@sockmonkey Ohh, I didn't think they'd take your advice. I was thinking more like... that, accompanied by a sickeningly sweet fake smile, might make it clear that you're completely sick of their shit while also allowing you to not be overtly mean or confrontational.
My advice: "Ohh, wow! That's really unfortunate. Have you guys considered moving to a quieter neighborhood given all the problems you've had with so many different people around here?"
So, I blame this stupid slot game on my phone. It's for fake money, not for real money, unfortunately. If it were for real money, I'd have $11 million in my bank account and would not be making $12,500 bets on slot rolls....
But anyway! The thing I love: I'm currently playing a super tacky pharaohs of Egypt style slot game. And whenever I win a fairly large jackpot, a woman's voice announces in gasping astonishment "That's a big one!"
I cannot stop laughing.
Aria - body of a 33 year old woman, sense of humor of a 7th grade boy.
I wear my button downs buttoned up to my boobs, and then just unbuttoned from there up. With a tank top underneath. 'Cause there ain't no way some froofy little button and a few strands of thread are keeping the beasts at bay. Like... no, just no. That's a good way to send a button flying across the room mid-meeting. With my luck, I'd put someone's eye out.
@miss-demeanor said in RL Anger:
@aria I would be happy if so-called 'office blouses' didn't have such lowcut necklines that I feel like I should climb a pole. Since when did 'business casual' mean 'conservative stripper'?!?!
Also, fuck all these different sleeve lengths with the crazy cuffs. Regular cuffs or french cuffs, otherwise fuck off with that shit. And don't even get me started on how if I want a blouse that will fit my chest, it apparently means I should also have goddamn monkey arms that stretch out three feet. Apparently I am not allowed to be busty without being crazy tall and long-limbed.
Ahahaha. I'm 5'3", overweight, and have 38DDDs. The clothes that fit me: exactly none. Even from places where I've sent in my measurements to order custom-fit clothes, their seamstresses are somehow like, "No, that can't be right! I'm going to adjust this. Preferably right in the boobs so every shirt ever is stretched awkwardly across her chest and makes weird bunchy lines near her armpits! This season's look: fat and trashy."
Nah, bitch. That's exactly right. I realize the entire fashion industry is designed to make women not want to look like me, but no matter how many billions of advertising you pump out, I'm still here. Please send me what I ordered and stop fucking around.
I have no idea where this "weird shit with all women's shirt-sleeves ever" trend came from, but it'd be really great if we could just, like..... not. Yeeeeeeeeeeah.
Look.
Look at this pie I just put in the oven. Look at it.
It's fucking adorable. 
@faceless Nope, sorry, you gotta explain this one to us now, bro. Or at least to me. Because I want to know all the things.
Tell meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. <pulls up the storytime rug and sits at Faceless' feet>
@surreality For me, it's literally her and Jason Schwartzman, who was the PB of the guy that stalked and harassed me and Mr. Aria for about four years. Fortunately, Jason Schwartzman tends to play assholes/villains in most of the movies I've seen him in, so my unreasonable frothing hatred of him doesn't really interfere too much.
@sockmonkey said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:
Does anyone have some really really reeeeeeally intro stuff about retirement planning? Not just the planning part but how to actually get the money into those funds? Do I..just go to the bank? Can I do it online? Aaaaaargh getting old noooooo.
I have some money I need to invest but I have no idea how to do this. I know that for my needs, I do not need to waste money on a financial advisor to manage my cash -- I should just park it somewhere. But financial matters seriously make my eyes cross and I have trouble even using the retirement calculator on Vanguard. My retirement plan at this point is to get dementia so I don't realize that I'm living in a dumpster.
