Tell us what's happening in your life
Had a bit of a wake-up call this week. Last year I was feeling generally unwell and went to the doctor and they said I had very high blood pressure. I was resistant to being put on medication, so I changed my diet and increased exercise. I don't use gyms or anything organised, I have always had manually demanding jobs and walked a lot, so am reasonably fit for my age. Anyway, I shed over 20 lbs, improved my diet and felt a lot better.
This week I went for a six-month check so they could see how I was doing. Annoyingly my blood pressure had gone up. The nurse took it four times to make sure then said it was worryingly high and she needed to speak to the doctor about it. She came back and said he had prescribed meds for me and I needed to take them straight away as I was now at very high risk of heart attack or stroke. I asked how this could be when I had done all that they told me to and she said that sometimes it is just genetics.
So here I am stuck taking blood pressure meds and the cold reality that I am now officially old has slapped me in the face. I think it is that that pisses me off more than the actual health implications themselves. Hopefully the meds will work and I will still be here posting bollocks for a few more years yet!
Firstly, sorry to hear this Sonny. Losing weight and improving your diet should have at least helped I would have thought, like you said. The thing that annoys me about the response from the health care professional is that they appear to have done absolutely no investigation. The culture in our health industry of “just take these pills” without looking to the root cause of the issue is just so frustrating.
I had a similar conversation last year when I had been unwell with some breathing difficulties and had been for some blood tests. THREE MONTHS later the doctor’s surgery phoned me to say they had found some marginally high markers on my kidney function and that my cholesterol was higher than it should be. Within 2 mins of the call the advanced nurse practitioner was talking about putting me on Statins. I politely told him to Foxtrot Oscar.
I know they are trained professionals but they are only lapping up what big pharma funded studies tell them, or worse when it comes to diet they are just using data from research funded by food companies to justify their “healthly” products. Just look up Ansell Keys and his “research” into how fat was bad for us all and so he undertook a study (paid for by Mr Kellogg and friends if memory serves me correctly) to show that meat, lard, butter and high fat content foods were bad for you. He studied 22 countries. 15 of them disproved the theory as those with predominantly carbohydrate based diets all had similar health markers in their populations. What did he do? He kicked those 15 out of the study and therefore two thirds of his research base was just dismissed because it would not meet the criteria that his investors were looking for to justify pushing their branded diets.
Thanks, Vinny. I completely agree that corporate manipulation and influence has completely undermined faith in not only medical professionalism, but any kind of public service, whether it is food production, news reporting, even car emissions ratings. Is it any wonder that there is such a proliferation of mistrust nowadays when the system has proved itself time and again to be untrustworthy, working to benefit the corporate world and perpetuate the status quo that suits the rich and powerful rather than working in the public interest.
I grew up on a farm. We were whipped daily, from 5am until dusk. They would make us eat moldy old cabbage soup, while reciting the lords prayer. Sometimes old Mr striklin would look at my sister in dirty ways, (he was the the local vicar).
For birthdays, we each got an old turnip and some dried horse manure formed into animal shapes. They were the good old days if I'm honest though, not like now. I kind of miss them. They would also tie us up to a horse & kart, drag us around the fields for the fun of it. Then when we were exhausted, they would make us roll around with the pigs. Until I was 10 years old, for the longest time I was actually convinced I was in fact a pig, until I discovered the 'power of speech'. Of course speaking was discouraged and if we made any noise, other than a grunt or a snort, we would often get the belt or some apple cider vinegar rubbed into our cuts and grazes. I'll freely admit I was forced to ride cows... and I'm not taking about friendly Galloway's either, I'm talking aggressive Holstein Milkers.
Now no matter what people think or say, cows are actually more aggressive than sharks. More farm hands die from cow attacks than from great white attacks annually. That is a fact! It's actually a wonder I survived but what did not kill me made me the strong individual I am today. Thanks for reading my thoughts.
Good morning all.
