[Fedoras of Salvation] - White Knights ITT

[RaidaTheBlade]

Ah, sweet, was wondering when we'd know a day (i've been checking it since Z mentioned it was CFB... e.e)

[Kazekirimaru]

For anyone interested in my writing career, latest news in clan private.

You posted it in the Tier 3+ forum, didn't you?

[zemanjaski]

I honestly have nfi how this place works.

[warwizard87]

Warwizard: That's...better, I guess. You still have a cat to cherish, Magic cards to play, comics to read, and (based upon your punctuation mistakes and sentence structure) a smartphone.
Two questions:
1) Do you have a place to stay until things get sorted out?
2) Are you still able to take care of your cat?

yes and yes, thanks to wonderful friends I have a place to sleep till I find another place Armand is staying in the room with me, he is a little pissed I wont let him out of the room. He is a very adaptable cat though and explored the room and cuddles with me at night which helps a lot. also with the help of friends he has food and litter so that covered. oh and yes a smart phone, damn thing doesn't seem that smart to me tbh lol
n
Yarpus: don't sweat it red bro. the fact I have friends on here and in life that actually give a damn about someone else is a blessing regardless if they can help with something. hell before the fire I was in the same boat barely above water.

[photodyer]

@Photo. Basically had that entire conversation with my father. Including the butts(he's also gone through the uniform bit). I do not look forward to the visit home. Distraught grandmother, Angsty sister, and my aunt being...my aunt. *sigh* This should be a riot.

I'm not trying to break preachy on you, LK...you're more of a man than many I know with regards to living your life with recognition of consequence, and you certainly don't owe me a moment's attention (God knows I'm not the person to be talking to anyone else about how to live a balanced life).

What I am, however, is the guy who spends his every working night caring for our brothers-in-arms who made it home from war but are now dying from their own vices. Honest to God,
if I were given the power to remove one substance from the face of this earth, tobacco and any analogs thereof would be gone in a heartbeat, no second thoughts. It wrecks more lives in more insidious ways than anything else we subject ourselves to, and I'm weary of seeing good men and women die from something so utterly senseless and preventable.

I also come at it from the position of the guy who broke the chain. My folks both smoked, and until my early years they had no reason not to because there existed no data indicating the harm in it. I started smoking in either 4th or 5th grade owing to the guys I hung out with and the fact that I could easily lift smokes. My consequence for that is the fact that the choice stunted my growth...I went from being upper percentile in height to falling behind and short of my growth plate projections by nearly half a foot. I left off of them in 6th grade after getting violently ill one night after hitting a butt at the rec center, but I drifted in and out of the
habit through my early twenties due to Army and drinking buddies.

Then Mom lost a lung when they miraculously caught lung CA in her before it went mets (almost a 0% thing...my mom truly lived a blessed life) and Dad and I both quit stone cold (well, Dad kinda had help from a bout of pneumonia that kept him in the hospital and not smoking for 3 weeks...still pretty damn gutsy after 40 years). Mom beat the cancer sticks but fell to Alzheimer's, while Dad regrettably died from fibrotic lung disease owing to too many years damage for his lungs to fully recover from.

From there, I never looked back. My kids have grown up knowing that I tried it and left it behind, and they are both so staunchly opposed from what they've seen in life (positive programming through the schools and negative exposure to thoughtless people in public) that I truly have no concern that they will ever pick up a cig for any reason. I have on occasion shared a celebratory stogey with people here or there (you don't smuggle Cuban
cigars into the country and not partake of at least one!!), but I see too much pain and suffering tied to cigs to ever let them anywhere near my life again.

And that's all I have to say about that. TL;DR, LK, is that you have too much on the right side of the line to be giving away days in this life in exchange for ones filled with pain and suffering on the far end.

[/lifeexperiencenooneeveraskedtohear]

[Kazekirimaru]

I smoke like a chimney anymore...

[LP, of the Fires]

Yeah, me and my father have talked about smoking a lot. I actually used to tell him to quite all the time in my early teens. I arrived at his door when I got out of the military with a cig in hand. He has been ridiculing me shamelessly since. I'm mentally preparing myself to quite soon as my father made the very valid point that it's not about extending your life, but the Quality of your life. Thanks for the soapbox speech. Though I obviously know that cigs are terrible for you, it's nice to here a concerned individual giving advice who's actually been there as opposed to pretentious asseholes(regardless of if they are or not, I hate it when people who've never smoked before tell me to quite. ESPECIALLY when they're fat. Yes, I'm an assehole).

[Kazekirimaru]

"Excuse me sir, but the cellulite on your arms has indicated to me that your opinion doesn't mean fuck."

[Helios]

warwizard: Glad to hear the good news!

Happy birthday Tube, and happy belated one Calamity! May all your bitches love you.

[Christen]

I feel lucky to have smoking friends not push their habits on me. They know it's bad for you, so if you say you don't smoke, they understand immediately.

[RedNihilist]

Steer clear of women all together just to be safe.

Talking to them is severely advised against.

