eBay totally screwed me over today. I just HATE bid sniping and bid wars. There was something that I really wanted, the price wasn't really cheap and the actual value wasn't probably about 8 time spent as much. There's was 90 minutes left and the last bid wasn't places 24 hours before then so it seemed safe.


NOPE. It was never meant to be. Price had to skyrocket, Moreno than triple just in the final 3 minutes leaving it impossible to get. eBay auctions in general just suck so much.

Recently, probably out of boredom, I returned yet again to play some old card games. They're not the funniest thing around, but the nostalgia of starting over and the fact they do entertain me a while have glued me again.

One of those games was filled with ads, some of which covered the whole screen as the game still played, probably one of the reasons why I left it to rot. Now, however, all ads are gone, which could hint at the passing of time erasing its web from existence and thus not drawing any adds to the game. Whatever the reason, now all the time I spend in it it's playing time, so it's a lot more enjoyable.

I really have a weak spot for nostalgia. But well, most of us wouldn't be here if it wasn't for our nostalgia for retro games, right?

What did you just do?

Today I had hopes I could see my medication being reduced, which would have set the grounds for a positive thinking towards Saturday's exam and the one next week, and also in the job search I plan to do when both exams are over. But my hopes were literally destroyed.

I did get a reduction in medication, but not the one I expected. Until May, I'll still be burnt down one day a week and take out of my calendar another day every 6 weeks. I expected it could be 8 weeks instead, but looks like I'm not that healthy yet and so we're keeping this up for a while.

This got me thinking, and I think the time has come to make sacrifices: no more nights out. My friends will say that, if I make such sacrifice, I won't be living to my fullest. But they don't understand what I'm going through. My medication will stay with me forever, and I need to choose now which medication I'll take. That's why I have to fight for the chance of getting a lighter medication that doesn't burn up days of my life simply to get me going like I'm healthy.

I'll use this gap to seclude myself and get a job so I can test a solid routine. If I see I can handle it, I'll begin moving towards convincing my doctor of trying a lighter medication. Now I have some "spare weight" I can lose if the medication is not enough, so we're always in time of detecting symptoms and going back to more powerful treatments.

A part of me thinks I'm being egotistical, but I know I'm not. I'm aiming to feel fine so nobody is troubled by my well being. If I can meet my friends or family with a true smile because things go great, I'll make any sacrifice needed. I want to live life to its fullest, and while I can go on a night out there are other things I can't do but a lighter medication would allow me to.

Oh, and "resurrecting" this thread because we need places to let some things out. I just hope I have nothing else to let out until February.

I am Lexatom, and I do not follow the rules of this thread

Oh well, I hope no one takes this too seriously, and decides to report Lexatom in the TDV for it.

Welp, my whole career is kind of screwed up now thanks to how busy I have been over the past few weeks. I did one article for the news place that I work for a few days before Christmas and then it went all down hill.

For the first two weeks, it was only because I couldn't get on my laptop. With both of the schools that I use closed for Christmas break, it was impossible to write anything up during that time. Then once I was able to get back on, I guess it was just too long and now I just don't seem to have any motivation to do my articles anymore. I even go through the troubles of looking up possible topics and I just couldn't bring myself to write them, even though I've been writing up a storm everywhere else.

I really hope that I can get things back on track and that I can still keep moving forwards with this.

In recent news and this is going to be exaggerated (since I feel like venting for once) I'm realizing more and more that taking French isn't just hard on its own (as 95% of the reason I'm doing so is just for the extra credit and I'm already behind compared to the others in my class) but it's made even harder by my teacher who expects everyone to aim high perhaps naturally since everyone does except me and she can be ruthless when you try to take shortcuts. This isn't something I just realized but I don't think I realized the full impact it's having on why I'm starting to dread the subject. It causes me to not just dread French more and want to get away from it but also impact my interest in studying other subjects as well. I end up thinking about how I should and probably could be doing better in French if I put more effort into it and thus it leads to me in stead just doing nothing. I procrastinate in other subjects but can't bring myself to work on French outside of when I'm forced to.

The light at the end of the tunnel is the fact that it's the last term I need to take assuming I pass (which I'm fairly certain I will) and then I can forget all about it and focus on subjects that I actually have some interest in. I'm regretting not choosing Spanish all those years ago since the Spanish teacher at my school is like the direct opposite of the French teacher. Being extremely lax and even letting the students watch things like Toy Story in Spanish in stead of actually having to do reading during class or skip it entirely at times. It would be perfect for someone like me who just want to pass the class and nothing else. In general it feels like a huge load will be taken off my  shoulder once I finally finish it. I've noticed that it seems to be a trend in general that French teachers (whether they're native speakers or not) seem to be more strict than Spanish teachers, at least in the city I live in. It's to the point where my French group is going on a trip to Nice and I've voluntarily elected not go simply because I'm pretty sure it will end up ruining enjoyment, especially since I would likely end up being mostly dependant on my teacher for doing just about anything. Having a whole week without having to think about French on the other hand seems a lot more appealing

I think it's time for me to move on. I was going to make a thread about this but nah, I'll just leave it here for whoever finds it. To anyone that I have ever hurt in some way, I'm sorry. Prior to July 2016, I didn't have full control of my actions. Now I actually realize what I'm doing and how the decisions I'm making affect me and those around me. I've dwelled on a lot of things that has happened in the past, especially in recent years.

