The Gaming Den

My wife and I (Texans) were vacationing in the UK. The first thing I did when we got off the train in Edinburgh, Scotland was to go buy a local map from a corner store. I grabbed one and asked the clerk where the train station was on said map and he asked me... something in response. This exchange went back and forth two more times before the guy threw his hands up and fetched another, less Scottish person to talk to me.

What had the guy been asking me? "Do you speak English?"

Apparently in Scotland, I don't.

I was once cyberstalked by a Chinese heiress.

Orion wrote:I was once cyberstalked by a Chinese heiress.

That's more interesting than me, I only get cyberstalked by burly Virginia mountain women.

One time I was on the way home from University. I was on auto pilot, so I walked up to a bus and walked in. Moments later I remembered that a friend had offered to give me a ride home and would be waiting nearby. I didn't realize how fast it was moving so I jumped off. I fell on my feet but momentarily, my knees hit the ground, followed by hands, my arms and my face. I didn't feel any pain, possibly from an adrenalin rush. I got up and checked myself out. I got road rash on my knees, arms and hands. My phone camera showed my that I was bleeding from my forehead (this probably happened because I was wearing glasses, which had fallen off and I had forgot to look for at the time). I walked over to my friend looking shocked and wondering what the hell happened. He took me to a clinic, and I had some stitches on my forehead. They put some liquids and creams on my bruises which hurt like hell. This happened roughly a year ago I think, and my skin is still darker in some areas.

Another time, I was about to cross a railroad when I saw a train incoming and was wondering if I should try crossing. Acting on a really stupid impulse, I ran for it. I made it completely unharmed, but when I turned around I saw that the train had gotten pretty far past where I had crossed. I have no idea how close a shave it was, and immediately realized that I could seriously have died if I had tripped, or if it had caught my backpack or even if I was just a bit slower. Ever since then, I've had a permanent, 'DO NOT FUCK WITH TRAINS!' mental sticky note.

I thought I made up the word "nibling," and then found out it was a real word.

When I was in... fourth, fifth grade, one of the two, I came across some of my school chums in the school gym hanging together. When I got close, I heard them talking about they called "Operation: Minty Hippo" (I fuck you not), and it was about them killing the teachers. (Bear in mind, this was a sped school).

I went up to them and asked if I could join in on what they were doing (I was eager to join in with my peers, so they could've been talking about self-circumcision for all I cared), and they said "No, you're not tall enough", because apparently being four feet is somehow less advantageous than being four two. Not that that occurred to me at the time.

Anyway, that really upset me (I've always been sensitive about my height), so I ran to the teachers and told them what the other kids were doing, and how they wanted to kill the teachers, and more importantly, that they said I was short.

This lead to the kids involved in Minty Hippo (I still can't believe they chose that name; even as a kid I thought it was stupendously stupid) getting caught, and severe repercussions followed. I got an attaboy for exposing them, and I felt awesome, because that would teach those fucking assholes not to call me short. It was like ABSCAM.

In retrospect, it doesn't seem as great an accomplishment as it did then.

Spoiling this because this is an official "Count Arioch-style Overshare" (tm):

One of my friends says I have the cleanest genitals of anyone she's ever had sex with

Too bad I can't put that in a dating website profile...

Orion wrote:I was once cyberstalked by a Chinese heiress.

About one hour after I posted this, the person in question emailed me to tell me they have never stalked me.

Orion wrote:

Orion wrote:I was once cyberstalked by a Chinese heiress.

About one hour after I posted this, the person in question emailed me to tell me they have never stalked me.

Holy hell, dude. I really shouldn't laugh because I know better than most how scary that is, but I am anyway.

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Spoiling this because this is an official "Count Arioch-style Overshare" (tm):

One of my friends says I have the cleanest genitals of anyone she's ever had sex with

Too bad I can't put that in a dating website profile...

OKCupid? The First Thing People Usual Notice About Me? Most Private Thing I'm Willing to Admit?

...I'm Really Good At?

Prak wrote:

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Spoiling this because this is an official "Count Arioch-style Overshare" (tm):

One of my friends says I have the cleanest genitals of anyone she's ever had sex with

Too bad I can't put that in a dating website profile...

OKCupid? The First Thing People Usual Notice About Me? Most Private Thing I'm Willing to Admit?

...I'm Really Good At?

I didn't have that much luck with OK Cupid. Too many normal(british cigarettes) there. I'm pretty awesome, but I'm not to everyone's tastes and I need to find equally strange partners.

Actually, come to think of it that would be perfectly fine to have on a fetlife profile.

Wearing earbuds has proven somewhat irritating to my left antihelix's inferior crux, so I cut a chunk of it out of my head. Likely due to not drinking brown party liquor beforehand it hurt a bit worse than when I cut out my wisdom teeth, but it still pales to childhood attempts at digging out moles.

Nebuchadnezzar wrote:Wearing earbuds has proven somewhat irritating to my left antihelix's inferior crux, so I cut a chunk of it out of my head. Likely due to not drinking brown party liquor beforehand it hurt a bit worse than when I cut out my wisdom teeth, but it still pales to childhood attempts at digging out moles.

