Heartland

markfiend wrote:Yeah reading that back it came out totally wrong.

Sorry Lee I was not meaning to insinuate that you go out and beat up random people.

i know that mate, i took it how you meant it. it was perhaps a bad example for me to use of extreme behaviours people can exhibit when grieving.
and if you were snapping at me well thats what mates are for some times (see Johnny's post on the subject, above )

@Johnny:re: your post above : i know. and i've told you already there's nothing to apologise for and nothing for me to forgive. thats what mates are for, and chaos knows if we're not mates now then i dont know what the f**k we are.

markfiend wrote:Last Friday (October 31) would have been my dad's birthday. We interred his ashes.

I'm not coping very well. I should have said something about it earlier. Suffering in silence is not the way to go is it?

Hi Mark, I lost my Dad to cancer in August this year so I know what you are going through. If there's anything I can do to help just give me a shout. Everyone copes differently and there's no shame in asking for help.

Sending strength your way mate.

Mark i just understand what happened
eastmidswhizzkid, Johnny and the others said them all
Hope we can make you feel a little better in a possible way and at least transfer you positive energy and thoughts

DerekR wrote:

markfiend wrote:Last Friday (October 31) would have been my dad's birthday. We interred his ashes.

I'm not coping very well. I should have said something about it earlier. Suffering in silence is not the way to go is it?

Hi Mark, I lost my Dad to cancer in August this year so I know what you are going through. If there's anything I can do to help just give me a shout. Everyone copes differently and there's no shame in asking for help.

Sending strength your way mate.

there's no end to it is there?
sorry for your loss Derek. wishing you and yours as easy a ride as possible through what you're going through.

DerekR wrote:

markfiend wrote:Last Friday (October 31) would have been my dad's birthday. We interred his ashes.

I'm not coping very well. I should have said something about it earlier. Suffering in silence is not the way to go is it?

Hi Mark, I lost my Dad to cancer in August this year so I know what you are going through. If there's anything I can do to help just give me a shout. Everyone copes differently and there's no shame in asking for help.

Sending strength your way mate.

Sorry to hear that, Marky - second Derek's comments, there is no shame in asking for help, and suffering in silence isn't the way to go. FWIW, I found talking to someone completely unconnected from the thing helped a lot (i.e. not family - weird though it seems, sometime's it's easier to unload to someone who isn't going through it too), perhaps if I'd not waited 10 years to do it I wouldn't be the emotional basketcase you know and love.

Sometimes silence is gold, sometimes platinum but there are certain times that we have the need to talk about some specific things.

Sorry to hear that Derek.

Just getting something out of your system helps. Thanks everyone.

EvilBastard wrote:FWIW, I found talking to someone completely unconnected from the thing helped a lot

The same though occurred to me; I've approached the staff counselling service at work.

Bloody parking ticket.

I appealed on the ground that there was no sign or road markings prohibiting or limiting parking. I've just heard that the appeal was rejected on the grounds that it is properly signed.

I've checked on google street view and there is a bloody sign, I just didn't see it at the time.

Damn. I could do without losing £25 at this time of year.

aye, indeed. I've just lost a whole bloody car thanks to a leak - uneconomic to repair damage to electrical system. new car - have had it since last thursday, and it's had two flat batteries. dealer have given it a new battery today and paid for a taxi home.
the amount of chaos not having a car and getting the bus has caused is large. not been able to bring marking home or do much at school due to bus times.
It'd have been better if i hadn't got the lurgy too.

emilystrange wrote:aye, indeed. I've just lost a whole bloody car thanks to a leak - uneconomic to repair damage to electrical system. new car - have had it since last thursday, and it's had two flat batteries. dealer have given it a new battery today and paid for a taxi home.
the amount of chaos not having a car and getting the bus has caused is large. not been able to bring marking home or do much at school due to bus times.
It'd have been better if i hadn't got the lurgy too.

NO! not the Strangemobile! or is this a differnt motor? either way bad luck.

Freshly repaired roof appears to be leaking. Again

the strangemobile it was. alas, no longer.
the new one is red, though, instead of subtle pale gold and black. pastels are no more.

That sounds like it was a lovely looking car. But red is good, too!

I have to write my master's thesis and I really, really don't want to. Been sitting in front of an empty document for hours, trying to at least come up with a good research question/thesis statement.

(if anyone is monitoring hits to this site, yes, my reluctant brain looks for entertainment elsewhere when it's supposed to write down nifty sciency things.)