If anyone here is undergoing something like I have experienced or can relate to some situations, just know that you'll get through it. You're going to achieve your goals. You'll show the fool who tossed you aside and you're going to be somebody. You will show them all.

This probably sounds cheesy as crap.

I'm going to make a post in this thread, to make a message to people. It's not to anyone in specific, and it's not a reply to anyone in this thread, so it follows that rule. Additionally, it is not my second post in this thread this month, so it's fine there too.

Recently, my thread has gotten someone punished, and I guess it falls upon me, to try and explain something of the rules of this thread (and by extension, of Innocent Town) so that the rules are taken less seriously in this forum, and so that we can more adequately have a proper discussion in the spirit of Innocent Town.

First, I need to explain to you all, what Innocent Town even is. I felt like I would never have to do this again, since it feels like I've made three or four posts about it, in history, but here it goes again. This place is basically a joke forum, for you all to be relaxed, and have fun. Normal Vizzed rules apply, as you'd expect. No porn, no blatant spam, no flaming (we allow a little joshing, but nothing major). Basically, don't do anything that'd get you perma banned, and you will be fine here. I've made like two reports, in the history of this forum, about users I wanted punished for breaking the rules in this forum. Those users were ones who were disrupting games and making it more difficult for people to enjoy those games, and the Innocent Town experience.

Now, how does this all apply to that mess above? Well, to get there, I also need to explain, briefly, yet again, what the rules for this forum truly are.

To avoid copy pasting an entire FAQ, verbatim, I'm going to just snip a link here. It's a link to the IT FAQ, answered by myself and pacman1755. It's a good read that I recommend, but I'm only going to tackle the issue of "spam" and what I consider to constitute a violation of our rules, and the rules of Vizzed as an extension.

Here is the most pertinent information.

-----

Q1: What goes on with this forum?

Answer: Anything, really. There's no official theme or setting to this forum, it's pretty random from Mafia to osu!, to the Generic Adventure Series. Almost anything goes, but nothing stupid.

Leggy Note - But don't spam or anything, because I hate spam and you WILL be reported. I swear it. Golden rule: Be funny. Not stupid.

Q2: Are there any requirements to post here?

Answer: There are no set requirements besides Vizzed's main rules...

-----

If you have any reading comprehension, essentially, what I'm saying is, follow Vizzed's rules, and don't be an idiot (which isn't one of Vizzed's rules unfortunately). Note that in the "Leggy Note" for question 1, I say "don't spam or anything". This opens up the central question of what is "spam", since spam is the most open to interpretation subject on this site, in my opinion.

I'm not going to name names, but in the current TDV, you can probably name a few well-known posters, who may not post the highest-quality of posts, and get labeled as "spammers", for better or worse. I'm not here to defend or attack those people, but I think it bears observing the differences between them and a certain user who was recently DQ'd for posting in this thread twice (supposedly, I've yet to see any real confirmation? Maybe I'm just blinded by rage) in a month (basically broke both the key rules to this thread).

Now, this user, while not the highest quality poster (and arguably, in the same group of quality as the people who get labeled as "spammers" by others, but are not DQ'd), almost certainly did not do these actions out of intent, or any malice. It was a simple misunderstanding, from my point of view. The first time they posted in this thread was the other day, as a response to someone else. I think at this point, it's worth pointing out again, what the two central rules to this thread are.

1. You can post in this thread once per Calendar month.
2. You cannot reply to anyone in this thread.

With his first post, he broke rule #2.

While I was disappointed, I had a good laugh about it, and explained rule #2 to him, thinking this would be the end of the mix-up. After all, this thread is called "The Dump - A Leggy Experiment". And I think it being called that is apt, because you visit the Dump once a month, or at least I used to, and you leave whatever doesn't really matter to you. In a way, I left behind rules that didn't matter, with my first post, because I wanted to see, first of all, if it was possible to keep people following the rules in such a unique thread. To my knowledge this is the only thread of its kind in existence. A thread that manages to be off-topic on EVERY SINGLE post, and one that has no choice to be off-topic, since I refuse to allow anyone the ability to respond to anyone else.