Looking at them is pushing it.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 4426_n.jpg

[DerWille]

---

@Photo. Basically had that entire conversation with my father. Including the butts(he's also gone through the uniform bit). I do not look forward to the visit home. Distraught grandmother, Angsty sister, and my aunt being...my aunt. *sigh* This should be a riot.

I'm not trying to break preachy on you, LK...you're more of a man than many I know with regards to living your life with recognition of consequence, and you certainly don't owe me a moment's attention (God knows I'm not the person to be talking to anyone else
about how to live a balanced life).

What I am, however, is the guy who spends his every working night caring for our brothers-in-arms who made it home from war but are now dying from their own vices. Honest to God, if I were given the power to remove one substance from the face of this earth, tobacco and any analogs thereof would be gone in a heartbeat, no second thoughts. It wrecks more lives in more insidious ways than anything else we subject ourselves to, and I'm weary of seeing good men and women die from something so utterly senseless and preventable.

I also come at it from the position of the guy who broke the chain. My folks both smoked, and until my early years they had no reason not to because there existed no data indicating the harm in it. I started smoking in either 4th or 5th grade owing to the guys I hung out with and the fact that I could easily lift smokes. My consequence for that is the fact that the choice stunted my growth...I went from being upper percentile in height
to falling behind and short of my growth plate projections by nearly half a foot. I left off of them in 6th grade after getting violently ill one night after hitting a butt at the rec center, but I drifted in and out of the habit through my early twenties due to Army and drinking buddies.

Then Mom lost a lung when they miraculously caught lung CA in her before it went mets (almost a 0% thing...my mom truly lived a blessed life) and Dad and I both quit stone cold (well, Dad kinda had help from a bout of pneumonia that kept him in the hospital and not smoking for 3 weeks...still pretty damn gutsy after 40 years). Mom beat the cancer sticks but fell to Alzheimer's, while Dad regrettably died from fibrotic lung disease owing to too many years damage for his lungs to fully recover from.

From there, I never looked back. My kids have grown up knowing that I tried it and left it behind, and they are both so staunchly opposed from what they've seen in life (positive programming
through the schools and negative exposure to thoughtless people in public) that I truly have no concern that they will ever pick up a cig for any reason. I have on occasion shared a celebratory stogey with people here or there (you don't smuggle Cuban cigars into the country and not partake of at least one!!), but I see too much pain and suffering tied to cigs to ever let them anywhere near my life again.

And that's all I have to say about that. TL;DR, LK, is that you have too much on the right side of the line to be giving away days in this life in exchange for ones filled with pain and suffering on the far end.

[/lifeexperiencenooneeveraskedtohear]

Interesting that you said tobacco instead of alcohol. I was taught about them being cancer sticks and I can see the premature aging (I see it with alcohol too). What other quality of life issues are you talking about?

Also, anyone notice a lot of smokers at their LGS? I got to a fair amount
of stores and it seems like out of the people who are over 18 at least half smoke, sometimes 80% of the store does. It could just be this town though.

[LP, of the Fires]

There's a decent amount of smokers at my LGS.

Semi-related, everyone on my testing team smokes LOTS of pot accepting myself and 1 other player. Coincidentally, we are the best players on our team.

[RaidaTheBlade]

It seems like there's a large amount of smokers at my lgs... Surprisingly though, most of the smokers tend to use those portable vaporator things, with only a few of them actually going outside.

But yeah, I'd say that 60-75% of the store smokes. Seems weird to me.
I was raised to be against smoking, and not much strikes that point home better then seeing it slowly kill your dad, mom, and stepdad.

[RedNihilist]

My LGS features 3 or 4 smokers tops.

[Jack]

RedNihilist: you live in Italy, right? Is there a lower percentage of smokers in the country overall, or just a low percentage at your LGS?
There is a somewhat larger percentage of smokers at my store than in my town overall, but that might be because my store is located 15 miles away.
The worst for me, though, is that there is one regular (one of be better players there) that plays with a tin of dip and a water bottle spitter beside him. That shit's just gross.

[Yarpus]

I always used the same argument as your dad, LP. Additional reasoning is "my life is a piece of garbage, why would I ever care about making it longer when I can not only make it shorter but also make it more acceptable". I still think I smoke too much. I'm currently on single pack per day, but there were years when I regularly smoked 2 packs per day and my personal record is 4 packs during single day/night.

[RedNihilist]

RedNihilist: you live in Italy, right? Is there a lower percentage of smokers in the country overall, or just a low percentage at your LGS?
There is a somewhat larger percentage of smokers at my store than in my town overall, but that might be because my store is located 15 miles away.
The worst for me, though, is that there is one regular (one of be better players there) that plays with a tin of dip and a water bottle spitter beside him. That shit's just gross.

I think that the actual percentage of smokers is higher in Italy than in the US, but we've got some recent laws that prohibit smoking inside public buildings that maybe are keeping the relative percentages of young smokers more in check.

Also, given said laws, anybody willing to
smoke a cigarette has to wait between matches and exit the store, so I've got to say that maybe I'm just having wrong impressions here.