HL is displacement activity for me too

me too. like now. i have marking to do... i blame the lurgy for my not doing it.

Oh well, that makes four ... I should work myself through some 50 pages of corrections ... but ahh, no ... not now ... ...

Ha. Good to know there are people in the same boat

Many hours later, and I've actually managed three research questions and two sets of content clusters (an approximate one and a more detailed one).
And my estimate isn't giving me the required number of pages

Well. At least I've made some progress, even if it's at a snail's pace...

Well done @Rien, sounds like a good night's work. @markfiend -sadly, HL is often general life displacement for me !

(thanks NVL.)

Okay, rant 1:
There is a type of people I'm going to call the "sitting police". They will publicly admonish you for sitting unusually in public transport, despite not being affected by your posture.
The kind of people who will tell you to keep your feet at floor level even if they aren't touching the seats or invading anyone's private space.

I f*cking hate these people, and I was close to murdering one today. Don't tell me how to sit. FFS.

Rant 2: I normally avoid American Apparel like the plague, because of their bizarrely sexist ads and their stupidly cut, uncomfortable, unflattering t-shirts, but there were two geek/pop culture designs I wanted to wear really badly, so I thought I'd give them another try (since they've recently fired the exec responsible for the sexism) and just get the t-shirts in L instead of M... they arrived today, and I might as well have ordered men's tees, because that's how badly they fit--and despite being loose, one of them still manages to give me a chubby waist.

*huffs*

Hi, I'm EvilBastard and I'm a sitting policeman. Seriously, it drives me up the effing wall - people who sit with their legs spread about 3' apart, what, your testicles are that big, are they? Anyone who sits on the jump-seat in the subway, but sits side-on so that their legs are in the doorway, and then complains when people kick them as they're trying to get on and off. People who slouch down so that their legs are half-way across the aisle, making it impossible for other people to get past. Then there's the people who put their feet on the seat, or who let their kids clamber all of the seat, stand on it (what, their shoes are so much cleaner?), treating it as a public playground.

And that's just the sitters. I've not started on the people who refuse to invest in a decent pair of headphones, so the rest of us are subjected to whatever autotuned crap they have on their iPhones, people who don't use headphones at all but play Angry effing Birds at full volume, the people who insist on standing in the doorway, refusing to move while people are trying to get on and off, the people for whom the admonition to "let the passengers off the train first" might as well have been delivered in Martian for all the attention they pay it, the a$$holes who think that rush hour is a reasonable time to put a bicycle on the subway or who think that pushing a full-sized unfolded stroller onto a packed subway is a good idea...

...aaaaaaaaaaaand I've turned into my dad.

Oh, and this, lots and lots of times. They should play this on a loop at the region's airports, train, and bus stations, for the effing tourists from places like Boise and Dubuque for whom public transportation is a novelty. Seriously. These people need to stay at home.

I have tendonitis in my knees and it really aggravates it to have to sit with my feet tucked under, so I have to sit with my legs as straight as I can. Are my feet invisible or do you really need to kick me as you walk past? Thanks for your consideration.

Oh, I don't get into anyone's space or dirty the seats. I'm well-behaved like that. And s**t tinny speaker noises drive me up the wall, too.
What makes me mad is when I'm minding my own business and neither physically, audibly(?) or olfactorily bothering anyone, and someone, usually not even in my vicinity, feels the need to saunter over and admonish me because "one just doesn't sit like that".

BTW, almost all seats on Viennese public transport face either forward or backward, so there aren't that many opportunities to stick your legs into the aisles.

markfiend wrote:I have tendonitis in my knees and it really aggravates it to have to sit with my feet tucked under, so I have to sit with my legs as straight as I can. Are my feet invisible or do you really need to kick me as you walk past? Thanks for your consideration.

Well, you know, you could stand instead
It's not so much an issue most of the time, and you probably sit up straight rather than slouching to the point where your body describes a hypotenuse, with your arse balance right on the edge of the seat, so your legs probably don't stretch all the way across the aisle, so we'll give you a pass. Just be sure to bring a doctor's note with you

to be fair, I live close enough to work that I usually walk. I very rarely use public transport.

I agree with you about kids using the place as a playground; even worse when they do it in a supermarket (people put their food in the shopping trolley you're putting your feet all over!) or a restaurant (if a member of serving staff with hot food spilt it all over your special snowflake because they're running around, dollars to doughnuts you'd hit them with a lawsuit so big.)