I was in an accident a while back and I’ve been figuring out how to repair my beloved GatorMobile.I was also working a long term position for an English teacher which concluded yesterday.
I’ve resolved to get my Florida Teaching Certification-no such avenue existed for me in MI. I continue to practice guitar and I am trying to gather a group to run Vampire the Masquerade TTRPG.
Im a busy fella these days that’s what’s up.
Figured I'd finally throw an update in here since it's been a very busy few years.
I try to be a very busy guy with a bunch of varied hobbies, so the time commitments caught up to me when my career started to further in a way that I both wasn't and was prepared for. It was a good problem to have for a little while, since I was getting some serious experience and carving my own little niche into the projects I worked on, but after a while it became concerning that things weren't getting easier. I'm a young-ish civil engineer who became my office's most senior design guy just by trying to do a good job and keep all the younger designers on track, not necessarily because I wanted any sort of title. That turned into way more stress than I figured, since I began to have to manage our managers to keep projects running in a way that made sense and didn't have us younger guys staring down missed deadlines or shoddy coordination. A lot of the work I did with music, whether that was listening or review writing, happened in-between stuff at work and I just couldn't keep up after a certain point. I still kept listening, but in a much less critical or focused way than I had done in the past.
All that to say, I finally hit the point where I'm swapping jobs, hence why I'm back in action a bit more around here. I've been taking a month off between positions to reset a bit and catch up on some much needed stuff with friends, around the house, and with life in general. I'm headed to a company where everyone has only had good things to say about their management team, so I'm pretty confident that my day to day will open up a lot more and allow me to go back to being a bit creative here and there with less worries swirling around everywhere. I miss actually giving a shit and really diving into music, albums, and the scene in general, and I think I'm setting myself up well to be able to do that again.
I even got back to my first show in over a year, seeing Callous Daoboys with one of the weirdest show billings ever. It was a blast, considering I Don't Want To See You In Heaven turned out to be my 2026 AOTY. Looking forward to being back in action!
Figured I'd finally throw an update in here since it's been a very busy few years.
I try to be a very busy guy with a bunch of varied hobbies, so the time commitments caught up to me when my career started to further in a way that I both wasn't and was prepared for. It was a good problem to have for a little while, since I was getting some serious experience and carving my own little niche into the projects I worked on, but after a while it became concerning that things weren't getting easier. I'm a young-ish civil engineer who became my office's most senior design guy just by trying to do a good job and keep all the younger designers on track, not necessarily because I wanted any sort of title. That turned into way more stress than I figured, since I began to have to manage our managers to keep projects running in a way that made sense and didn't have us younger guys staring down missed deadlines or shoddy coordination. A lot of the work I did with music, whether that was listening or review writing, happened in-between stuff at work and I just couldn't keep up after a certain point. I still kept listening, but in a much less critical or focused way than I had done in the past.
All that to say, I finally hit the point where I'm swapping jobs, hence why I'm back in action a bit more around here. I've been taking a month off between positions to reset a bit and catch up on some much needed stuff with friends, around the house, and with life in general. I'm headed to a company where everyone has only had good things to say about their management team, so I'm pretty confident that my day to day will open up a lot more and allow me to go back to being a bit creative here and there with less worries swirling around everywhere. I miss actually giving a shit and really diving into music, albums, and the scene in general, and I think I'm setting myself up well to be able to do that again.
I even got back to my first show in over a year, seeing Callous Daoboys with one of the weirdest show billings ever. It was a blast, considering I Don't Want To See You In Heaven turned out to be my 2026 AOTY. Looking forward to being back in action!
Hey Xephyr, it is good to see you back. Sorry to hear work became a drag for you. I have been there, acting out of my pay grade and my comfort zone and it is not pleasant. It is good to hear you have found somewhere that will appreciate you more and allow you to have some quality work/life balance which is so key. I am typing this whilst sat in a hotel a few hundred miles from home as I am meeting clients up in Scotland. I have gotten to a point job wise where I am more or less my own boss and I am therefore often pushing multiple people or departments to get things done. The plus side is that I do feel the salary reflects the effort - for the first time in over 30 years of working - so the hit I take on my personal time is dampened somewhat.