[Khaospawn]

I'm up to a pack a day, myself. But then again, I'm a pent-up ball of stress with everything that's been going on IRL.

Also, Happy late Birthday to Calamity and Happy birthday, TubeHunter.

[redthirst]

I honestly have nfi how this place works.

How are you even anything? This stuff is honestly not that complicated:
Tier 1 - open clan forum
Tier 2 - restricted clan forum
Tier 3-4 - private clan forum

Photo, any way you could put tags under each of the forum names to remind zem what's going on?

Also, Happy B-day TH! Now, you are a man... -ish.

[Lightning_Dolt]

I think most of the guys at my lgs smoke.

[photodyer]

I honestly have nfi how this place works.

Photo, any way you could put tags under each of the forum names to remind zem what's going on?

.

Do you mean like where "Bro Fist" is under "Clans" instead put "Restricted access - Tier x and above" or something like that? Or do you mean elsewhere?

[redthirst]

Something like that. It actually seems to confuse a couple of people.

Also, it'll keep me from getting as many PMs from new members about why they can't access the Restricted Forums yet.

[redthirst]

I see TH is our new Watchdog too!

[photodyer]

Or I could just incorporate it into the forum names, like Clan Restricted (Tier 2 and Above), FoS Private (Tier 3 and Above). The hang of course is that none of these options catch the eye if you direct-link in.

And I refuse to put up any of that gaudy red "rules" text....shudder.

[DroppinSuga]

Tube must be silenced.

[redthirst]

Or I could just incorporate it into the forum names, like Clan Restricted (Tier 2 and Above), FoS Private (Tier 3 and Above). The hang of course is that none of these options catch the eye if you direct-link in.

And I refuse to put up any of that gaudy red "rules" text....shudder.

Whatever you feel would be best, but I think some kind of reminder might be needed.

Yeah, that's nice. Thankya.

[redthirst]

Tube must be silenced.

Who watches the watchers of the watchers?

[photodyer]

Check out the changes to the forum names...does this get it? If not LMK and I'll look into other options in a bit.

[DroppinSuga]

Looks good, photo.

[RedNihilist]

I want to be able to stalk everything but I'm too newb to ever be able to earn it.
My life is officially meaningless.

[rcwraspy]

I'm one of those people who barely smoked (a decent amount in high school but it never really got its hooks into me), so I try not to push my non-smoking ideas on others. But when someone breaks out a pack of cigs to light one up while simultaneously saying that they're trying to quit, I've been known to call their bluff and ask to throw out the pack for them.

[DroppinSuga]

I smoked up to 1 3/4 packs a day at some points in my life. After my wife got pregnant I vowed to quit the day after we found out the sex of the baby. That day came, we found out we were having a boy and I quit soon after. I haven't smoked in 18 months and I have no urge to smoke at all. Prior to that, I had tried to quit maybe 6 times. My longest time was about 6 months. It's the hardest habit to kick and I applaud anyone who can kick the habit and stick with it.

[windstrider]

Every male relative on my dad's side of the family smoked: grandpa, dad, both uncles, all the great uncles, etc. The reaper collected his dues with cancer and heart attacks, and now my two uncles are all that remain. My grandmother flat out told me that she would disinherit me if I started smoking. I like a cigar or pipe every now and then, but that happens two or three times per year. The only hard and fast rule I have about smoking is that I won't allow it inside my house or car.

[redthirst]

I smoke at FNM and when I drink socially. Otherwise, I don't bother.

I've got a half carton of Lucky Strikes that's something like 4 years old now because it's taken that long to smoke the other half.

[Helios]

Tons of the guys at my FNM smoke. I've had a guy flat out tell me he won't play control because he has to have his smoke between rounds (they do have to go outside). I have (mild) allergies, so no smokes for me, but I love the smell. Grew up around music guys, my uncle and his band members always smoked and we were always around them. So it's nostalgia.

[DroppinSuga]

It's rather fitting that thirst smokes Lucky Strikes.

[DocLawless]

I started smoking when I was 12. (I'm 33 now.) Then dad died of cancer of the... well, everything, and I decided I didn't want that too. Seven years of trying and failing to "cut back" after that, I got bronchitis one winter and just decided not to start smoking again after I got better. That was, I think, five years ago. I still want them. But then I look at how much they cost now. Especially in Illinois, where I think our tobacco tax costs more than the pack itself.

[rcwraspy]

Especially in Illinois, where I think our tobacco tax costs more than the pack itself.

Yeah that's also a huge reason not to get into it or continue it.

Yarpus, does Poland tax cigarette sales? You've mentioned that you smoke a pack a day or more and you've also mentioned money problems. Depending on how expensive smokes are in your area, cutting back or quitting could help your wallet quite a bit.

[Helios]

Especially in Illinois, where I think our tobacco tax costs more than the pack itself.

Yeah that's also a huge reason not to get into it or continue it.

Yarpus, does Poland tax cigarette sales? You've mentioned that you smoke a pack a day or more and you've also mentioned money problems. Depending on how expensive smokes are in your area, cutting back or quitting could help your wallet quite a bit.

Yea this. Are cigs cheaper there?