2017-11-01 17:44:49

Yes it's that time of the month again, or rather it's time for another month.
for any new Frorumites, there is this trange ritual we go through each month where we suddenly have the urge to discuss anything and everything going on in life from relationships to games, to films books and also whether you've turned into a werewolf or not.

It's probably something to do  the tidal affects of the moon, or just something odd that happens whenever we see a one on the calendar big_smile.

So it was probably Halloween last night for those who do that sort of thing. I gather Halloween is probably a bigger deal in the states than over here, mostly you get the odd kids trick or  or a kids party and that's it.
Trick or treating is something that's a weird custom anyway, basically kids working by extortion, indeed I've heard of some nasty incidents over here where basically people get eggs or stuff chucked at their houses or vandalism or what not around Halloween, though luckily Newark where we have just moved now isn't that sort of place.

We did get what I believe was a trick or treat last night, however they made the mistake of knocking at the front door. Where we're living the front door opens directly onto a rather busy road, so we have a sign in the window asking people to take the side gate and go around to the side door (we also have a safety gate to stop anything bad happening to my dog).

I did yell "please use the side door" but I believe the kidsies didn't hear me, and by the time I ran out of the side gate they'd run off.

Oh well, more cookies for me, and in fairness it was their own fault for neither reading the sign paying attention.

Part of the reason I think Halloween over here tends to be low key and basically just an excuse for tv marathons and child based extortion, is that bonfire night is so close on the fifth of November.

We're actually going to a friend of my parents for another display on Saturday which should be good, and makes two lots.

I also hope this month to sort the mobile phone situation out and see about a new one, since I'm not sure when the sales tend to be in. I would like to buy directly from the Apple shop since then I can have them change the sim card from my old IPhone 5, which is the one bit of setup that I cannot do myself,  I can buy a survivor case at the same time.

In other news, more work on the db, hurrah! I don't know when I'll have enough for a news item for the front site, but I've updated some entries and added some others. Next up is Empire mud, which I'm still slowly working into. I enjoy all the crafting and skills, though whether I will be able to found an empire when I have finished enough of the tutorials and want to leave the newbie islands I do not know.

I am also really impressed with junction gate, though I do need to look at chrome since some of the other incremental games like rebuild the universe don't play nice with ie, and I am not a fan of firefox, though since there are still other games that need pages  is more to do as usual.

The house  actually coming together now which is nice, I have my desktop and the living room is looking like a living room, which is a vast improvement on this time last month. There is of course more to do, especially around my lady's own work room which needs paper and furniture and such, but act least now we don't have quite as many boxes and there are good things like carpets and actual chairs and what not big_smile.

In terms of reading and such, my lady and I are reading Bruce W Cameran's dog's journey together, the story of a dog who is reincarnated several times and sequel to a dog's purpose.
A bit over cute in parts, though Dog's journey particularly is extremely good, actually pacing wise probably a little better than the first book.

I've also decided to read David Eddings' Polgara the Sorceress, thus completing my run through the Belgariad. I want to do a review for the book for fantasybookreview.co.uk to go along with the one I did for Belgarath the Sorcerer.

I did wonder what it would be like given I was 17 when I last read it, but I confess thus far I'm not sure, because Polgara basically comes across as a cold, arrogant arse with a massive chip on her shoulder.
Still we'll see where it goes, at least it's got some of the usual Eddings humour even if I must sometimes grit my teeth at some of the sweeping sexist assumptions, then again I'll save putting my thoughts together on that one for a full scale review.

We also have a lot going on this month in terms of concerts to do and the Selston music festival, so I have lots of music to learn, in particular a lovely Verdi Duette with my lady which I'm quite  forward to as it's been a long time since I learned something really complex, and Baroque stuff can be quite fun to sing, especially in duette.

And that's pretty much what we're up to right now, how is everyone else doing?

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.)

2017-11-01 19:24:35

School, drum lessons, DnD, repeat. Nothing interesting. 2 tests on Friday, a  concert December 4th, and a campaign in the underdark with my level 4 half-Orc fighter.

2017-11-02 01:26:41

I'm drunk as a skunk --- not that skunks are particularly drunk at least that I know of --- but imagine having a whisky lover (who's also your guitarist) shotting Scottish highlander whisky with you for free hours straight. We encouraged each other to drink more and poured each others glasses because the other one wasn't drunk enough.
A genuinely good moment with a nice guy who seemed to enjoy my company in the throws of drunken honesty.

