2019-03-01 12:02:10

Wow march already? 2019 is going fast, though i think I said that about 2018 as well.

Hopefully lots of good stuff happening this month, including trying out a local actors workshop and an interview for me with the local uni where I'm going to try and do some student support, plus my novella should be finished this month too, though right now I'm sort of taken up with trimps big_smile.

Less happily, friday means yet more work on MRS. dark's visa application, which is not a fun process and will likely leave me shattered.
Sorry this is a bit brief, I'm sort of in a time crunch this morning. Hope everyone else is having a good year so far.

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.)

2019-03-01 13:34:23 (edited by Radiant 2019-03-01 13:34:57)

exams, exams and exams.
my march only contains exams.

allow me to speak more,
catch me on Twitter
or, Mastodon

2019-03-01 13:48:15

Hi,
Well yeah, exams are dominating this month, started from today and I think it'll never end, big_smile. A student is like core, he's pressurized by every dimension in the exams.

Best regards
Pranam
Don't forget to give me a thumbs up!

2019-03-01 14:39:45

Hi,
Well this month has some Birthdays for people I know which is always quite fun, so looking forward to that. Also, today is the release of the fighting game Dead or Alive 6 on consoles and pc.
Also, more audiogames staffing duties, in what you might consider as a literal sense because recently, discussions turned to staff additions on list. This is exciting and I finally feel ready for this, we're just trying to figure out who will be joining us.

2019-03-01 14:40:44 (edited by mahdi-abedi 2019-03-01 14:41:50)

hi
our exams started too, cause 20th march our year will be end and new year will start: teachers are doing exams, before 20th, and I have some after 18 day holidays

2019-03-01 16:11:05

hello @#4.
I really want audio version of PUBG,
you should report them about audio games and ask them to work on that project.
their concept is ausumn.

allow me to speak more,
catch me on Twitter
or, Mastodon

2019-03-01 22:02:29

For me, no exams! No more exams, ever! However, I am also having visa issues or delays so to speak. My start date got pushed back to April 1st, effectively giving me two more weeks of vacation, which is the good side I guess. The other good thing is that to contrast with Dark, I do not have to do the actual visa application, MS people are doing it for me, all I have to do is wait to receive my TN visa by mail. The bad side though is that I could experience even more delays pushing back my start date even more. Man I'm eager to go back to work in Excel.

Also, I went to a special restaurant with 2 friends yesterday. It's a place where you eat completely in the dark. This place hires blind waiters and give back a part of their profit to blind organizations. You get 10 small meals, and you have to guess what you're eating as they are not telling you until the very end where you leave the dark room and go in the kitchen for the chef to explain you what you ate. Same goes with wine pairing, you have to guess what you're drinking. There is a guessing game, depends on the menu rotating every month, but this month it was the world and countries. So there was 10 meals from 10 different countries we had to guess. Next month it's gonna be 10 meals with 10 different fine herbs like basil, mint, etc and you have to guess the herb in every meal. I went there with two sighted friends and it was really cool. I laughed a lot when I heard one of my friend say "second time I put an empty fork in my mouth". What makes this place unique is that you don't know what you are eating and have to guess, thus they can make you eat things you never would've tried. For instance, I ate black pudding, I don't know how to translate it, but it's basically cooked pork blood with some fat and spices to make it thick and tasty. And if you wonder, yes it's totally black dark in there. All my friends could see was blue electricity sparks when rubbing the napking on their shirts. Some people even reported on the website that they licked their plates because they knew nobody could see them. All I can say is that in the end, I was the one with the hands cleanest tongue.

Happy March everyone!

Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another. ― Lemony Snicket

2019-03-02 15:40:30

Sorry to hear about people's exams. In Britain the big yearly exams tend to be in May and June, though of course some uni courses are setup such that you have end of term exams, which is pretty dire.

It was quite ironic when I was finishing my masters and I realised that I'd basically  had exams every may/June for the previous 14 years, and being as I was 25 at that point that was sort of scary big_smile.

Luckily no exams anymore, just lots of work on my phd, and even more luckily that's now finished and so on, so I get to kick back and enjoy the fact that everyone else is taking exams accept me, guahahahaha!

