how's it going, what's up in your life, and who are all these people

[Stylo]

**** you

asshole

:'|

 

[Danimal]

Wow, so many old members coming back to life. I don't get it, does everyone just lurk and wait for one old member to post before coming back or what?

I was bound by a sacred oath to escort the remains of Munro to their final resting place.

You know what sucks though? Sitting here pressing refresh doesn't magically produce new posts like it used to.

 

[ShinRa]

You know what sucks though? Sitting here pressing refresh doesn't magically produce new posts like it used to.

This.

 

[kazsymonds]

Sup Dulksodds.

Not bad man.

Became chartered (Accountant), got engaged, trying for baby.

I have no idea.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

Became chartered (Accountant), got engaged, trying for baby.

I have no idea.

The real secret is that nobody really has any idea.

I sure as hell don't anyway.

 

[repiV]

Cities do have their benefits. I spent nearly four years living in a pleasant town (of about 120,000 people) amongst amazing countryside and a few miles from many beaches and a national park, and had a brilliant time there...but there's no opportunity. Anyone with any ambition or drive gets out, and I have a friend in her thirties there with a degree who thinks £18,000 is a good salary!

In the end I decided I had to leave because I just wasn't getting anywhere, there were no other half-decent companies I could work at in my field (and mine only had four employees) and I was fed up of working so hard for so little. So in the new year I moved to a city (about the same size as Boston, I guess), have had two different jobs in that time and quadrupled my income as well as getting a gigantic promotion. If I had stayed I'd be in exactly the same position now as I was before. And in a place like this, if you're good at what you do you, with an in-demand skill-set, you can pretty much work wherever you want.

Still, I do really miss my old adopted home. I have lots of acquaintances here but not the close friends like I had before. I spend most of my weekends out of town. The entire city is full of cokeheads. It's fun from time to time but it's not a lifestyle choice...

And I REALLY miss being able to walk 10 minutes to get to work or the town centre where everything is, live opposite the gym and live in a luxury riverside house in a gated compound for £350/month (four sharing). Everything is such a ballache in a city and nothing is convenient (especially as I still have a sportsbike as my only transport). It was great finishing work at 3:30 on a Friday and wandering over the road to the pub, then later on wandering over to another pub five minutes away to meet whoever.

But what can you do? You can't have everything. Thankfully I didn't end up back in London. Bleurgh.

Weigh up the options carefully before you decide to move, though. The grass isn't always greener...

I can't imagine living in a city. For one, its not really my scene, but the rent is astronomical. I don't understand how someone can live in a place like that alone without making like at least $80K/year. My brother was paying like $1200/mo for a place in Boston, with FOUR roomates. And the place sucked.

Definitely considering moving out of CT, and possibly out of New England completely since rent's not much better anywhere short of like 200 miles away. The problem is that everything I know is in CT, and it sucks to leave it. I'm not the most social of people, and rather picky with friends, so I doubt I'd integrate into a new community very quickly. What I should do is find a better job. I make shit cashmoney for what I do, but the atmosphere of my workplace is perfect which makes it hard to risk leaving for more money only to find myself hating the place. Been considering starting my own business, but if I'm having trouble finding the money to move into a place myself, I don't really have a chance of starting a shop of my own without a massive loan. ****, now I'm all oppressed feeling. Thanks Sulk.

Congrats on your career though! When you say "freelance games writing", you mean writing plots for the games themselves, or journalism about games? If the former, which ones? And what parts of the US did you visit?

 

[Krynn72]

And I REALLY miss being able to walk 10 minutes to get to work or the town centre where everything is, live opposite the gym and live in a luxury riverside house in a gated compound for £350/month (four sharing). Everything is such a ballache in a city and nothing is convenient (especially as I still have a sportsbike as my only transport). It was great finishing work at 3:30 on a Friday and wandering over the road to the pub, then later on wandering over to another pub five minutes away to meet whoever.

I've always been told that one of the perks of city living is that its easy to get places.

You're getting quadruple your pay, how much did you living expenses go up though? Not including any luxuries afforded by the higher pay.