The band is  going stronger than ever and I'm going to upload some shit in a while (like 1 or 2 days) from a recording with me and the guitarist jamming seeing as the other members did not show up for that rehersal session.

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2017-11-02 01:46:38

Recently my depression has gotten worse again and I'm having trouble controlling it, in fact this last Sunday I spent about 40 minutes in the freezing cold because I needed to think to myself. I realize that was stupid now, and in retrospect I realize that had I been in the right mind I wouldn't have done something so idiotic. I've been wanting to start singing, but I keep holding back because I'm not really a fan of letting my voice be heard by other people and poring my heart out in that fashion. Every time I tell myself that I'm just going to pick the microphone up and sing, I never go through with it. I don't know why I get so nervous about letting my voice be heard by other people, but I do. I guess it's because when I was little I sang a song and my parents clapped their hands, and obvious attention scares me in general. I'm afraid of having publicity drawn to me. I believe some day I'm gonna get over that though.

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2017-11-02 01:49:06

Shotgunshell, record yourself, listen to it, get used to it. Pick up a microphone. Get used to how the microphone and your voice interact. Your own voice in your head vs how it sounds through speakers is a lot different. It's not a bad thing, usually something you just have to get used to.

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2017-11-02 01:56:33

@Post5 I actually really like my voice, I personally think it's soothing. The problem I have is the attention that rises from me singing. I think that's referred to as stage fright. I can't stand the thought of people clapping their hands or cheering.

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2017-11-03 00:28:05 (edited by BigGun 2017-11-03 00:32:50)

yo all!
As expected, life is just a loop witch runs before you are dead. big_smile
But yeah, it's so boring. I have set my website up about a week ago, I have plased it in my profile who wishes to see, it's currently so full of nothing that you are going to send me to jail because I have vasted your time lol. Now, I am planning to get a vps running, I think that I found to sutable one but I wonder what force can force your parents to pay a penny for a vps? Plus I want to purchase the gamer account for swamp to finally see what's it all about but I am afrade that that step is on the same level as the vps thing. And, hell yeah school! I have just realized that we, wait? Had 3 math tests in the last 3 weeks? I meen, 3 from the same subject? big_smile But, there is always that briter side of thing, that when all that boringness and time vesting thing called school classes are over, and btw I have never known that anyone has learned anything from them accept how boring they are, and then I just have to go onto gaming! Currently I am mostly in scrolling battles, your world, and I have started to play cyclepath, witch very mutch reminds me of a game for IOS, hill climb racing. Basicly drive your car and you musst make shure that you don't go to fast when you are going down, and that you can go fast enough to climb up a mountin before loozing fuel. Not at all similar but. There are now so menny non related things so who can say what's connected and what's not, anyway everyone can draw out that argument that everything has connection with each other in a way. big_smile
Also, I have been looking more into my mac book recently. It looks like a very good replacement for my del laptop witch is still magicly running with his tale, I meen charger sticking out of it into the wall all the time, lol.
ps: just noticed your weer wolvs thing. Let me just remind you, I am a huge spp 525 southern machine pistul! hahahahahahaha Just an other good name for a weapon!.

If life gives you communism, become a communist dictator.

2017-11-03 06:15:37

School, lack of sleep, gaming, not sure what else. Been playing scrolling battles your world also, not really playing but I find its a great place to hang out online, there's some pretty cool people on there, and I consider us to be best  friends even though we really basically  know nothing about each other and only know each other by random user names but what ever.

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2017-11-03 06:42:36

Last I heard scrolling battles your world was still rather experimental and up in the air, nice to hear it's going well, I probably need to  play it and do a db page at some point, actually I have been doing some db updates which I'm fairly pleased about, since I've been adding some things that need pages, hopefully everything should be in order and I should have a news item ready for next week, well it'll have to be next week owing to the fact that I have left my update log file on my desktop and mrs. dark and I are staying with my parents until Sunday since we have yet another! firework display on Ssaturday evening big_smile.

Actually I've not been well, have come down with a relapse of my annoying throat issue that gives me pain whenever I swallow which I experienced a few weeks ago and doesn't make singing fun, so my singing lesson today was rather irritating and I'm not too happy with myself, though on the plus side my lady and I did do a rather nice duette version of Panis Angelicus which we'll hopefully be doing in concert relatively soon (and hopefully my voice will be in something like working order).


As regards the stage fright thing, one thing I find myself is that I'm petrified up until I actually get out there and begin, then I get this massive adrenaline rush when I'm actually communicating with the audience, it's a really nice feeling, albeit I'm petrified right up until the moment I start.

