What you did today

[LadyCrimson]

I lost my Amazon virginity this last weekend, ordering some new headphones. The pads finally wore out on my old ones. Just some Sony MDR7506's for the PC which isn't something our local walk-ins generally carry. I've listened to all the current popular brands in the $150 or under range and Sony's still the only one where the treble doesn't nails-on-chalkboard my eardrums to death, but still sounds fairly clean w/ok bass....

 

Anywho, it was directly from Amazon's warehouses (not one of the resellers) and I paid a bit extra to get the 3 day delivery or something. Arrived today a bit early, so that was nice. Still hate ordering online and won't unless I have to, but....I guess that Amazon is all right...

[Calax]

Since when did "That 70's Show" become a nostalgia trip for kids born in the 90's?

[Nepenthe]

Ordered some band merch last Thursday from the US to balance all this suit and tie ****. Got it today. Personal record, usually takes weeks, especially due to customs for US orders. In fact, after moving here to the back of beyond I seem to be getting my internet shopping way faster than before. Frankly amazed.

 

Also, spent morning doing the tv lawyer role, looking sternly at a police officer questioning my client. (Mostly) Due to a lack of common languages and an apparently mediocre translator, the whole thing was an absolute riot. Talk about biting my lip.

[melkathi]

Custom control for stuff comming from the US can be ridiculous.

Ordered a couple of books from UN Habitat a couple of eyars ago and they spend a month in Malmo, where swedish post officers must have read the whole books before being satisfied that the UN wasn't mailing me contraband...

 

 

Today...

...I Patiently helped a new player on the Anno 2070 forum.

...I teased people in a goodreads discussion thread about Jon Snow and A Dance with Dragons.

...I slept too early and woke up early in the night.

...I had a profound moment of enlightement that I wanted to post about in this thread.

...I forgot what that profound moment was.

[Malcador]

For some reason a discussion about KFC led to me looking at bombing run footage from Vietnam to find what music goes best with it. Maiden works pretty well.

[Gfted1]

Kentucky Fried Chicken?

[Malcador]

Yep, the very same. Coworkers are going out for KFC for lunch so I was subjected to their emails.

[LadyCrimson]

Every once in a while (a very great while) I get a hankering for a little KFC chicken. The last few times I went, it became steadily worse. There was actually a time (back in the late 70's) when KFC's fried chicken wasn't terrible. Not saying it was great or like homemade, but it wasn't bad. It's truly bad now. Whatever they use to fry it in these days tastes terrible...stale almost. And the pieces are so small compared to what they used to be. What are they using, some kind of mini-chicken?

 

Same thing with the A&W fast food joints. They used be relatively good and my family would go there on Sundays to get burgers and jugs of root beer. Then they went downhill and disappeared from my area altogether. And I miss Foster's ... they had some good burgers...and fried artichoke hearts. Yum. All gone now....Dairy Queen is not the same, bleh.

[Amentep]

They're cutting the chicken pieces differently at KFC.  Not sure exactly why, but its difficult to tell 100% whether what you're getting is a breast or back piece (sometimes it seems like you get part of both).  I've even had one where they left the neck on.

 

A&W was bought by Yum! (who, IIRC own KFC now) and didn't do well for them so was sold to some of the largest franchisees, as I recall.

 

Dairy Queen's always been an independent franchise chain with little of the top down management you see in other Fast Food Franchises; they tend to vary wildly between locations in my experience.

 

Not familiar with Foster's.  The internets comes up with a company called "Fosters Freeze" (apparently one of the classic restaurants built around soft serve ice-cream like my fave Zesto's here).  Not sure if that's the company you mean though -looks to be a California only restaurant.

Edited April 5, 2013 by Amentep

[Gfted1]

Close to my house is a KFC and A&W combined into one restaurant. Didn't fried food start tasting different when they strong armed everyone into not using trans fat oils or something like that?

[Amentep]

Yeah Yum! Brands is big on maximizing space (the nearest KFC to me is housed with a Long John Silvers, another chain Yum! divested themselves of like A&W).

 

I dunno if the change was with trans fat or not - I know McDonald's fries don't taste 100% the same since they changed to lower trans fat.