The idea behind this thread, is to get people to interact in a meaningful way, without allowing them to interact in the way they are conventionally used to on a forum. I'm forcing people to seek out the posts that interest them, and to chat with these people, one on one, about their lives, to focus themselves on interacting in a way that doesn't boost post count, words, or anything superficial. Too often, a post on these boards can feel like it's just a post for the sake of making a post, and the numbers behind it.

What I'm saying is, it almost doesn't feel like anybody cares what anyone has to say, it's just people boosting their numbers up, without regard for the people on the other side of the screen, and this bothers me.

So the experiment set out, to get people to interact in a way that would require them to talk one on one, to get a full story. Obviously, when I made this thread, I also made it clear, you can make it as long or short as possible, provided it's just once a month.

I did this for two reasons.

1. I believe it's important to allow people to say what they have to say, with no limitations or restrictions, even if my goal is to eliminate people making posts for the sake of making posts.

2. I wanted the one a month restriction to stop people from coming in here and blatantly cheating in the pursuit of the Tour de Vizzed.

Now, this might seem a bit confusing, but if you've been following me, you realize these three things.

1. The rule about no replying to others exists to force people to communicate with others outside of this thread, in the hopes that our interpersonal skills improve, and our friendships grow on a more personal level.

2. The rule about one post a month is to prevent you from blatantly cheating in the TDV.

3. I'm irritated that someone was DQ'd for breaking the two rules in this thread.

So why am I irritated? Logically, you would think, "well they broke the rules", and wave it off as me just being upset that someone was being punished, because it wasn't the person I wanted punished, which would just be hypocritical.

I am irritated, because neither rule, seemingly was broken intentionally, or with a clear desire to break the rules I had set out. His first post, a reply to another user, was literally nothing. It's a rule, one I wish you would adhere to, but it's the flimsier of the two rules, and the one I'm more likely to turn a blind eye too. In either case, he broke the rule, and I explained that the rule existed for a reason (but did not tell them the reason for it, because I wanted my experiment to remain secret a little while longer).

The second post is the one that I believe to be the bigger offense, and the most contentious, at least on paper, without considering the content of the post, or his intent.

Reading his post (it's the one above this one), it's clear that they had some sort of revelation about themselves, which is one of the reasons this thread exists at all. This thread is meant to help you get things off your chest, without neccesarily expecting a reply, but I can imagine, he would appreciate someone taking the time out of their day to talk to him, in private. In a way, he embraced this thread in a way that no one else quite has. He seemed to understand my intent, without me having to spell it out. Some others have done something similar to this, as it's become almost a bit of a vent thread. In either case, given the content of the post, I let it stay, without editing it out for breaking the rules, because in my opinion, he never broke the two post rule.

His first post was edited out, had it been possible, I would have just outright deleted the post. I consider it non-existent, because it broke the rules (but not in a way that made it clear he was making it to break the rules. If someone comes in here, makes fives posts, all 1000 words long, and I edit those five posts out, they will have broken my rules very clearly and concisely, with the intent to do harm to this thread.

Thus, to me, his second post is really his first post, because his second post is his own words, out in the open, without breaking any rules on its own. It's a deep and meaningful post, one that deserves to be shared.

That aside, I understand a punishment has to be handed out, for breaking a rule, but this is where I have to point out a few things.

1. The user did not actually break any rules, by my definition of the rules.

2. The user did not break any of Vizzed's rules. At best, you can argue they were spamming, intentionally, for the TDV. But compared to what others get away with, this is kind of ticky-tack, cheap, and doesn't represent what the TDV is about (or IT for that matter).

3. You cannot punish a user for not breaking site rules, the only grounds you can have for punishing a user for a post in this thread, if it doesn't break any site rules, is the rules in the OP of this thread.

4. While IT is a part of Vizzed, and falls under Vizzed jurisdiction, rented forums rules are subject to the whims of the owner of the forum, within reason. I cannot, for example, blatantly break a site rule (like posting porn) and handwave it because I am the owner of this forum, but I do think it is within my rights to determine whether a user has spammed in my forum, and report them appropriately.

5. Ergo, I do not believe my own rights as a forum owner were taken seriously, nor do I believe that this someone punished has been treated fairly by the system, for what I would call a ticky-tack foul (I'm not even sure it deserves a warning, but that's another discussion for another day).

-----

To summarize what I've been saying, I'll bullet point it for us all.

1. Innocent Town is a very relaxed forum. We take rules very lightly here for the most part, provided you aren't breaking site rules. I feel this is reflected in the FAQ, where the only offense I have high on my list is spam, which I believe to be an "intent to post repeatedly, with the express purpose of posting for the sake of posting, adding nothing of content, and being disruptive".

2. By these rules, I do not believe the user in question to have spammed, by Vizzed's rules, in accordance to the wishes of this thread.

