Venting Thread Delta - Now With Easy to Follow Rules

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I know. Just wanted to rant a lil bit more.

Handed my CV into two places today. Both are places I'd love to work at. Lets see if it bites.

[Elomin Sha]

It maybe a little cruel and insensitive for me to say: could you try and suck it up and do it? you may not be as unhappy as you think.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

Not now. Too much stuff going on in the future.

[the_lone_bard]

Fucking useless fucktarded drivers in their miniature fucking cars. You know the ones, the ones that you can't see are even in a space until you're in front of them.
I was walking across the parking lot from the street to Coles earlier, headphones on as usual, not like it's hard to miss a car about to pull out or anything, not like I'm jumping in front of spaces. As I step out past a random car, some fucktard in a white mini car slams his foot down and then immediately hits the brakes, about 2inches from my legs. I didn't even see him until I was standing in front of the damn moving car. And he had the nerve to yell some shit at me? No clue what it was, but I gave him the finger and told him to go fuck himself. If you drive a fucking miniature car, that's great, don't reverse into a parking space completely out of sight and then try to do 0-100ks in .5seconds because you can.

What do I expect, this is the town where 6 seperate people have tried to brake check the bus I'm on. The god damn bus! "I know what's a smart idea, I'm going to slam my brakes on in front of this 10tonne metal behemoth full of people, that'll teach them to drive a regular distance away from me, hurr hurr hurr."

Getting so god damn sick of the jackass drivers here, thank god I'm going back to Rosebud in 2 weeks. I have a feeling if I stay here I'll wind up hit by one of them eventually.

[the_lone_bard]

I'd estimate I'm currently on attempt 25 or so of the fucking hellhound fight in The Witcher. I started counting after a bunch of atempts and am upto 19 counted.

Every fucking fight, identicle. Fight starts, instagib the adds, get stunlocked by attacking it, abigail dies, I attack it some more, get stunlocekd a second time, die.
Reload, repeat. Reload, repeat. Reload, repeat. About to google a console command to just kill it all.

Well then, lesson learned. If I'm having trouble in a game, tab over here, rant about it, and I'll ace it on the next attempt.
So, in that spirit, let's talk about the constant stunlocks in darksouls that happen anytime anyone hits me while I'm trying to play a dex based thief with the merchants sweet Katana...

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I find in MMOs, if I ask in General chat "where's X", I find it immediately afterwards. It's a saving grace from the twats that reply with "Google it". I still scold them for being twats.

[AdmiralMemo]

Where's Sulu?

[Elomin Sha]

Oh myyyyyyy.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

Where's Mankirk's Wife?

[empath]

[auberginequeen]

So long time, no post...

Me: I'm a nerd.
D: Yes, but I want to help you see you can be more than a nerd. You can be a nerd and something else.
Me: I am something else. I am a nerd and I am myself.
D: I'm trying to get you to be more of yourself.
Me: Maybe the myself you think I am is not the myself I really am.
D: That may be true.

"Nerd" is not my only persona... and just because I still refuse to embrace what society expects me to be doesn't mean I'm denying my "true" nature or any of that. The rejection is an element of my true nature.

I don't know who you think I am...

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

Winners of the Blizzard Heroes of the Storm Art Contest has made me sad.
http://eu.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/19825247/

The artwork is good. Worthy winners. But it reminds me of why I never bother entering these contests.

Notice how all three look like they could have been made by the same person?

What's with this homogenization in high-fantasy art? You do have variances in aesthetic with some games. But if you follow fantasy art contests, you notice people produce art in the same style. It's as though the contest was less about "Art Contest" and more "Who can imitate the existing Blizzard Artists the best!"

It frustrates me because my hobby is video games (among other things), and it's a passion of mine. I have a bigger passion for video game playing than bird watching. So the idea that I can never win one of these contests or get a career in this industry because I simply cannot produce art work in the style, makes me sad. I had an idea for the contest, but never executed it because I thought "What's the point? The winners will do an image in the same way as they always are." And this proved me right. Maybe people submitted awesome unconventional work, but I will never know. It feeds that pessimistic side of me.
I would have ended up with an image that had no chance to win. It would have no value since intellectual property would belong to Blizzard. I would get very little exposure from it because Fan Art is being vomited online daily, you get lost in the sea.

My career choice when I was younger was conceptual artist for video game company. It seems the only chance for my dream to come to pass is find a studio whose aesthetic is unconventional. The mainstream is stagnating with their idea of what Fantasy art is.

(My idea was of Brightwing and Anub'arak fighting. But the style would be geometric and stained glass windowy)

I play a lot of Heroes of the Storm. This contest should be perfect for me, except for the prejudice there is for fantasy art.