Looking forward to seeing some more reviews from you as you get to enjoy your free time more.
Hey, Xephyr, I am so glad to see you have been able to get a more balanced position. Hope things work out just great for you. I understand what its like to work under more pressure than you signed up for and that is why I took my retirement early. The money wasn't worth the time and the damage to my mental well-being, so I took the plunge.
Your old company's loss is our gain and it is great to see you active on here again.
I really hope this new management team works out for you, and we're all glad to have you back in the game with us!
Hey Xephyr, it is good to see you back. Sorry to hear work became a drag for you. I have been there, acting out of my pay grade and my comfort zone and it is not pleasant. It is good to hear you have found somewhere that will appreciate you more and allow you to have some quality work/life balance which is so key. I am typing this whilst sat in a hotel a few hundred miles from home as I am meeting clients up in Scotland. I have gotten to a point job wise where I am more or less my own boss and I am therefore often pushing multiple people or departments to get things done. The plus side is that I do feel the salary reflects the effort - for the first time in over 30 years of working - so the hit I take on my personal time is dampened somewhat.
Looking forward to seeing some more reviews from you as you get to enjoy your free time more.
Thanks Vinny, from watching my old office's principals/partial owners I know what it looks like to be abhorrently busy so I'm glad you at least have some solace in the pay. Travelling for work always seems like an awesome deal to us newer, 9-to-5 office guys at first, until it just becomes an annoying and uprooting part of the job.
Hey, Xephyr, I am so glad to see you have been able to get a more balanced position. Hope things work out just great for you. I understand what its like to work under more pressure than you signed up for and that is why I took my retirement early. The money wasn't worth the time and the damage to my mental well-being, so I took the plunge.
Your old company's loss is our gain and it is great to see you active on here again.
Thanks Sonny, thankfully my position wasn't filled with overtime or other ridiculous office culture horror stories you sometimes see online, but it was enough that I felt like nothing positive was happening. With all your reviews I've been seeing pop up on RYM recently I'd say you're enjoying the music portion of your retirement time pretty well!
I really hope this new management team works out for you, and we're all glad to have you back in the game with us!
Thank you Rex, I'm pretty confident it will considering every single person I've talked to has had good things to say. It'd be impressive if all 5 or 6 people were lying straight to my face!
I swear that if I hear one more fucking thing about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding on UK TV then I am going to lose my shit completely and will likely need a new TV set as a result.
Back from the dark ages and I have WiFi again so lots to catch up on. Thanks Sonny for posting my feature picks.
Welcome back, Vinny. You haven't missed much, except for news of a possible whole new website!!
??
Ben has announced he has been working on a new version of the site which looks very cool indeed. You can catch up on the conversation here, Vinny:
Finally found my contentment in gaining a well-ordered life after my estranged wife finally found a place to live. She took one of the cats with her but I retained the other two and we are civil enough to have shared custody of all of them as we want to. I work away a lot of late so it works as a cat sitting arrangement. I had lunch with my mother and father at the weekend and my mother described this as “the end of an era”. I disagreed as I genuinely see it as the start of a new era if anything. I learned recently that the best sound in the world is the sound of your own feet walking away from things that were not meant for you.
I turned 50 last week and genuinely had the best birthday ever by just doing it on my terms and spending most of the week with books as I had no internet (Ernest Hemingway is fast becoming one of my favourite writers). The lack of WiFi for over a week was inconvenient, there is no point pretending otherwise, but it still provided a welcome break for the old brain, helping me to focus on reality for a bit.