The thing is, my skills are all over the place, and I've kind of become disenchanted with getting a job in the career I went to school for due to high turnover of employees. Everyone I graduated with who landed industry jobs have lost their jobs and had to scramble to find another multiple times in the few years since we graduated. I got laid off from such a job and didn't want to move to a city where all these kinds of jobs are at, and so got a job as a computer repair tech. Its a lot less stressful, and easier to keep up with and all around a much better fit for me. But its got no future as far as me making a decent wage. Pay is shit unless you start your own business, and then its still only slightly better unless you service businesses, but then you're not doing the cool shit anymore and stress goes back up.

As of next month I'm getting company-paid health insurance though, so I've finally got a real "benefit" akin to a normal job. Now if only I could get paid vacation days... then we'd be talking.

 

[Eejit]

In the cities is easy to get places via public transport but to live in the very centre usually costs a bomb.

 

[unozero]

still working on this Army thing...I also have a new GF who care for deeply...gonna make joining the army more of a pain then it already was.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

Is it just me or is shit unnecessarily hostile up in the Off-Topic Forums tonight?

 

[Acepilotf14]

Happy dead government day!!!!

I am currently working in AFISRA and the now-dead government passed a bill that says all service members continue to get paid.

Get screwed, DoD civilian employees!

Also, hello.

 

[repiV]

I've always been told that one of the perks of city living is that its easy to get places.

Depends on what you compare it to, I guess.

You don't generally have to travel for miles to get anywhere in the UK, unless you live in the remote parts of Scotland, and urban areas are a lot more compact. Sizable towns tend to be the most convenient because they have all the amenities you need and everything and everyone is pretty much walking distance. I used to have 50 pubs and six clubs within 15 minutes walk of my front door, work was 10 minutes walk and the gym was opposite my house. All my friends were on my doorstep. A short drive takes you to loads of places where people travel hundreds of miles to go on holiday. And I got to live in a luxury riverside house for not much money at all.

In a big city, everything is "not too far away", but it's not convenient. You can travel from Bristol to London (120 miles) in about the same sort of time you could get from the edges of north west to south east London by tube or motorbike. Takes me about 1hr 40mins from my flat to my friend's place right in the centre of London...my old commute from NW London to south-central London (17 miles) took me an hour each way. By car it would take three times as long.

The US and Canada would completely do my head in to live in I reckon, with everything being so spread out. I love vehicles but hate being reliant on them! I bought my bike as a toy and have ended up using it every day.

It does make for a very good toy though.

You're getting quadruple your pay, how much did you living expenses go up though? Not including any luxuries afforded by the higher pay.

I couldn't comfortably afford them on my old pay, but not a great deal in the grand scheme of things. I pay £475 a month for rent now and I have a huge (er, by UK standards) one bedroom flat to myself. About £600 a month with the bills. It's quite a bit cheaper than a similar place would have been in my old place of living, but I live in the shit end of Bristol. It would cost twice as much in the city centre or in the nicer suburbs. Although, it is only three and a half miles to town. A ten to fifteen minute journey on the motorbike, as there are about a billion traffic lights. But, it's not exactly walking distance! Then another five to ten minutes each end to get changed, lock/unlock the bike, blah blah blah. If you did it by car it would take twice as long and you'd have to pay stupid amounts of money to park every day.

My bike got stolen three weeks after I bought it, which was never a problem before and now I'm constantly paranoid about it . It was recovered, but crashed and it cost me about £2000 to get it fixed. I suppose you can add the transport costs for petrol, cabs, buses, etc that I didn't have to pay before. And my bike insurance costs twice as much here (£780/year).

The thing is, my skills are all over the place, and I've kind of become disenchanted with getting a job in the career I went to school for due to high turnover of employees. Everyone I graduated with who landed industry jobs have lost their jobs and had to scramble to find another multiple times in the few years since we graduated. I got laid off from such a job and didn't want to move to a city where all these kinds of jobs are at, and so got a job as a computer repair tech. Its a lot less stressful, and easier to keep up with and all around a much better fit for me. But its got no future as far as me making a decent wage. Pay is shit unless you start your own business, and then its still only slightly better unless you service businesses, but then you're not doing the cool shit anymore and stress goes back up.