Reading wise I'm still plugging away with polgara the sorceress but it's more irritating than I remember, though hopefully it'll improve as time goes on.

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.)

2017-11-03 22:04:55

Yo all, guess never wrote at monthly chats. But, it's time to be more active, to gain posts and posts and posts and user carma, yeah guys really if you see my post useful please consider to get me a thumbs up! What about my life? awaking. Breakfast. School. Damn i hate algebra. Music school. phisical educations. Yes, i'm having P E out of school, it sounds strange i know. I also know that i'm really pathetic, yeah my mood has been like that for a passed month. Yeah, and after P E i have rest, then gaming, then homework, and then gaming and only then, sleep. Usually i can be pritty active in the day after i have 6 and a half/7/7 and a half hours of sleep. Have been reading r/nosleep, breaking my psyche, that really makes me feal a cold ghostly hand touching my spine. Ok, now about good things. Have been trying miriani, for a third time, but i have to realize it's too damn long to earn lp, or cp, especially i don't like combat. Have been playing all muds that i can and can't encounter, my favorit is the shore of seven incarnations. That's russian mud, i guess it supports english also. Have been playing empire mud, but when my friends left me and i was alone, it became boaring. Also, i guess i'm off topic now, but aprone, please check your e-mail, i sent you an e-mail via audiogames forum. Hope you check that topic too, so. Oh, has been trying godwars II, pritty cool MUD too. Have been trying df2, that's dangerous fantasy2 dream of the god. It has the support for english language that's clear. Well, now, what now. And now guys, i wish you good luck, luck in all that you are planning, so it will be always a success. And here, my longest post ends.

2017-11-03 22:54:22

Cool Skylord, welcome to monthly chat, I'm trying empire myself as I said in new releases room since it definitely needs a db entry, though I might wait until I get back to my home and my desktop since that does make life a little easier than trying to perch on the floor with my laptop on a locker as I do here. Also interesting about Miriani, the talk of unrestricted piracy has always put me off for all that many of the activities sound cool, then again if I want a good space mud there is always cosmic rage which I do find myself coming back to fairly often.

Not a lot to report new at the second since today was fairly lazy, lots of reading and a bit more work on the db, but hay I'm pleased things are getting updated and since I have a music festival and concert in November things are likely to get hectic fairly soon so I might as well take relaxation where I can, polgara does seem to be improving though which is good.

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.)

2017-11-03 23:02:06

Because of all the talk about the accessibility bugs in iOS 11, and that it runs slow on anything less than an iPhone 7 series device, after doing some poking around and researching, I have found a way to block all iOS updates and their notifications and nagging. Even better, it's reversible so if I ever sell this phone, an iPhone SE, I can restore the ability to update iOS for the phone's new owner.

And the best part is, it's not a hack, it's a neat trick that uses Apple's own system against them.

Hahahahahahaha!

2017-11-06 13:53:13

Interesting to know there Orco.
My parents actually dug out a spare power pack which I can use for my IPhone 5 until I can get around to replacing it with a 7 or 8, though since that is probably going to be around Christmas, or at least black Friday it might be a miner wait. I don't think I can complain too much, my IPhone five served me very well for the last five years and been used frequently.

On the plus side this does hopefully mean I can go back to adding Ios games to the db before I get a new IPhone, since it's quite a pest to play games if  constantly tied to a plug.

In other news, my review of Seanon McGuire's One salt sea is now posted on fantasybookreview.co.uk and can be read here not my favourite entry in the series, though since my lady started the series with one of the later books which was apparently absolutely awesome I am pretty sure things will pick up.
Still I'll not repeat why I didn't enjoy the book as much but let people read the review.

My lady and I have also started Kingdom of cages by Sarah Zettle, who is awesome, but very, very grim indeed! I should hopefully be reviewing that along with polgara the sorceress when I've finished, with them though right now I also have to prepare for a concert and a singing festival later this month, so extremely busy, far too busy for such a cold November.
We also went to another firework display and party with some of my parents' friends on Saturday evening which was good, although it's definitely one of those occasions where having my lady with me helped given that the two of us were sort of out of things for a lot of the time, but such is usual in large crowds.
this actually is one benefit of being married to another blind person, at least your both in the same boat in annoying situations like that one and can keep each other company, for all that my lady's sight  really had very little to do my feelings for her, or indeed the other way around.

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.)

