Going Postal
 

Have you ever felt yourself going losing it??

(I mean in the mental health sense, not in the virginity sense.)

I have. Earlier this morning. All day in fact. It seems to be receding. I think.

I'm not going to bore you with the details of certain incidents that have brought this feeling to a head. (More accurately, I'm not going to slather these incidents all over the Internet.) However I can summarize by saying that I've developed feelings of increasing ineffectualness. Little that I do (at home or at work) seems to have any positive or negative effect on anyone else. I seem to be ranked very low on a lot of priority lists. So why should I bother? Perhaps I should just crawl back in my bubble (figuratively) and not even bother.

Or perhaps I should just lash out violently and enact my frustration in an outwardly visible way. I could probably make the 6:00 news.

Or.... what???

Yes. Just earlier today. It's quite common for me.

Earlier I used to cure my problems by playing computer games. I would visualize the "bad guys" as the "monsters" and slaughter them, endlessly.

Sometimes I'd rename the bots in games with the names of ppl I HATED. It made killing them so much more refreshing.

I'm damn good at games...

You play Q3?

I hate Q3.

I know that this will break your heart, but I can't stand that game. ID should stick to making game engines.

The physics are a joke, the pace is absurd and the rocket launcher does nothing.

My favourite FPS of all time is Sin

The rocket launcher actually does 100 damage on a direct hit plus decent splash. A max of 51 to the wielder, it can be useful for getting your speed up to over 3x the normal running speed, which is important in the mod I play, CTF.

It doesn't break my heart. I didn't write the game. And I can sit here smugly knowing that you don't actually know what you're talking about, so you don't have a real opinion on it anyway.

First of all, a real rocket launcher should have FAR more splash damage than the q3 RL.

Second, if the bast is enough to increase your speed more than three times of the 5000mph speed at which chars move in Q3, you should be DEAD.

Good Launcher examples:

Half Life

Sin

Duke Nukem

UT (not 2003)

Quake 2 was ok....it had FAR more splash.

So I do know what I'm talking about. Your suggestion of using the rocket launcher as a means to increase your speed suggest that you are in fact confused. The "rocket jump" was an "oops" from the start as was the "bunny hop" Neither should be seen as "features".
Sin combated both of these issues. The gun you used to "jump" fired plasma in a stream and you pretty much used it as a jetpack.

Damn, he just got here and he's already hijacking threads!! :eek:

(What is with the influx of newbies? Did you post another ad somewhere, UT?)

No, nothing this month!

Steve, step back from the situations for a minute. Sounds like you need some serious Steve time. So, take some time out for yourself...go for a walk, go for a drive, go hang out with a friend or friends.

Think about what's wrong at home and at work. Are these issues temporary or long-term? Try to come up with ways that you can rectify your misery...what can you do on your own? What do you need or desire from others? Flesh it out on paper if you need to.

Hope that helps.

I WANT TO SCREAM AND HIT SOMETHING!$@)@!

How is it that I still don't have a job?

I called Ryan at the camera store whom I interviewed with two days ago. I was so certain that I was going to get the job. He told me that he didn't have any decisions in the area (does this mean that he hasn't decided or that he doesn't have the authority to decidde?), but he would \keep my application on file\.

Keep my application on file? What the hell! The application isn't going to provide any impetus. Why is everybody such a wuss? Why am I still such a wuss? Why do they pretend to be concerned with applications when, as I've discovered recently, the application doesn't do anything? Why did the bookstore (and so many other places) hang up "Now Hiring!" signs for months while they dithered and eventually decided "oh, we don't really want to hire /anybody/!" "We're so busy, we haven't had time to look at applications yet" -- what a pathetic phrase! And how often heard!

GABH!

No. The standard movement is 320 units per second (ups) running in Q3. With a combination of rocket jumps and strafe jumps, one can easily push 1000ups on normal levels and over 3000ups on levels designed for running. If by "confused" you mean "dead-on with regards to essentially everything Quake 3 related", then yes, I am, in fact, confused.

The "bunny hop"/strafe jump and rocket jumps are indeed "bugs" in the sense that they were unintended, as is the fact that frames per second affects your jumping height. They're also bugs in the sense that id has known about them for 6 and 7 years, respectively, and has not fixed them (and has even re-introduced them in subsequent versions of the games).

The fact of the matter is that the rocket launcher can indeed be used to increase speed when fired into a close wall. I have been playing competetive Q3 for nearly four years now, just got done a competetive match, and have every idea what I am talking about.

