literally right before I came here today. It's not an antidepressant at all, but a wakefulness promoter, where the only side-effect of note is a very rare risk of bad rash. Rare enough that I feel like mentioning it at all is misleading. Considering that my sleep cycle is unstable and I've heard people repeatedly link sleep disruptions to depression and executive function issues, and it's less of a hassle to obtain than Hetlioz (the non24 drug), it sounds worth a shot, but, again, my situation is not congruent with your situation.

(Also talk therapy does nothing for me because I am a weird space alien and therapists are ordinary Earthlings, or something. T.T)

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-04-14 19:32:22

My dad was a community psychiatric nurse for most of his working life, thus I'm afraid hearing the knee jerk bad reactions about psychiatric meds is a little odd to me.

One thing I will say though, is firstly no form of medication is perfect. You can't take it and expect to be fine. At most the best that a medication for something like depression will do is ease a degree of the symptoms that you can actually function in a semi normal way or so that therapy such as counselling might be affective or so that you don't actively do yourself injury and can do things like eg, get out bed and get dressed.

Generally the affects of different drugs will vary according to the person and in different ways and it's usually a good idea to get a professional to monitor things rather than just take a bunch of things yourself, indee d in the uk even to get a prescription for a psychiatric medication you'd need to see a doctor first, and said doctor will usually monitor how things are working out and refer you to a mental health specialist if necessary.

On the therapy issue I'll also firstly that different therapists can vary hugely. The difference between say what a psychodynamic therapist will do or a humanist might do are pretty extreme, likewise a therapist may or may not have a compatible personality with you or actually know what he/she is talking about.

unfortunately dealing with depression is usually a case of mostly trying different things to see what can actually help, or at least reduce the negative affects.

Some other more practical things include physical exercise, chocolate (no not sugar, but actual high coco chocolate, it's a natural serotonin booster), and also doing something completely cerebral with little to no emotional content, eg special logic puzzles, resource management games, crosswords  etc.

I will not give any details but I will say I suffered depression myself, though in my case it was a little more complicated and could get pretty extreme at times.

I once had a point in 2007 where I played Smugglers 3 for nearly  40 straight hours, occasionally dropping out for an hour or so of lseep, simply because calculating how much prophet I'd make transporting 30 units of robots from mars to Sirius was a way avoiding where my head was at that point.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-14 19:57:31

I heard that chocolate without sugar is very bitter, so I'll probably skip that, but I might want to give puzzles a go. Honestly the idea of a therapist doesn't seem right for me, seeing how I tried once when I was in first or second grade  and once about 2 or 3 years ago, and they didn't help me at all.

Discord: dangero#0750
Steam: dangero2000
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2017-04-14 21:52:22

Hi Dark.
Wow smugglers 3 for 2 days? That's pretty good. Sounds like a better way to spend your time than I did. When I was going through my major depression, all I did was listen to tv shows all day. I must have watched hundreds of hours of ncis, law and order, House M.D, various sitcoms and things. That was my whole day if you can believe that. I would only come out of my room for commercial breaks because I couldn't stand being away from the tv too long. Looking back on that, I was a mess. You're right though, pure chocolate does help so does exercise. I love to do walking and running and I always get a rush from that.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-04-14 22:29:17

@Shotgun, as I said it depends upon the therapist, the style of therapy and whether the therapist knows what the heck they're talking about in the first place.

I've heard of some pretty crappy ones, for instance I recall one who apparently told every client to "work on their anger", whether or not the person actually felt angry, and another case in which a rape victim was told that the rape wasn't actually the problem the cause of their ptsd was their premature birth.

I even famously heard of one who told someone that their depression was due to not earning enough money big_smile.

