Real Life and What's Happening...

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Try not to think about it except when you have to. That always works for me. I can also recommend a couple of Chimay Whites!
This is something I've had to learn over the years. I have a lot of anxiety issues, and eventually I had to train myself to be like "Ok, is this something I can actively do something about right now, If so do that thing, if not, don't think about it cause all it is going to do is make you feel worse and cause other problems".
 
This is something I've had to learn over the years. I have a lot of anxiety issues, and eventually I had to train myself to be like "Ok, is this something I can actively do something about right now, If so do that thing, if not, don't think about it cause all it is going to do is make you feel worse and cause other problems".
Emperor has the right of it! If there is something you can do to address a problem do it - otherwise try not to think about it. Worry is bad for you.
 
So I took the Pfizer vaccine yesterday and after administering it the nurse asked if I had any questions or concerns. I told her no questions but plenty of concerns. She said sadly I can do nothing for your concerns excepts to say if the vaccine is bad it will effect her too.
 
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Got in a seven mile run this morning, which is long enough to take me out of Chicago and into Lincolnwood, which is great because it means I can get off the paved trail and into the woods. Being in the woods, any woods, always has been, and probably always will be, one of my favorite things.

Also running on dirt is easier on my knees and ankles than running on concrete.
 
Got in a seven mile run this morning, which is long enough to take me out of Chicago and into Lincolnwood, which is great because it means I can get off the paved trail and into the woods. Being in the woods, any woods, always has been, and probably always will be, one of my favorite things.

Also running on dirt is easier on my knees and ankles than running on concrete.
That's awesome, good job. I'm starting to add distance as well, building up to another half marathon.

I ran a Ragnar relay a few years ago that ended on the north side of Chicago. I think we went through Lincolnwood. I'd love to do that again some day. Think we got enough runners on the Pub to get a team together?
 
I got my first vaccine shot today... which, as has been the case for our small town, was easy peasy and well organized. Myself and six others went into a room, the nurse gave a short talk and did QnA... then shots and 15 minute wait.
During the wait we all shared various scary rumors we'd heard going around about the vaccine... I shared the one from my dad's nurse that it had 'LOTS of mercury' in it (it doesn't) and that Bill Gates will use it to track us (he already was :smile:). That from a nurse.
A new one I heard today is about 'nano worms' being implanted in people's cheeks during testing... which I'm pretty sure came from a plot line on Orphan Black.
Anyway, it was quick and easy and I've had no side effects so far... and it put me in a surprisingly good mood... maybe because it feels like progress, of a sort.
 
One of my coworkers retired a few weeks ago, which is cool, because it bumps me up a notch on the seniority ladder... except, I've somehow ended up with a worse shift because of it. Blech.
Dude, same thing happened to me last summer. I got bumped up in seniority with a raise but ended up with a crap shift. The newbies get the good shifts but I work 10am to 630pm which is garbage.
 
I don't have a day off for the remainder of the month.
I have mixed feelings about that, as on one hand, more work means more money for savings. On the other hand it stresses me out. Part of me knows I'll adjust to the busy schedule, but it still wigs me out that I'm working everyday in April.
 
One of my coworkers retired a few weeks ago, which is cool, because it bumps me up a notch on the seniority ladder... except, I've somehow ended up with a worse shift because of it. Blech.
Back when I worked at a lab I learned how to run all the tests and calibrate all the equipment... which meant I was capable enough to go on call and work alone on night shifts and weekends... then the light bulb went on and I figured out why everyone else wasn't trying to learn anything outside their little niche area.
Nice to be a valued employee, but yeah... never did adjust to working graveyard.
 
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Today at work there was one of those awkward situations were an employee inadvertently sent an email that should have been confidential between her & her supervisor to the entire staff. Didn't really affect me- I just deleted the email and went on with my life- but I do feel kinda bad for the employee who sent it.
I never put something confidential in an email at work for this reason. Get on the phone or talk in person.
 
I noticed I feel less comfortable sharing some personal stuff as more people join these forums. Not sure exactly why.
The way I see it, we have been sharing quite a bit about our real lives now; even if we do not share our real names and addresses, our RPGPub identities and our real life identities have been growing closer for these four years.

(A big ol’ thank you to everyone who offered support, in this thread or via PM.)

And of course, while I would gladly confide in many long-time posters here, it is still a public forum and we don’t know everyone who logs in and lurks.

Also my personal drama is boring and no one else really has to deal with it. And venting really only gets you so far. I have already vented with a long-time (gaming, even) friend and it’s been a huge relief. But things remain to be done.

Maybe one day I will meet one or more of you in person and when we’re proper pissed I might let slip what is plaguing me today, and have a good laugh about it. There’s two things to look forward to — meeting some of you in person when this COVID bullshit is over, and laughing about our current woes. I’d drink to that.

