that walks the line so close to a manifestation of a thought disorder in its presentation, I am amazed it was successfully created and published.

>>13548


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkD6q1nGXjY

>>13549
Is that strictly true? I mean if you're smashing ten cups a day I get it. But I have one cup of coffee in the morning that does feel like it wakes me up a bit, as well as initiating the morning shit.

I mean caffeine is a stimulant, surely it has some effect in terms of perking you up and whatnot. I get that if you're chucking tons down your neck it will end up being a means to feeling normal, but surely downing a stimulant in the morning will also actually wake you up a bit?

I've been off the caffeine for a week now and I've been getting constipated and doing rock hard shits. Anyone else having this?

>>13552
Seems to ring true for me, coffee stopped perking me up years ago and it will keep me awake/mobile for the day at a push but only if I have lots of it, and then it's not a good kind of awake because I feel absolutely rubbish. Switching to having a cup of tea instead of coffee has been miles better for me, personally, and I've cut down on coffee loads now, though I'll still have one every so often for the taste. Definitely feel better for it.

>>13568
Thinking about it I did actually go through a period of constipation after cutting down significantly so maybe that's just what happens, but it should pass.

"That post has been cleared as not requiring any deletion."

Standards are slipping.

>>66055
Why would anyone pay close attention?

>>66056
TO TAKE MY BRAIN TO ANOTHER DIMENSION.

test

Why are you pulling those jibs in your thumbnails, Sam?

test

Isn't that what you just did?

That's a hard one, not just for the meta-quality of giving advice on how to take advice, but the individual motivations involved which actually push someone into acting.

I made a decision around 25 to really apply myself to life in a way I hadn't before. Like you, I had this impending sense of limited time, and I realised a lot of the things I envisioned myself doing would take a tremendous amount of commitment and forward planning if they were ever going to happen.

Emotionally, I realised I was very afraid of being embarrassed or otherwise uncomfortable in my efforts, but I also realised that the pain of never attempting to get what I want would be far greater than the pain of being humiliated or hurt while trying.

Sorry for the cliche response, but that's basically how it went. For the past five or six years I've obsessively planned out my life in a spreadsheet which directly relates my career to my job to my budget, month by month in concrete steps; save up this much, apply for this job, get on this training course, move to this area, all in service of achieving this goal. I check in every few weeks or so to adjust course.

It's not glamorous, but it works. I've achieved more than I thought possible in this time, and at the best of times it feels like I have control over my life.

As for actually finding the motivation -- well, I can only offer more advice which you might not take. It'll take some introspection on your part to figure out why you find it difficult to act, but from the sounds of it, it's related to a lack of overall direction. What inspires you? What do you want your life to look like?

I personally built my foundation on reading. Fiction, history, things which I felt orientated me in the world in some kind of definable position. Once I developed that base, I drew a lot of inspiration from biographies of real life people, and literature that deals especially with finding purpose. Of course, what worked for me may not work for you.

Sidenote,

Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

I took out a help to buy ISA, something I'd been putting off for ages, and that helped me feel like I've taken control of things. In reality fuck all has changed except a direct debit for £200 a month but it's progress, and best of all progress I don't have to think about, but know is happening in the background automatically.

That's just the thing though. "In reality" fuck all changes most of the time. I want you to try a little thought experiment with me here: Say you wake up tomorrow and you decide overcome all your anxieties and burdens, by some miracle you're just rejuvenated and filled with confidence. Physically, tangibly, what actually would you be doing differently?

It's little differences here and there mostly. When you think about it bluntly and objectively like this, that's when you realise just how little power you really have over the grander course of life, but how much power you have over the things you do have power over. Say you want to sort out your career for example- In practice it's not some big drastic change, it's just logging onto Monster for half an hour each night and sending off a few more CVs. If you want to lose weight, it's not actually a huge ordeal- It's just a matter of giving up the twix and packet of crisps at lunchtime.