[the_lone_bard]

This is why I couldn't care less about the majority of fantasy artwork. But, Noah Bradleys MTG art? Fuck to the yes. Whoever did Stab Wound? Hells yeah. Some of the Witcher artwork? Awwww yisss. Literally anything Blizzard has released in the last 5 years? Stop wasting my limited bandwidth.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I wish fantasy artwork would be treated like any other artwork. Then it will be dynamic and evolving.
I feel like the majority is stuck in a rut since the 80s. That Conan barbarian aesthetic, where mysteriously the men have got more clothed but the women are equally dressed.

[the_lone_bard]

You picked a bad example in my opinion. The Conan artwork was actually super cool looking. It was fantasy meets reality, very distinctive art style, content, not so much.

As for content, I kind of disagree while agreeing. The trend was set to emphasize mens manlyness in armour awhile back. And, what's manly? Broad shoulders and muscled chests... So now we've got shoulder pads that come up higher than the wearers head, and big "badass" chest insignias, and of course, big spiky gauntlets because men punch things!
How did they emphasize women? Keep them as undressed as possible and increase the size of their boobs. If they HAVE to wear armour, give them skin tight leather armour and big boobs that must be at least double Z's to show up that well under form fitting leather...

And, I don't think it's a conscious thing. I think back after the Conan era in fantasy artwork, a few people all decided to emphasize mens manlyness in those ways, and womens woman-ness with the bigger boobs. And once a bunch of them had that idea around the same time, everyone else just started copying it, then it turned into an arms race and nobody remembers why it started. Like minimaps in vidja gaems. Some people added them around the same time in gaming history, others copied it, now every game has a minimap and nobody knows why, they just have one because that's what you do.

Going back to fantasy artwork, personally I'd like to see a more realistic take on emphasizing peoples strenghs. Give women more agile armour, and no, that doesn't mean chainmail bikini's. Men can keep their "black knight" full plate designs to an extent, but give it a damn purpose. If you're gonna put spikes on things, don't just stick them everywhere so they stab anyone who they stumble into. Have them deflecting blows away from key areas, or into more defensive areas. Give them the insignias, just don't make them fucking gigantic, know a good way to get your ass knocked down? Have some dude just as strong as you slam his spear into your chest and have it not go flying up, down or to the sides cause it's stuck in your big fancy design and now it's essentially a long stick attached to your chest that someone's pushing on. And can we please have the abillity to turn our heads and cough without encountering a wall of shoulderpad?

[MinniChi]

Again! Second time this summer, fourth time this year. My fiancé just can't catch a break. He just got laid off, Again! I am so tired of this. It's not like he's a bad guy or anything. He doesn't play politics, he just does the work he is told to do. Why is he always targeted for lay-offs?

ARGH!

[the_lone_bard]

At a guess from that very brief description, he's like I would be if I get a job. Does his work and that's that, when it's time to go home, he goes home.

I know so many people who work X-midnight and then actually get to leave at 1:30am. I'm just sitting here like "...The fucks I give, they want me to work an extra 1.5 hours they can pay me that, at double wages for working after midnight." but apparently that's how you get fired. Not being a "team player" because team player means doing more, unpaid work because everyone else is doing more unpaid work.

All that based on a very tiny description of him, so probably about as accurate as a blind, drunk redneck with a pistol in the dark. But I got to rant about retarded work policies so I'm ok with it! I like ranting about things, I have lots of things to rant about for no real reason...

[Dutch guy]

"Doesn't play politics" is unfortunately probably all there is to it. Nowadays many employers just don't seem to GET that some people just can't do the whole office politics bullshit thing.

[the_lone_bard]

Can't and wont are different things remember If I'm ever working, I absolutely could play politics all day long and at the end of it all, I'd likely be sitting on the iron throne.
Some of us just don't give the slightest bit of a fuck about it. One day, I'll have accepted a job, doing X for $Y, and that will be that. I'm not interested in progressing, or getting raises or employee of the month awards. I will have agreed to do X for $Y because that is acceptable to me, and if I could leave my headphones on the entire day and never have to interact with a co-worker or manglement I would damn well do it. It's just a stupid idea to me from the ground up that you would take a job doing shit you don't like for a pay you don't find acceptable on the grounds that if you kiss enough ass you can get better money to do that thing...

I'm gonna have a really hard time in the working world when I'm healthy enough to join it ><

[My pseudonym is Ix]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I LOVE working in engineering

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

Listened to a thing by one type of person.
Then listened to another by some other type of people.

Both conflict with each other and are quite rude about each other.

And there's me at the end wondering, "Why am I the only one that sees the intermediate?"