Cheers everyone, and thank you all for being such a fine band of people. Human decency seems vanishingly rare these days and your support is truly appreciated.
 
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Some days it would be great if this place was just down the road, so we could all pop in for some face-to-face banter.
It's amazing to think of the distances separating many posters here, yet the loose vibe of this place is something that we have all been working hard to keep, from all across the world.

I don't know many of you, but in some ways we do know each other by the kind of content we post in terms of gaming as well as banter style.
I'm not exactly sure of what my point is, but I think it's somewhere in the ball park of what T The Butcher is saying :grin:
:thumbsup:
 
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The way I see it, we have been sharing quite a bit about our real lives now; even if we do not share our real names and addresses, our RPGPub identities and our real life identities have been growing closer for these four years.

(A big ol’ thank you to everyone who offered support, in this thread or via PM.)

And of course, while I would gladly confide in many long-time posters here, it is still a public forum and we don’t know everyone who logs in and lurks.

Also my personal drama is boring and no one else really has to deal with it. And venting really only gets you so far. I have already vented with a long-time (gaming, even) friend and it’s been a huge relief. But things remain to be done.

Maybe one day I will meet one or more of you in person and when we’re proper pissed I might let slip what is plaguing me today, and have a good laugh about it. There’s two things to look forward to — meeting some of you in person when this COVID bullshit is over, and laughing about our current woes. I’d drink to that.

Cheers everyone, and thank you all for being such a fine band of people. Human decency seems vanishingly rare these days and your support is truly appreciated.
I actually start looking into starting a MUD for the privacy reason. The world just isn't that interested in recording what happens to on MUDs. Sort of like an old school Discord channel.
 
Preparing for a game, I brought it up with a fellow GM about co-GMing for, and its really accelerated the timeline for getting the campaign going. Not sure if that is a good or a bad thing...
 
My wife and I got our first shots of the Moderna vaccine this afternoon, after about 6 weeks of searching for an appointment. No real side effects. At first I thought I had some pain in my arm, but then I realized it was the other arm; I'd strained it doing some work this morning.
 
My wife and I got our first shots of the Moderna vaccine this afternoon, after about 6 weeks of searching for an appointment. No real side effects. At first I thought I had some pain in my arm, but then I realized it was the other arm; I'd strained it doing some work this morning.
I heard from a nurse that you should hydrate heavily before your second dose. A friend's husband followed that advice, and got through it without the heavy side effects.
 
I heard from a nurse that you should hydrate heavily before your second dose. A friend's husband followed that advice, and got through it without the heavy side effects.
Good to know! I'll try that.

Amusingly (or not) the email that I received reminding me of my appointment listed a number of possible side effects and then suggested things I could purchase to ameliorate them at the pharmacy that provided the shot. Where there's a buck to be made..
 
Yesterday at work, after finishing with her room, a lecturer erased everything from the whiteboard except "nipple covers" and "violence".

Now I'm curious about what the class was, and toying with the idea of using leftovers like this as an oracle.
 
One hundred and forty. That is the number of times my colleague used "like" as a filler word in the course of one 45-minute meeting. Yes, I was keeping a tally.
I had a friend do that for me (to me) in college, during a presentation for a botany class. I think I've improved somewhat since then, I hope.
 
One hundred and forty. That is the number of times my colleague used "like" as a filler word in the course of one 45-minute meeting. Yes, I was keeping a tally.

I took a class on Byzantine history once. The lecturer, who was a senior scholar, insisted on holding the class only once a week, for a three-hour session, running from 6 to 9 p.m.. It was held in an overheated, windowless room in the university library.

Needless to say, it could be hard to stay awake. To keep myself going, I once tallied up how many times the professor used the word 'tough' in his lecture. That night he was discussing the Petchenegs and some other steppe peoples that gave the Byzantines a lot of trouble, so the word kept coming up. I can't recall the precise total, but it was over 50 times, I think.
 
Sitting at work having finished attempting to call the families of students who are close to passing. I have, looks at clock, 3 hours and twenty-eight minutes before I can go home...
 
I have to cancel my session of Carcosa this weekend because my PC needs a heart-lung transplant. New motherboard & CPU, probably new memory, new SSD drive while I am at it. I got a 1660 ti which should be decent for the next 2-3 years at least. Open to suggestions on a new motherboard and CPU.
 