90% of the rest of your life, in the meantime, will still go on unchanged, on autopilot, in the meantime. But you'll have the peace of mind knowing you are doing something.

Danny says read a book about Taoism and wu-wei, that ought to sort you out.

>>29877
>I also feel that at 29, I shouldn't be burdening them with problems

No - maybe at 49, but at your age lots of people have issues with where they are going in life. You're quite normal.

Also >>29878 is right. You just did.

>>26433

>infidels
Now who's being thick?

Have cheeky eskimos given up? It seems like they can't be arsed trying to blow people up or run them over in a lorry anymore.

>>26435

Temporary ceasefire due to corona. Not even joking.

>>26434

It's funny when someone is too stupid to even realise that they're being mocked. Are you actually Shamima by any chance?

>>26435

There are no public gatherings, limited crowds in cities and shopping centres, and low passenger loads on public transport. Fewer travellers through airports make it even harder to hide in plain sight than it already was, it's just not worth the effort right now.

To be honest I envy people who can dress like this. If I wear anything that tight around my crotch I just have a great big bulge. I'm not even that big I just presume it's the way my junk is and just seems to stick out more? It's a right fucking pain anyway.

>>6249

A "humblebrag" if I've ever heard one.

>>6250
It really isn't mate. I'm a bit above average, not hung by any means. It's just a right fucking pain.

>>6249

I have an undewhelming penis too, and it's laughable when soft, but I still have an obscene bulge when I wear any sweatpants, and most formal trousers. Maybe my boxers are too tight and so are mushing my cock and balls into one conspicuous lump? Or maybe I wear my trousers too high up. I haven't really thought about it too much.

>>6252
Glad it's not just me. I don't get how guys like in the picture can have nothing showing there at all. I've tried different underwear, styles of clothing etc.

>>8945

>Cheers lads.

Chads.

Does cycling workout your upper body and arms, as well as legs? Initially I thought not but if you're pulling against the handle bars to push into the pedals more it must do something, right?

>>8945
Whoops, forgot to let you all know how it worked.

It's still attached to the bike, and makes it change direction, so that's all you can hope for, really.

>>8975

Riding a bike can be very good for your core - many newer riders suffer numb hands or hand pain because they're leaning their upper body weight on the bars instead of supporting themselves with their core. It'll do a little bit for your arms, as you say, when out of the saddle or pedalling hard uphill you will be giving your arms a little bit of resistance training, but not much. Mountain biking is a different story, though.

>>8896
Bozza says doctors are going to be giving bikes away for free!

Not without knowing what IP it is.

>>15463

I'll make a note of it if the ban message pops up again, but it seems this current IP is working now. I don't know if Giffgaff varies them or if you lifted it. Thanks, modlad.

Can you pop off those chromed plastic covers? Jam screwdriver in and twist. Avert eyes, as there'll be a cloud of ancient rusty piss when they come free.

Thanks for the response. No, the big ones are on tight. The smaller ones came off without too much hassle, but as you can see, they weren't covering screws or anything obvious.

>>2754
Those are known as "top fix" seats. The seats typically click into place on the bolt. If push comes to shove, you may be able to just pull the thing off if you pull it vertically. This video shows an example of an entire fitting being changed. You'll see he literally just lifts the seat off, and uses a screwdriver to lever the caps off the fixing.

>>7954
And as >>7953 says, pick the number off their website, not any communication you've received.

>>7955 Have you typed a couple of key sentences from the letter into google, see if it's a common scam?
I'd say, if you can't get through to them easily, then just ignore it and wait to see if another letter arrives. If it's genuine (and it isn't), the taxman can hardly fault you for not jumping to attention on a 13 year old matter they've just dug up, especially as you know it's bollocks.
Scammers rely on the feeling of panic to get people to pay. Treat this like an Indian sounding dude calling from Microsoft to discuss the viruses on your BT line. It's only getting to you because it's your first go round.