My friend fixes Apple computers. He lived in Canada for a year and did the same thing, only on twice the money which apparently went four times further than it does over here.

Psst...if you get into oil and gas contracting, after a while you'll be able to live where you like and have a month off every other month whilst getting paid vast fortunes to do techie stuff. $2000 a day is not an unusual figure for someone with 10 years' experience in some disciplines. And the industry has a chronic skills shortage which is only going to get worse, which means if you're any good you can basically work wherever you want.

A colleague of mine placed a drilling engineer the other month on a three year contract, the profit to us alone was $430,000CDN!

As of next month I'm getting company-paid health insurance though, so I've finally got a real "benefit" akin to a normal job. Now if only I could get paid vacation days... then we'd be talking.

That really sucks. We get nearly six weeks by law.

 

[99.vikram]

OK, so I thought I'd update faplife2.net with news since I've been gone a long time. You guys helped with a dark time in my life, so I'm gonna be here in my better days too.

I grew up, got a job programming software so it turns out I wasn't rendered unemployable or sociopathic by violent vidyagames. Incidentally I almost quit gaming in the last couple of years. Barring the Bioshock games and Deus Ex:HR I've missed out on most modern developments. Furthermore, I must be getting old as the incremental improvements I've seen in recent games barely excite me anymore. Bioshock Infinite was quite fresh in it's artistic vision but since Portal I have yet to see a genre-bender. Anyways, I'm hoping Half-life 3 can change that in 2020. In other news, all my games are now legitimately aquired through Steam, which I never thought would happen in my broke-ass college days...

I quit the job and started graduate school in the United States a couple of months ago, it's been quite a change to lose all my financial freedom yet again. Yet again, life has devolved into a popularity contest where you're judged superficially, unlike in the real world where you have half a shot to do worthwhile stuff. I'm doing much better this time round so I guess I've learnt/been corrupted along the way.

My political views have become less liberal and more centrist as I've lost a bit of faith in human nature, my fiscal views have become less Ayn Rand and more social safety net as I've learned the role of randomness in life. And finally, all my life I've been exceptional at what I do - coding. For the first time now I'm in an environment where I'm distinctly... average.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

And finally, all my life I've been exceptional at what I do - coding. For the first time now I'm in an environment where I'm distinctly... average.

What kind of software?

 

[99.vikram]

What kind of software?

I've done device drivers, but mostly server development of late.

 

[Omnomnick]

OK, so I thought I'd update faplife2.net with news

I have just spoken to Glenn, and I can confirm that we are once again rebranding the site.

 

[Ennui]

WHERE AM I? WHO ARE ALL YOU PEOPLE

edit: Holy shit, my 10 year Halflife2.net anniversary is this month.

 

[Stev-o_The_Dev-o]

WHERE AM I? WHO ARE ALL YOU PEOPLE

edit: Holy shit, my 10 year Halflife2.net anniversary is this month.

 

[elkaebee]

So it's been a while boys and girls....

These things happened:

-Became head of high schools debating and running teams.

-Won speech writing competition.

-Became drug addict because of a girl. Beautiful young girl snapped me out of it. Beautiful young girl necked snapped by oncoming drunk driver half a year later. Still sober over here. EDIT: Addiction settled in around the time I first came here. That may explain some things.

-Engaged in BDSM relationship with 41 year old divorcee (before you ask; yeah, smoking hot, former model). Ended it when I realized the wrongness of the situation (was ridiculously young at the time).

-Participated in a fight club for several months. Turns out barehanded boxing is safer than gloved boxing (peeps don't wanna risk breaking fingers).

-Fell in love with a lovely lady afflicted with bipolar. Excavated her arms with a razorblade in her bathtub nine months after we started dating.

-Became published poet.

-Was top of Science/Maths/English years 8-11.

-Physics and chem teacher got a stomach bug at the start of year 12. His replacement was an intern sports teacher. Learning the hard stuff got harder.

-Fell in love with my best friend of three years/insomniac. She OD'd and died on sleeping pills while sleeping I next to her.

-The above kinda took the wind out of my sails academically. Flunked my finals.

