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Met the gf's family for the first time. Didn't die. I'm as shocked as anyone.
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Jan 2, 2019 06:37
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 21:02 |
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Nice! I had that done back in Sept. Followed the doc's recommendation of ice and not doing much of anything for 3 days, and no PT for a week and have had no complications. The whole thing was pretty quick and easy. No more pain than a flu shot, and even that was just the anesthetic injections.
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Jan 8, 2019 18:41
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Dang didn't you just start not too long ago? That sounds like rough work for sure.
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Jan 8, 2019 20:49
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If I didn't have a gf currently, I honestly wouldn't mind going back to contracting. The money was good, the FOB life was pretty routine and I was able to keep a regular gym routine. That's tech contracting though. Wouldn't do security contracting again.
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Jan 9, 2019 05:06
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Oh it wouldn't be as a career. Just some blood money war bucks to pad out the savings account.
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Jan 9, 2019 05:24
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45 ACP CURES NAZIS posted:What was security contracting like I was on a static security contract for a year and it was a lot of testosterone poisoning stupidity, basically. Guys squabbling and backstabbing each other for promotions, being hired and fired and jumping contracts constantly, half my team was doing dianabol to the point of lactating and roid raging all the time, and we were so poorly supplied that we were having to knock over amnesty boxes in the middle of the night to get training ammo. And then there were the poorly built gun trucks with cheap tires that blew out frequently. One of ours was like the Event Horizon that tried to kill its crew, except instead of psychotic hallucinations, it was venting fumes into the cab. Two others spontaneously combusted and burned to the ground. Pay was not great in a relative sense, and we had several people there whose only military experience was from the Clinton years and had never deployed before. One was a Nam draftee. I remember this fat gently caress former Marine helo mechanic that was basically spherical, who had only been in during the early 90s and talked poo poo about the Army, on a team that was half full of recent GWOT Army guys. He ended up basically getting hazed off the team in a month for being such an unlikable prick. And then we had other guys that were blowing their money to go to Jamaican sex resorts on leave and bang hookers in Amsterdam along the way. The only real action was dudes having NDs. One guy had an ND into the dash of my truck, which ended up killing the AC, which combined with the windows being fixed in place due to being bulletproof glass, meant that I'd be riding shotgun rolling down the FOB at 10mph with the door cracked open to get some air, with Lady Gaga blaring on the AFN radio and soldiers looking at us like "what the gently caress are these turds" and generally having a surreal moment of "what the hell am I doing with my life that brought me to this point?" I don't miss it. Maybe it would have been cooler on a mobile gig, but I doubt it would have been that much better other than the pay. Tech contracting was waaaay better. Pay was better, coworkers were more reasonable humans and not angry piles of steroid-infused meat, hours were better, jobs were generally less stressful. Getting to jump around to different FOBs fixing poo poo in Afghanistan was really pretty cool. Got to see lots of different stuff and generally just be autonomous and apply myself. It felt more like a proper adventure on a rugged frontier rather than a job. Everything felt mythic and ancient, like a Robert E Howard story. It was beautiful, and if it were stable, I'd love to go back and go exploring. Iraq seemed so used up, like an old waitress at Dennys, while Afghanistan was beautiful and harsh like some ancient death goddess. Ended up loving the local food too. Came home and found an Afghan restaurant in town and kept on with it. My dad gave me poo poo for it until he tried it and liked it too. I told him it was like his Nam buddies who got back stateside and couldn't stop eating rice. Plus like you said, fortifications from Alexander the Great's time. This one was a small base called COP Castle.   Thinking back nostalgically about it now, too late at night with not enough sleep, Afghanistan is the deployment that makes me look back with a sense of wonder. Iraq and the temporary camaraderie of the Army and whatnot feel like an echo, but Afghanistan itself, being in a helicopter, looking down and seeing the Helmand river snake down the desert with lush green vegetation following its course like a tight dress on a woman is something that I'll always remember with awe. Of course given what some of my former comrades have told me, my view is also very colored by the fact that I never had to interact with the locals. I just bounced around fixing poo poo, seeing different FOBs and the countryside by chopper. Reading Flashman by George Macdonald Fraser later was doubly hilarious for this in retrospect. Side note the whole Flashman series should be required GIP reading. gently caress I should get to bed, I'm rambling on way too much.
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Jan 9, 2019 07:46
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Now you have me thinking about computer monitors for photo editing. Currently have a pair Dell U2412M ultra sharps, but I have no clue if something has come out that's noticeably better.