Message me. Seriously. I work in one of several marketing and communications departments (yeah, legit, we have.... five? one for each of our business lines) at one of the largest investment firms in the US. (In the world, actually, as we have several trillion AUM.) And the most ethical one, IMO, specifically because of its weird ownership structure. And no, I don't say that because I work there. I took a paycut to work there, specifically because of how impressed I was by their treatment of average investors and the fact that they've quietly supported the fiduciary rule for yeeeeeeeeeeeears, kind of in the exact opposite manner of the fuckheads that caused the mortage meltdown. (If you don't know what that 'fiduciary rule' is, look that up. And if you're an American, be horrified that this isn't required by regulation or law. Seriously. Then call your 401K provider and be like, "The fuck?")
Now, I cannot legally give you financial advice, because I'm not FINRA licensed. In fact, I could very much be fired from my company for doing so because that's a great big fat no-no. And I do not want to be fired from my company because, like.... I enjoy eating and having a place to sleep and stuff. But I can probably walk you through the basics of what those funny words in your company's retirement plans are if you have one, or how to set up an IRA (that's Individual Retirement Account) for you if you don't.
And if it turns out you need an IRA, I'll give the Friends & Family hotline for my company if you want it. It's set up so that people who work at the company but aren't in a licensed role -- like me and pretty much my entire department -- can give it out to, well, friends and family who ask them for financial advice. (No, we do not receive any sort of commission for this. It's literally just to keep us in compliance, so we don't accidentally break the law by trying to help you. The only money I can make off my friends there is a referral bonus for people they hire.)
If you have a retirement plan through your employer, you're pretty much stuck with whatever your benefits team picked for you, unless you want to open an IRA on top of that.
@kanye-qwest said in Good or New Movies Review:
@ganymede Yeah that chick gives great face as a model but holy whoah can she not act.
She's one of those people that I primarily associate with a character played by shitty person who did shitty things to several of my friends over a period of years. I kind of want to smack her in the face every time I see her as a result. I know it's not rational, but there it is.
If she could act, I could likely dissociate the two, but given that she can't, her stand-out "role" for me is.... one she didn't even play.
@mietze said in Celebrities that are Dead To Us:
I will admit that the only celebrity that I actually cried on reading that they’d died was Fred Rogers. By all accounts he seemed like the real deal.
Mr. Rogers and Robin Williams, but the latter was both a blend of him being a beloved childhood figure (bangarang!), followed by being a "we listened to stand-up on all my college roadtrips" hero, and the fact that I was just barely starting to crawl out of one of the worst depressions of my life when he died. Depression does stupid things to your brain and somehow, mine convinced me that it was horribly unfair that someone like me was getting better, and someone like him who had made so many millions of people happy didn't, and that it should've been the other way around. I ugly-snot-cried every night when I got home for, like, a week solid after that.
Having since discovered some of the amazing things he did -- very quietly -- for people less fortunate than him has made me slightly less embarrassed about that one, because apparently Robin Williams was also a stupidly good person. (And if any of you have evidence to the contrary, please for the love of God just shut it and let me have this one, okay??)
The only reason that my boyfriend is alive right now is because there were still two pie crusts left at the grocery store.
@sockmonkey said in Good or New Movies Review:
@deadculture I agree. He has too much...face, if that makes any sense. I dunno. I am not using words well yet today.
...Yes. This makes perfect sense to me, because my immediate response was "Noooooooooo! Batman is not a sad puppy who is sad because he is not being hugged. 
:("
Which is just how Gyllenhaal's face looks to me. I mean, he's just fine as an actor, but the perpetually sad facial expression ain't Batman.
@sockmonkey said in Good or New Movies Review:
@deadculture Personally, I'm kinda burned out on superhero movies overall. If it doesn't have amazing reviews, I skip it and I feel personally betrayed when something is well-received and I end up disliking it anyway (I am looking at you, Deadpool and Spider-Man Homecoming)
I am praying that Disney doesn't do the same thing to Star Wars. I love Star Wars. It still fills me with wonder and glee. I hope this more-is-more business model of a movie every year doesn't eventually get me to Star Wars fatigue like I'm at with superheroes.
Pretty much this. We've skipped a fair few of the more recent superhero movies over the last... two years(?) or so because I just don't give a shit anymore. Unless I was looking forward to it for some particular reason (Wonder Woman, Thor: Ragnarok) or unless it receives such amazing reviews I'm willing to give it a go (Civil War, Deadpool), I'm just not interested anymore. Sorry.