Edited April 5, 2013 by Amentep

[LadyCrimson]

Not familiar with Foster's.  The internets comes up with a company called "Fosters Freeze" (apparently one of the classic restaurants built around soft serve ice-cream like my fave Zesto's here).  Not sure if that's the company you mean though -looks to be a California only restaurant.

Yeah, that's the one.

I guess they're still around, then, in some areas, just not most of the ones I grew up with, except for the one in Menlo Park. I didn't realize that one was still there, I might have to check it out sometime. Oddly, that one isn't the one I used to frequent a lot, even tho I grew up in MP, heh. They could vary between locations, like you mentioned with DQ. Not all of them would have the fried artichokes, for example. Dang....now I want a burger and soft cone.

 

And the trans fat issue...I think that is part of the flavor change. Don't know if it's the fat itself or because the base product used to make no trans fat oil are different, imparting a different taste to the oil. I'd guess more the latter.

[Hurlshort]

I enjoy Foster's Freeze for the deserts, and a lot of fast food places in my area now have a Foster's Freeze menu to compliment their own.  El Pollo Loco is the one that comes to mind.

 

Orange Julias was my favorite growing up, but there is only one of those left that I know of.  Many of these are definitely California based.  

 

All this talk is making me want to go to Five Guys for a burger.  

[Amentep]

I want a soft-serve ice cream cone dipped in chocolate...

[Tsuga C]

Thanks, you jerks--now I'm hungry for ice cream. 

[Starwars]

 

Talked with a woman I rather fancy over the phone just now... Man, it's such a crazy story.

 

We've been working together (every now and then, not always) for about 3 years now. Always liked her as a person, but she had a house and hubby so I figured eh... I won't make an effort to get close to her (even as a friend) because those things usually go wonky.

Over the course of this time, she sometimes talked about her life at home and how it sometimes didn't work out between her and the guy. They get along but she always described it as he didn't really understand her as person, and I always got the impression that they were really pretty incompatible.

 

About 6 months ago, I started to take a liking to her more and more. At the time I didn't understand (or I blocked it off in my mind maybe) this, and figured that hey, maybe we'll develop a nice friendship. So, started to hang out with her a bit outside of work in November/December.

 

And a while back, we ended up, uh... getting together so to speak. Which is crazy because A) I really, really never figured myself to be a guy that would move in on a girl who was already hitched and B) she really, really never figured herself to be a woman that would cheat.

 

And now, she is looking for a new place to stay (my place is really too small except if it turns into an emergency) and has broken the news to the guy she's living with that she wants to end the relationship.

 

It's just... such a crazy story to me, and a situation I *never* imagined myself being in. Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely happy that it is happening because I really, really like her and feel stronger about her than I've ever done before about a person. But sometimes I just think about it all and it's like... man, what on earth is *happening*?

 

Phew!

 

I'm only saying this because I've been in the same place more than once, and (as most of us do) I try to make others validate my decisions

 

SO...

 

This is a rude thing to say, but I guess I can since I don't know her and it's not like a personal insult.

 

There's a good reason why you wouldn't normally imagine being in this position. It's because it's a mess. Messes are inherently exciting, and often seem harmless because they're exciting. But they aren't once the first buzz wears off.

 

My advice is to back off immediately. Stop sleeping with her. Help her. But don't ford straight into something immediately. Lend her money to get a place on her own if you have to. Just don't let her into yours. If she's still interested once she's made the break properly and is running under her own steam, then fair play. caveat I am after all an Englishman and emotions are to be feared and mistrusted, like sheep.

 

Not rude at all, and yeah... Believe me, I've been having lots of thoughts along those lines, especially before... well, the last month or so. The parts I meant that I'm enjoying is just being with her. All the rest of it (with her hubby etc, and keeping it "secret") has been an immense pain and not something I would like to go through again. Then again, it felt good enough to wait it out as it is now. Though if she hadn't acted, I obviously would have broken it off since I'm not interested in being the "second man" as a friend put it.

 

A few other things that give me confidence.