True story: I've never attempted surgery upon on myself.

If cutting off your skin counts as self surgery then I guess I've partaken in that.

I have been stabbed by pencils at least 4 separate times, to varying degrees of it being my fault. Least of them being my fault was when 9 year old erik told an 8 year old classmate who had been chasing other kids while brandishing a sharp Number 2 to either hand over the pencil or stab me with it.

Two of the marks have faded away and the others remain as simple, violent dot tattoos.

erik wrote:If cutting off your skin counts as self surgery then I guess I've partaken in that.

It is if it is done as part of medical procedure.

Removing skin tags that annoyed me. I have tons of moles too and tried self-removal of some, usually unsuccessfully.

Once in 9th grade Japanese class for an assignment someone drew a dog tentacle raping a chicken.

At work, they were cleaning blinds and windows in the courthouse next door. Big project, lots of extra hours. Several of the crew were staying 'till midnight to pick up another 3.5 hours a night (we're janitors).

I catch a ride home, so I couldn't stay that late. I asked to be on the crew for Saturday, though--at least eight hours of pay for pretty easy work (we have a machine which the big boss runs, you put a blind in it, it scrubs the blind, you hang the blind up on the wall, stretch it out, wipe it down dry on both sides, pull it back up, and put it on the pile, and there we have it. And inside were guys cleaning windows.) Bonus hours of pay will be added if we do a lot in that eight hours.

I get told, by the big boss, that I can't be in on it for Saturday because they're running five people and that's enough; substititions would make some paperwork messy.

Well, okay, fair enough. I'm on for more hours than most of the crew, I get in on a lot of extra, I can take the missed opportunity with equanimity.

Monday comes and the big boss comes into our office (she has her own at the top of the building) and she tells me, "If you EVER want to work Saturdays on this sort of thing, you just let me know."

Evidently that Saturday was the day from Hell. As I've gathered, everything that could go wrong short of a machine exploding, did go wrong. One guy was slow, one guy was forgetting steps and stuff had to be redone, one guy got sick to his stomach and spent some hours in a bathroom before he was able to go home, and I live too far away to be a quick replacement.

So yeah. Evidently the bosses have a new appreciation of me.

Ancient History wrote:I thought I made up the word "nibling," and then found out it was a real word.

It's usually spelled with two 'b's.

I don't have any excellent stories. However, there is a traffic intersection at the north corner of the local campus where I saw a dead student who had tried to run across the four lanes of heavy traffic at a peak time and gotten clobbered. His family set up a small shrine with teddy bears and "I miss you" letters in sandwich baggies. I've watched a middle-aged professor make the same run, right past that shrine, at least six times since I walked past the mangled body. Some people just don't learn.

In my experience working on a campus, I've found the average post-secondary student/teacher to be too dumb to live in most cases. I nearly ran down 6 alone today (with my cart). They just cross streets without looking routinely.

I've seen a member of faculty straight up walk into a pallet of supplies because she was too busy texting, and then blamed me for it (and then spent hours going on the line for complaints).

Students seem to like to play chicken with the cart filled with 500+lb of supplies. Or try to get between the rapidly tightening space between the wall and the cart as I try and turn, rather than use the massive open space to the other side. They move like they're doing the goddamn Death Star trench run. So far only one idiot has lost, though.

I made poor driving safety decisions as a teenager that I luckily survived. Part of it I imagine is being young and stupid.

I had it largely out of my system by college age where I would cross 4 lanes of traffic on foot instead of using the pedestrian overpass, but only if there was no traffic.

And OS, your sibblings must really enjoy your attempts at pedantry.

There have been at least two car accidents audible from my fourth-floor apartment in the last four days.

Remarkably, it did knock the guy's shoes off. I always thought that was a humorous exaggeration, but no - they sat about five and seven feet from the body, still tied. At least, I presume the impact knocked them off. I can't imagine why anyone would have removed them and thrown them backwards. It wasn't as though that's a plausible part of medical intervention, and no one was bothering with that anyway.

I felt a lot more sorry for the poor guy who hit him. From the shocky look on his face, he was going through a lot. The dead guy didn't hurt, but the live one did. And then of course there's the family and friends, whose letters to the deceased I glanced over. All because someone couldn't be bothered to let the traffic lights cycle for a few minutes and wanted to hurry.

But the people who live nearby, and must have known about the accident, doing exactly the same thing that got the kid killed... that stuck with me.

The road I live on ends at a 90-degree turn going downhill.

At least once a month I hear tires screeching as someone goes through the following process:

No problem


Wait a second...


OHSHIT

And I happen to know there's a tree that's got a large vertical scar where a drunk was driving too fast and went off the end of the road, soaring through the air like a child's imagination, and his truck was stopped in
the air by a tree, which the truck slid down.

Having heard the crash, we went down there to either offer help or go through his wallet for a phone number to offer condolences, and he was fine--had a seat-belt-shaped bruise on his torso, but he was otherwise fine.

Just drunk. Really drunk. As in, thought he was in Louisiana drunk (I live in Alabama).

But remarkably, that's the only time, as far as I know, that anyone's crashed on the curve.