Says who? The people that like slow paced, boring games? Yes, if my reaction time were in the kiloseconds, I suppose I might care about that too. As it is, part of the greatness of Q3 is that it forces quick decisions and strong teamwork (in team based mods, anyway).

Oh yeah, that's so much more realistic! Plasma climbing is a possibility in Q3 as well, though one must be near a wall to do it.

I haven't played the other games enough to comment fully on them, but UT's rocket launcher was one of the most awful weapon designs unleashed upon a game. Perhaps that's part of the reason why there are still $40,000 cash prizes for competetive Q3 but no one holds large scale UT tournaments?

Re: Going Postal
 

Yes, last week, I have. I was struck with the arrows of outrageuos human and group stupidity....thought seriously about quitting my job....

Must've been a work issue...,eh...

Don't take it seriously....Have a beer and chill out...and I'll have one for you ...

newbie advice
 

go somewhere and be mad - scream or hit stuff or whatever. Just do it alone. It is very important to let your feelings out and then figure out their roots. Then follow all the other good advice in this thread. And rest assured that you will be very hight on peoples priority lists in prison if you go postal.

And dave - you are a know-it-all dick - if you know so much, then why don't you help this poor guy in his thread rather than more of the same boring self-aggrandizing babble? Are you really impressing anyone? Does it make you feel like a big man to try to put eveyone down? If so then you are truly pathetic, and should consider walking away from your sole friend the computer for at least an hour a day.

are they REALLY newbies?

seems like a lot of multi handle members in here

filenot found is legit, as are tonsky and jinx, but who knows about the rest?

Re: newbie advice
 

Yer an ass.

You haven't been here long enough to make a judgement like that about Dave.

Besides... putting down everyone is my job, not Dave's. Get it right, clown.

SD, from what I know of you, you're a rather non-confrontational sort. Is what you're feeling sort of a situation where you're not getting much attention because the "squeaky wheel gets the grease", and you don't tend to squeak much?

If that's the case, then maybe even if you begin squeaking, it may take some time for people to understand that it's something they should respond to.

Oh, and - that's the case even in this thread, it would appear.

It seems to me that anyone not addressing SD and going off-topic in this thread is an ass.

Even if they are the only three "real" ones, three in such a short space is a lot, at least by recent standards. And you yourself haven't been around *THAT* long!! :)

For the record, I don't mind topic drift.

Thanks for all the good advice. UT, you might have something there. We'll see what happens. Part of the problem at home is that my wife has a lot of commitments at the moment, leaving me with the childcare and household maintenance bag. And it's only going to get worse in the next week. (See the Shameless Plugs thread.) (This is generally the cue for all the mothers in the audience to start rolling their eyes and muttering about how men whine if they have to do a little housework, while women get to do it constantly. Be my guest.) But that will all end in a week. (The "outside" stuff will be over, and she's quitting her day job.) So I'm not inclined to push it till then.

Some "Steve Time" is a good suggestion. Except for one orchestra concert last Friday, I haven't been anywhere except taking the kids to swimming lessons in months--partly due to my schedule, partly due to my own pesonality tendencies. Maybe I can find something interesting to do this weekend.

Oh, and being a little squeakier at work.... hmmm...... well I applied for a job this morning. That ought to do it :D !! By coincidence I have been at my job now the SAME amount of time I was at my last job when I left it. Anyway I'm gonna tell my boss about it if they interview me, which I expect they will. (It's a good fit for me, and the date on the posting is 3 months old, which means they're probably desperate to interview any competent-looking candidate unless they just have a slack webmaster who hasn't taken the ad down yet.) It may cause some consternation. (I have too good a relationship with him to let him find out about it when I give my notice, if it comes to that.)

Are you leaving this job for the same reason you left the last one, Steve?

yeah, but it seems like an eternity. most of the active people on this loop seem very farmiliar to me. the overall sense of humor is so similar to mine and my wife's and her family, that i feel right at home. there is a very strong sense of cohesion here that im sure you all appreciate. like one big happy twisted and disfunctional family.

someone care to define the familial roles with the people who represent them?

Dave would be the acidic older brother that always dumps on you, i gather. any other thoughts?

Ummm well I haven't really decided to leave. But, yeah, sort of.

