Good morning 2015: Creative topic title goes here.

[NotMiki]

You learn enough to know you're making mistakes but not enough to stop making them.

The chemicals in your brain would really, really like you to make babies, and they're not about to let your common sense, good judgment, or long-term health get in the way of that.

[The Duck]

You say

I've spent a couple of years after a very hard breakup trying to transition from being the biggest nerd in hiding to become some way more desirable cool human. It has been an interesting experience.
The basic ideas were: Getting a cool job, more closer better friends, more social activites (= drinking), roommates, more books/concerts/movies, one weekly sport activity, one weekly artsy hipster douchebag activity.

I hear

Please tell me you have a "cool dude" t-shirt

I don't know what Fenrir looks like but this is always what I imagined.

[Grefter]

I know what Fenrir looks like (he posted pictures), but that is also pretty much how it works in my head.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Of course, there's small talk in every language and culture, and I can't really articulate why the sort of smalltalk in Japan bothers me even more than it does in the US, and I think a large part of that is just cultural fatigue. I've spent too much time in this place and I'm losing the pleasure I used to have in small joys and finding it replaced with biting cynicism.

I think part of it is that you're never not going to be an outsider, so you're stuck at the small talk level for... basically ever.

[superaielman]

I'll third the fuck clubbing vote.

And I'm making the same mistakes with the same person I did three years ago myself, because I am a complete idiot who does not learn.

You learn enough to know you're making mistakes but not enough to stop making them.

I've never let something being a bad idea stop me from charging after it at top speed and wondering why it blows up in my face afterward.

Zenny: At some point.

[DjinnAndTonic]

@Zenny: Leaving and coming back was basically the best idea ever. A fresh start in Japan with all the knowledge I'd gleaned from the first time around was fucking amazing and I'm on my second year here and there seems to be no signs of cultural fatigue. It helps that I'm in a much bigger city where I have easy access to other outsiders whenever I -do- feel the need for capital-W Western interaction.

[Cotigo]

Yeah, I can imagine. I have plenty of western interaction myself, thank god, it keeps me sane. But i imagine living in a large city would help my desire to interact with Japanese folks again simply by virtue of them being more metropolitan and exposed to the outside world.  Regardless of if I come back long term or not, though, it's time to go. TBH it was time to go months ago, but contracts and all.

[Lady Door]

New job is get~! I begin February 1, so I have some time to relish the knowledge that I'm leaving but don't yet have to tell anyone. There's no way in hell I'm making that announcement right before a week of of paid vacation.

So definitely feeling the adult thing. New job is head of the marketing department at a small mobile game company that is a branch of a very successful Japanese mobile game company. Focus on that "head of the marketing department" part because the other part has been throwing people for a loop: the games are otome.

I am really, really, really relieved to be leaving the noxious environment that has become my existence with SEGA, but naturally there is also a little bit of regret/sadness because it isn't all bad and I am going to miss a lot of the people.

My turn to become the center of others' "oh my god my boss is the worst" stories.

[Cotigo]

Congrats on the job and the fancy new title.  But more importantly, congrats on the few weeks of knowing you're free but not having to tell anyone yet.

[Fenrir]

I admit I felt howdoyoudofellowkids.gif-ish for a while but I got better.

I got third place at a Crokinole tournament yesterday. Crokinole is some Canadian game that I bet none of you know about. My gift in life, my special talent is being good at Crokinole, a game I started playing this year.

There is a high chance that the only reason it got played at all here is its potentially salacious name in French



Yeah Zenny it's not you, everybody goes through it

[AndrewRogue]

I'm gonna say, DL is not the place I expected to randomly hear Crokinole brought up.

You have our own board? I hear most people try the game and then almost immediately get their own board.

[DragonKnight Zero]

Congrats on the new job.

[Fenrir]

One of my roommates does have his own board. If he didn't I'd definitely have gotten one by now yeah.

[dunie]

If Ruby Rose dressed up as Cloud Strife or Irvine Kinneas, I would leave my man. Not like I haven't done something similar before.


H a p p y Holid a a a a y s s s s RPGDL.

[AndrewRogue]

H  a  p  p  y    H  o  l  i  d  a  y  s

[Cotigo]

WHY DO YOU HATE CHRISTMAS

[Sierra]

Personally, I blame my job for that.

[dunie]

WHY DO YOU HATE CHRISTMAS

Zenny, babe, stop being a communist.

[Cotigo]

WHY DO YOU HATE CHRISTMAS

Zenny, babe, stop being a communist.

[Dhyerwolf]

WHY DO YOU HATE CHRISTMAS

Zenny, babe, stop being a communist.

 

[Cotigo]

Desktop has been slowly biting the bullet since moving to Japan, and I'm afraid it's on its last legs. Every time I restart, there's about a 3/4ths chance that the boot up will lock up somewhere in the process. Sometimes after I've already booted up, sometimes mid-booting up Windows, sometimes before the booting process even begins. Siiiiiiigh. Even better, when I do succeed, there's a pretty high chance that everything will be jerky and take forever. Since getting back from partying over New Year's, I've had, like, one clean boot that's working like it should.

I'm doing some standard things now to try to get things running more smoothly (registry cleaning, malware/virus scans), but I have a sneaking suspicion it has more to do with the fact that my motherboard was likely damaged in shipping the machine to Japan and there's not a whole lot I can do. In fact, I'm a little surprised this hasn't happened sooner, given I've had similar (though less pronounced) issues with crashing and whatnot since the move. Fortunately most of my important files all have a backup on an external, though I'm tempted to buy another external to make another set of backups in case something happens to that one. 

Maaaan I just need it to last 7-8 more months and then it can die. Actually, if it died right around then, then I wouldn't have to ship it back to the US. That'd be nice.

[Cotigo]

Well. I upgraded to Windows 10 finally and that fixed most of my problems.

Conspiracy Theory states that "They" broke my computer on purpose so I wouldn't use Windows 7 anymore. Whatever, now it doesn't take ages to boot up my computer at least.

[Grefter]

Win 10 just has nicer boot times in my experience (3 or so so far).

[Cotigo]

It's a bit more than that. I no longer have the 30+ second lockup after plugging in a USB device, programs that took ~5 minutes to boot up now no longer do so, and windows explorer (fuckin Windows Explorer, mang) now no longer takes ~3 minutes(!!) to load the files of a folder I just opened up.

It's legitimately a bit frustrating how many problems upgrading solved, though I know logically something had probably fucked up and I would have had to just do a fresh install of the OS if the upgrade hadn't been available.

Regardless, I'm no longer afraid that I'd have to replace my machine before moving back to the US o' Trumpistan, so I got that going for me. Which is nice.

[Grefter]

didnt u no it's actually short for Windows 10 times better