@Origine I've heard of those meals in the dark, my brother did one but said that the staff were sort of gits and pushy, though he probably got extra flack for being registered blind but able to read large print. My lady did do a few theatrical productions in Germany including   cafe where she and others were both singing and serving food, but that was less about the challenge more about the experience.
I should recommend it to a friend of mine whose a professional wine taster and food expert, also an amazing chef, since I think he'd enjoy that.

I'm sort of amused to hear you talk about "black pudding" as though it is some strange and foreign substance, for me my local butcher made them, they're often served on hotel breakfasts over here, what is called the full English including bacon, eggs, sausage, black pudding, hash browns etc. when I was in Ireland they served both black and white puddings, the white pudding (which wasn't actually white), just being a slightly stiffer  spicy version with more oats.

Like anything else, black puddings are nice when done well though obviously not great if they're cheap and nasty.

I'm a trifle jealous  of the Visa being done by microsoft, over here its a major headache and a hell of a lot of money, we spent hours on it yesterday but did manage to actually complete the form.
On the plus side, I'm quite excited that the developer of trimps got back to me really soon and has created an account. I'm really enjoying the game and fixing the access issues would be awesome, hopefully one of the mods will  the dev's account today so we can get down to business.

I particularly like the way I can play trimps while writing or doing something else, and yet it is a bit more involved than most idle games, (I'm running a side map to gather metal and upgrade my weaponry right 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.)

2019-03-02 20:25:51

@Dark, some people love black pudding here. It's economic and can be quite good. But while I eat almost everything and always want to eat new things I never tried before, coagulated blood was not my top priority tongue. I did enjoy it though. What do you do your phd in?

Regarding trimps, it looks so cool, I'll try it for sure, I hope you can make devs implement some accessibility fixes. You were writing a guide on that game right? I'll go check out the thread of trimps to see if there are some accessibility tips / work arounds, even if I don't know the issues yet because I don't have the time currently to try it out.

Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another. ― Lemony Snicket

2019-03-04 16:54:15

I am kind of late on this topic this time, but the month of march never agreed with me.

You see, when I was on the school, the months of March and April were the months where the exams would start, and end. (It is exactly like this for all over India.)

then I got on college, and I thought that exams would happen in May. but instead, they are most likely are going to take place in the same two months.

As a result, I am very cranky, moody, and generally not feel well during these months. at least the temproture has started to increase, hopefully it would stay like this.

2019-03-05 20:29:03

I, on the other hand, wish the temperature would decrease. The heat the last while is too much. It's like summer realised it's about time for autumn to take over, so it decided to hit us with one last heatwave. I heard the americans had some extreme polar coldness or something like that. Please teach us to do that, we also want to bring some antarctic coldness here. It might lose a few icebergs, but I'm hundreds of kilometres from the nearest coastline so a bit of sea level rise is not really going to bother me too much.

2019-03-06 22:13:12

Well now I've not posted in here for a while, but here goes.
Last month my sister got married, in the Dominican.  It was truly beautiful; a beach wedding with the sea right there made the experience that much more real.  Other than that I've been working in school with Skye like normal, though my role has evolved from just helping motivate children to read to being an assistant in a nurture room.  Basically a teaching assistant for children who usually have emotional needs preventing them from being as successful as they might be in a class environment, be it academically, socially or otherwise.  Honestly the most rewarding thing I've ever done. Skye loves it too mostly, she gets more love and attention and fuss than she knows what to do with!  Though luckily she is more attached to me than ever, which is lovely.  In fact she's lying next to me right now fake snoring?  possibly.  smile

2019-03-06 22:26:29

Although exams are apart of the spring season, the beautiful weather makes spring my favorite season

2019-03-09 15:38:43

I repeat my previous Guahahahahaha remark about exams, though in fairness I do remember how bloody annoying they can be, and why the hell they were always in may and June when it was hot as hell completely confused me.

@Origine, the Phd was in ethics, redefining disability with respect to quality of life and then using that definition to discuss such things as accessibility, disability competency, profoundly disabled children, assistance animals  and social attitudes.

@Dan C, that wedding sounds lovely, I'm also impressed by your relations with children since skill with children is not something I tend to have big_smile.
What sort of dog is Sky? We have two at the moment, my lady's new dog, a golden lab called Delo who's extremely enthusiastic and bouncy, and my black lab/retriever Reever, though sadly she's probably going to be retiring in the next couple of years. She also does a lot of snoring big_smile.

