Posts made by Paris

@ganymede It's not a suffering olympics, we've all got unique challenges, and there are folks who have it worse than I do, too. I'm sorry you've been struggling, too. <333

@ganymede said in RL things I love:

My dad is going to be 80 this year. I still want to make meatballs with him just one more time.

T_T my heart

I'd like to get a lot of kitchen accessories, as money improves. I'll always prefer to eat out, but I like eating well when we don't. I used to love spending hours in the kitchen before my back broke.

@ganymede Yeah. @_@ Textured soy/vegetable protein means I have to opt out of a lot of stuff, soy protein in general means I have to avoid almost all of the 'boost/glucerna/etc' drinks available for diabetics, especially in combo with several classes of artificial sweeteners I can't handle either-- I found ONE that's whey-based and has stevia. (Edit: ALL of the prepackaged disabled-friendly meal services use it as an extender in every dish, so that's out too.)

I really don't like this dietary restriction stuff, it makes me feel like I look finicky or fussy when in reality I actually liked tofu and ate it regularly before I became sensitive to it.

To keep this post to theme, I really do like my instant pot (again) even though meal prep for it can be tiring. The chicken tikka masala turned out great and I can use the sauce for paneer tikka , too. I really should just make up a big mess of sauce and freeze it in individual bags to pour over stuff.

It's been a super lifesaver since tourist season is terrible right now (and I suspect the shutdown is affecting spending) and so being able to eat healthy, tasty cheap meals while we're otherwise broke has made the thing already pay for itself despite having been purchased on January 1.

@ganymede This means so much to me, thank you. ;.;

I love you guys, and thank you, but no.

Really seriously, I believe that the bigger problems that developed on F&L are a result of me being too ill to properly oversee what staff are doing to their spheres, combined with us being consistently understaffed. If I had fired or replaced some staffers earlier on, the catastrophe of the vamp sphere might have been avoided.

On a personal level, I got tired of the constant stress from so many players AND staff about XP creep-- nobody was happy about their XP levels, people with high XP levels were viewed with suspicion, nobody wanted it either faster OR slower, etc.

I really loved that game and the players and most of the staff and shutting it down made me quit MUSHing for about a year (combined with my health cratering and it's still pretty dodgy), but the issues inherent to nWoD are just a perpetual headache. It's why I now play on either no-XP or limited-XP games, on no WoD games even though I love the THEME as opposed to the system, and why I'm not staffing.

(I suggest horrorMUX if you like horror themes and a lot of plots and enthusiastic folks, I think we're doing a supernaturally-themed one after the 80s one is done. There is no XP that carries over from theme to theme, and no byzantine system that requires a consequently large bunch of staff to administrate.)

Edit: I'd hoped that that other vegas game would scratch the itch for folks who were not done with the theme when we closed, but that doesn't seem to be a thing anymore. :<

I prefer simpleMU* after struggling with potato, and IIRC finally did figure out how spawns worked in potato, but I still prefer simpleMU*. It took me a long time to switch out of tinyfugue, too, though. I get really rigid about my client preferences.

@ganymede Yeah, like, I'm okay with lentils and SOME beans, but soy and others are agonizing death.

Specifically the proteins, I can handle soy sauce ok.

@magee101

Between my ongoing health woes and finding a sane vampstaffer, probably not gonna happen.

It was pretty silly, but at the time the books came out, it was progressive to have a mostly-gay fighting force (even if most of them were off-camera). She did retcon a few things (bronzeriders using a substitute rather than a male during greenflights), Lytol's green becoming a brown, etc, because of her own discomfort with it.

I've always liked the world for RP, but with a bit of handwaving over the more problematic parts of it that don't need to come up in a game at all.

@ganymede I'm a paraplegic. I have to sit in custom seating or I tend to fall forward. I live in a small condo with no room for an extra table at which to work, in a kitchen with no room for my wheelchair, so I usually stand for a limited amount, braced against the counter.

@wretched I've been skeptical of cheapo gadgets like that, but if they're easy to clean I'll get one. Whapwhapwhap is easier than lean/chop, especially when my vision is shitty, too.

@auspice Yep, trying to do all the cleaning in one or two days just leaves me useless for weeks.

Unfortunately pre-chopped garlic tastes like shit and pre-chopped veggies are expensive. It's NBD in the middle of summer because tourist $$$ but it is absolutely a dealbreaker in january.

What I need to do is get a few tupperwares and do a veggie chopping day. But that still doesn't change that I need to prepare onions and garlic the day of cooking. @_@

I may try the tall stool I bought months ago again. Because it's a normal seat and not my wheelchair seat (which tips back, thus letting the custom back of my seat take my weight), I struggle to stay upright because my back is weak and my legs don't brace well when I'm sitting. (This is also why I don't like to transfer from my wheelchair to a bus seat or a restaurant seat, I end up focusing solely on trying to stay upright.)