2017-11-06 16:11:57

Even when I had some vision, I gave up on fireworks displays when I was 12 or 13 because they were such a hassle to get to and to get home from that it just wasn't worth it for the entertainment the fireworks offered. So I'd just climb up on the roof of our house and watch them from there.

2017-11-10 16:39:52

Hello everyone,

It's been a long while since I've written my last post on this forum, and perhaps the monthly chat topics.

First off, I've been quite busy with my M.B.A assignment tests and mid exams, and playing on RS Games between the exams, so wasn't able to post here. My second mid exams are fast approaching, and if my memory serves me well, they start on November 20, and there won't be any break thereafter, as I'll have to prepare for the first semester examinations to be held from december 4, and the external practical exams for the IT Workshop to be held just days before the semester exams. That being said, I'll be quite busy for long while in the near future.

Keeping that aside, I had my mac upgraded to High Sierra, and the experience so far has been a positive one, though I wonder why the image description feature of VoiceOver isn't working as expected. Other than that, I haven't experienced any major problems that could degrade my user experience.

In game related news, I've been playing a lot on RS Games, and I'm enjoying it a lot. I, however, stopped playing MUDs as I lost interest in them, mostly because I was more interested in playingg on RS Games.

So there you have it, alll about what I'm doing now.

2017-11-12 11:33:26

Hi saiteja, Hope the exams go well.

Well it's been another interesting weekend so I thought I'd stick my noggin back into this topic again.
On Friday my parents and I went to a concert by Misatu Cani Mason (who's name I'm horribly miss spealling). The Cani Masons are a family of very accomplished young musicians who have won a lot of awards, indeed the son Shacu won young musician of the year a couple of years ago and Misatu was in the last round.
She's now a pianist and her playing is amazing, she did the Chopin Senata containing the musical commonly known as the funeral march, though amusingly it has some pretty and quite gorgeously contrasting bits in the middle and a wonderfully dramatic ending which most people don't here, also an awesome and very dark piece of Prkofiev which rocked!

Last night my singing teacher was retiring, so did her final fund rising concert. My lady and I did a couple of duettes, all I ask of you from Phantom and a duette version of Panis Angenlicus which was fun, though I've been having throat trouble recently so I was slightly croaky, though my lady says it wasn't noticeable.

In other news, I've been taking a miner break from trying new games for the db and have got into cosmic rage. it's odd I meant to play more of empire mud, but ended up getting sucked into playing Cosmic rage again and have really enjoyed it and levelled up about 40 levels in the space of a couple of days.
I particularly like the new combat system and the way  activities are working out.

Since I'm a bit dead today i'll probably finish Polgara the sorceress since I need to write a review, then move on. It's been nice to finish but sadly it's not the best book Eddings wrote, still I'll say more in my review.
Hope everyone else is having a nice November even if it is amazingly grim and rather cold over here, something my lady is not keen on.

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.)

2017-11-26 12:14:11

Currently awake at 5 AM and kind of bored... Any good youtube video things to watch or harry potter fan fictions to read?

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2017-11-27 20:42:33

Critical roll on YouTube. As for me... Concerts on December 13 and 18. This is gonna be fun. Anyone tried playing samba on drums? My advice, not.

2017-11-28 14:18:36

Actually concerts for me to, and an interesting weekend.
Last Saturday was the selston music festival, generally a competitive singing competition. Unfortunately the adjudicator this year was a right royal cow who obviously hated men, given that she marked myself and the other guy down hugely, didn't recognize the stuff we did do and even at one point told me off for singing a falsetto in corner of the sky,  when  falsetto is written in the bloody music (after all not even pavaroti could octave jump a long top D and sustain for four bars metso forte) So mildly pissed off at her, since while I don't mind not winning everything I do think she treated me very unfairly.
she also marked my lady well, but had a really strict definition of what was "opera" and told her off for performing "too dramatically"

Frankly she didn't seem to know what she was talking about, especially with anyone who wasn't a soprano and not singing strictly in style, I hope she's not there next year since the two previous adjudicators have been nice people and have  me some very good critiques.

On the other hand, on Sunday we managed to sort out my living room and unbox our fantasy figures, this is awesome, we also set up my snes and found the lead to my rowland r09 recorder so I can do  voice and maybe even a casting of the pod again, which is good.

Next week my lady and I are singing for a charity christmas do, so we're preparing a lot of music at the moment.
I've had a lot of fun gaming wise with several titles, I ran through flexible survival and sorted out how to actually survive and do some quests in the game, there is actually a lot there if you can get over the fairly extreme dodginess, though i need to try some muds and other games for the db again, not to mention sort out my new Iphone which will probably happen at christmas.