I feel your pain. Pete is heading for Jacksonville for a little "on-site integration" this week so I've gotta sac up and do all the Mom stuff I've eased onto her plate over the years. cluster foxtrot

i know how you feel!! I almost fainted one day right after a bitchy old lady asked me a sixth stupid request, I felt the blood all rush straight to my head and I felt hot and my heart was racing..One day, so many bad things happened to me, there isn't enough room here to go through them all. The last straw was a cook in the kitchen giving me serious attitude all day. on his last comment, i threw my notepad on the ground and just started crying. I couldn't even stop. My boss had to wait on my tables. I cried for 15 straight minutes, and I am not that type of person!! I am not whiny, I really felt the urge to break things or punch that guy or scream really loud, or shoot everybody in the building, or run out the front door and keep running for 5 or 6 miles... and that feeling of helplessness that you get, when you know you can't do that, you can't release that tension, well, it just made me break down into tears. do not wait tables for a living.

Oops, wrong character there for a minute.

Not on topic at all but FNF did mention it. Does (did) anyone play Duke Nukem - Time to kill?

That is why everybody should be a server for at least 6 months of their lives staceyv. ]

Stacey, if a customer is particularly nice to you does it make a real difference or is it just a break between assholes?

Yep. The only game in the Duke Universe I haven't played is Manhattan Project. (I have TTK and LOB for PSone)

The format on MP is different. They took the classic DN game, and totally Fed it up. I ended up giving my copy away after just a few hours of play. Very sad.

To go WAAAAAAY back to the original question (SD's frustrating feeling of ineffectualness) ...

If the feeling comes and goes, it's not that bad a thing ... self-doubt is pretty common. It's part of our usual reality checks. When it stops by for a brief visit and ends up staying forever, like the wife's worthless nephew who doesn't contribute to the household ... then you gotta do something.

Talking it over with someone (us to start, a pro if you need it) is where you start.

If this does start interfering with your ability to accomplish things, then you have to be more proactive about it, and possibly even look at medication if you're not on it, or adjusting what you take if you are (this includes medical meds, incidentally, which can have psych side effects that make you think yer goin' crazy but yer not).

Taking a perfectly good first person shooter and turning it into a third person shooter can indeed screw it up. Well, there's always Wolfenstein.

Wolfenstein was a perfectly good third person shooter which became a perfectly good first person shooter.

(although I've heard bad things about the Mac version of Return to Wolfenstein)

Speaking of going postal ... does anyone actually have the full version of Postal 2? I have the demo, but haven't been able to devote much time to it, and the pit bull keeps chewing my ass off before I can get onto doing any real mayhem ...

Is it worth buying the full version?

response to xoxoxobruce: It really does make a difference in my attitude when i have nice tables. they help to balance out the number of assholes. if I didn't have those nice tables to make things better, i would've walked out in the middle of a shift a long time ago. So would 99.9% of the other servers, so nobody would ever be able to go out to eat, (or waitressing would become a highly paid, respected position)

RTCW was better than perfectly good IMO

Overall, it was awesome. The supernatural creatures at the end were a bit wierd though. The opening stage and scenes of escaping from the Nazi prison were great. Hearing the audio of Adolf Hitler and the cheers of the crowd were truly chilling. That set the mood for the whole game.

I do my best. Tip well too.:D

It's back.

Must be fucking November.

No. Today would be fucking December. :D

Did I miss something?

What's back? And shouldn't that be No-fucking-vember?

Nothing, just dredging up a fun and entertaining thread from the past.

feeling inefectual again? is this mainly at work, or does it seep into the home, too? step away from yourself, and look back at where you are. are you happy with you? if there's one thing about your life that bothers you more than others, focus on it, and figure out how to fix it. then go to the next thing. if it's just a general sense, get a hobby. do you still play your clarinet? maybe join a group? or go play on a street corner for a little while. that will have some effect on the passersby, at least.

maybe play christmas music for an hour or two somewhere. at least people might smile at you.

or take up streaking! gar!

I love the way LJ starts his post ... "Feeling ineffectual again" like an advert for a painkiller or tonic? (Reminds me of one here in UK which started "Tense, nervouse headache ...?")
But then, he goes on to give some really plain ole sensible advice. Fantastic!

Nah, just a general sense of "it doesn't much matter what I do or don't do." And just finished off the fall orchestra performance a couple weeks back.

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!

By Thomas Hood

well, stop paying your bills for a while. you'll soon realize that it DOES matter what you don't do.

:shocking: :shocking: :shocking: Put up lots of Christmas lights and think solstice. Only 19 more days and the dark will start going away and the light will return. That always helps me about now! :shocking: :shocking: :shocking: :shocking: :shocking: :shocking: :

Well now I have my eyes burned out from your smilies... :eek:

Occupational therapy of a sort... for a display starting tomorrow

Oh my god! The aliens are going to eat baby Jesus! Somebody do something!