Everything's in the thing now and smells amazing, though. Just took four hours to get it there. To be fair, today is a bad day after I was exposed to superstrong bleach fumes at the grocery store yesterday. Or maybe it was the day before. Instant mouth ulcers and lupus rage galore, sigh.

Edit: One of the appliances we plan on getting this summer is a stand-alone freezer, so we can a) take advantage of meat sales and b) I can batch cook a bunch of a dish we like, have dinner and freeze the rest in individual portions so we can have it anytime we like.

Editedit: Re: Roomba: I leave our service dog's pee pads by the door so she can go when we're unable to take her out. I have seen horror vids of the roomba getting stuck on a poop and trailing it all over the house, so no roomba for me. All our floors are laminate/tile which is lovely for wheelchairs, though the cleaning wipes me the fuck out for the day.

I love cooking, I really do.

Chop garlic! Sit down for 20 minutes to catch breath because too lightheaded to continue.
Chop shallots! Sit down for 20 minutes to catch breath...
Chop chicken! ...Maybe I better sit down for another 20 minutes before I start...

Having to stand up to cook is super hellish. I love my instant pot because it cuts down time, but food prep is still my nemesis. I need to get another liner because having to make the rice and then wait for it to cool before I can scoop it out and make the main dish is a pain in my ass.

I really want that homemade chicken tikka masala, though. Onwards!

@arkandel said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

This stuff is really weird and interesting.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-weird-power-of-the-placebo-effect-explained

There was some in-depth study of this and they found that, on a genetic level, there are folks who respond to placebos who have one set of genetic coding, and those who do not have another. So testing for who has the genetic response to respond positively to placebo, or being able to trigger that response via some kind of medication, would be very helpful, especially in cases where pain is intractable despite drugs, or to avoid addiction to, say, opiates.

I respond really shittily to most classes of drugs, especially painkillers-- but I also respond like shit to placebo. I do respond interestingly to Oxy, so I'm on that, but that gives the DEA the vapors.

@arkandel Thank you, my concerns have been well addressed. :3

@arkandel I'd be happier about this if you leave update posts by the thread originator-- I'm not speaking for bot, but horrormux goes through a theme change every couple months, and archetypes open up between stories. Being able to update that and leave posts there would be convenient.

@thenomain You have my shoulder if you need it, and my goodwill even if you don't. I've never taken your needling personally.

@thenomain said in criticism not allowed in ad threads is only enforcing a false positive, prove me wrong:

And @Paris, I thank you, I really do, but as many people have said, it's up to me to fix. I won't ask for volunteers, I feel horribly bad talking to friends, because they have their own problems. I feel like shit 99% of the time that I'm not good enough, that I'm not calm enough, that I'm not living up to my potential, that I've failed people who have trust in me, and even through all that I've never publicly mentioned any of this on the board because that's not going to change who I am.

I'm only saying that yes, while it is absolutely vital that you take responsibility for yourself, your self-recrimination that you aren't necessarily really suffering is only going to do you harm, and may be exacerbated by the lack of effective meds.

Also, it is the privilege of a friend to be there for a friend who's struggling. The lie of mental illness is that it tells us that we shouldn't burden our friends with ourselves, that we are shit, and that we must isolate ourselves.

That is dangerous thinking in the long run, and in the short term it leads to emotional self-harm and isolation.

We're not close friends, but I remember you all the way back from the very early 90s on PernMUSH, where we RPed together sometimes and you were a kind and helpful guy. We have all changed, but you are, in many ways, still that guy. I have genuine faith in you, and I really hope that things can improve for you, especially with the meds.

@rucket said in criticism not allowed in ad threads is only enforcing a false positive, prove me wrong:

Honestly, I'd like to petition @Arkandel to take away the upvote button. I just don't think it serves a good purpose anymore.

All (edit for clarity: removing that feature) does is encourage more '^', 'yeah!' and 'me too' posts.

@thenomain This is where I remind you gently that you are struggling with your mental health, and your meds are not being effective, and you are under RL stress which compounds the other two; and thus flagellating yourself as shit compared to those who are 'really' suffering does not help you or anyone. You are suffering.

This is not an excuse, but it is a reason.

This is not about willpower or mind over matter or moral weakness.

There are techniques that can help to a degree sometimes; I'm sure you know about things like meditation, deep breathing, reducing outside sources of anxiety, etc, and I don't want to be patronizing.

I hope you can get your medication situation straightened out, because you will probably not realise just how unmoored you have been until your brain is chemically back to its proper balance, and I hope that at least at that point the self-recrimination will ease up.

@tinuviel It is a major one, there aren't that many hobby-wide forum sites about MUSHing.