Solved (touch wood)
The number on the letter was the debt management team, they couldn't do anything other than payment so they told me I had to ring the inheritance tax team.
Got passed around 3 different people before getting through to someone who could help.

Apparently, as I thought in my earlier post, the person who died had the same name as me (very rare surname, common as muck first name), and seemingly in passing the records onto the debt management team someone hasn't checked the details right.
Should get a letter in a few days confirming I have no connection to the debt.

To the people saying it could have been a scam:
Yes I know there are a lot of scams along these lines, and I would give anyone else the advice to treat it as such. But I know what to look out for and at no point in this particular scam was there anything to suggest otherwise, with the exception of that first phone number on the letter not being published on the internet.

>>7958 the person who died had the same name as me

This seems like a bit of a punt, even for a debt collection arm.
Surely looking for someone still alive would improve their chances.

>>7959

Odd as it might seem, inheritance tax is levied against the person who died rather than the people who inherit their estate. The reasoning is perfectly sensible albeit rather complicated, but it does lead to the uncomfortable fact of debt collection agencies chasing after dead people.

>>20426
Some pillocks standing around Piccadilly isn't equivalent to people fighting for democracy against a system that operates concentration camps. Don't hijack a thread to bring attention on your pet project.

>>20428
State enforced media blackouts are absolutely equivalent to state enforced media blackouts, don't be such a twat.

>Blizzard bosses reduce gamer's ban and release prize money

>US gaming publisher Activision Blizzard has reversed its decision to withhold prize money from a player who expressed support for the Hong Kong protests. Professional gamer, Ng Wai "Blitzchung" Chung, said in Mandarin, "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age," on a live broadcast after a tournament. He was banned for one year and said was told he would not get any prize money.

>In a new statement, the company said: "In hindsight, our process wasn't adequate, and we reacted too quickly." The hashtag #Blizzardboycott trended on Twitter after the 21-year-old was banned, and some players tried to delete their accounts in solidarity with "Blitzchung". Even some US politicians commented on Blizzard's initial decision.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-50026401

It's fun seeing companies flop around in the face of Hong Kong protests after they've spent so long now kowtowing to Beijing. Who knows, maybe someone will question if having China so invested in our nuclear power plants might be a bad idea again.

>>20429
It's not state enforced. Nobody cares. Sky News still has a feature on their front-page and still it's nowhere in the top most read stories.

>Hong Kong security law: Officials discussed six sites for autonomous city in Ireland

>Six locations in Ireland were discussed by government officials as possible sites for a new autonomous city named Nextpolis proposed by a wealthy Hong Kong businessman, The Times can reveal. The Department of Foreign Affairs has been in contact with the Victoria Harbour Group (VHG), an international charter city investment company, since December about a plan to create a city from scratch that would be home to tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents.

>Documents released under freedom of information laws show that a series of meetings have taken place in Ireland and Hong Kong in recent months about sourcing a 500 sq km area of land for the new city.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hong-kong-security-law-officials-discussed-six-sites-for-autonomous-city-in-ireland-5566xs8jl

So who saw this one coming?

>>26506
Everybody laughed at me for starting a Chinese language course years ago when China started taking over Africa, but now I can sell them all out to our new overlords and get a nice comfy position.

I don't know what to tell you in terms of a solution to the problem, OP, but I wanted to post to say that I actually find myself in almost the exact same situation.

I've got about 4-5 people I'd call actual friends, and I rarely see them compared to what you'd probably call a normal social life. I think some of that is a normal part of adulthood, you can't spend every weekend out on the lash like you did as a younger lad, but even so. I spend a lot more time chatting to various birds I've met online or used to shag, than I do with any of my male friends.

Not sure what to really do about it.

>>29863

I don't even really have the 4 or 5 people. The only people I spend time with socially are my girlfriend, and one or two girls who I dated but never became fully involved with. I message a few friends from back home almost every day, but as far as a real social life, there's owt.