3. I do not consider accidents worth dwelling on, but I do consider an intentional act with full knowledge of what you are doing to be worth dwelling on.

4. I feel as if my rights as a forum owner were taken from me, as I believe it would be within my jurisdiction to appropriately report spam from my unique thread, that I guess should now come with the disclaimer "uber serious business", because that's how we're treating it.

5. I feel as if a user was incorrectly DQ'd, at least given my limited knowledge of the circumstances. It's plausible this user spammed elsewhere, but within the context of Innocent Town, a name I saw mentioned in conjunction with the DQ, this is a fallacy.

6. I'm irritated that I have to make this post to explain that Innocent Town is not to be taken so seriously, and disappointed that it's come to me having to make a huge post to justify what should be a very easy defense. But that's where we're at.

7. Instead of going on goose chases for harmless people, we should be going after the true problem, sandwichers and outright spammers. Both of which exist and go unpunished each day.

That's really all I have to say for the night. I'm miserable. And this post is upsetting, but needed to exist.

I'll see you all in February.

This year may very well become known as "The Year of the Falcon"
I feel like I probably could've made a separate thread about this since I would gladly welcome any replies... oh well, on with the show.

Yes it's true, the Atlanta Falcons are heading to their 2nd Super Bowl ( since 1998 ). As a former season ticket holder ( 2004-2012, if I'm not mistaken ), this is a somewhat surreal moment for me. And I think, subconsciously, I regret not getting season tickets this year just based on the fact that it is the last season for the Georgia Dome, as they finish building the new one for next year. But the 2012 season was a tough loss for them and I didn't think they would ever recover. I figured they'd go through another 10-year "Vick phase" before gaining any progress, but I have to say these Rookies have stepped up their game. Not only the players, but the coaches as well. The switch from Mike Smith to Dan Quinn seems promising, since he was able to get the Falcons to the Super Bowl in just 2 years. Not bad, right? But over the next couple of weeks, these fine players will prepare physically and mentally as they face off against the best team in the AFC, and against possibly the greatest ( no, he IS the greatest ) QB of all-time, Tom Brady. All speculations and accusations aside, this dude ( and company ) is unlike any other team they have faced this year.

This is it gentlemen. After so many years of doubt and disgrace, the time to prove yourselves is now. The time to once-and-for-all show all the haters, critics, and doubtful that The Falcons are an elite team. And what better challenge than to face the pretty boy himself, Tom Brady ( along with company ). This will become your "Remember That Game" moment that no one will ever forget and as long as you stay confident and work together as a team, your goal will become clear. The ultimate challenge awaits on Sunday, February 5th. "For the love of God," don't screw this up!

No Excuses.
No Mercy.
Rise Up!

Fun fact: Did you know research papers are the #1 motivation to do everything else?

(Content hidden from non-administrators!)

  It has been a while since I took a dump on this thread. I know I had one in the inaugural month and maybe one the following year but I don't really remember last year very clearly and I am not curious enough to wade back there. I just want to end the constipation and let it all out.

Make it rain. Cloudy with a chance of chocolate chunks.

 Here we go...

 Being Tall


 

Pro	Con
You can reach the high shelf.	You are expected to reach the high shelf for other people. This may put you in demand but it also means those who ask that of you are using you as a cat’s paw. If you happen to be the tallest at work, this expectation often comes saddled with little or no appreciation. There is currently no “appreciate the taller people at work day.” It becomes a drudgery.
You have greater potential for strength development. People expect you to be stronger than you are and possibly admire your fabled strength. This makes sense because longer arms will inevitably be able to hold more muscle mass and do just that even if your arms are just as skinny as a shorter friend’s you ought to be stronger [extra mass] or at least have more leverage.	People expect more strength and stamina out of you. If you were the tallest person at a physically demanding job [I was] then an insensitive boss would stack an unreasonably disproportionate amount of labour on you. All heavy lifting would fall solely on your shoulders. You can handle it all. You are tall after all. It’s justified. You are also on call if a friend needs to move heavy furniture.
You are less likely to be randomly picked on by dudes who are jerks. Tallness makes anyone shorter a wee bit wary.	If you have ever heard of “short man’s syndrome”, you know quite well the shorter than average guys have something to prove. Watch out for them. They tend towards volatile.