Well things here have been rather hectic. We did a theatrical workshop on Wednesday which was fun, and I looked at volunteering for the university student support service on Thursday but I doubt that will pan out. On the plus side the actors workshop is probably something we'll continue.

Right now we're taking things slightly easy, particularly as my lady's application form is actually written, all that remains is to gather a hole bunch of documentary evidence that she's actually been married to me and living in the UK which is tedious, but not quite as bad as the home office's attempt at a straight forward online form.

We had a mildly disastrous week last week, with a hole bunch of things breaking  including my lady's laptop and usb hub (it turned out to be a device driver crash with the wireless adaptor), so hopefully things will improve this week.

Today I need to write a book review and of course continue my trimps march to conquest. Indeed as I said in the Trimps topic I'm really loving this game.

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.)

2019-03-10 17:52:28

@Dark:

I guess this is one advantage of being done with the education. but seriously, after each exam, I always feel as if a wait has been lifted off from my head. what a wonderful feeling.

So in other news, the date of the first year exam has arrived, and it is starting from April first, and will end at 24. basically, the entire month.

Also, I have to struggle to find a writer just like previous year.

Note:A writer is a person who writes in exams on behalf of the blind or disabled person. he tells you what's the question, and you tell him the answers, and he writes them on your behalf.

The problem is, the guy who agreed to write for me is not confident on his own writing skills, I will have to do something about it.

For now though, I have to stop my tinkering with programming, and study. not something which with I am happy with.

2019-03-10 23:23:54

I think it's super cool how you guys have a public chat topic here. I like what it promotes, come and talk about whatever.

smile

Thanks for reading!
This, is the legendary, Spoon, signing out.

Follow me on Twitter! @SpoonLegendary

2019-03-11 03:51:22

@spoon glad you like the random monthly chat topics. It was something a friend of mine used to do on a forum she ran which I thought was a nice idea, especially since while this is the offtopic room and theoretically for discussing anything none game related, in practice it always ends up being the technology blindness  and very occasionally books discussion room big_smile.

So I tried this as an experiment in October of 2014 and its still going strong big_smile.

@Dark eagle, yep, I remember those long times of exams,  yee gods having to dictate everything must be a pest. IN my exams  I was allowed to use my laptop provided I carried my own printer and printed out the exam paper answers, which of course I had to do in a separate room. Then again, since post school the majority of my university exams involved writing long essay question answers, trying to dictate them to someone would've been a nightmare big_smile.

Well things have gone well today. I've got a lot of work done on my sf novella, as well as finished a review of Watchers by Dean Koontz, which was good but overly nice in places (hopefully it'll get posted soon).
Mrs. Dark and I are also reading both a pretty cool introduction to basic chemistry, which is a chemistry book intended for intelligent none science background readers. Its a really good read and nice to sort out what things like ionic bonding are, how combustion works and so on, but I do wish it wouldn't refer to the position of things on the periodic table quite as much, and just tell us  atomic numbers and classifications instead.

Since that is obviously a trifle dense, if fascinating, we're also reading Magic's price by Mercedes Lackey, one of her valdemar series about a mage whose psychically bonded to a horse companion.
If this follows the last Lackey trilogy I read, it should be  good in its third volume even if it was a bit wandery in the second so we shal see.

I also finished The chimes by Anna Smaill which was bloody Awesome! a sort of post apocalyptic dystopia based on music with chimes each day that take people's memories. One of the best written books I've read for quite some time, also absolutely  for including characters who are blind, deaf and gay without making a huge song  and dance about it, and making the blind deaf and gay characters much more than just a ticking of  token box (one character I wasn't even sure was gay until he started a romantic relationship with another guy).

Plus poetic writing and some scenes that were bloody dark. I'll be writing a review up for this one and it'll definitely be getting a high mark from me I think.

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.)

2019-03-14 13:28:19

Exams and tests in general is also something I'm not going to miss. That's one advantage of a masters, it may involve a lot of writing and research but at least I don't have to study for a test. Not that writing is exactly my favourite thing, kind of wish I could just do the work and get someone else to write about it.

