Best posts made by Ganymede

Hooking up with an old RP buddy, and realizing how much I missed her all this while.

@Cobaltasaurus

I love you very much. I wish I could help you somehow.

Do you need a letter?

@somasatori said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:

It is very paranoid to think that we're watched all the time by spirits of the dead/floaty beings/whatever. I think people have guilty consciences about what they do, and they manifest those thoughts as belief in angels, demons, ghosts, and whatnot. Like I said, I've seen some weird shit, but in hindsight, it was probably all of the drugs and booze.

“People * * * like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.”

God, I love Andrzej Sapkowski.

@Cupcake said in RL Anger:

Today, out of nowhere, a woman I have never seen before walks up to me in the middle of the store while he's with me on leash and goes into this lengthy explanation about how she's extremely allergic to dogs and so the only places she can go are restaurants and stores, and could I please stop bringing my dog to the store?

My response would be:

"That's nice, but you have no right to tell me where I can and cannot bring my dog, much as I have no right to tell you where to stick your self-entitled, ugly-ass head. I can recommend you stick it up your ass to prevent us all from having to hear your voice, and can tell you it would be a great favour to the world were you to do so."

@Cupcake said in RL Anger:

If you're not willing to take responsibility for your dog's bad behavior, you shouldn't have a dog.

And this is why adults should be responsible for the fucked-up shit that their children do.

@Thenomain said in RL Anger:

I thought that until the age of 16 (and limited until the age to 18), they legally were.

Not unless you can establish that the parents could have reasonably foreseen that their kid would have caused damage, and that their failure to restrain that child proximately caused the same.

There's reasonable arguments for both sides. I usually get ticked off when parents dump off their spawn into playgrounds with little or no supervision and one of those mouth-breathers runs into my toddler because they are too inbred of fucking stupid to not dash around like a maniac when there's little children about.

If it takes a village to raise a child, I have no problems with being the old fuck with a switch that beats the idiot children.

@Arkandel said in RL things I love:

I still facepalm about that one years later. The hell dude, you've never watched a movie or been to a store where someone used one of them things?

It's late, but I have to say this.

I've been playing MU*s for around 20 years now. I've been a robot for the last 15. I've not been the best player, from a staff perspective. I've not been the best staffer from a player perspective.

But someone out there, I think, took a shot. Said to himself or herself, Ganymede is someone that can get things done if she wants to. If you push her a little. If you give her the chance.

Something happened, and it's all I can think about, for whatever reason. As a player. And it's so great that I'm still up, thinking. And I'm thinking: what can I do to get other players on board? What can I do to take this opportunity and fucking do something about it?

Understand, I'm sure some people think I'm the bee's knees. Thank you. However, with twins to take care of, a partner in school, and a full-time job, my online time is scarce and mostly slow.

Yet someone said, you know what? Fuck that. This is a player that can do something. And that opportunity was enough to pull me home from something I love doing, to do something else that I love doing.

Maybe they didn't think about that when they took the chance. But they took a chance, whether they knew it or not, and I'm going to do something with that chance.

If you're on a game that you enjoy, and you're given a chance to make it better, just do it. Don't take it for granted, ever.

I just hope that I can spread my joy -- my absolute joy -- to others.

So, thank you, powers-that-be on Fallen World. I don't think you comprehend how thankful I am.

And thank you to the players that have kept me there. You know who you are.

@Auspice said in RL Anger:

'You have the tastes of a lonely fat girl. I bet you even like Star Wars. Dune is better.'

I'm pretty sure that Hipster Central, aka Rotten Tomatoes, disagrees with this person.

@Auspice said in RL Anger:

I've been trying. One of the things my therapist and I have been working on is my tendency to take the blame for everything. So guilt trips work... too well on me. And it's so damnably hard not to revert to the shittiness when around a family that basically wallows in it.

I take the blame for a lot of things I shouldn't, but I don't get guilt-tripped easily. A personality index once told me that my "compliance" score was off the charts -- in the negative.

@Arkandel said in RL Anger:

The stupid part about the subreddit is that they view relationships (or even sex) from a purely transactional point of view and they complain about the unfairness when there's no buyer for what they're selling.

I don't find it stupid to view a relationship from a transactional point of view. If anything, if people did this more, they would probably end up in more satisfying relationships. I've found that approaching relationships from such perspective often assists me in predicting whether a relationship will go south, and how fast, and for what reasons.

But, then, I'm a robot.

The x factor usually comes down to the intended target. It's generally unreasonable to expect them to approach the issue from a similar perspective.

This is why we robots dream alone.

("hey baby, I'm playing a Ventrue Elder on RfK, you wanna come to my apartment and I'll show you my +sheet?").

This is honestly how my Ventrue Elder on RfK picked people up. Don't knock it.

@surreality said in RL Anger:

Though if he's claiming he's learning to give himself hand jobs, I suppose it would fit the theme, though I can't see how that'd be a big selling point to women unless they really really like watching a guy jerk it or would rather he jerk it than do it themselves, which really just circles right back around to... coffee, I need more coffee, clearly.

If he has to learn how to give himself a hand job, that's your first issue right there.

@Thenomain said in RL Anger:

Not enough 'nog; I am clearly still an optimist.

If you can drink 'nog, you can swallow. So, on your knees, boy.

@Cupcake said in RL Anger:

I haven't spoken to him since, and it's #4 in particular that hurts because it's clear he doesn't see how badly he hurt me or how toxic what he said is.

You can't really force him to accept that he is being an insensitive asshole.

This really isn't trivial. It is an indictment of his sensibilities.