You are less likely to be accosted by those wishing you harm. A looming presence makes it easier to ward off the cowards who prey on those weaker. They will not perceive you as weaker individually.	In situations you are obliged to attend [like school], the social environs are important. A towering guy won’t naturally make friends with anyone disconcerted by his abrupt height. This rules out plenty of potential friends who may have otherwise liked you but gasp inwardly every time you stand up.  I always say the best defence against bullies is being very friendly and gathering allies who will jump in if they see you being harassed. Greet everyone with a smile because a solitary hunter never picks a fight with a wolf pack. One wolf he can track and kill easily.  Being taller has great potential to interfere with making friends. This can make some tall persons into easy targets.
You have an odds on advantage at most competitive sports [exceptions, many of them tending more towards leisure activities: golf, curling, snowshoeing, skiing, snowboarding, floor and box hockey, bowling, lawn bowling, croquet, equestrian, ping pong, gymnastics, et cetera].  I have had occasion to enjoy playing basketball immensely when properly encouraged to. I like it much more now that I am taller than 165 centimetres.	You always hear “you play basketball?” This starts many a boring conversation. The person who asked typically has nothing else to say and that is why they cast about for the obvious. After you give your explanation [better to keep it brief], that shat of a chat is usually ended promptly and you are done with the obtuse clod.
When a tall man conducts himself properly, women feel safer in his presence. He is perceived to provide a higher level of protection, even if his true motivations are merely self-preservation and avoidance.	Unless you have specialized training, you will not be light on your feet. People who are naturals at learning to dance tend to be of medium [or just below medium] height and weight.
A tall man peering from above a woman’s shoulder even a step behind her, can discreetly [ not on tip-toes ] see her ta-tas through the blouse she left wide open [ on purpose, it is a fact, accept it ] .	When a taller man has to look lower to see the “global phenomena” than does a shorter man, it becomes more obvious when the owner of these boulders is facing him. Oops! Deny is always the better policy when called out for it. If you are too honest to lie, don’t look at all.
People make natural assumptions that you are more competent than a shorter person. This positive reaction gives you a slight edge over job seekers with similar skills, education and level of experience.	A hiring manager will assume you need less training when you start and you may not become as competent as you could if you don’t make extra communication that you need more and still feel untrained.

This competency assumption also extends to the bedroom. You have a higher likelihood of getting your pick of partners when you outmatch most of them in height. They will think that you are naturally better and perhaps continue that vein of thought even if you only partially disprove it.	International women polls agree at a height threshold of 2.1 metres, male performance tends towards lacklustre /boring in magnitude the taller men are from that point above. These giants narrowly beat out midgets, then dwarves and finally men standing under 160 centimetres for dullest partner experience. Expectation and assumption of good does not add up to being exceptionally good.  [Stats ref. from Ipsos International]
Your appetite has an extra edge when you are bigger. You will not disappoint when invited to dig in and enjoy a meal at a peer gathering.	It takes extra energy reserves just to do stuff everyone does just to keep your body maintained. So few people understand this. My ma still criticizes me for eating more. Maybe all that extra food is going to waste because I am still skinny or maybe I am just tall. No understanding. People with tiny appetites never relate. Imagine having a mother raise you trying to make your food portions just like hers. Very critical. When I speak of an issue on this scale of importance or above, she forgets she even has ears and usually leaves the room.

 
 That is my piece on tallness. See you all next month... unless I can't find you or I forget.

 
 P3
 

So pretty much I'm going to use this to vent a little, and if that's not allowed it's fine you can, as the kids say, "delet dis"

So pretty much I've had problems with my body my entire time. Before I get into that, a little backstory.
I used to be pretty overweight. Not extremely obese, but I was around 5'4 and closing the 100 kilogram mark during middle school. I honestly cannot recall a time I was ever skinny. Even now I'm not that particularly skinny, even after losing around 30+ kg of weight and getting taller. That really hurt my self esteem, even if at the time I didn't notice it. I'm not really sure how I lost that weight, either. But pretty much I have become and am obsessed with having a good body, or a really skinny body. I admit it, I probably have an eating disorder. I don't and can't have a good eating schedule. I either binge every day for months, or go weeks without eating. Obvious to say, my weight changes a lot. I haven't passed the 150 pounds for a while, but even still it changes quite a bit. I don't really know how to fix it, and it bothers me that since I'm a guy people don't really think I can have an eating disorder, or be self conscious about my weight and body. It's actually having a huge impact on my life and kind of controls it, to be fair, and it feels no matter how my body looks, I can't look at myself as anything but fat and completely disgusting.
Another thing that might add fuel to that obsession is the fact I have never attracted anyone. As in, I have never had anyone like me. It might sound like hyperbole, but I assure you it's not. I've heard everything, too. "You'll find that someone eventually.", "You just have to let it happen.", etc. I don't actively look for a relationship, but it still hurts not having anyone like you, especially since I'm nearing my 18th birthday. It's taken a toll on my self esteem, and made my views on my body and myself even worse. Especially since society has ingrained the idea that a guy who has never had a girlfriend is a complete and utter loser, creepy, or both. I know, "just ignore it", but it's hard to do when that has been the culture you grew up in, and live in right now.
I have always admired anyone who was skinny, and have this dumb idea that anorexic people are how I should look. I know it's not healthy, hell I know everything I do is unhealthy, but the thought still lingers all the time, and it makes me sad every moment I have fat on my body. I'm probably not as fat as I think I am, but I always want to be more, or rather less. I want less fat. I want to look what other people think off as "sickly skinny". And it's a terrible idea to have. And yet, as much as I long for that, there are months where I do nothing but eat. I can't find a middle ground, either in my weight or in the way I eat, and it always goes into those two extremes, whilst my goal in itself is a big extremity.

