"Temporary" Venting Thread

[Spock]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

I'm aware of the girl in Aruba. A person could dissappear anywhere, in Aruba, the US, anywhere.

this is "board of trade talk"..there is plenty to worry about there
years of genocide and wars have left much of the country sewed with minefields. I merely suggest caution and not to go walking around because "it looks peaceful and pretty".

Originally Posted by Jonathan

[edit] actually I noticed it's not recommended to visit a couple of Thai provinces but I take it they're not the most popular places for tourists to visit anyway.

SCORE!

US STATE DEPARTMENT: CAMBODIA
SAFETY AND SECURITY: In the aftermath of bombings in Indonesia in the last two years, Southeast Asia remains a possible target of terrorism. The Department is concerned that individuals and groups may be planning terrorist actions against United States citizens and interests, as well as sites frequented by Westerners. Extremist groups present in Southeast Asia have transnational capabilities to carry out attacks against locations where Westerners congregate. Increased security at official U.S. facilities has led terrorist groups and their sympathizers to seek softer targets such as clubs, restaurants, places of worship, schools, outdoor recreation events, hotels, resorts and beaches.

Land mines and unexploded ordnance can be found in rural areas throughout Cambodia, but especially in Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Pursat, Siem Reap, and Kampong Thom provinces. At no time should travelers walk in forested areas or even in dry rice paddies without a local guide. Areas around small bridges on secondary roads are particularly dangerous.
The town of Siem Reap and the vicinity of the Angkor Wat temple complex remain officially open to tourists. The Embassy advises U.S. citizens to travel there by air and to limit their movements to the city of Siem Reap and the main Angkor Wat temple complexes.
Pickpockets and beggars are also present in the markets and at the tourist sites. Persons visiting Cambodia should practice sound personal security awareness by varying their routes and routines, maintaining a low profile, not carrying or displaying large amounts of cash, not wearing flashy or expensive jewelry, and not walking the streets alone after dark. Travelers should be particularly vigilant at tourist sites in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and Sihanoukville, where there have been a marked increase in motorcycle “snatch and grab” thefts of bags and purses.

Similar cautions apply to portions of Thailand. Both are in the "iron triangle" of drug trade.

..........I never said nor am I saying don't go to Aruba.

[Linaewen]

Thanks for your concern guys, but "L" (?) will be ok. Really. My Cambodian relos will be taking us around the place and if somehow we lose our guide...well, I have my parents who happen to also come from Cambodia. My parents went through hell over there- my mum had to carefully navigate her way through landmine-strewn mountainsides twice- so we're not likely to be complacent about walking through danger areas.

Spock, as for extremist groups in Cambodia- there's no real threat about that there. There isn't much of a Muslim population over there, most people are Buddhist (in the cities at least.) The problem with Cambodia is not so much terrorism (if at all), but the corruption that is rife in the government, in the police force, in the education system...everywhere? The legacy of the destruction of a culture during the horror that was the Khmer Rouge reign. I pity non-Khmer-looking tourists travelling there- you'd probably get ripped off and cheated quite a bit for not being a native/with one.

Originally Posted by Spock

Land mines and unexploded ordnance can be found in rural areas throughout Cambodia, but especially in Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Pursat, Siem Reap, and Kampong Thom provinces

Eee, all apart from Banteay Meanchey are areas my family are from/travelled through during the war. We're definitely spending a bit of time at Siem Reap cause that's were Angkor Wat is, but apart from that, I don't know where we're going. But trust me, we'll be fine. Same thing with the pickpockets- my parents will be vigilant (we'll probably leave our valuables with our relos.)

Nope and I served with Aussies years ago overseas. I guess we all were getting shots then and so the subject of "home shots" never came up. You probably do need them because of the roos.

o.O I hope you DID understand me when I said I was joking. Hehe, typhoid in Aus.
Nah, the roos aren't really problematic in the disease area- otherwise there'd be trouble, what with them being pretty much everywhere, eh?