I just don't enjoy socialising with mates like I used to. To be fair, my social life when I was younger wasn't the typical go out and get smashed, but tended to be focused around close one-on-one relationships, so maybe this is just a continuation of such.

Reflecting in this thread has still got me wondering: what do I actually want, socially? If I don't enjoy impressing crowds, and I don't like hanging out with mates so much... in what environment do I even want to fit in? What sort of social environment can I create for myself?

>>29864

Well I'm quite similar in that regard. When I was growing up, the village I lived in really only had one other lad in my age group who was interested in something other than just playing football and setting fire to things. So I only really had him for my early years.

Through secondary school I had a bit of a turbulent time, I'd get to know people and be mates with them but I was always more comfortable doing stuff one on one than at bigger events like parties and what have you. I more or less forced myself to do those things to avoid being a total outcast.

In early adulthood I had a reasonably respectable circle of friends, but over the last decade it's only dwindled further and further. Out of the 4-5 people I mentioned, I consider two of them my actual friends, who I'm comfortable inviting over or asking if I can come round to hang out at theirs, but I still only do so every month or two.

I think I was always shy but as an adult I've just sort of given up on it because it's too much hassle, and I don't want to feel like I'm bothering anyone. The longer it's gone on, the less I can be arsed- There's been plenty of times they've flaked out on plans and such and I've just stopped bothering trying to organise things any more.

I think like someone else said, it's just turning into a bit of a grumpy old git and is somewhat inevitable. I think you should probably make an effort to keep one or two close mates for the sake of your own sanity, but otherwise I really wouldn't worry about it.

OP here. Girlfriend is away for another three weeks. I'm too much of a grumpy shite to get in touch with any old uni friends or colleagues, I didn't enjoy their company much. On the other hand, I don't particularly want to spend the next 21 days in isolation, either.

I've been going to the gym like crazy, being very productive (even working weekends etc.) and I even made the time to meet up with someone that helped me out during my last big move. This is a girl that I almost dated, but didn't. Nothing happened, nor did I want it to, but I'm not going to lie -- it was exhilarating to be around a girl I shared a bit of chemistry with. The only social interaction I've properly enjoyed since the girlfriend left.

I don't think it's healthy for me to only be social with people I want to fuck, but here we are. I've been thinking about joining tinder yet again but have not.

Should I just bite the bullet and make the effort to hang out with someone I don't have those feelings for, and see how it goes? I don't know if I'll enjoy it, exactly...

>>29864

>in what environment do I even want to fit in? What sort of social environment can I create for myself?

Get a hobby and join a club. You can be sufficiently sociable to avoid turning into a reclusive nutter without having to make any real effort. Golf, angling, snooker, model trains, whatever - they're all just ways for men to hang out with each other without any pressure to have a proper conversation. It's a bit tricky at the moment because of the plague, but clubs provide the kind of nodding-terms familiarity that keeps men sane.

>>13558

Chinese cultural invasion. We are less likely to embargo them like we should if they provide us with things we like.

>>13558

Dunno m8, I've been banging on about MSG for years. Maybe people are finally starting to realise that it's fucking delicious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami

>>13560
Who needs to learn to cook when you can just add literal flavour?

>>13558
Mostly better science I think.
People are better educated about the origin of the idea of chinese food syndrome, which was basically an anonymous letter published in a magazine, at a time when there was a bit of a fad for people making up fake illnesses and trying to get stories about them published.
Plus the continuing lack of double-blind trials which show any plausible effect.
Theories of why MSG can affect people revolves around it being a neurotransmitter, but your body already makes its own glutamate and it's probably not possible to eat enough of it to have a noticeable difference to the amount of it that gets through the blood-brain-barrier.

Also most people have now wised up to the fact that while they didn't like the idea of MSG being added to their food, they've quite happily been eating huge quantities of "yeast extract" forever.

>>13555
The Linda McCartney sausages can be very good - I think the Red Onion and Rosemary ones are the best. I sometimes defrost them and use them for meatballs in pasta sauce, too, so I think they might have the right consistency for scotch eggs.