2019-03-18 16:23:42

Ahh, exams. Oh, how I don't miss them. Luckily for me, our high school switched to online learning. And while the platform itself is not the most accessible thing ever, that's balanced out by not having to take exams, or finals, as we call them. But yeah, I sure did used to hate end of year tests. Over here, we'd get a big old one that was handed out by the state. I only had to take that up until the 8th grade though. When I got to ninth grade, I started having to do finals, which were teacher-compiled tests that are usually about 70 questions. But I didn't have to put up with that nonsense for too long. In my sophomore year, my school did that online learning thing.  We couldn't have finals because the online learning was all self-paced, and if they gave us finals, they couldn't make sure everyone had learned the same amount of stuff, not like they could when they actually taught us themselves.
But unfortunately, I still have to take things like the A C T, if only to secure my ticket to a good college. And I take what are known as dual credit courses, which are college classes at a nearby campus which count for one high school class credit, but also count towards college hours as well, so you have less to do when you get there. Personally, math is a huge problem. I suck at it, and so I'm getting all my math classes out of the way now while I still have the asistance of a TVI to make things like graphs accessible. Unfortunately, this program has never dealt with a blind person before, so the college's Accesibility resource Center has no idea how to help me with that. Anyway, I still get finals in college. They aren't as hard as I thought, though.

-
That Guy. Serving those people since that time. To contact, use that info.

2019-03-26 08:03:47

so, the month of March is coming to end, and I really can't wait for my exams to begin and end, it is too long already.

@ThatGuy:
I really doubt that here in India, anything like that would be possible. since internet connection is still not good enough, and they are trying to make the some compititive exams digital, but they still can't give the results on time.

I would be happy to return programming already, despite it's dificulties, I am missing it.

2019-03-26 09:07:00

Wow That guy, the online learning thing sounds rather nuts to me, especially the "learning at your own pace" business. Exams are evil, though i will say they set me up for taking more serious ones later and can help when your writing under a time crunch.

I wouldn't say I wouldn't have got my Masters or phd if it weren't for my exams, but they probably did help in terms of mental focusing.

Things have been minerly stressful over here, with trying to work on my lady's visa, trying to get acting and other stuff sorted, and having  arguments with my parents about the fact we've basically moved to a town with very little going on.
Damn I miss my weekly tabletop rp sessions!

On the plus side hopefully the acting workshop we've started will be fun.

In other news, I now finished my review of The chimes which hopefully will get posted soon, it really was one of the best books I've read for some considerable while. I've also introduced my lady to the joys of pirates of the Caribbean, since yes, she'd never experienced the awesomenss of Captain Jack sparrow, something which we had to rectify big_smile.

I've got a writers workshop coming up, so I'm hoping that goes somewhere interesting, since writing is definitely what I want to be doing at the moment, well at the moment I'm playing trimps, but hay you know what I mean 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.)

2019-03-26 18:23:30

I am so old, I haven't taken exams in years. Bwahahahahahaha!!!
As for me, I felt awful for the last six months. I had found a medication that reduced seizures, took away anxiety, and made me sleep like a normal person which I hadn't done in twenty years. I took it for four months, and then it was discontinued.
So I thought!
I had zero energy for six months and was miserable, til my neurologist realized the same medication is made by a company which bought out the old one.
So as of last Thursday, I started taking it again.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOO! I feel almost human!
From zero percent energy, I'm now up to maybe 15% and building. So March has been really good to me!
As for gaming, I am loving Animal Acres. I wish more people were on there.
I love these animal sim games.
I'm also trying out Drakor, Cyber Nations, Grail of Lords, and Elliyo.
I like Trimps, but I never could figure out how the maps and zones worked, so i'm on a break from mit for a bit.

I'm listening to a lot of music on Accuradio and IHeart, enjoying the warmer weather, hoarding books which I'll get around to reading someday, and relishing the fact that I do not have to feel like crap for the rest of my life. Hahahah.

2019-03-27 09:57:10

Heya. Yeah, long time no see from me in those topics, i guess.