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Jan 11, 2019 20:07
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Water777 posted:It doesn't sound like you were given a lot of support. Was it as mercenary as you portray it in terms of having to supply your own stuff or did the company Nah no bad memories, nothing worse than Junior high school. Which is incidentally the mental level of the dudes cranking the roids into their rear end via reused syringes. The company supplied gear was pretty bad. The plate carriers were airsoft grade, the plates were solid steel and there was no soft armor kevlar backings. I had bought my own kit primarily because I'm a huge gear queer, but I felt glad to have it relative to that stuff. The issued weapons were WASR-10 AKs for most of the Ugandan guards (same semiauto only ones that you can buy stateside) and DPMS AR15s with 16" barrels and carbine gas for the rest. They were not good. We got them all new, and I saw several blow bolts within the first few weeks of range days we had. The expats also had Glocks and Sigs, at least up until they took all the Sigs because some Iraqi general accused the company of having stolen them or some such nonsense. There was no real unified doctrine, since most sections just had protocols relevant to their section of the base. Gear was mostly standardized in terms of the issue junk, but people could and did buy their own kit. Everything short of guns anyways, since we couldn't exactly order those from stateside. This was for on base static security on VBC in 2010 though, and as far as I know, no one on that contact ever fired a shot in anger. The headache was from all the testosterone and politicking. It wasn't a cool guy job, but it was a stepping stone to the other non security jobs, which were nicer in every way.
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Jan 11, 2019 23:59
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Wasabi the J posted:Couple pages back but dawg I know those Dell models were good and accurate years ago, but that's Stone age poo poo now. Oh dang. Thanks! Gonna have to take a closer look when I get home in a couple days. My computer currently has a GeForce 970 and it's still running games just fine. Will that need to be upgraded as well as the monitors?
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Jan 12, 2019 03:05
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Wasabi the J posted:Not gonna be able to play newest AAA games in ultra, but playable at 1080p. The good thing is if you get Freesync (either from the manufacturer it through easy hacks) is it makes drops below maximum framerates less noticable because the monitor/TV just matches the framerate. Hmm ok. The only games I've spent any time playing in the last few years have been XCOM 2, Battletech and Stellaris. Not super graphically intense. I was thinking mainly of photo editing in Lightroom. If I won't get hang ups in that with a new monitor, sounds like it would be a good upgrade.
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Jan 12, 2019 15:52
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holocaust bloopers posted:Lightroom will need a lot of ram and a decent CPU -- 8 gb at the least Just checked the specs on this computer - Intel i5-6600K CPU @ 3.50Ghz, 16gb RAM. It's been running Lightroom well enough (outside of the enormous 80mp hi-res shots that my Olympus can take), but enough time has passed that I was curious about upgrades. It's nice having a desktop and upgrades being readily accessible and not having to upgrade laptops every few years.
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Jan 14, 2019 04:15
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The best yardstick for restaurant quality they I've seen, at least for Asian restaurants, is the number of old white people present. The more there are, the blander you know the food will be.
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Jan 16, 2019 00:08
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Monitor chat: is HDR crucial when it comes to basic photo editing? I'm poking around and not sure it's really necessary.
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Jan 17, 2019 00:02
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Oh I mean HDR monitors, rather than the photo technique. It seems to be a thing that adds significantly to the price.
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Jan 17, 2019 01:24
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E;fb^^^ Haha poo poo, I didn't realize it was that new. The reviews on the HDR-capable monitors in my price range all say it's not implemented great, do I might just skip it on this monitor upgrade and use the savings for a new video card.
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Jan 17, 2019 01:32
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Oh yeah I wasn't clear. I am looking at replacing my monitors, but since I won't have to pay extra for the HDR, it means enough saved for a new video card too.
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Jan 17, 2019 01:43
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This was the primary I had my eye on, seemed like a good bang for buck at $300 apiece: https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/lg/27ud58-b Open to suggestions in the same price range of course. Just can't be wider than 25." Can't go with an ultrawide due to the way my desk is set up, but I do really dig having a dual monitor setup. e: current video card is a Geforce 970 4gb fwiw. Haven't felt limited by either it or the current monitors (Dell U2412M), but it looks like things have taken enough of a jump to be worth looking at. The Rat fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jan 17, 2019 |
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Jan 17, 2019 02:05
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Nostalgia4Infinity posted:Podcast and/or audiobook recommendations for a 14 hour drive? Gotta go to SC this weekend for a funeral. The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell. Historical fiction trilogy on the King Arthur legend. The guy who narrates the audiobooks (Jonathan Keeble) really knocks it out of the park.
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Jan 23, 2019 04:27
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LingcodKilla posted:Feed me a decent Korean and I'd kill for you.
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Jan 24, 2019 18:16
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Just ordered a refurbished BenQ monitor, came with free shipping too! 
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Jan 24, 2019 20:08
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Just got the new monitor in place, this thing is so fuckoff huge, it's gonna take some getting used to.