Wow, I just realised that by the end of this trip I'd have visited China, Hong Kong, Cambodia and Thailand (and Singapore's Changi airport ) and though all are in Asia, they're all so different. They'd all be similar in the disgusting level of air pollution there, though.

[Linaewen]

Originally Posted by Nerdanel

o.O Lin?

I was at that point very, very frustrated by something and needed to vent about it quickly. It's what happens when some things you try to do to help someone backfire. Or are pretty much useless. To put it simply. Sigh. Now I'm thinking of other ways to help but that'd probably backfire too.

[Nerdanel]

damn hormones. >.<

[Spock]

Air pollution was (is?) huge in Beijing. I personally found Shanghai just dandy.

[Linaewen]

Originally Posted by Spock

Air pollution was (is?) huge in Beijing. I personally found Shanghai just dandy.

Methinks it's probably still bad in Shanghai, as in most cities in China, guessing from the ones I saw. Just not so bad compared to Beijing. I hate all forms of pollution but air is probably the worst- it gets you EVERYWHERE. Stinky, stinky China!

Change of plans: going to Malaysia instead of Thailand now. Probably more dangerous now. Oh well, I'm still really happy.

[Lotesse]

If it is so freakin' polluted there, which by that australian news report it looks way WAY way worse than Los Angeles ever could be even on its absolute worse, worse day, then how the hell are the athletes expected to huff and puff through the Olympic games in that crap?? That is BAD pollution. And a poor Olympic Committee choice. The Air Pollution capital of the WORLD, and the OLYMPICS are to be played there? My god, this planet is all backwards.

[trolls' bane]

Vent: I have MSN messenger, and for some reason people keep logging on and off every minute. It's really annoying! STOP THAT! It's very distracting, so if you are one of the people beign referred to, STOP!!
Right now the same person keeps logging on and off, now as I type! I feel like erasing everyone all of a sudden. STOP!!!!!!!!

Vent 2: I can't completely turn off the sound on one of my messengers (AIM, I beleive) and it keeps making this door slamming sound when I am trying to record something, which means that I can't have any sound files running on my computer other than the one being recorded.

[Lotesse]

My vent today is spammers who muck up perfectly good threads, and kill conversations.

[trolls' bane]

*is referring to me *

[Lotesse]

Why do you do that, trolls' bane? And even more pernicious is that you subtly encourage others to join in with you, and spam together? It really DOES upset me, because it takes a while to come up with a good idea for a good thread, and it's so exciting to see people's ideas and input, but then when spammers attack the new threads, while the thread is still young and the conversation is just starting to grow some roots, the spamming just ruins the development of the new thread, and can doom it to death. SO friggin' infuriating. How would you like it if people (not just one random person, but PEOPLE, plural) came in and spammed all YOUR interesting new threads with stuff you had no interest in, that had nothing to do with your thread? Wouldn't it bum YOU out? Think about it man. I'm just sayin'.

[trolls' bane]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

Why do you do that, trolls' bane? And even more pernicious is that you subtly encourage others to join in with you, and spam together? It really DOES upset me, because it takes a while to come up with a good idea for a good thread, and it's so exciting to see people's ideas and input, but then when spammers attack the new threads, while the thread is still young and the conversation is just starting to grow some roots, the spamming just ruins the development of the new thread, and can doom it to death. SO friggin' infuriating. How would you like it if people (not just one random person, but PEOPLE, plural) came in and spammed all YOUR interesting new threads with stuff you had no interest in, that had nothing to do with your thread? Wouldn't it bum YOU out? Think about it man. I'm just sayin'.