 

A) While she hasn't been a "friend" per say, we've been workmates for a long time now and it feels pretty good to have gotten to know the "non-romantic" side of her so to speak. We've always gotten along personality-wise.

B) The breakup with her hubby isn't something that has popped into her head now, those thoughts have been there a fairly long amount of time, even before I started talking to her. Me getting involved has obviously sped that up though.

C) She's really not the type of woman that goes from man to man, leaving wrecked relationships behind her. Judging from her history, I'd say she's almost the opposite.

D) I'm not interested in her moving in her with me other than as a temporary solution if things really go bad in the break-up (it doesn't sound like it will at the moment), and she is not interested in that at all either. The plan is for her to find a place of her own and we'll take it from there.

 

I mean, I have no idea how well it will work out in the long run of course, but it feels really strong now at least. I couldn't really see myself passing up on the opportunity. 

[Woldan]

Went to the shooting range today and tried a few of my reloads in my precision rifle, all of them cut group sizes in half compared to commercial ammo, huge difference. Also annoyed the hell out of some fellow shooters with the apocalyptic muzzle blast of my rifle, gotta love muzzle brakes on high power rifles.   
My smallest group measured .4 at 100, 5 shots. Also practiced shooting my milsurp rifles from prone position at 100 with iron sights and standing unsupported at 50. Prone sucks big time, makes my elbows and neck hurt like hell.

[LadyCrimson]

Watching a lot of Siskel & Ebert reviews from "At the Movies" via YouTube, which is a great memory trip. From the blurry, scratchy vids, I deduce they were from people's home VHS collections. Why is this show not for sale on DVD yet? At least, I haven't been able to find it. I'd buy them all, at least until Siskel's last episode. 

[alanschu]

few other things that give me confidence.

 

A) While she hasn't been a "friend" per say, we've been workmates for a long time now and it feels pretty good to have gotten to know the "non-romantic" side of her so to speak. We've always gotten along personality-wise.

B) The breakup with her hubby isn't something that has popped into her head now, those thoughts have been there a fairly long amount of time, even before I started talking to her. Me getting involved has obviously sped that up though.

C) She's really not the type of woman that goes from man to man, leaving wrecked relationships behind her. Judging from her history, I'd say she's almost the opposite.

D) I'm not interested in her moving in her with me other than as a temporary solution if things really go bad in the break-up (it doesn't sound like it will at the moment), and she is not interested in that at all either. The plan is for her to find a place of her own and we'll take it from there.

 

Just be careful.  I was once in pretty much the exact same situation as you, and A, B, C, and D all applied to me as well, and I got absolutely scorched because of it.  My situation had some differences (she didn't explicitly leave him for me, and it was sometime later - it was super awkward for a long while because I had basically told her she had to choose), but she totally recognized that I still cared for her and ended up taking advantage of that.  To add insult to injury, despite being so adamantly sure that C applied to her, I found out it didn't.  Turns out, she ended up leaving her husband because she ended up hooking up with a 3rd guy (and in retrospect, I see that she did with the third guy the exact same sequence of events she did with me), lied about it incessantly to me (which I ate up because I thought she was starting to reciprocate).  In the end, I ended up becoming the "shoulder to cry on" for her for TWO different guys, one of them obvious and the other one because I was safe and familiar and she was too scared to be honest with me.

 

It ended up exploding when someone had casually brought up that she had plans to go to film school with 3rd guy and I got pissy.  To pour salt on the wounds further 3rd guy and I were casual friends (through the girl), and since he was oblivious he tried being all chummy with me after there was a bit of a rift.  I tried being the "good guy" until finally I had had enough, told him I found it awkward that he was suddenly trying to be all buddy buddy with me when he never was, spilled the beans about my history with the girl and I haven't seen either of them ever since (and both are firmly in the "I don't care if they happen to be dead in a ditch" category.  The way she behaved also moved her into "a bullet I dodged" too).