The contractors. Oy vey. We had a meeting. One of them wanted to optimize the process. He has not implemented any of it. He starts questioning our optimizations. He doesn’t know anything about the system we have it in. He was literally learning it two days before. I told him why we do it this way. He still persists. He is nearly two weeks past the deadline. He says it’ll matter because it’ll takes 15 minutes on his desktop. I say it won’t matter because it takes TWENTY FUCKING SECONDS on our setup. We do a whole day of data in 1/5th of the time he does a single file of thousands.

we decide to implement operation fucking insurrection. We give the customer, who has been working with us to transition to the contractors stuff, access to our new system. Our new system is STUPID fast. 5 months of data scanned and returned in 6.5 seconds. The analyst is literally laughing and disbelieving it is so fast. He’s used to minutes to return. He does like i do - starts making unreasonable demands because he sees the potential and he’s excited. I feel him. I tell him we are a little constrained but we are moving as fast as we can. I send it over to my hot shit young pup who I can feed pizza and compliments and he makes magic. We talk a bit, he sees the vision. He starts moving out stuff. I figure out that adding an important bit is a tiny cost and worth it. Go back to PM, PM says do it without blinking.

talk to our senior developers. I say “hey, we can add the stats in like this. Didn’t you tell me this?” “Nope, but that is a good idea.” So pop that shit out. Triples a cost, but a tiny cost, so insignificant increase as a while.

we are literally implementing everything they were supposed to fucking do in months in the matter of days, and for so much cheaper.

HAVE I MENTIONED they insist on using products that charge per byte? Every fucking thing they put in is built for costing more. If they gave me the contract these guys are getting I could implement all of it and fund the program for a fucking decade. I am not even exaggerating
 
Man, feels like everyone is having a bad day today, Me included!
I completely botched a bunch of Quiche Lorraine's today, and as such ruined half the dinners for the residents of the Assisted Living Home I work at. I feel awful as they haven't had Quiche for several months and were really looking forward to it tonight. Instead they got sandwiches, and I got angry notes. On top of that my assistant had to leave early and had another cover for her. This guy is one of the slowest and most frustrating person to work with. He boils my blood, but I can't get mad at him, because honestly he's trying his hardest and needs the job to live. So I had to effectively do 80% of all the cleaning tonight as well, and ended up not getting it all done to my satisfaction.
I think mostly I'm mad at myself, I have never made quiche before, but it was pretty simple, we had pre-made pie crusts and all I needed to do was add spinach, onions and egg. And I completely failed at that, I misinterpreted liquid egg as An Egg, singular, cracked from the shell. Fuuuuuuccccccccccckkkkkkkkk me.
Since I hate leaving on a sour note, I'll add that my second job at a local school district is going amazingly. It hands down gets me up in the morning and every day I work there keeps me going.
It's a strange and almost poetic situation, where I work with the young in the morning, and the elderly in the evening.
 
Man, feels like everyone is having a bad day today, Me included!
I completely botched a bunch of Quiche Lorraine's today, and as such ruined half the dinners for the residents of the Assisted Living Home I work at. I feel awful as they haven't had Quiche for several months and were really looking forward to it tonight. Instead they got sandwiches, and I got angry notes. On top of that my assistant had to leave early and had another cover for her. This guy is one of the slowest and most frustrating person to work with. He boils my blood, but I can't get mad at him, because honestly he's trying his hardest and needs the job to live. So I had to effectively do 80% of all the cleaning tonight as well, and ended up not getting it all done to my satisfaction.
I think mostly I'm mad at myself, I have never made quiche before, but it was pretty simple, we had pre-made pie crusts and all I needed to do was add spinach, onions and egg. And I completely failed at that, I misinterpreted liquid egg as An Egg, singular, cracked from the shell. Fuuuuuuccccccccccckkkkkkkkk me.
Since I hate leaving on a sour note, I'll add that my second job at a local school district is going amazingly. It hands down gets me up in the morning and every day I work there keeps me going.
It's a strange and almost poetic situation, where I work with the young in the morning, and the elderly in the evening.
If it helps I had a pretty shitty day last week that left me quite depressed and a few days later I'm back in the game.

"This too shall pass." Seems like and appropriate thing to point out for those of you having crappy days that actually will pass.

For those where this is a chronic issue all I have is my mom's advice. "God may give you more than you want to handle but never more than you can." Of course that doesn't mean you we meant to handle it alone.
 
I've been having not really a "bad" day but just man I've had so much work to do lately. I'm the only person at my job that knows how to do a large portion of the work I do. Which you know, job protection! But also, it means that if there is extra work to be done in that area, it has to be me.

On the plus side, starting tomorrow I have a week off (including weekends, so I don't go back to work until the 26th). ... But that meant I had to work even harder because I had to pre-schedule and set up everything I do to go out while I was gone as well. There is a small handful of things I left for my "assistant" (she isn't really my assistant, but she got hired because my workload was untenable, and she pretty much answers to me in the hierarchy, so I guess she is my assistant????) that the systems we use don't have a way to preschedule. I spent two hours showing her how to do it all. But I'll admit that I'll probably quietly sign in even on my week off to make sure it gets done right >_>.

And it isn't even that she isn't competent. I hand picked her for the position. I'm just neurotic and doesn't know how to trust other people with my work.
 
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