Hey guys! I'm out of beer and I've cleaned the living room, including sorting through about 600,000 toys. There's no reason for any kid, much less a 2 1/2 year old to have so many god damned toys. I'm packing some away for when we move into the house and the rest are going into the garage sale bag. Why do people buy so many damn toys for every stupid holiday? To join in the actual conversation, I mostly lurk nowadays since I have little to contribute. I go to work, home to take care of the kids, sleep, and repeat. Every. God. Damn. Day. It's boring, so I have few interesting stories to add. I love this place though and I enjoy reading everyone else's contributions. Now, I've got to pour myself a SAilor Jerry and coke and start in on the laundry.
An effective strategy with toys is to pack up a bunch that you've noted that they rarely play with, then keep them hidden for awhile. If they ask about a missing toy, bring it back out of hiding. If they don't mention it in X amount of time, it should be safe to chuck/donate/incinerate/etc.
Another method my wife and I use is to take groups of her toys and hide them. We'll break them out every month or 2 and my daughter will see them, remember them, and play with them like nuts for a month or so, before getting bored. Then we restart the cycle with a new group.
I don't have a lot to contribute either, but I do anyway. I don't care. Maybe I care a little. Where else can I post the stuff I find giggle-worthy to slightly amusing? You decide:
follow the boobies I would rather TiB stay but get the tweaks that have been suggested. But, like Angel said, I'll follow the funny if I can find it. By the way, I hope you're all having a fabulous weekend.
I'm dangerously close to utilizing the donate it all method. She can play with sticks and be fucking grateful. As it is, I think I've purged about half of them. If she notices anything is gone, too bad. I'm sure someone will buy her a new toy for Mother's Day (that's the next holiday, right?) I learned tonight that this place has a bigger effect on me than I realized. My sister and I share my iTunes account and it's been a while since I've deleted the music I don't like off of my computer. While it was on shuffle tonight I had to skip half a dozen Casey Donahew Band songs. I can't listen to a single one without being annoyed now, thanks to Nitwit. I used to like at least one or two but now I can hardly stand them.
You can't stop toys from showing up in your house. I swear by Christ they trans-materialize into your kids room late night. I have never bought my daughter a Barbie. Not one. Imma gonna go count how many she has right now wait... ...seventeen. At least seventeen of those leggy bitches and we never actually bought them, they were acquired by birthday parties and relatives and whatnot and they fucking hurt when you step on one in the dark. She has her two "kids", these large Cinderella and Merida dolls that she takes everywhere with her. And she has her favourite thing, her massive Playmobil town: Spoiler ..and like any kid she'll get bored and go Godzilla on it now and then. She takes out the police station first "so she can't get arrested". And least you get good re-sale for the durable toys but damn are they pricey.
I know I would contribute a lot more if you at least had an avatar, wexton, you lazy asshole. (Maybe more rivalries would help the board? Like, everyone knows wexton and JoeCanada hate each other, so it's always fun to watch them fight about the stupidest things?) PS I'm sorry, I'm super high right now. PPS Fuck you wexton, you're an asshole!
I've outlasted most of the people I didn't get along with. Other than that I'm just a drunken lunatic who has been too poor to get wasted every weekend.
Re: follow the boobies Absolutely, and everyone definitely shares that sentiment. We are just putting together plans for alternative if its needed. It wouldnt spring up over night, it would be built over the course of a month or so with direct input from all the regs on what works/what doesnt work. it wouldnt happen unless all regular users want it/are okay with it. A It would look and feel exactly the same as TiB as the engine, phpBB, would be used. Unless Kojak/Chat3r surrenders the domain name, it would probably be called idiotsboard or something very similar. Against this isnt a mutiny against the mods or Kojak or anything, but its just an option thats being entertained.
This. Holy shit. My kid had her birthday party earlier this month, and she got three different tea party sets. Apparently my brothers don't communicate when it comes to gifts. It is literally to the point my wife and I don't buy her toys. We know she'll get those from everyone else, so we buy one big thing for her (this year it was a big wagon we can use during our many, many walks around the neighborhood this summer) and then clothes. The exceptions were Easter and Christmas, which brings me to my question: Easter, what is gift protocol? When I was a kid I got candy, more candy, and then a kite. When I was older it became a batting glove, because I was playing baseball. My wife got, apparently, presents almost equal to Christmas. When we went shopping, my wife had 9 or 10 things and was ready to drop $200 on my daughter for Easter. I had to talk her off that ledge and down to "only" five things. I never knew Easter was a huge "gift" holiday. I always just got a fuckton of candy. Related to other conversation: I'll probably follow this place around like the smelly kid you were nice too once in high school and now he won't leave you alone.