Generally this is why I would personally always recommend finding a client centred therapist, preferably a humanistic one following Rogers, though then again that is likely because a good friend of mine has a masters in rogerian counselling.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-15 01:17:48

I've gone through *counts* only 6? Huh" 6 different therapists. The first one can be summed up as so:
me": I have this problem.
Therapist: Have you considerf suicide?
Mein No? I'm obviously aware of the option, in the sense that I'm aware of pop-up ads, but no?
Therapist: So when you imagine yourself here, are you alive, or dead?
Me: Alive.
Therapist: So... have you considered suicide?
Me: Still no. I can't accomplish much if I'm dead.
Therapist: Some people think of it as a way out.
Mein Not interested:
Therapist: Well, we're not getting anywhere' so maybe you should stop coming.
And so i did:
The others were much more boring. There was one who seemed relatively good at actually figuring people out and coming up with solutions, but my health insurance got cut off for a couple months during that period, and so it ended.
So, yeah, therapist 3 is enough to convince me that competent therapists are out there. Finding them, though, is the hard part.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-04-16 05:33:44

Lol Cae that is almost amusing about the therapist, though I do find it believable.
Since Mrs.Dark is a qualified counsellor I looked into what it would take to qualify and practice in the Uk.

What I found is something rather bad, that where you literally can't! practice medicine without a fairly stringent license, any tom dick or harry can call themselves a therapist or counsellor and do exactly what they like with clients, since while the British institute of psychology and psychiatry has just as rigorous criteria for judging when a counsellor or psychologist is or is not certified as the British Medical association does, there is no law that says you must! be certified by them to practice.

I have heard that the situation in the states is rather similar, if not slightly worse due to their being a hole bunch of certifying organizations over there for for psychologists, counsellors and the like, meaning that even if a person is! certified, what they're certified to do and able to deal with can vary quite a lot.

Well getting back to happier matters it's once again four O.clock in the morning but hay! I've a nice cup of English Rose tea and my plague of angels review to get finished, and I will say I am finding having ms word again very helpful.
while I still find the licensing and necessity to pay for lots of stuff I won't use more than a little irritating, I will say being without word isn't easy, indeed I am sorry that libre office didn't work out as planned.

Ah well.

Game wise, I am drifting a little. Manamon is fun but grindy, particularly since I still seem to have difficulty choosing a team. JAyde's walkthrough does help here of course, though with that I'm not sure on some details and I don't like consulting his walkthrough too much since I do want to discover the plot and explore the dungeons myself as much as possible.
I'd really like a full manamon list withstats, evolutions, and locations of where to get them.

I'm also resisting the urge to try lensmore mud. I seem to have had a phase recently of picking up muds and then stopping playing them.
In some cases this is due to perfectly good reasons, eg I stopped playing Avalon I was literally for direction after newbie school and got sick of bugging other players, and I stopped playing 7th plane due to the lack of descriptions, however others I haven't got as involved with as should have done, or am partly through and have stopped due to things feeling samy, eg, aardwolf my character is currently level 103 and I haven't found as much motivation to continue, while my exploration 4dimentions crafting sort of stopped a little due the puzzling nature of the game and the fact that people aren't as helpful as in frandom. Cosmic rage I still like, but again items I needed for the starship quest seem to vanish so I need to consider how to get myself going again there.

Maybe I just need to give mudding a bit of a rest for a bit and concentrate on manamon, indeed it's a while since I've completed a serious single player game.

Other than that things are fun,t hough I still need to consider what to do for music school next week as well as book trains and taxies, and after that there is my viva which I'd rather not think about big_smile.

Good night for now.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-16 07:04:54 (edited by Dan Gero 2017-04-16 18:11:24)

Quick update, I think I know where my stuff is. I have a bed that's over the ground and stands on legs, so it might be under the bed. I can't get under there very easily, but at least I know where my stuff is now. As for games, I've been playing around with SOD and q9 a lot recently, not sure why though.


/edit/ I found most of my things including my headphones, now I don't have to where earbuds anymore. Yay.