Book wise we've not finished kingdom of cages by Sarah Zettel, though i'm currently reading Dream songs volume one, a collection of the short stories of George R R Martin.
He writes science fiction really well, however he does seem to have a thing for rather grim endings and not nice things happening, which is odd since his style is absolutely beautiful.

Other than that, it's bloody cold,  miserable and definitely! winter over here, something my lady is certainly not a fan of at all 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.)

2017-11-28 15:54:02

Lol the grm endings part seems to be a thing with good authors.
A little over a week ago I finished reading twig from wildbow, the same author who wrote both worm and pact and now has started working on the sequel to worm. It was a pretty good read, my favourite part of the serial was the character relations which was advanced and detailed. Also description of one kind of particular insanity was so well done I actually shed tears during several parts of the read.
And the ending was a big
surprise that left me emotionally drained and confused. A very dark end if one thinks about the implications but I'm not going to spoil it here.
I definitely recommend his works
Worm: extremely detailed with good and intriquat plot, lots of epic battling.
Pact: very emotional and decelat, very artistic. The world is described like an artist painting his canvice. A huge letdown to worm but still a very good read.
Twig: already described but it definitely falls under more amazing than just a good read. If worm was a 10/10, then Twig was an 8 while as Pact would just receive a 5.

Sorry for the bad english here, I am super tired and I have a huge pile of dishes that needs to be done. But I'm just going to chill for a bit and take care of it later. Ugg.

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2017-11-30 16:01:03

yep Grrm style lets make  miserable is sort of a tactic at the moment, it actually surprises me when people like Patric Rothvus manage to come out of the blue and have something none miserable once in a while big_smile.

Well today has been hectic to say the least,y damnit I'll go all the way and say today has been positively, infurnally, diabolically hell tick big_smile. Mrs. Dark and I are doing a charity concert tomorrow. Well that is fine, accept we need to use backings as we don't have an accompanist, so we've been getting things together.
We're doing a duette version of The Snowman from the Raymond Brigs film (the one Aled Jones was famous for).
That is fine, accept when I was trying to find a halfway decent backing pooof! no sound.
I check the mute on my keyboard, I try borrowing Mrs. Dark's braille display (which didn't work with either Nvda or supernova when i plugged it in), I ring up a computer firm and  ask what the keyboard command to access the volume settings is in windows 10. It finally! turns out my quad speakers  decided to die on me (just what you want when your trying to practice singing).

So I plug my headphones into the sound card and windows is going bing, only thing, Nvda has no speech at all, just the plunk when it starts. So I boot up supernova and it seems to be fine. Hmmm, this is odd.


I use supernova to get into the nvda settings and change the synth from orphius, and yes, espeak, sapi all okay. Right then orphius must have crashed.
I go back to supernova and use it's ability to instantly switch synthesisers with a keypress (Something I do wish nvda had), and sure enough, no orphius.

@ah well, so Orphius has crashed again, it used to do that on Xp with supernova but this is the first time on Win 10 with nvda@, So I go into supernova to try and fix it, but no good.
Oh well, I already have the Nvda realspeak license on my laptop maybe I'll need it for my desktop too.
So I go and play with the volume (now loud in my headphones), and find guess what? That windows 10's volume control system has separate mute functions for each audio process, and by mistake I'd muted the sam drivers when trying to restore the volume!

Grrrrr!

Okay, now time to get some singing done. I find the snowman, learn the duette part, what do I need next? An accompaniment for @when a child is born@
I find one on youtube which is super crappy, so decide I need a new one. I find a kariaoki site selling one used by the opera boyband Il Divo for two euroes.
Only problem? I can't use paypal on a payment less than four euroes. Okay then, I look around the site to see if they have anything else I want? Well unfortunately though there main site is in English there music catalogue is in Italian!

Okay, I will use my credit card. Despite their weerd checkout's talk about @secret codes@ and all sorts of other things it looks straight forward accept woopsse! their credit card payment site is also in Italian!
Well nevermind  am sure I can put my credit card info in correctly and guess at the translation, ---- accept that is the point  their site decides to crash chrome! waaaaaagh!

Then just to cap it all, I bang @il Divo When a child is born Kariaoki@ into google and what is the first thing that comes up? A very nice accompanment on youtube, so I didn't need to play with all those whacky Italian webpages after all!

Only then! could I start actually working on music, and only now, a couple of hours later do I get chance for a sit down, a large salted caramel cookie and some coffee!


Why is life so complicated! 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.)