The last few weeks and months were pritty stressfull for me, we had interlude exams coming up, basically an exam where the training company and checks up on your knolledge of the 1.5 years you have been here, it can be considered a training exam for the finals which come up in August 2020 for me.
Next to that, I recently had a pritty big fight with a girlfriend which I knew for a year. not spilling to much info here, but i decided to cut the contact and let the matter rest, if she comes back, I accept that, if not, well, her decision.
I continue my mostly regular horse rides and trainings when i have the time and the weather is nice, i am not training for competitions or anything like that, but given the fact that an own horse is one of the big goals  i want to reach some day in my future, at leased a basic understanding of horse training, gymnastics and all the stuff are key things to know.
I started reading a prequel to a book series called the Warringham Saga, written by Rebecka Gable. It plays in 1330 in London, at leased the prequel does. The whole book series spans multiple books in different ages, depicting the history of the united kingdom, I think the newest book plays somewhere in 1750.
I originally wanted to start with the first part of the main series, but given the fact that a friend pointed me to the prequel, I started reading that first.
Before that, I finished the Century saga by Ken Flet, a very interesting read which gives a quite nice and detailed view of the last century starting from 1910, so before the start of the first world war, till 1989, the fall of the Berlin wall. It follows the path of three different familys which intertwine quite a lot, a very interesting read for those who are interested in history.
Dark, that book about that mage who is connected to a horse companion, could you possibly tell me the title of that book? Is it available on kindle or Audible by any chance?

So yeah, that much from me.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2019-03-27 15:42:26

Damn actually wrote a reply for this earlier then closed the p[page by mistake, that'll learn me big_smile.

@mirage, sorry to hear about the anxiety and exhaustion, those are things I can definitely sympathise with, though glad you've found a medication that works and your feeling better.

I need to give animal acres more of a try, I started the game but wasn't sure where I got to, and unfortunately there's no way to delete my  has the developer of eliyo fixed those elemental stat buttons?
Then again I confess  absolutely loving trimps at the second, its one of the most adictive games I've played in quite a while, particularly since your level of engagement with it can vary from just setting your trimps up on a submap and letting them run while you do something else, to full on management.

I am still really wanting that full scale sim game where you can look after a settlement, or better still a space colony, indeed I love the idea of developing a colony from literally nothing in the wilderness to a full civilization. nothing has quite hit the point I'd be into, Knight commander is awesome with tasks etc but feels a wee bit aimless, whilst space company is awesome but disappointing. Trimps is a little different of course, being based more on battling and increases than seeing development over time, addictive though it is.

@Simba, my lady would be most jealous of the horse training, she's doing a riding lesson each week which she's loving, but I think she'd absolutely love the idea of owning her horse.
the series with the horse companions is the valdemar series by mercedes lackey. The series features heralds, basically think like  Dragon riders of Pern but with huge white horses instead of dragons, (not surprising Anne McCaffery was one of Lackey's mentors).

My lady has read almost the hole series, I've read a couple, the first trilogy, which Lackey wrote back in the eighties getting her feet, and now i'm reading some of the prequals.
the books are light, fluffy and fairly fun, though I do find the constant need to discuss the characters emotions can get a bit heavy, it makes the books feel more like encounter groups than fantasy stories.

My reviews of the first three books Arrows of the queen, Arrows flight and Arrows fall can be found on fantasybookreview.co.uk, and likely the next few will appear soon, when the webmaster gets to post them.

I'm heading off for an acting workshop tonight which should be fun,we're doing some wonderfully bitchy characterisation in a scene from douton abbey, though I confess things have been a bit stressful recently with so many things going wrong, from my lady's visa to my own entanglements with the stupidities of the British bennifit system, to my parents being a wee bit overbearing, still hopefully we're out of the worst of it and things will start picking up.

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.)

2019-03-27 17:53:56

Hi.

Aha, found the book, interestingly enough it could be found on the German kindle store page, even though it was never translated. Ah well, let's see how my understanding of the English language fares with fantasy books, I will give the first book a wirl and see if I like it.
When horses due play a more prominant role in books you mostly have my interest anyway, at leased so far that I will take a closer look and decide if I want to get the book or not. Surely, horses are not the only criteria I select my next book to read, just recently I read a very good cyber thriller, but these animals are certainly I put my interest on.
Sadly, the book doesnt seam to be available as an audio book, ah well, can't have everything.

Yes, an own horse is something I really want to do if I have the time, money and the place to board it, choosing a horse will be quite difficult though, with blindness requireing a so to speak bomb proove mount which is calm, relaxed in  stressfull situations, but not lazy and unatentive so you can still do simple dressage exercises and have a good ride out in the open field with the horse looking out for tthe rider.
There, I have to congratulate the brittish, with the -Shire and Clydesdale Breeds you have two of my most favored horse breeds, if possible, a Shire would be the dream horse, next to some older German breeds I also would take into consideration, dang, I could talk about these things the hole day, next to geeking and nerding, do these words even exist? Anyway.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.