Discord: dangero#0750
Steam: dangero2000
TWITCH
YOUTUBE and YOUTUBE DISCORD SERVER

2017-04-17 02:24:18

Hi.
Well the last few days have been okay although I'm still living in fear pretty much.
My brother has no money and no place to go so he's staying at a motel. He has no money, no job, no friends, pretty much nobody wants to deal with him. I'm hoping he will find some place to go, i don't want him around here.
On a happier note, I'm playing paladin of the sky. It's been a lot of fun. Also I've been looking at the unsolved mysteries wiki since I can no longer watch the tv show itself. I found this article about an unsolved murder and this MIA article which I remember from years ago. I used to watch reruns of unsolved mysteries with my older sister because she was too scared to watch them alone. They used to scare me out of my mind lol! Actually, when I read these articles it made me think I might want to make a game revolving around these stories someday. Although I'm not sure how I would tie the two plotlines into one story that makes sense. I still have to do some thinking about that. If anyone on here has ideas about this I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Also I've been practicing bass guitar a lot, on my last lesson I learned no rain by blind melon. That's a great song even though it's very sad. I need to get out my electric guitar, and learn the guitar part of the song. The bass part was actually very easy to learn. In fact I've been playing bass guitar so much I might have to change my name on here to BassGuitarMan lol!

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-04-17 06:01:07

Well it's nearly five in the morning again so hay! big_smile.

@Shotgunshell, I have really fond memories of shades of doom. It was the first actual audiogame with sound I ever played back in December of 2005, also the first program I ever installed myself.

I stayed up all night with it which was pretty awesome, indeed what was comical is a friend of mine who is a huge fan of the actual graphical doom games said Shadws was rather more scary owing to what you didn't see.


In the end I did rather give in and try lensmoor, which was okay but a bit slow at the startmostly I think because it doesn't really have a mudschool as such and so your number of skills and options are a bit limited.
Whether I'll continue or not I'm not sure.
I really ought to get back to manamon, heck I've also installed paladin of the sky since I never  passed the tower of judgement in heaven and it'd be nice to finish the game.

On a more productive note, I now finished my plague of angels review, also my review for Susan Fletchers' book flight of the dragon kyn is now up on fantasybookreview.co.uk.
Since I'm coming to the end of Nation at this point I need to decide what is  to finish.

I am in a major sf mood at the moment, I might do some more David Brin, though at the same time, it would be nice to finish some of the series I have started, so I am also considering doing sign of the dove, the last of Susan Fletchers' dragons trilogy, though my lady tells me it's rather better than dragon kyn was.

One other thing I'm quite pleased about at the second is our new electric steamer.
Both My lady and I love! cooked veg but can't abide salad (indeed it was one of those amusing compatibilities, we both would muuuuuuch! rather have something cooked than cold). All of the veg that other people hate, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli we love them if they're cooked.

the problem is that that sort of thing doesn't do well in the microwave. Most people boil it on the hob or use a steam pan, neither of which I fancied.
So my mum for Christmas bought us an electric steamer.
this rocks! there is a small electric heater at the bottom and two baskets that go ontop of it. Add water into heater, put veg in baskets, turn on and walk away for 25 minutes or so!

In the Uk, there is a tradition which |Mrs. Dark tells me isn't around in the states where by if we have a roast dinner, especially the traditional Sunday roast, we usually serve it with lots of veg and a couple of different sorts of potatoes as well as the meat or the trimmings.

Eg you might get roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, then roast and mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, cabbage, sprouts etc.

Doing the roasts and the spuds has never been a problem (I love my slow cooker),  however veg has always been a bit of a pest ---- well not anymore!
this also means we're eating over all more healthy meals which is good, though personally I just like veg anyway big_smile.

