Venting Thread Delta - Now With Easy to Follow Rules

[DSmaster21]

In my opinion you guys are lucky. My town was almost snowed in. It was -10 Fahrenheit (-23.3 C and 249.8 K) at one point During Spring Break. My birthday is a week away and my presents have probably been waylaid by the weather. Our school has several students absent because they could not get past The Blizzard in time to return by today, Tuesday. I have to sit alone at lunch now. I am have a failing grade and need to get caught up by Friday but the teacher is out of town.

Update: I apologize I just remembered this link. http://bathroomreader.com/2013/01/australian-town-too-hot-to-pump-gas/

UpUpDate: It is nasty up in Iowa where we were vacationing (so bad we had to come home two days early (In our time there there was one day & two nights of snow and hail and two days & one night of some freak evil rain-ice combination shenagains)). Here in Nebraska things are not as bad but still pretty cold.

[Geoff_B]

Cold wind rips right through
Even heavy coats can't help
I hate this weather

[TorachiKatashi]

I much prefer the cold to the heat, but I'm a person who is always too warm, regardless of the temperature or what I'm doing, usually to the extent of being physically ill.

[auberginequeen]

Even as someone who has been enduring blizzard conditions lately, I prefer cold to hot.

My philosophy is this: If you're cold, you can always put on layers. If you're hot, you can only take so many off. There has been many a hot summer day where I lay around naked with a fan on and I'm still roasting, even in southern Ontario where the temperature rarely surpasses 30C (86 F).

[empath]

I much prefer the cold to the heat, but I'm a person who is always too warm, regardless of the temperature or what I'm doing, usually to the extent of being physically ill.

That's us Newfies for ya; zyxst calls me her 'little pot-bellied stove'; she banks me down with food, and then just sits near me for warmth.


But

In my opinion you guys are lucky. My town was almost snowed in. It was -10 Fahrenheit (-23.3 C and 249.8 K) at one point During Spring Break.

You've got my sympathies. But I should note - it's the Midwest; get used to this. Go Google "State basketball tournament snowstorm".

My birthday is a week away

Oh, cool! You're only a few days away from me.

and my presents have probably been waylaid by the weather. Our school has several students absent because they could not get past The Blizzard in time to return by today, Tuesday. I have to sit alone at lunch now. I am have a failing grade and need to get caught up by Friday but the teacher is out of town.

Update: I apologize I just remembered this link. http://bathroomreader.com/2013/01/australian-town-too-hot-to-pump-gas/

UpUpDate: It is nasty up in Iowa where we were vacationing (so bad we had to come home two days early (In our time there there was one day & two nights of snow and hail and two days & one night of some freak evil rain-ice combination shenagains)). Here in Nebraska things are not as bad but still pretty cold.

...wait; what?

...in Iowa where we were vacationing...

...in Iowa where we were vacationing...

...in Iowa where we were vacationing...



...vacationing...in *Iowa*......um, WHY?

*continues to read*

Here in Nebraska...

Oh! Ohhhhhhh...gotcha.

some freak evil rain-ice combination shenanigans...

...oh yeah; there's a fancy technical term for that stuff. You see it much more often when you're sitting next to (or mostly surrounded by) an ocean - funny you got some of that so far in; you have my sympathies.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Even as someone who has been enduring blizzard conditions lately, I prefer cold to hot.

My philosophy is this: If you're cold, you can always put on layers. If you're hot, you can only take so many off. There has been many a hot summer day where I lay around naked with a fan on and I'm still roasting, even in southern Ontario where the temperature rarely surpasses 30C (86 F).

This is me in a nutshell; and I only have British weather to cope with.

[JustAName]

...oh yeah; there's a fancy technical term for that stuff.

...You mean sleet?

Why wouldn't you say sleet when you have the chance to say sleet?

Sleet!

[I X]

To the cold fronnnnt!

To the squall!

'til the rain drips down my wall!

All these weathermen crawl!

Awww sleet sleet motherf***er...

Etc.

[JustAName]

...

[Metcarfre]

Ahahaha

[Kapol]

I'm not sure this is quite a vent, but it's a thing that happened which fills me with something others may call distress. So here it goes.

WARNING: THIS IS A LONG RANT.

I mentioned in other places I was going to a cyber defense competition. And I did. I left Friday, drove three hours (after getting up early to do recycling), and spent five hours in the room. It's important to note I was running on six hours of sleep and didn't eat anything besides a couple pop-tarts until 11:30 PM. We get to the competition early and have to sit there for an hour before it starts since others were late. This annoys me because I said we didn't have to stop for food to my team since we didn't want to be late. The hunger grew because of that.