-Graduated dux of English Literature and Graphic Design. Nobody saw the latter coming.

-Started uni doing Creative Advertising and Graphic Design. Just finished second year. Vying with some pretty italian girl for top spot.

-Car crash. Hit head, temporarily memory loss. Waking up one morning not knowing who you are is freaky, y'all. Learner's permit revoked due to brain damage.

-Two months later: went down south with friends. Friend driving. Car traveling too fast on a bend in the middle of nowhere. Rolled two times. Dragged injured friends 10km to the nearest campsite.

-Start work at a supermarket. Make manager in a month and a half. Place closes down a month later. Boss ****s off to South Africa and takes everybody's last month of wages. Didn't bother me too much. Felt pissed off for the old guys who worked there 20 years.

-Was kinda numb following the whole OD'ing thang and didn't date anyone or get intimate for a year and a half.

-Found a girl in April. One of the most beautiful, incredible people I've ever met. The first person to make me feel anything in a long time. We don't have sex, as per her request. I didn't mind. Just happy to be close to somebody. Anyways, turned out in the two month we were together she ****ed all my friends and about 50 others. I confront her about this, she accuses me of cheating on her and leaves me. I lose most of my friends. She kills herself on October 1.

-A couple days later I find out my best friend turned to heroin and was found beaten and raped.

-My birthday rolls around. My parents call me. The Red Cross sends a text reminding me to make my next appointment.

-Best friend hangs herself the week after my birthday.

-I finish uni for the year. Started work again.

-Remake of Pathologic coming to Kickstarter. You all have to back this.

tldr: Am 19.

I trust you're all doing well.

EDIT: holyshit Half-Life 2 Wars became Lambda Wars!!!!!When did that happen?

 

[kineaesth]

Shit, that's a lot of things to happen to a person.

 

[Ennui]

Damn elkaebee, that's quite a few years you've had. Sorry to hear it As someone with more than the average exposure to things like drug addiction and death in people I care about I definitely understand how hard it can be to keep your head up. Hope you're doing well!

Half-Life 2: Wars became Lambda Wars about a month ago in preparation for us going on Steam Greenlight (and because we just wanted a more original name).

 

[elkaebee]

Damn elkaebee, that's quite a few years you've had. Sorry to hear it As someone with more than the average exposure to things like drug addiction and death in people I care about I definitely understand how hard it can be to keep your head up. Hope you're doing well!

Imma doing okay. Just picking up the pieces and figuring where to go from here. Preparing a face to meet the faces I meet and all that shiz. The isolation gets to me sometimes, but hey, I was basically dating Laura Palmer. It's nice being able to feel something again, even if it is loneliness. And work is never boring, keeps me busy. And I've had a pretty good life. I forgot to mention the summer I spent as a professional Johnny Cash impersonator, or the month a spent sailing the pacific as a captain of a 30-foot yacht. At eighteen. Man(wo?) I've had/got it good. I've 3 months before uni starts again and I have to start socializing and trusting people again.... I'll figure this out.

And I just want to say thank you all for putting up with me all those years ago. Kinda amazed I didn't get banned. kineaesth, you wishing me happy birthday was, for reasons I can't quite put into words right now, probably why I managed to pull myself (with previously mentioned pretty girl's help) out of addiction. Man, people I'd been going to school with for 10-11 years at that point didn't wish me happy birthday, not even my best friends. But you did, and I can't thank you enough for that.

Also, VirusType2, if you're still around: I sent you a lot of very strange, drug fueled messages during the year or so I was active here. I'm sorry if I at all frustrated you and thank you over and over again for not reporting me.

Ennui, you were/are/is a Tarkovsky fan, weren't you? Geoff Dyer did an interesting take on STALKER called Zona: A Book About A Film About A Journey To A Room. . Loses steam a bit toward the end, but still more than worth the 12 or so bucks I paid for it. Kinda disappointing that he never mentions the games at all but he's 50-something now. People these days don't really have the time to wander Red Forest for a week hunting pseudogiants...

NOTE: I stopped posting here around mid-2009 at the latest. I'm pretty sure I gave a school friend my login and he continued posting here without changing the password. Said school friend couldn't spell testicles correctly. Weird...