Well now I'm going to be decidedly unhealthy! and go off and drink coffee at five in the morning! so good morning everyone big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-20 08:42:18

Hello.
Well things are still crazy at home, I hope they get better soon.
But some happier stuff, I've been playing the demo of the gate. It's a lot of fun, but it is not scary like I had hoped it would be. I've also been playing paladin of the sky, that's a great game, I'm a little stuck right now but I'm having a great time! I just wish that paladin had attack sounds in battles, other than that I'm loving paladin.
I was wanting to get back into aprone's games, so I thought I'd try U-Mart. That is awesome, but I wouldn't expect anything less from aprone. U-Mart, and park boss are the only resource management audiogames I know of. I failed miserably the first time, so I'm going to try U-Mart again later. I wish aprone was able to take on audiogame development full time, I can't imagine what sort of stuff he would come up with.
Alright that's enough of drewling over aprone and his games lol! As far as books go, I'm reading the tommyknockers by Stephen King. I've been going back and forth between the tommyknockers and the crossing by Michael Connely, because their both such awesome books! I like the tommyknockers, but the first two characters in the story are pretty unlikable people. King's characters are usually good people, but so far there aren't any yet. Maybe better characters will come along as I get further into the book. No spoilers, but I do like the concept of an alien ship buried in the earth for who knows how long and the mischief it can get up too.
The crossing by Michael Connelly is also very good, about a man framed for a gruesome murder that he didn't commit. The killer (or killers) is revealed right at the beginning of the book. I usually don't like this, I like to be surprised about who the killer is, or try and figure it out myself, but Connelly makes it work probably because I love the Harry Bosch series.
I haven't been coding lately, mostly because my head has been so messed up. I miss it, I miss typing in the lines and making things happen. I haven't done any programming for almost a week now. I wanted to know, do any of you other developers feel this same way about coding? Do you miss it when you can't (or don't want to) code?I just didn't know if missing programming is a normal thing. Because when I think about it, it sounds a little crazy lol!
Well that's enough rambling for now, gotta go and do other things!

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-04-20 10:06:40

@Guitarman, the gate struck me as very well designed, though at the same time a little unforgiving in it's difficulty what with the precision of weapon ranges etc, indeed perhaps a little too much given that even towards the end of the demo you get monsters who's basic attack mechanics means they can one hit kill you even on easy, ---- I'm thinking of the devil spiders btw, since something that repeatedly freezes so effectively you have no ability to escape and are dead if hit once is rather extreme difficulty wise for a games' fourth level or easy mode, ditto with the need to try and conserve arrows, or the need to literally hammer at ridiculous speed in order to get an optimum attack wrate (why audiogame creators feel the need for this I don't know), , though I did like the way different monsters took different techniques and needed to be distinguished from each other, rather than the usual method of ramping up difficulty by simply throwing a bunch of things at the player willy nilly so that both in terms of audio and in terms of gameplay the player is just overwhelmed by noise. Thou

I might try the gate again some day and maybe buy it, indeed as I said wonky previous keyboard didn't help big_smile.

As to paladin, I love the story, environments and music, but I do wish the battle system and writing were better, including a little more by way of description for players, attacks, environments, then again Manamonus both a far more complex battle system and a far better written story with at least some description (for the manamonanyway).

I've actually been having a miner gaming break recently. Partly this has been due to the need to sort things out for our trip to London this weekend for music school, partly spending time with my lady,a and partly just wanting to sit down and read.
The sorting out has been a bit hellish due to the fact that in their infinite wisdom, rail track, the stupid company who own the actual tracks to English railways (the trains etc are owned by someone else, and yes, this is a bloody stupid arrangement),  to do engineering works on a saturday night right across the northeast.

this meant several hours yesterday phoning train companies, indian call centers for train companies and disabled assistance, not to mention taxi firms and various other people in an effort to get things sorted out.

I did eventually but only because my parents offered to put us up for Saturday night so we don't have to go back up north following music school.
Honestly! and ! the government wonders why people do not use public transport, ---- well people who have the choice anyway!
Of course things would be rather better if the transport wasn't owned by about five different companies who are at war with each other and we could have a little coherence, but that is waaay too much to ask, ---- insert rant on why we should bring back British rail stop paying money to these morons!