I will probably go see Black Panther even though I'm not particularly familiar with the character or his comic book line for two reasons: I found the interviews where Chadwick Boseman is discussing his take on T'Challa's accent and the importance of it being not-British because Wakanda was never conquered by imperialist forces and that level of attention to detail fascinates me and because I want to fling my money at it to prove to Hollywood that yes, white people will go see blockbuster movies starring black actors who aren't Will Smith. Please cast them and pay them all the dollars, too, so I don't have to sit through another 'genius' and 'groundbreaking' movie/TV show written by some middle-aged white dude that's all a metaphor for him having spent his formative years desperately wanting the love of his distant father.
Ohh, and while I'm in here:
He's a piece of shit, no matter how much 90s teen you swooned over him in "My So-Called Life".
@ixokai As someone who's been assaulted, and spoke out when it happened, and basically got told "boys will be boys" and "but he's such a nice guy" by my own fucking father....
I have a pretty low 'burden of proof' expectation in any of these situations. Because I know from personal experience that it's almost impossible to prove and unless you have physical evidence, there's a high likelihood you won't be believed. (And even then....)
The only one that I'd like to be met in the case of very old stories and accusations against someone who is now in the public eye is pretty much "Did they mention this to someone -- anyone -- before it was in the newspapers?"
If the answer to that question is yes, then I tend to believe they're not doing it for money, fame, or revenge.
....Gary Oldman.
Gary Oldman was my favorite actor for a long, long time. The man is an underrated genius, who has never in his career voiced two characters the same way. To the point that between that and makeup? On more than one occasion, I've looked at his IMDB page and gone "Holy shit, that's him?!!?"
He is also apparently a crazy old racist. And not just any kind of crazy old racist. No, no. He's the kind of crazy old racist who assumes all white people are secretly just as racist as he is.
So then it was Fassbender. Who beats women. And Spacey. Who is a sexual predator -- a fact I'd heard about awhile ago because I have friends of friends who worked at the Old Vic under his tenure. He's had a quiet reputation, at least in the theater end of the industry, for years.
I swear to God, if anyone takes Patrick Stewart away from me, Aria gonna cut a bitch.
....I'm going to be honest here. I was one of the staffers on BSO who had to deal with the OP. In fact, I was the first person who reported his behavior to other staff and was promptly told by Dropkick that he was "just being friendly" and I shouldn't be taking it that way.
He continued crossing many lines -- in character, out of character, and if I'd allowed him to contact me off game, which he'd asked about? Likely IRL. He harassed me. He harassed my friends. He harassed my players.
FIVE complaining parties later, including BOTH female staffers, and he was finally banned. Y'know, after he'd driven several people from the game. We spent months trying to clean up the mess he made, IC and OOC.
This thread is manipulative and disingenuous. It is an attempt to continue inflicting himself on women who have made it abundantly clear in the past that they want nothing to do with him. The fact that it exists has pretty much had me angry enough that I'm surprised blood hasn't come shooting out my nose yet today.
I can go on -- at length, and in some cases with logs I dug up on request a few months back after some people suspected he was back on BSO despite his banning -- about some of the behavior this man displayed on one game. Just one. But here really isn't the place for me to do so because frankly, this? This right here? Is the nicest thing I have to say.
And that's after a full day of trying to temper my post, keeping in mind that it's in the 'Constructive' forum. If any of this player's behaviors are going to be addressed, I'd strongly advise adding a thread to the Hog Pit for it because honestly? I don't think that very many of the people who have dealt with him will be able to express the full extent of their experiences elsewhere.
(Edited for grammar.)
.....I live in the Northeast. It's 42* right now and I don't have the heat on. In fact, I had the windows cracked -- just a little -- when it was 50* and sunny all day. My car windows while driving in to work today, too.
An office set to 84* sounds like a circle of hell to me.