I sat here thinking of several things that i could type about for my monthly post but then realised all i was thinking about is nothingness, a dark void of apathy. 

All right, here we go.

I don't know if I have the ability to get close to people.

I experienced a rather traumatic relationship in my sophomore year of high school. It was terrible and I hated myself for about half of the six month duration of the relationship. I fear that it has left me unable to become close to ANYONE (whether its as a friend or significant other.)

Let me explain.

First, without diving into that, I've noticed that the people that are my best friends aren't people I'm insanely close to. I did not hang out with them much but we still regarded each other as best friends and what not, and that was that. I'm introverted, obviously, but I can count on my hand the amount of times I hung out with people that were not the sophomore significant other.

After that relationship, I've had two instances where I've tried to become close to people, and both have failed. Miserably.

The first one was my senior year of high school. This girl and I knew each other (she was a junior in a senior math class and we had the same class last year) so we started talking a lot. Really quickly we became very close friends. She would do things with me that she wouldn't do with other guys, but we weren't going to date because we didn't feel that way about each other. When she did get a boyfriend, she started to shut me out. It felt awful. I let her know that eventually and she said that she was sorry and that she still wanted to be close with me, and we went back to that for about a couple weeks, then she started shutting me out again. This cycle occurred a couple times and then I got fed up so I let her bluntly and everything just started falling apart. We made a few attempts to fix it, but neither I or her really wanted to I think.

The second one was my freshman year of college (which is still ongoing, by the way.) I got this group of 3 friends (the 4 of us were 2 guys and 2 girls) that I became really close to. We even made living arrangements for next year to be with each other in an apartment. However, I've always felt a little left out whenever the 4 of us hung out, even though I would try to not be. When I finally started to talk about it, they started ghosting me without ghosting me. They said they just wanted me to be ok (it was making me sad) but I felt like I needed to talk to them but they wouldn't talk to me so I'd get sad (do you see the cycle?) so I ended up going to a psychiatrist. After talking to the psychiatrist and having the cycle continue to an even bigger degree, I finally lost it. It reminded me of the situation described in the above paragraph and I let my roommate (who replaced my spot in that group of 4 basically, and I knew it even though they said it wasn't true) know about it. He and my friend had promised to talk to me but decided that it wasn't important enough. So I yelled. A lot. And I haven't talked to any of them since. I've moved out of my room and have a single room elsewhere now, and I don't have to deal with that (since the time I've moved out, my weight has gone from 140 to 150+, which is good since I have always been way too skinny and since I felt like crap all of the time I couldn't eat much.)

So both times I have tried to be really close to people I've failed. I don't think it is their fault, because if it was why would it happen to me twice.

Thus, I've come to the conclusion I can't become close to people.

It's such a paradox that my skills at playing certain games get better the more I put said game down rather than practicing.

I just started playing again a game I put down several months ago because I felt done with it. Out of boredom and needing something to distract me those minutes I'm always away from my computer past midnight, I suddenly got incredibly better. Not only was I able to beat the levels I once found absurdly hard, I keep progressing through the game and getting better scores than in my last run.

Back in the day maybe I had overburnt myself with all the levels I had completed, which could explain why now I'm performing much better: because I've replenished my energy. It could also be that I had other things to check back then, but now I don't see myself playing anything else than that game.

Whatever the reason, it's still a paradox. I feel equally motivated as the last time, yet my skills have improved even when going back a couple generations in gaming for months. If I ever understand this, I'd surely get the Nobel prize

The Vent
Well, well. It's about time that I made another post in this thread. But not just any ordinary post. This is a Vent. Now, for those of you who don't know the type of "vent" I'm talking about, this is a release of some strong emotions that I've kept inside ( possibly for years ) about all kinds of things. These things can vary between current events, controversial subjects, and even from posts that I've seen on this site. Some of these emotions I've actually expressed in a post, but most of them I've just been keeping inside because I'm not the kind of person who wants to start anything and I hate dealing with the drama. But, the kicker that gets it started is usually a topic that I see on Vizzed. So... I'll start with my routine...