An orgasm-i nativity. :eek:

mind's in the gutter again, Bruce.
That's origami-nativity :lol:

Actually, quite nicely done. Bored at work, Steve?

It's spooky how wise LJ is.

No I did it in a rush last night. Gotta go deliver it today. (I'm surprised LJ didn't recommend the purchase of a new Nissan vehicle as a soothing activity! :angel: )

(edit to fix a typo)

are you really? you strike me as someone who dreads the car buying experience. remember, i'm spooky wise. i know things.

Yeah, what else do you know???

And yeah, I dread it, not so much for the process (though I find that annoying). I dread it because I hate spending so much time to acquire something I loathe. (I hate driving.)

I couldn't take it anymore
 

so about 10 days ago I basically said take this job and shove it. It was a decent paying union job and I was #1 in seniority with 11 years on the job and 3 weeks vacation and about 6 months ago the #2 guy quit which really was my catalyst to get out. Even though I do not have a job and will take the rest of the year off, I feel very good about my decision. Last weekend I tried to work up some remorse about quitting, but I couldn't and I still can't.
Life is too short to be unhappy with your work. My living expenses are very small and I actually feel a sense of adventure about things.

My first year at my last job we had a guy who got fired that we thought might go postal because he owned many guns
and seemed to have bubbles in the think-tank. I can remember eating lunch and thinking what I might do or run to if he came back shooting. Once you reach that frame of mind, possible or not, it gets scary.

For SD. Don't know if this makes sense, but trouble I find with the downers is that there doesn't seem a way out. The old negative spiral bites - e.g./i.e. hate job but need job, so can't give up job but feeling negative about it makes me short-tempered generally which puts me at odds with others - maybe even (usually even) family. Issues I should be handling at work aren't so I'm a PITA at home. And that just adds to the problem.... Then more things add to the grief, and you feel you have absolutely no means to control or influence events.

Truth is that you can get control - and you have to in order to reverse the spiral direction. The way you do that is to attack the real issue (on much the same lines as Lumberjim said). This could be the job. For example, perhaps the work presents no challenge/satisfaction - only problems. If you cannot improve the situation (that is remove the problems either solely by having the authority to do so, or by being able to influence others to do so) then you will need to change the situation (that is find a place where these problems don't exist) so that you have something to strive for - this will get you on an upward path. What this means can be different for different people - it may mean changing your job (maybe not), it may mean changing your life - but be aware that whatever it is will have its own set of positives and negatives and you need to have your eyes wide-open to what these are before making any decision. So think before acting, but do act and don't just think about it - and take personal responsibility for the decision you make (your decision may be to stick with what you have), so you have no reason to gripe if you don't like the end result.

Personally I have always tried to work out problems without personally introducing major lifestyle threatening change, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't (I have 5 redundancies behind me and the fallout these can cause to back that up - you then get the lifestyle change whether you wanted it or not!), but I still prefer and will always go the route of facing out the problems - I find this more rewarding from a self-esteem and sanity perspective (but that is just what suits me - doesn't mean it is best for you). Whatever, always remember to involve people that matter along the way during the course of making and also once you have made your decision. If other people understand what you are going through and what you are doing (having to do) to solve the situation they will (if they are decent people) be more tolerant of your actions and even supportive of your efforts. If you leave them out so that they don't know what the hell is going on, then you shouldn't be surprised at the reactions you get in return.

Hope the above doesn't sound all to hypothetical - without knowing specifics it's only possible to outline - can't propose anything more detailed knowing as little about your situation as I do.

Hey, it's OK. I've been cured.

http://images.despair.com/products/d.../potential.jpg

I'm OK now.

Well, OK, seriously, blech, I just feel like I work, sleep, repeat. It may just be seasonal--we've had a hell of a semester with a lot of new stuff online (or not online as the case may be) and we really could have used another positoin that we got turned down for in the last budget cycle. Now that the semester is drawing to a close things should be better after the break.

I have, however, upon reflection, determined to not let myself get into quite as much of a rut by forcing myself to partake of more extracurricular activities. (And you're probably all going to be victimized by this because I just got a new camera.)

(I will note that the original post in this thread was followed shortly by UnderToad's x0th birthday party, which was a nice chance to get out of the house. Perhaps the answer is simply to show up at his house once a year with a case of beer.)

Not everybody who owns lots of guns is some kind of a wack job, you know.