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Jan 29, 2019 02:38
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32" 4k BenQ PD3200U is the new one on the left, Dell U2412M is the secondary on the right. Now I'm just debating video card upgrades, either the RTX 2060 or the Vega 64. 75% photo editing and general internet use, 25% games like XCOM2, Battletech and Stellaris. Current video card is a GTX 970 with an i5-6600k. e: or maybe a 2070 if an ebay coupon hits or there's some other sale in the next month or so The Rat fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Jan 29, 2019 |
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Jan 29, 2019 05:26
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Wasabi the J posted:Two things to remember about updating tech, especially video cards: there is always something way faster about to be released at all times, and the longer you wait, the lower the process are. Yeah definitely. The good thing is that I can afford to be patient for the moment. Tested XCOM2 at 4k resolution with max settings and although it wasn't perfectly smooth, it was still playable. Turning it down of course because I don't care about max settings, but it was still a good real world example for me.
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Jan 29, 2019 14:25
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Nice! That's a good confidence boost out of the blue like that.
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Jan 30, 2019 22:48
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 I'm picturing the DOD contracting version of this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKjSnyv4YW0
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Feb 1, 2019 01:35
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Oh man, yesterday I was driving out to the range and some jackass in a new Tesla aggressively passed me in a no passing stretch of road. I was going 65, he was easily going 80+. Then 10 minutes later, I see that he's been pulled over by the cops. Sometimes it's the small joys in life.
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Feb 3, 2019 14:19
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holocaust bloopers posted:Little things help. I gave up coffee back in December after having way too many anxiety attacks. No caffeine helped me a lot keep a clearer head. No caffeine gives me more consistent energy levels too, with less highs and crashes. Quit after one of the Ugandans on the opposing shift on my first contract was found dead of a heart attack at age 40 in his CHU, surrounded by Rip-It cans.
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Feb 3, 2019 23:37
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Keep up posted, I'm curious how it all turns out.
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Feb 8, 2019 17:12
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Now I really want to stick around to see the resulting violence.
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Feb 9, 2019 01:52
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I really like my Subaru. Decent gas mileage, can get out on mountain dirt roads, and big enough for me to sleep in.
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Feb 13, 2019 06:30
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UP THE BUM NO BABY posted:Look for the place in the middle of a run down strip mall that has a name like "ZZZ Accounting, CPA" poo poo I was gonna make a joke about making sure they like Dogs Playing Poker and you beat me
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Feb 18, 2019 18:05
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EVERY MORNING I WAKE UP AND OPEN PALM SLAM A VHS INTO THE SLOT. ITS THE ACCOUNTANT AND RIGHT THEN AND THERE I START DOING THE MOVES ALONGSIDE WITH THE MAIN CHARACTER, CHRISTIAN WOLFE. I DO EVERY MOVE AND I DO EVERY MOVE HARD. MAKIN WHOOSHING SOUNDS WHEN I SLAM DOWN SOME 50BMG OR EVEN WHEN I MESS UP TALKING TO WOMEN. NOT MANY CAN SAY THEY WENT THROUGH 15 GENERAL LEDGERS IN ONE NIGHT. I CAN. I SAY IT AND I SAY IT OUTLOUD EVERYDAY TO PEOPLE IN MY OFFICE AND ALL THEY DO IS PROVE CPAS CAN STILL BE IMMATURE JERKS. AND IVE LEARNED ALL THE LINES AND IVE LEARNED HOW TO MAKE MYSELF AND MY APARTMENT LESS LONELY BY SHOUTING EM ALL WHILE RACKING MY BARRETT. 2 HOURS INCLUDING WIND DOWN EVERY MORNING. THEN I LIFT
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Mar 3, 2019 20:37
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Just saw Alita: Battle Angel. A+, highly recommend. Very much enjoyed the earnest, exuberant little cyborg girl out doing brutal brutal cyborg killing.
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Mar 6, 2019 00:45
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High five fellow blank shooter Gotta love those titanium clamps
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Mar 11, 2019 22:30
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At least your don't have to worry about getting a hard drive full of morale supporting materials 
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Mar 12, 2019 16:26
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If any deploying goons send me an external hard drive, I will fill it up and send it to the address of your choice
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Mar 12, 2019 17:15
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Snow day today, hell yeah.
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Mar 13, 2019 16:43
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Ken Bone Comeback posted:going around hat in hand to beg to please take my terminal leave sir was when I knew once and until the end of my days that the military was a poo poo organization not worth being in Yeah I didn't feel bad at all about giving the right NCO a case of beer every time I went on leave for the last year or so. Combined with my PCS leave somehow not being deducted, I took a 60 day terminal leave 
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Mar 14, 2019 04:33
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I remember BW (or Xe or whatever they call themselves now) paying 55k to stand post in guard towers in Afghanistan for 12h a day. Seemed pretty miserable. My assumption was that they were vacuuming up all the goobers who wanted to say they worked for BW and didn't have much other mil/LE experience.
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Mar 20, 2019 13:46
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 21:02 |
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Water777 posted:pancakes house it is. maybe wyoming has pho. Several pho places here in CO FWIW. Dunno about WY.
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Mar 22, 2019 13:08
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