Just a 16 goal swing needed on the last day. Piece of piss.

>>8970
As a Swansea fan, I'd really appreciate it if you fine chaps could at least put a couple past the Cardiff scum. If you can't escape the drop, you can at least ruin the other side's day by denying them a spot in the play-offs.

>>8971
Ta for that, I'll let No Plan McCann know in the morning.

>>5417

>The fans counting down to 19:04 before they start the City Til I Die gave me chills down my spine. Allam's been trying all sorts to stop that, the other game he turned the screen with the clock on off for a minute around the 19th minute and last week he had the clock made tiny so you could barely read it, which I believe is where the countdown came from.

Got no idea what this is going on here but I'm really curious, what's the relevance of 19:04 and why is Allam trying to stop it?

>>8973
Formed in 1904. It's used as a protest song against the proposed change from Hull City to Hull Tigers.

>>438067

I've been on plenty of drugs but I'd don't think there's enough heroin in the world to sedate me enough to not be annoyed by him buzzing about the room shouting wanky wanky.

>>438066
Could you please stop referencing a series which promotes white people using the n word?

>>438069
Trying to silence people with satire? Nice right-wing cancel culture.

>>438069

It's used by characters that are objectively bad people, that's sort of the point.

Do you think films about dolphin rape should also never be talked about again? Get to fuck you melt.

Yes when u wife pours boiling soup on your nads

>>23174
I'm not really a Star Trek-head but this just looks like Rick & Morty with a Trek skin. Reminds me a bit of the recent Thundercats show, modern lolsorandumxd humour applied to a well loved and respected franchise.

>>23175

> but then as soon as it comes out, they are playing it or watching it.

All I can tell you is I personally stopped watching, and I loved Star Trek. It won't stop my love of the originals but without some major shift in creative control I am not interested in doing anything other than complaining that it isn’t how it should be, unless someone whose judgement I trust tells me otherwise.

I think the inertia will carry people to watch these shows with hope for a while, this isn't a case of this being 'bad star trek' this is a case of a brand being cheaply milked. This is the equivalent of all that silly Cthulhu crap you get that has nothing to do with the original books, only it has the stamp of authenticity on it.

>>23175
I've not seen massive angry reaction against nu-Trek really. Many people seem to enjoy it, well, not "many", but some. I've never really seen a boycot movement either, but if there were one it's easy to make a bunch of folk on the internet seem like a Mongol hoard, trampling across all before it, when in reality it's just a few dozen angry weirdos. I think what you've done is take a few disparate things and turn them into a big thing that doesn't exist in reality.

Also I know it's not strictly Star Trek related but I think I saw Mike Stoklasa nearly cry earlier and I'm forever changed by it.

>>23178

I've just watched that. What a bizarre saga. The rumour is that the Shatner twitter account is actually run by one of his daughters, which probably explains a lot.

>>23178
> I know it's not strictly Star Trek related but I think I saw Mike Stoklasa nearly cry earlier and I'm forever changed by it.


For the uninitiated who are curious


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF28Zednl10

for the uninitiated who are curious with short attention spans 19 mins in.

>>2834
My resident ecological expert says these are definitely moth or butterfly eggs, but its not possible to tell what type until they hatch.

>>13538
>ask your doctor for a mirtazapine prescription.

Just come off that as I was developing paranoia, which I had hitherto never experienced nor wish to ever again. The best thing about being on it though was being unconscious or extremely tired about half an hour after taking one, ideal for sleeping, and indeed the endless appetite which I used to monster through biscuits with.

>>13538

Incidentally, I have tried making tea with passion flower and it seemed to work, even though the flavour's certainly not something to write home about. I got a loose bag from a Polski sklep for a couple of quid when online retailers were actively taking the piss charging £5 for 20 bags while telling me about its supposed benefits in Papyrus.