Don't take advice from me, though. I'm not exactly shy with cutting ties with people.

@RnMissionRun said in RL Anger:

We learned about budgeting, mortgages, checking accounts, paying bills and similar things in Math class.

We learned how to calculate our interest payments and the like in mathematics.

What we never learned was what we would need to sign, how lenders collect in the event of default, how to negotiate a better interest rate, how to calculate a better interest rate, how MPI works, what programs are available to obtain better rates, and so on.

And, yes, I believe these are things that the average homeowner should know about.

@Monogram

Congratulations. You have constructed a home for Floof Wizard.

Now where are you going to put your computer?

@Misadventure said in RL things I love:

I am aware that the health of my ecosystem relies in part on the health of my neighbors ecosystems.

Then fucking do something about it. I spend a great deal of pro bono hours helping small start-ups and entrepreneurs, for example.

That no one can save an outdated model isn't a problem; it's natural. That no one gives people the tools, resources, or education to adapt, and push policies that actively keep them down -- that's the problem, and it is a fixable one.

That the solution is fucking ridiculously easy to do is aggravating.

@Ganymede said in Mental Health and Grown Up Stuff:

But I just am. I have no trick to it. It's how I am, and, I suppose, that means, relative to others, I don't suffer from mental health issues.

Apparently, I too have mental health issues. I've only recently begun to recognize it.

It's ennui. It is a severe, heavy boredom.

I've done my 'net research. It's not quite anhedonia, but it is approaching that. I honestly thought that my part-time smoking habit was causing the food to taste bland, but apparently that's just my brain. Even that smoking, which I usually enjoy, has become monotonous and repetitive.

Every day is like the one before. The feeling I have waking up isn't quite the same as sadness or shame. I am not physically unable to get out of bed; to the contrary, I get up just fine, and am usually quite motivated to get into the office to repeat the same general 9 to 10 hours again.

And again.

And again.

I'm just writing at this point. But maybe there's something wrong with being a brick.

@Ghost said in Mental Health and Grown Up Stuff:

I guess my point is this: Side effects happen. How acceptable or not they are varies from person to person, but also is a bit in the eye of the beholder. When it comes to psych meds, if one person who needs psych meds describes taking meds as "horrible" to someone about to take them, is it at all possible that they are helping craft the experience for the next person down the line?

I have been told I have an addictive personality. That is, when I like something, I fixate a little just to see how far I can take it. It's how, as a young person, I fell into cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, LSD, ecstasy, mushrooms, and, well, drugs. Out of all of them, only the cigarettes really stuck, and, even then, only mildly (I tend to smoke with triggers, rather than out of course).

Side effects, especially potential addiction or dependency, are not acceptable to me. It limits my options, I'll admit. But I don't intend to go down a road that I sort of went down before. Last thing I need to do is get hooked onto something like painkillers, because I live in fucking Ohio now.

@Arkandel said in Random links:

Obsession Is Natural, by Kobe Bryant.

His eagerly awaited sequel, Paying for Raping Someone is Natural, will apparently be co-authored by Bill Cosby, and include a forward by Ben Roethlisberger..

@Arkandel said in State of Things:

But the escalation here is where the paradigm completely shatters. If I fuck up in my job in the worst possible way then maybe data will be lost or there could be private information leaking - that's bad. But it's probably not "a guy got shot in the face"-level bad. And you better believe it if I figure out one of my peers is... I dunno, selling data I'll turn them in, no questions asked.

Let me try to explain briefly with an example. Considering the following excerpt from a fictional police report.

After receiving direction from dispatch of a domestic violence incident involving firearms on Main Street, I proceeded by cruiser to the area in question. I was informed that the suspect was a young black male, 25, dressed in blue jeans and a black hoodie. As I came to the area in question, I saw a person matching the description walking southbound on James Street. I stopped my vehicle, exited it, and then called out to the person, who stopped. As I came closer, I noticed he smelled heavily of cigarettes and marijuana. I loosened the buckle on my sidearm as a precaution. I asked him for his identification, and he refused. I asked him again, and he reached into his pocket. I pulled my sidearm and advised him to stop and remove his hand. When he did, I saw something in his hand that was silvery. I thought it was a firearm, so I discharged my weapon once, hitting him. He fell. When he did, I noticed that he had a pack of cigarettes in his hand, not a weapon.

Now suppose the victim filed a complaint against the officer, which read like this:

I was walking south down James Street after visiting a friend that lived on John Street when I heard someone yelling at me. I stopped. When I turned to face the person, I saw Officer Smith with his hand on his gun. I froze. He said something to me, and I didn't understand, so I was nervous. When I'm nervous, I like to smoke, so I reached for my cigarettes, which was in my pocket. Without warning, Officer Smith shot me.

Let's suppose there are no other witnesses.

The "blue code" doesn't exist precisely, but it is an implicit understanding that cops tell each other the truth. So, if you're a cop, you're probably going to buy Officer Smith's story over the victim's. From another perspective, the victim has no motive to lie because he didn't do anything wrong and he admitted to reaching for cigarettes.

But who would you believe? And why?

That's kind of how this shakes out in my head, at any level, for any occupation. Lawyers stick up for other lawyers, generally, even though we have mandatory reporting guidelines. Same with doctors. Nurses. All sorts of professions. So, I would say the "blue code" is, more often than not, a common, societal issue, where our empathy for one another blurs or objectivity.

But if I know another lawyer has done something wrong, not only do I have a duty to report but I would do so because fuck you how dare you make my profession look bad. I don't have time to deal with lawyers that I know have broken the law or ethical code. I have enough problems dealing with clients that lie to me.