 

[Ennui]

I sure am a Tarkovsky fan. I'll see if I can find that book for cheap somewhere. Stalker is far and away my favorite by Tarkovsky.

 

[joseday]

nothing's changed

lists

 

[evil^milk]

Sulkdodds, this post is going to pretty much come out of the blue, and I've read some of the responses from here and they're all cool but I just want to know one thing for now: how do you know so damn much? Like, from your post, you're able to do incredible things with language, and that's due in part I guess because you were an English major but, yeah. Is it your job to know about things and write about them?

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

he's a journalist

 

[Nomad]

- All good
- Coming back to this site after years and years is like coming home again.
- I'm surprised I still remember most of these names!

 

[elkaebee]

This isn't a cry for help or anything. And it's not April fools. It's late and I can't sleep and it's been a while since I've been able to honestly talk about everything and I don't see a shrink for another month and this place is far enough out of the way that I nobody who knows me is suddenly going to appear and start harassing me.

So things didn't turn out quite the way I planned...

More than a couple nervous breakdowns in public.

More than a couple violent beatdowns in public.

It's been a rough few months. Haven't been out socially for ten or so months and it's starting to get to me. And it;s not like I haven't tried. Just seems like I can;t buy a friend. My attempts at charity work and the like have sort of been curbed by people recognizing me and demanding I be let go. Was asked to leave the Freemasons on account of the rumors flying around about me, so that was more than slightly shitty.

Last month I tried to resuscitate a guy who had been dead for a couple days in the summer heat. I can't get the taste or smell of him out of my system.

My neighbor killed herself a few weeks ago. Her fiance moved out. All the blocks around me are vacant now. It's silent all the time. Even the crickets think this place is too ****ed up to be around.

Family are on the other side of the country for the forseeable future. I wish I'd told them something was up. Stupid, stupid me.

It's weird...The one person who said they loved me and would help me all the way through this hasn't acknowledged my existence in six months. The very last word out of her mouth were "I love you. No matter what happens I'm going to be by your side and we're going to get through this together. See you tomorrow." She ****ed some backpacker type the next day and hitched up with him. Somehow I went from The One to not existing in the space of a day. Not even answering texts... Probably not worth wasting time or thoughts or energy thinking about it. Closure would be nice. Something would be nice. Stupid reptilian brain thinks feigning a suicide attempt via text might provoke a response. Stupid reptilian brain is a jackass.

Got scars crisscrossing my face now. Lost a lot of dexterity from the fights. I've lost 13kg in 6 months. Now 61kg and 6'5 tall. People wince wherever I go.

Most days drinking myself into oblivion seems like a good alternative. Somehow I've managed to stay the course. Straight edge for life. Even when it makes no goddamn sense

Had a breakdown in class. Uni recommended I don't come back for a while. I agreed with their recommendation.

I don't even know how to spend the day after I finish work. Too distracted to read, brain too muddled to write, too nimb to listen to music, hands too broken to write or draw or paint. I can still do pushups. So I do.

Somehow I ****ed up. Everything I did led me here. And it's weird. I'm not suicidal. Not depressed. Just kinda lonely and sad that all the trust I put in the people I loved and cared about was completely betrayed. I wonder sometimes if anyone still thinks about me. My parents do. They love me.And I was too proud to tell them about all this when it could have made a difference. And now they're in all embroiled in a legal battle and my little sister's sick and I really can't do anything about anything.

I;m sorry. Its late and I'm frustrated and I know all this will pass at some stage. I just really want it to pass soon so I can go be normal again. goodnight you crazy, beautiful things. if ever I post again it'll be good news. i hope.

 

[Capt Quark]

I just joined yesterday. I am a refugee from planethalflife.com and planetfortress.com I was a long time poster and made friends there. Now that they shut down a while back, I actually feel like I lost a part of me (sorry for getting sentimental) .

I see I'm a bit late in joining this board, but it sure as hell is better than Facebook! I'll be checking in often so everyone stick around!