Normally, I will browse through the recent threads/posts for the day and look for topics that interest me ( as many other people do on this site). Some days I'll find one and some days I won't, but I can say for sure that there is at least 1 topic a month, in which I'll actually take the time to read. Though, sometimes on the days where I don't find any topics of interest I'll go hunting in the archives ( if I have the time ) to see if I can find anything interesting at all and sometimes I do. Whatever the circumstance, I start by reading the original post and follow up with any replies that are made ( how primitive, right? ). Depending on the topic of the thread, there could be many or very few replies. So, let's say it is a controversial topic like religion, politics, sexual orientation, etc. Those types of topics will always draw a crowd and you could see several replies. Usually, I'm not the first one on the scene when it comes to these threads, but after reading the initial post I try to gather a response in my own opinion before I read the replies. Unfortunately, if there are many replies already, then my own response would have been mentioned in one post or basically summarized between a few. So, then I ask myself "What's the point?" and don't even bother replying. In some cases, I could make a reply because my response would differ from the others but I still can't help it to question the purpose. Everyone has their own opinions. Who am I to judge the opinions of others?

But then, I see this thread "The Dump" and figure that I could just post a summary of my retained responses to those threads ( along with some IRL situations ) here. Sure, they may be responses that I could have posted in the proper thread, but I just can't get over the fact that they have no purpose. But I have to vent because I can't just keep building up these emotions - It's not good for me. Kind of like how trash has no purpose in your house but you can't just let it sit there and build up, so what do you do with it? You send it to The Dump. It's Perfect! Now then, on with the Venting!

Grammar ( for those of you who are 18+ and live in the US )
Goodness gracious. This is a Huge problem on this site... or maybe I'm exaggerating a little... but I can't be. Review your work people! It doesn't take that long and it's easy to do. Of course, I'm not saying that every single post has to be perfect ( we are humans after all... well, most of us are ) but there are many posts that are just oblivious to the simplicity of proper grammar. I know, Microsoft Word costs money and I'm not saying you have to get it but if the education you learned from elementary to high school didn't help you out, then consider it an essential investment for the long run. It will significantly improve your skills for sure.

However, Word won't solve all of your problems. Even now ( as I type this post in Word ) it's telling me to replace "Grammar" with "Gramar." Seriouisly Word? I think it's just testing me because it knows I'm talking about proper grammar and it wants me to fail. Not gonna work Microsoft! But, you know what else is helpful that's actually free? The f**king Spell Check button you see before you make your post. Is it really that hard to do? Do you really not have enough time to check your work? Bulls**t! You're just too damn lazy - admit it.

The worst of this problem comes from the game reviews. Yeah, I get it. You want to make your post as long as possible in the quickest amount of time so you can get your f**king gay pride banner during the TdV and that’s fine. But the worst part about these reviews is that some of them get Featured! What?! How the hell can that be? In some cases, there’ll be another well written review that was made BEFORE this “featured” one and it won’t even have a rating yet. Unfortunately, this is due to the fact that their power-level isn’t as high, so they won’t get the respect and recognition they deserve. And I’ve also seen some good reviews but they add cyber-pragmatics like *shoves foot in mouth* as if they were talking in a chat room. Stop it! It is all very unnecessary. *sigh*

Though most of this comes from conversations I’ve seen on this site, I’ve also seen this IRL and with similar concepts. Most of the time, I notice mistakes in grammar during an actual face-to-face conversation with a person ( or over the phone as well I suppose ), in which they will use the wrong tense, pronoun, or whatever and I’ll actually correct it under my breath ( basically mumbling the correction ). Sometimes, I don’t mumble it but that’s usually when it comes to family/friends who know me and know how much of a “proper ass” I can be ( unless you really pissed me off, lol ). Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever corrected a complete stranger out loud before and if I did, then I’m totally NOT sorry because you probably deserved it anyway.

Vizzed.com Replies
It’s incredible to see so many people criticizing game reviews on this site when they haven’t made one themselves. Not saying you’ve never made a review in your life, but maybe you could send me a link to a review that you think is good instead of just saying “you need to go into more detail” and that’s all. That’s a pretty generic response that basically anybody could say about anything.
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Paradox! How am I expected to understand something that was never meant for me to understand? You can’t have it both ways. Humor me for a moment; you say that God created everything including humans. So, this would mean that God himself couldn’t be human since he is the one who created us and that he is a different being overall ( whatever he may be ). Then, you say God gave us freewill, but the concept of freewill doesn’t apply to God himself because he is the almighty and so forth. Now, this would mean that we ( as humans ) couldn’t possibly understand or believe anything God told us because of the fact that God gave us freewill. If he could ( or did ) talk to us, we wouldn’t have known it because freewill gives us independence, which means we hear, see, believe, act upon whatever we choose. God’s actual word would be like a foreign language to us as humans, would it not? It’s like that old lady who said she heard God’s voice through static on her TV screen, but was that really God’s voice? Only to those who believe that a TV screen pitching ‘White Snow’ is our Lord and Savior. This is only one of many things that I don’t like about religion and it exhausts me every time I talk about it. Just contradiction after contradiction.
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Wow. That’s probably the worst rule they could’ve changed. Why the hell would they change that rule? If you want to walk a guy, then you have to earn it. It seems pretty childish to say “I don’t want to pitch to this guy.” You want to start adding rules MLB? Then do something about instant replay already. And you can’t use history as an excuse anymore because you just took out one of the most history-making rules in the book. Speed up gameplay? Are you kidding me? Baseball doesn’t take that long to play. It’s just so boring to watch because most of the time nothing interesting will happen until the playoffs come around. You want to speed up gameplay? How about you play 6 innings instead of 9? That will surely speed up gameplay by at least an hour a game instead of Maybe a few minutes.