Getting on to books I confess I didn't  care for the tommynockers myself. It had some great ideas (I love the way  king describes the affects of air changing, some of the ideas and things that get built), but in general it seemed to go off a little too much into weerd digressions for my liking. My lady is a really major king fan BUT ISN'T KEEN ON THAT ONE EITHER.
again I did first read it at the age of about 15, maybe I would be a bit more patient now?

Another reason for the lack of gaming is due to the fact I've een reading the third october day book by Seanon mcguire an artificial night.
That one has been amazing, probably one of the  best urban fantasy novels I've ever read, indeed I'm just working on a review for it now.

I've now started a collection of stories by Angela carter, who is the author who wrote he the book the magic toyshop.
I wanted something a little more challenging, though thus far her stuff seems to be actually quite readable and just fun, albiet in a rather disturbing if very poetic way.

Anyway now I need to go to the bank and get some cash tso ttfn.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-20 21:23:47

Hi Dark.
Sounds like your going to have a crazy week. I'm a huge Stephen King fan too, but the tommyknockers I don't know about. I listened to the movie years ago and I loved it. I remember I actually got the movie before the book, because at the time bookshare didn't have the tommyknockers.
I agree the gate is pretty unforgiving. Something I wondered about is why enemies just appear randomly to the left or right of you. They usually appear out of no where. Something that annoyed me was how ghosts would suddenly appear and by the time you can turn around they have already killed you.
Btw, I was wondering what happened to the headings that tell you how many posts and user karma you have? I've noticed they have been gone for a while so I just wondered if something is going on with the forum. I would ask in site and forum feedback but I didn't want to create a new topic just to ask this one question.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-04-21 08:38:31

@Guitarman, the ghosts didn't bother me as much in the gate as the spiders, since while the ghosts could be learned and avoided, the spider's attacks are pretty much undodgeable and can hit from a distance, and where usually the ghost's appearence was fairly regular, the spiders could pop out of no where pretty randomly.
the only time I had trouble with the ghosts was in the grey lady fight, indeed I could probably have taken her out just with the knife if it weren't for the small ghosts randomly appearing and forcing me to hit them with arrows.

As to the tommynockers I saw the series a while ago. Indeed I remember being about eleven or 12 and hiering a samurai film from the ivdeo shop with my brother called American Samurai which had an addvert for the tommynockers on it.

It piqued my interest then, though I didn't see the full series for a few years after that. I was actually a we bit disappointed, though I suppose something which creeps you out with a mysterious trailor at age eleven probably can't live up to expectations when you see it five or six years later on big_smile.

Well today will be moderately crazy owing to a long trip down to london and lots of transport, though fortunately the place where we're staying is really nice and very relaxing, a small ttheology colige in London which has the bennifit of being one of the few places with grass and a guarden in the city where I can take Reever, they also do the most awesome breakfasts! big_smile.
Needless to say i'll be away later today and tomorrow and probably won't be back until Sunday.
i just hope my voice holds up as I haven't exactly been exerting myself practice wise, still it's perhaps a good opportunity to get back into trainining as music school always gives me a bit of a vocal boost, even if I'm only going for a couple of lessons, actually we usually go for longer than this but this time around we're only there for a day which is mildly disappointing but it is what it is.


I might also start setting up my new windows 10 laptop, though I might leave that until I've setup an nvda profile and ported settings onto a memory stick so I don't need to muck about setting Nvda again.
I don't have time to investigate doing that this morning, but it would help I think when it comes to setting up the laptop.

Actually we're also considering buying vocaliser since my lady wants to start using nvda and doesn't find the sapi dictionary or voice adequate, and while I'm happy with using sam and orphius alan on this machine (it's one of the voices I can understand speaking at ridiculous speed), I  don't think I will install supernova on the laptop, so won't have Orphius alan there to fall back on.

Actually I probably ought to settle on a good email program before I get onto setting up the laptop anyway.

yee gods, so much mucking about to do, though at I probably am familiar enough with windows 10 to go about setting the thing up myself without too much trouble once I've investigated a few more things.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)