What can I say? I ruined some threads. I ruined my own threads!
Well, I can't really say anything, because the whole Empire thing gives spontaneous satisfaction for countering the lack of product from my isocratic ideas...I have no choice but to stop, and I found out today the number of people who dread my whole EDDIE campaign thing. I'm not, however, going to stop referring to this whole ordeal, and I demand allowence to do so. Some instances I did not provoke anything or "spam" in that I devoted little of the post to the Empire. I don't think that I should feel bad for upsetting people AND loose out on the only large-scale area-of-effect bit of fun I have, as my attempt to convert my school into brainwashed classical zombies has failed due to failure of school staff to reply to me. I am sick of having to wipe out entire "series" or "campaigns" or whatever when the majority of references of such were accepted in a more postitive or at least sarcastic attitude. I will NOT bear the large weight of "ruining" something, as I have had to for most of my life living with my mom and stepdad, and I will NOT be held responsible for "ruining" certain threads, because as far as I can tell, I have barely made a dent.
I rest my case, and demand an immediate end to argument.

[Lotesse]

I wish I could say here what I really want to say, without being deleted by the mods for flaming. You have no respect, then, for others on the moot, tb; is this what you're trying to say? You could care less that you ruin other people's ideas and stuff? I don't get it. I never thought you were so cavalier about other people's feelings.

[The last sane person]

nor did I, but i think our drug and sickness tampered minds are reading it wrong lotesse.

[Lotesse]

No man, I am NOT READING IT WRONG, dammit; please do not trivialise me here. Both trolls' bane (whom I've always really liked, whioch is why he especially distresses me on this point) and rohirrim TR come in and spam threads just for fun, with their star wars stuff, and irrelevant jibberish, and it burns me up, rightfully so, because time and time again I have seen behaviour like this totally destroy perfectly good threads. Well, this time it's one of MY threads being mucked up with spam, and I have had it with over and over and over again politely asking them to knock it off. In the meantime, the thread dies.

[The last sane person]

well, yeah, i guess i am reading it the same way. and it is a pain in the arse. i cant really point a finger though, cause I think i might have helped in the spamming in the teacup. anyhoos, it is annoying, but what can i say, he is a peskery lil midget.

[Lotesse]

I'm not even referring to the Teacup, in particular; I'm referring right NOW to my Paris riots thread which was just warming up and getting underway when 2 mooters with their joint spamming effort, combined with me having to ask them repeatedly to stop it, has so far frozen up the thread, so thanx a lot, little pests. It isn't "cute," O.K.!

[The last sane person]

Oo that. Well, i had no part in it. shame on them boogers.

[Lotesse]

Indeed.

[trolls' bane]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

I wish I could say here what I really want to say, without being deleted by the mods for flaming. You have no respect, then, for others on the moot, tb; is this what you're trying to say? You could care less that you ruin other people's ideas and stuff? I don't get it. I never thought you were so cavalier about other people's feelings.

I never thought you were so pugnacious, nor, for a matter of fact, myself. I was trying to apologize, while keeping my fundamental right of free speech, which I have noticed lately has had a serious decline because of increased misunderstanding around here, case-in-point now. I'm saying that I will not do what I have always done in the past. I am so SICK of other people (no, I am not referring to any one person, but many people I know collectively) trying to suggest what to think, how to act, what to say, etc. I sincerely beleive that I went to far, but I refuse to comepletely erradicate any references or "news" about the Empire, EDDIE, or the "titles" of certain people (ie Grand Admiral Brendan, Darth Sane, Emperor Rohirrim) from my daily speech. I did that for the [TB?]'s, and look what happened! I realized my mistake, then completely stopped, and now the one time I try do start it the right way, as in one thread, it's closed. I did that with HVEL, and when I realized my mistake, I stopped, and felt inclined to almost completely erase HVEL from what I say. I will stop "spamming" (or more appropriately put by Spock, "roleplaying" in all the wrong places), but I will not change my entire personality to fit only a few hundred thousand people. I'm glad to have learned that all this "roleplaying" was over the top and was causing upset, because I don't want to be shunned by the only friends I have, and I have agreed to stop anything excessive or very out of place.

Simply put, I'm just trying to defend my reputation while also defending the six-cubic-inch area that is mine inside my head.
Now, I hope I can be forgiven, because I don't see anything more to say. You all have been a great asset to me in the years since February 2003, and I don't want to loose that.