Vent Concluded
Whew, I think that’s enough for today. Feels good to get some of this stuff off my chest. I wanted to make a few more posts but I think it’ll be alright if I wait until next time. At least now I won’t have a migraine to deal with, lol. To be honest, I kind of forgot most of the things I wanted to talk about. Hopefully, I won’t remember whatever it was until next month because I really don’t like carrying this stuff around. *sighs again* Laters…around. *sighs again* Laters…

Just returned home from a familiar holiday after crossing nearly the whole country. It's been overly tiring and it even got the best of me one day, but one thing's for sure: I'm done about travelling with my family.

There were so many wrong things in this trip I don't even know where to start: the places we visited, the hotel we stayed in, my family... Probably it's been the worst holiday since I'm healthy, and it would probably be in the top 3 of the worst of all time including the ones where I wasn't healthy. There were enjoyable moments as well, but over the course of five days the overall balance is highly negative.

The places we visited were horrible. In no place did they even bother about seating, allowing literally anyone to come in. Needless to say how bothersome can this be in a restaurant, to mention where I suffered the most. You couldn't even move because of the people already in and more were still coming, so what should normally take 10 minutes lasted +30 if you were lucky, though it normally lasted 15 minutes because you simply run out of patience. Most places were also abusive, you needed to pay for the slightest of things. A couple of places were actually good and interesting, but that just makes up one out of the five days I was out.

The hotel was creepy as hell. The rooms were like in the 1980s, with prominent cracks because time has passed since that decade. They weren't ready either, my room was missing the bed light and one of the switches was bare, without any kind of cover to activate them. The displacement was also horrible, the handwash was out of the toilet right besides the door, the toilet light was like two steps away from the toilet itself, the room lights didn't get to the closet which was in the farthest point from the door... Considering it should be a rather decent hotel for the category it has, in reality it wasn't worth of such category by far.

The family... Strap on your seatbelts, because this is the big one. My oldest cousin came with us as a "punishment" (not sure why this punishment, I can't believe any story from her mother anymore) and he's "trying" to overcome his addiction to alcohol. Why the quotation marks? It wasn't really a punishment because in a sense he wanted to come with us and he's not actually trying, he doesn't want to overcome it despite what her mother says or imposes him. Due to this, he always found a way to drink something when none of us was watching, and when he spent too much time without drinking he started to behave aggressively. It eventually got to the point he was almost slapped by all of us for being so disrespectful towards his family and for behaving so irresponsibly, but luckily it all ended in verbal assaults which he didn't even reply to because he's obviously scared of what can everyone do to him. However, most family members are so done with him so I only expect this to escalate until he ends up receiving a slap or the family splits because of him, something I wouldn't mind because it's almost split up already.

This last point, the family, was what got the best of me one day. If we accumulate a lack of sleep, not feeling alright, what I've ranted about the places above and more it was simply going to detonate sooner or later. I'm not as rude or disrespectful as my cousin, so it all ended up in a one-night argument that didn't carry on and everyone turned the page. I still made my mind for the following days to follow my heart and stay away from arguments, which turned out to be an amazing choice and could make the trip a bit softer than it actually was.

Anyway, I'm done with family trips unless I have a heavy reason to go, something I didn't have this time. It was just a trip to do what we should have done many years ago if another family member, already deceased, didn't make it another horrid experience for imposing a pace nobody could follow and even less liked. I didn't have many memories from back then either, so I had to go to see what I missed.

I'm also done with those places, most probably forever more because they're not going to change in the slightest. People will say I'm missing a lot, and I know I'm actually missing things, but a saying in Spain roughly translates to "it's better a wrong known rather than a good to be known" so I'm sticking to it regarding those places. I still can go to many other places, even if it means denying the good things my country can offer to focus on what other countries can show me.

I've never been so happy to return home after a trip. Not sure if it was because I couldn't get my laptop going, but I'm so happy that I'll actually do university homework with a smile on my face. Sucks to say that, but the truth isn't easy to digest most of the time.