I also learned that we were the only two-year school in the whole competition (between seven schools I believe). Wonderful. Plus we were short-handed. Out of a team maximum of either, we only had six. There was a team who only had four, but most had the full eight people. Great.

First day starts at last. We're taken to our room as Team 1. We're put in an actual server class. I, being the sole member of the router/switch/firewall group, have to get our network talking with the outside world. Very easy actually. Except... I don't know how to connect to the switch. None of them are directly connected to the switch, and all we have to go on for connecting to it is Blue 12 is the switch and Blue 13 is the router. Pretty obvious the blue cables on the rack attached to ports 12 and 13 are those I need. But where do I put them? This is a full rack mind you, and I'd never worked on a full rack before.

We find out after an hour we can connect to the internet via the other computers in the room. We didn't want to use them since we thought this would be breaking the rules (they're very strict on using outside technology, as we weren't even allowed to have our phones on while the event was going on). This was never told to us. Two hours later and after asking two different people how to do it, we're finally told how connect by the head judge. So I can finally get things up and running. I get it up, and after some work the red team (a team of hackers who continously try to get in and break out networks) can't get in as far as I know. They got in early on and only turned off a couple of interfaces, but they never got the chance again as far as I know.

That was the first day. We did not bad. Got lost on the way back due to instructor. Finally ate and went to bed.

Enter, if you dare, day two.

Day two started off with me not wanting to wake up. I blame my sleeping pills. We got up and around and left early again. Had to wait for a half-hour once more when we got there. Got started before too long this time. Start time: 9 AM.

Unlike the day before, today we were working with a network which is already set up for the most part. We were also working with a VM network hosted on another server. It experienced problems throughout the day. But the biggest issue was massive lag. We had screen tearing and it took minutes to do what should have taken seconds.

Unlike the first day, the Red Team were attacking us pretty quickly. Also unlike the first day, we couldn't just take down the network entirely to keep it protected. They were inside the network to begin with. They had backdoors on every single machine from the beginning. This was annoying since that meant there was no way to stop the attack if we were just being flooded.

And, due to a problem caused by my teammate, I couldn't access the router to work on it. It wasn't local, so I couldn't just plug in with a Serial connection. And the only machines we could get working for me to connect to the virtual router were ones the others had to work on to get things running. So I couldn't do much of anything. :/

When I finally did get into the router, I got it set up and ready. When I finally had access, they didn't get back into the router as far as I know. But it took us past lunch for me to do it since I never could get a good chance to access it. But the rest of my team weren't so lucky. They literally destroyed parts of some computers so they could no longer do their job. By about 4 PM, we were dead in the water, and the rest of my team had given up. And since the only thing I knew was up and couldn't do anything else due to needing other services, I felt useless still.

I didn't mention that the entire time these things were going on (both days), we had injects thrown at us. Injects were additional items ranging from writing up reports to adding services and so forth. We did what we could to do as many of them as possible. But when it got late on the second day, many of the injects were asking us to continue things we couldn't do in the first place, so there was no way to really do them. And we were short-staffed. So people who's job it was to keep the moodle server running had to stop what they were doing to write up a report for example. This only added to the experience.

Finally, at 6 PM, it was over. We then had to sit around in the auditorium for another hour+ for the results to be tallied. My team didn't place top 3. And, as I learned yesterday, we won't really find out how we did for another month most likely.

And here's the biggest takeaway from all this. I did enjoy the competition for the most part. It was interesting and even somewhat fun. But it's basically destroyed all of my self-confidence for working in this field. I was the first line of defense for our network both days, and I feel like I failed in a big way. I couldn't figure out what seem like basic things like what ports to connect to. I couldn't get the networks up and running fast enough. And my firewall rules didn't even seem to slow the red team down when I did get them up. The fact I won't actually know how I did is even worse. Overall I feel like I fucked up the most. That I was the most useless member. It forced me to wonder if I'm even cut out for this.

[Deedles]

I like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I really enjoy watching it because it's a cheerful and quirky series that can be enjoyed as an adult, despite being made for small children. As such I have never held anything against anyone who likes MLP:FiM, apart from one group ... there is one group of the fanbase that I want to strangle and that's the ones who throw their toys out of the pram every single time that a decision is made that they don't like.

"OH MY GOD!!! They portrayed Lightning Dust as a villian! HOW COULD THEY BE SO MEAN TO HER?! Oh, I feel so depressed now ... it's as if it's just outside of my power to do anything about this."

I just, urgh. Want to stab them with a wooden spoon.

[Tapir12]

I keep talking, but nothing of any value is coming out.

[Ptangmatik]

My essay's due tomorrow at mid day. It's only 1750 words and it's currently about two thirds done.