THIS. This X 100. There are so many highly-intelligent people here that the fact this is called "the Idiot board" is akin to calling a fat person "Tiny." I remember during the Boston bombings thing, some really smart opinions came up. Same at the beginning of the missing plane deal. Jokes and "the funny" are good and all, but it's not what I remember about this place after I leave the computer... What I remember is the discussion. I think it would be vastly interesting to open up the board to those discussions. Even just a trial period, just to see how it goes. And I'm all for supporting a secondary board as a backup plan. At some point, if something is valuable to you and it doesn't appear to have that ability to last, you gotta start on contingency plans. Last thing you want is to show up at your favorite hangout and there's a sign on the door saying we're out of business, with no notice and you got nowhere else to go. I'll do whatever I can to help with the contingency plan making, even if my "help" is limited to my showing support and encouragement.
Oh, amend my last post. We open this place up to politics and religion, I'm out. That shit turns into flame wars 10 times out of 10. You all may think you're above such petty insults, but I make you this guarantee: if you open up to political and/or religious discussions, this place will die almost overnight. I've seen it happen to a lot of message boards before.
Don't you guys remember that we had regular "serious topics" threads? I'm pretty sure the gun debate thread put and end to those. That thread was filled with hatefulness and assholery. While I mostly lurk I'd hate to see this place go. I'd definitely chip in financially if that would help. I hope you can contact the mods you need to. There's a great backlog here that would suck to lose. Good luck guys, and I'll be around whatever ends up happening.
The gun thread was a PERFECT example. That shit was 85% flaming posts and 15% discussion, with the "discussion" being contained mostly in the first 3 pages before it devolved. People are too passionate about politics and religion. This is how it goes: Person A states their position. Person B disagrees and refutes points of person A. Person A takes this as an insult, as you're basically telling person A that everything they believe is bullshit, which most people find offensive, even if it isn't meant to be. Person A posts response to Person B, with mild, backhanded insults. Person B responds to Person A and returns fire with backhanded insults. Persons C and D, who had nothing to do with it, jump in on Person A's side, except they're more willing to use insults. Person E tries to keep the peace. Person F tells person E to fuck off and die and let them "discuss." A, C, and D have a circle jerk insult bukkake on every post by Person B until B gets fed up and leaves. Person G tries to back up B so he doesn't leave. A, C, and D turn the insult gangbang into all of person G's holes. Person G leaves. Soon, A, C, and D are all that is left, and they wonder aloud and repeatedly why no one will discuss with them. Keep in mind, these could be either dem/rep, lib or conservative, Christian or aethiest. Doesn't matter. Whatever the majority is, they will decimate any minority opinion, ignoring it completely (cognitive dissonance is a bitch), until the board turns into 4 guys agreeing with each other and patting each other on the back while wondering where everyone else is. I've seen it too many times. No politics/no religion is one of the biggest reasons I like this place. That goes, I go.
You guys know you aren't *required* to read a thread with a topic you are unwilling to discuss, right? In all seriousness - I'm fine without p/r discussions, but the gray area becomes "what's p/r?" A shooting, or a family losing insurance - are those so highly politicized we can't discuss the news story and have to devolve into attacks? I don't know. I'm not a fan of personal attacks in discussion anyway. So I avoid it, and generally expect others to do the same (unrealistically, I know).
The Gun Thread had a couple seemingly intelligent people basically saying, "I'm not a racist, but I understand why people are." Then they went on to list all the things dern ferners and brown folks "do." And it had no fucking point in the discussion other than "Black people get guns TOO!" You want to create a community based on rational, funny discussion, science, booze, current events, booty, and titties? Stow the BS. This isn't 1960 where half assed raced based theories are even considered. Nor is it Kansas. People have the right to get irritated at that nonsense. Anyone noticed we shed a few people after that one? Yeah. When someone just desperately needs to validate a hair brained idea because all opinions matter or you don't have to look at it, is not something used to create a cohesive community. People don't want to put up with shit.
Not to mention those little flare ups rarely stay in the thread that started it. The no politics/no religion rule is great.