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

This isn't a cry for help or anything. And it's not April fools. It's late and I can't sleep and it's been a while since I've been able to honestly talk about everything and I don't see a shrink for another month and this place is far enough out of the way that I nobody who knows me is suddenly going to appear and start harassing me.

So things didn't turn out quite the way I planned...

More than a couple nervous breakdowns in public.

More than a couple violent beatdowns in public.

It's been a rough few months. Haven't been out socially for ten or so months and it's starting to get to me. And it;s not like I haven't tried. Just seems like I can;t buy a friend. My attempts at charity work and the like have sort of been curbed by people recognizing me and demanding I be let go. Was asked to leave the Freemasons on account of the rumors flying around about me, so that was more than slightly shitty.

Last month I tried to resuscitate a guy who had been dead for a couple days in the summer heat. I can't get the taste or smell of him out of my system.

My neighbor killed herself a few weeks ago. Her fiance moved out. All the blocks around me are vacant now. It's silent all the time. Even the crickets think this place is too ****ed up to be around.

Family are on the other side of the country for the forseeable future. I wish I'd told them something was up. Stupid, stupid me.

It's weird...The one person who said they loved me and would help me all the way through this hasn't acknowledged my existence in six months. The very last word out of her mouth were "I love you. No matter what happens I'm going to be by your side and we're going to get through this together. See you tomorrow." She ****ed some backpacker type the next day and hitched up with him. Somehow I went from The One to not existing in the space of a day. Not even answering texts... Probably not worth wasting time or thoughts or energy thinking about it. Closure would be nice. Something would be nice. Stupid reptilian brain thinks feigning a suicide attempt via text might provoke a response. Stupid reptilian brain is a jackass.

Got scars crisscrossing my face now. Lost a lot of dexterity from the fights. I've lost 13kg in 6 months. Now 61kg and 6'5 tall. People wince wherever I go.

Most days drinking myself into oblivion seems like a good alternative. Somehow I've managed to stay the course. Straight edge for life. Even when it makes no goddamn sense

Had a breakdown in class. Uni recommended I don't come back for a while. I agreed with their recommendation.

I don't even know how to spend the day after I finish work. Too distracted to read, brain too muddled to write, too nimb to listen to music, hands too broken to write or draw or paint. I can still do pushups. So I do.

Somehow I ****ed up. Everything I did led me here. And it's weird. I'm not suicidal. Not depressed. Just kinda lonely and sad that all the trust I put in the people I loved and cared about was completely betrayed. I wonder sometimes if anyone still thinks about me. My parents do. They love me.And I was too proud to tell them about all this when it could have made a difference. And now they're in all embroiled in a legal battle and my little sister's sick and I really can't do anything about anything.

I;m sorry. Its late and I'm frustrated and I know all this will pass at some stage. I just really want it to pass soon so I can go be normal again. goodnight you crazy, beautiful things. if ever I post again it'll be good news. i hope.

Keep chugging man.

 

[ríomhaire]

I'm doing pretty well right now. Working. Busy.

 

[ktimekiller]

I graduated about 2 months ago, still looking for jobs... At least I have a few interviews in process

 

[Eejit]

My wife and I had another wedding, this one in Sri Lanka.

This was when we headed off to AC/DCs Highway To Hell.

Spoiler

 

[Azner]

hello everyone!

well i got conscripted into the army about a year and six months ago. I guess it feels like time has stopped a bit since I get out only on the weekends. I cant keep track of the the changes in people's lives around me (rather I haven't not that I am unable to). Can't wait to end service though im actually having a rather enjoyable time.

 

[Resonance_Gamer]

About to head back to school for 4 weeks, then have end-of-year exams for a week or two, then school holidays until February next year.

 

[Lolcomputer]

Hai. I do creative stuff, such as music making and game design.

 

[ktimekiller]

I found a job guys, i dont feel worthless anymore

 

[Lolcomputer]

I found a job guys, i dont feel worthless anymore

What kind of job?

 

[ktimekiller]

sales at google

 

[YROC]

Probation+drug/alcohol classes as of the last 6-7 months. Taken up outdoor activites such as frisbee. Still working the same minimum wage job. Things aren't so bad, I guess.