>>13539

It's just a regulatory quirk. The FDA have a fairly loose definition of "food supplement", so a lot of stuff that would be a medicine in the EU is available over the counter in the US.

To be honest, anything active in chamomile, passion flower etc is not effective enough to be worth talking about (St Johns Wort is an exception, as mentioned). Generally if you're struggling with insomnia, the answer isn't to add another thing that causes sleep, it's to address what's causing the trouble sleeping.

With that said, kratom is still available online in the UK, from UK-based sellers. The Police apparently can't be fucked to arrest them, but I wouldn't count on that state of affairs continuing forever. I did not find it helped with sleep, quite the opposite.

Avoid anything with caffeine in the evenings, the advice is six+ hours before sleep.

Similarly, avoid sources of sugar (despite their marketing, Ovaltine and Horlicks are objectively a bad idea before bed) or anything else high in calories. Chocolate is doubly bad as it contains a reasonable amount of caffeine too. Eat early in the evening, don't have big meals before bed.

If you absolutely, 100%, life-or-death must sleep (for instance, at the end of three days awake, when your sleeplessness-induced paranoia and self-loathing is at "cruel and unusual human rights violation" levels), try Doxylamine Succinate. It's legal, though god knows I only need half of a 25mg pill to knock me right the fuck out. I probably don't need to warn not to use it every night, because you'll wake up feeling like you're emerging from the bleary mists of a coma.

>>13542
I find myself nodding off pretty easily if I eat loads of pasta or chips before going to bed. Weight gain isn't particularly a problem for me as I've always been a skinny whelp and I'm jumping about most of the day anyway.

>>13543
Food is energy, so eating directly before bed is a bad idea.

If you sleep well regardless, then no worries. If you don't, though, moving meal times to early evening is probably a good idea.

>>438035
This is the grammar school name. The colloquial name is Consequences. I'm sure in my family we called it something else but I can't remember now. Like ching chang chong for rock paper scissors. Are there any other names for it?

>>438037
Consequences is the older version that's a narrative instead of a drawing. Exquisite corpse is the version the surrealists came up with, drawings.

Hangman.
And also those variants of Noughts and Crosses which use a grid larger than 3x3, because once you've worked out a technique for the 3x3 version it's easy enough to just consistently force a draw.

So I don't know the English name for this game and the wiki page doesn't have an English version it seems: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadt,_Land,_Fluss

Basically you write down categories, some things like name-city-animal are pretty standard but you can other categories to your groups liking and tune it for your specific autism. Then someone picks a letter or you randomize it somehow and for that letter everyone privately writes down things of that category starting with that letter.

Empty box or invalid thing (i.e. not an animal in an animal box): 0 pts
Box with something valid: 10 pts, except
Someone else wrote the EXACT same thing: 5 pts
If no one else managed to fill that box, you get 20 pts

Was part of family fun growing up for me and recently played it with the missus and it was still fun

>>438042
I've heard this simply called "categories", perhaps with a randomly chosen keyword that selects the initial letter for each row.
This is actually the game I had in mind for this thread but couldn't myself remember what it was called or how to search for it until seeing your post!

Get on telly for a bit, get someone to ghost write any old shite for you, have a teary on This Morning. Bestselling status in no time.

>>7153
So I'm assuming these book charts are daily/hourly say, not an assessment of total volume for a particular year.

So something like you're using the fibonacci sequence to weight books based on how long they've been out.

I'd have to think about it some more. Say new releases get a 21x multiplier, releases from last week 13, and so on down to 1.

Brent Underwood made a picture of his foot a bestseller.

https://observer.com/2016/02/behind-the-scam-what-does-it-takes-to-be-a-bestselling-author-3-and-5-minutes/

>>7157
Or more precisely by not using just the discrete whole-number values, but actually mapping time-since-release on to the continuous interpolated Fibonacci plot.

>>7159
I sold those two over the course of three years so I reckon that's my chances fucked.