 

 

So yeah, be careful.  I'd recommend taking it slooooooooooooooooooooow and maybe even "just wait" for some time.  You have the unfortunate prospect of being "rebound guy" at the moment, which is certainly not guaranteed to end in badness, but if I were in your shoes I'd make sure to not be a crutch for her and to make sure she's firmly grounded on her own two feet before pushing things too far too quickly.  I ended up letting myself become a doormat, and while it was a useful learning experience and I'm much wiser (and ironically more confident) about the whole thing now, it ****ing hurt a lot when it happened.  Like, more than my brother dying in a motorcycle accident when I was 13 which for a decade was easily the worst thing that had happened in my life.

 

 

Regardless, I do hope it works out for you and that things turn out well for you.  Good luck!

Edited April 6, 2013 by alanschu

[Starwars]

Good thoughts, and sorry about being burned like that.

 

The most worrying aspect of it for me has been that her attraction to may me be that well, I'm just pretty different than her hubby, personality-wise. I was worried that she may only attracted to me because of that, which is an easy thing to trap your mind in so to speak. Then again, in a way I feel that is just how humans work and I feel that... that's no reason not to try. Same with the possibility of lying. She's had a relationship earlier which lasted 12 years, the one she is in now has lasted 4. And then a random relationship in her teens or so, but nothing beyond that according to her. Could she be lying? Sure. But I don't want any sort of suspicion to take over, because I do trust her on that. And her breaking up is really, really nothing something she's doing lightly.

 

Obviously there *are* warning signs because, well... she did cheat on the guy with me. But at the same time, while I was not in that kind of heavy moral dilemma, moving in on a hitched girl is something I always said to myself I would *never* do. There appears to be some "personality change" in both of us at the moment. It's one of those things where, well... Is it bad because we are "untrustworthy" and don't know ourselves as well as we should? Is it good because we obviously awaken something in each other that wasn't necessarily there before? Don't have the answer for that one.

 

I've always been a very cautious guy, and while the whole cheating thing went beyond what I usually "allow" in my life, I do try to proceed with caution. I can't see myself "stopping" so to speak though, because I enjoy her company too much. If it ends up burning me (and I'm sure I'll regret these words if it happens), then so be it. But I feel I must take the chance at the moment.

[mkreku]

You're doing the right thing. Go all in.

 

I have no idea what kind of ****ty advice you're getting in this thread. You may have the best of times, you may have the worst of times, but at least you're living life. This is it, deal with it.

[LadyCrimson]

Wow cannot stay awake. Fell asleep at 9 last night, woke up at 5am, now I'm already snoring in my chair. Must be hormones. Or not enough diet Mt. Dew. Either way, think I'll go back to bed - got a few hours+ before the Red Sox game.

[Rosbjerg]

 

Eating a late brunch a few hours ago and enjoying that it felt like a hot summer day.. as long as I stayed in the sun and kept the windows closed.

[alanschu]

@StarWars

 

When I say "Be careful" I'm more meaning "be cognizant and honest to yourself about how things are."

 

The biggest thing I learned through my ordeal is how easy it is for people to be dishonest with themselves because the truth can be scary.  The biggest one, obviously, being the ones I made to myself.

 

Sure she did the same, but ultimately realizing how easy it was for me to not realize I was doing the same, despite feeling that she had often done the same throughout the past several years, was a hell of a bout of cognitive dissonance and a giant epiphany.

 

I'm not saying don't try (you'll spend huge chunks of your life wondering "what if" which is worse IMO).  I'm just of the opinion that you both make sure you're still able to enjoy life without each other's presence.  In my experience, when I care it's easy to let myself be taken advantage of (or at least, was) and because I enjoyed her company so much.

 

 

The biggest difference (and hugely important, IMO), was that I put myself in a position to be strung along (years ago when I made her choose and she didn't choose me), and your girl has obviously made a completely different choice in this regard.  But in my case it was an example of me realizing that I had a large part to blame, and I put myself in that situation because I cared so much without being really honest with myself.

 

Of course, it's a bit hypocritical for me to preach caution, since I'm of the opinion that it was probably an overall good thing to have happen to me, so yeah go figure XD.

[LadyCrimson]

@Rosbjerg - I like the moody and striped shadows from the blinds. And your vest. You get more handsome all the time. Sadly, the pic is too small/far away for me to spy on what you have on your bookshelves.