I cannot seem to write another word, I'm gonna be up at 4 am still writing this, I can already tell. I've got a funeral to go to. Maybe after that I can dredge another paragraph or two out.

I'm getting the feeling the accident's affecting me more than I'm telling people around me.

Edit: funeral not related to accident.

[Geoff_B]

Turns out I still can't paint eyes on space marines. I can just about hit every other detail - shoulder rims, skulls, etc. - but the eyes always defeat me. Then I look at other examples and think to myself "there is no way you're using the same fine detail brushes that I'm using".

[TheRocket]

To the cold fronnnnt!

To the squall!

'til the rain drips down my wall!

All these weathermen crawl!

Awww sleet sleet motherf***er...

Etc.

Yes.

[Kapol]

Today, March 14th 2013, I got a letter from a collection agency. The debt is from Hollywood Video, which went out of business I believe 3 years ago. It's for a game I rented three and a half years ago and returned late (or more accurately, I asked someone to return it and they forgot for a few days).

Why the hell did it take them this long? I mean seriously, getting something like this out of the blue is astounding. It's not even that much money. $8 is how much I owe. But I still think it's better to pay it, especially since I know I'm not the only one to get one of these letters.

Mind you, I'm not even sure this is legit. I went there many times before they closed and made friends with a lot of the staff. So I'm sure I would have known if I owed anything.

[tak197]

I'm irritated as fuck right now, because for some odd reason, I can't get the Escapist to work AT ALL. I've tried it on three different browsers (Chrome, Firefox, AND IE, which is a pain in the ass) and nothing loads. I don't get what the hell is going on with my computer or the Escapist website. I can't even get it to work on my iPhone either

[empath]

There was an update for Flash yesterday...my computer killed an open YouTube video that I'd started and paused just five minutes before and told me I had to d/l the new version.

So even if you did update, maybe there was a glitch during.

...dunno about the iPhone, tho. Say, you got the same ISP/wireless provider, perchance?

[gcninja]

So THIS is happening at my old school, the one down the street from me now. The one my little sister goes to and it irks me for many a reasons.
1) when I got into a two punch fist fight I was suspended and almost got 3 months probation YET somebody cuts a bitch with a razor and NOTHING?
2) my old friend who threatened to bring a gun to school left instead of expulsion and having the rangers involved yet nothing happens to these two?
3) I know it MAY be empty threats but nonetheless it's on federal property and the punish SHOULD be scaled so and these kids need to be made an example of.
Seriously, shit needs to change.

[empath]

I think this might be an unfortunate side effect of all the good things the ACLU was doing for your justice system...it also pulled its teeth.

Parents suing school boards for 'denying my angel an constitutionally-guaranteed education' (no, it's not, but even so, getting dragged into court every time they have to expel someone who won't take a hint to dial down the sociapathy until graduation?) made them shy of actually punishing the students. And for some reason, leery of calling in Law Enforcement when A FELONY HAS BEEN COMMITTED.

Not much better up here, just less guns.

[JustAName]

So I started playing Borderlands. Fairly entertaining, though another reminder of how bad at shooters I am.

Of course, after a mere 27 minutes I'm motion-sick.

Lovely.

[empath]

Screwed up how I sit at the computer somehow - chair too high or low; too far to the left, mouse or keyboard in the wrong position, whatever - a couple of days back, and started to get a crick in my neck. It has come and gone, but built to the point that I could barely sit up in bed this morning without gasping. A hot shower alleviated the symptoms temporarily, so that gave me enough time to clean all the junk from around my computer and realign everything. Just popped a couple Advil to see if that'll help the returning muscle ache; if not, I'll get zyxst to give my neck a good rub and put some icy-hot stuff on it.

Probably won't be at the computer much, tho.

[empath]

It's my fucking right trapezius muscle...again; I've had problems with these suckers most of my life; thanks for giving me a flawed design, mom & dad!

I can feel the dang thing warmly throbbing right from the base of my skull, down through my neck and spreading out over my shoulder blade - it's like just this one muscle is screwed up, and the whole thing is kvetching back to my central nervous system.

Trying to rub it with my left hand ended up with 'ow, ouch, yow' of hair...

...so I just popped back into the shower to shave my neck and shoulder.

Yeah, any of y'all boys hirsute? Well, it spreads as you get older - come gaze upon your future and despair! MUAHAHAHAHA!

Probably get on the bed soon and have zyxst give it a good massage and maybe use some muscle rub.

I hope this clears otherwise I won't be much help at work tonight; my ANY job in the deli involves a fair amount of 'heavy' lifting...

[Cybertrash]

So the comments regarding Lil' Wayne's recent hospitalisation on Reddit just goes to show such a racist cesspool that site is...