(See the Origin of Reality thread to know what I mean)

[betsytheripper]

Like an idiot, I rode my bike around town with an unprotected, peeling sunburn on my back, and got blisters on it. It doesn't hurt, but goddamn am I stupid. On top of that, I think I irreparably damaged my rolling backpack trying to get cat litter home from the store a mile and a half away because my car is currently out of commission. Blah. Today has been very meh.

[the_lone_bard]

FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUCK THIS FUCKING SHITTY PIECE OF FUCKTARDED SHIT INTERNET!

4th time trying to download the newest CH. Each attempt takes 1 hour 15minutes. Every time I get it to within 10 minutes or so, I move my leg, or go to take a piss, or fucking breathe wrong, and thw wireless cuts out, and oh look, firefox. Time to restart from scratch.

I try to play the witcher to have something to do since the internet is just turned off while downloading anything, randomly die, last autosave? About 35minutes ago, in the temple quarter, before Leuvarden, before the dryad, before siegfried in the swamp... Alt f4, look at download aaaaaand oh, it's failed, wireless is gone.

I fucking swear, the second I found a place to live everything involving the internet, my games, just anything that uses my PC just decided to fucking fuck off and die. Meanwhile I somehow needa hope the $20 I have contains a week of food and the money to get in to the place where Amanda works on Friday mornings, since I haven't been able to speak to her since my fucking phone decided to fuck off and break 2 months ago, adn I'm moving to the other side of Victoria in a week. Oh and I still need to figure out a way to move my shit from here to there via 3 busses and 2 trains. And I don't even know if they have a bed there, if not then I'm just fucked for the first few months until I can save up and get one.

[2stepz]

I. hate. summer. colds. Congestion should be saved for winter when you can cuddle and wallow and drink hot soup. Not when it's 90 freakin' degrees outside and you feel like you're walking through a sauna.

[phlip]

Now at 2 weeks of not having an Internet connection at home and counting...

Long story - Click to Expand

So, two weeks ago I got an NBN hookup in my apartment. It had been available here for months, but I'd dragged my feet on actually installing it, as I wasn't sure I was going to live in that apartment too much longer (my job had recently moved into the city, so my commute ballooned from about 5 minutes to nearly 2 hours each way, so I thought I'd potentially just end up moving to the city)... and didn't want to spend all the time wrestling with the real estate agent and the landlord and strata and the everyone else to get this stupid connection installed. But then I was told by my previous ISP that they were pulling out of the ADSL market (not sure if just in my exchange, or just pulling out altogether), and my connection was getting cut off. So that forced my hand.

The guy came around and installed the NBN thing, and it all looked good, seemed to be working fine. But did a pretty terrible job of securing it, because when I started getting it set up for real that weekend, dragging my computer across the room and plugging it all together, the fibre snapped out of the connection, so the modem wasn't able to get a signal any more. Of course, by this point my ADSL had been cut off (NBN was installed on the 9th, ADSL last day was the 10th... cutting it a little fine) so I was now Internetless other than my phone (which has a rather small data cap, as I don't usually use it that much). Most annoying part of this is that I work from home two days a week - offering this is a large part of why I decided to keep my job after they moved it despite the commute. No longer an option, now I have to commute into the city every day, instead of just 3 days a week.

Called ISP to organise a tech to come out and fix it. Visit gets booked for the 17th. The day rolls around, I take the day off work to be there... and apparently the tech took the day off too, because no-one showed up. Called the ISP, they contacted NBNco, they claimed that the tech did show up and there was no-one home, which was a complete lie. Rebooked the appointment, ends up booked on the 22nd.

Take another day off, this time the tech does show up. He's having trouble fixing the connection... apparently the initial installation wasn't a particularly good job - in addition to being a ridiculously brittle connector, there isn't a lot of spare room at the end of the cable... they're supposed to wire it with a couple of metres of slack at the end, but this didn't have nearly that much. Every time they try to splice a connector on the end it gets shorter, and they're having trouble making a solid connection, and they're running out of room. They finally manage to get a solid connection, though, put everything back together, and everything seems to be working. The tech leaves.

45 minutes later, without me touching anything, the connection dies again. By this point the tech is long gone, any hope of getting him back to look at it again the same day gone too (especially given the multiple levels of indirection of me calling the ISP, ISP calling NBNco, NBNco calling the tech)...

So at some point in the future, I'll have another appointment with an NBN tech. This will be number 4. And hopefully it's the one that actually gets me a working Internet connection.

Current status: got an SMS this morning telling me the fault has been registered, please leave my router plugged in, and I'll hopefully hear more within 48 hours.