Music wise, I have been enjoying my physical collection a lot more; one of the great advantages of having physical media when the internet is not available. I have reconnected with some albums I hadn’t heard in a while (Horrorscope by Overkill and Storm of the Light’s Bane by Dissection to name a couple) and I am now looking forward to catching up on some releases I caught wind of during a brief hotel stay last week that fortuned me with some WiFi for a night. The new Mork album is a banger and so my vinyl copy should arrive tomorrow to keep that physical collection a viable option in the future also.
I found metal thirty-seven-years ago and I am still at it, with no intention of stopping anytime soon. Sure I don’t have another thirty-seven years to run at though, but I will more than make the most of whatever I have left.
Glad to hear that you are feeling so positive going forward, Vinny. Life certainly has its ups and downs, but it is how you deal with them that ultimately matters.
I own in excess of 1000 releases on CD, but since my last laptop packed in, well over a year ago now, I have been unable to play them as my new one has no disc drive. I have been getting increasingly frustrated by my inability to listen to my own stuff, especially the ones that don't appear on streaming, so I finally bought an external CD/DVD player for my latest laptop from Amazon. I ordered it at lunch time on Saturday and it was here by teatime, which is frankly amazing to me. It's a cheapo chinese bit of kit (Bunud - never heard of them before), it only cost £20, but it is actually pretty fucking good and I get to listen to all my obscure doom shit once more, so thumbs up all round.
I own in excess of 1000 releases on CD, but since my last laptop packed in, well over a year ago now, I have been unable to play them as my new one has no disc drive. I have been getting increasingly frustrated by my inability to listen to my own stuff, especially the ones that don't appear on streaming, so I finally bought an external CD/DVD player for my latest laptop from Amazon. I ordered it at lunch time on Saturday and it was here by teatime, which is frankly amazing to me. It's a cheapo chinese bit of kit (Bunud - never heard of them before), it only cost £20, but it is actually pretty fucking good and I get to listen to all my obscure doom shit once more, so thumbs up all round.
I have nowhere near that amount of CDs but I have a couple of shelves worth and I have a Marantz CD player as part of my hi-fi set up. I should play it more but life just gets in the way and if I am sat at home working next to my desktop PC it is easier to click on something to stream it. My grandad on my mother's side had an amazing hi-fi set up in his living room, he was a proper connoisseur of set up. He only did vinyl or cassette though on that set up, there was a CD player in the back kitchen dining room from memory as they used to live more or less exclusively in that room (despite having a three bedroom terrraced). There's a few recordings of him singing songs to his wife for when he was away working so she could listen to them which is kinda cute considering to look at him, he was this big tattoed guy with a missing finger (in reality the nicest man I ever knew). He only used to play country and western though but whenever I went round with some records he'd let me play them. I'd love to eventually emulate that set up that he had.
I own in excess of 1000 releases on CD, but since my last laptop packed in, well over a year ago now, I have been unable to play them as my new one has no disc drive. I have been getting increasingly frustrated by my inability to listen to my own stuff, especially the ones that don't appear on streaming, so I finally bought an external CD/DVD player for my latest laptop from Amazon. I ordered it at lunch time on Saturday and it was here by teatime, which is frankly amazing to me. It's a cheapo chinese bit of kit (Bunud - never heard of them before), it only cost £20, but it is actually pretty fucking good and I get to listen to all my obscure doom shit once more, so thumbs up all round.
I have nowhere near that amount of CDs but I have a couple of shelves worth and I have a Marantz CD player as part of my hi-fi set up. I should play it more but life just gets in the way and if I am sat at home working next to my desktop PC it is easier to click on something to stream it. My grandad on my mother's side had an amazing hi-fi set up in his living room, he was a proper connoisseur of set up. He only did vinyl or cassette though on that set up, there was a CD player in the back kitchen dining room from memory as they used to live more or less exclusively in that room (despite having a three bedroom terrraced). There's a few recordings of him singing songs to his wife for when he was away working so she could listen to them which is kinda cute considering to look at him, he was this big tattoed guy with a missing finger (in reality the nicest man I ever knew). He only used to play country and western though but whenever I went round with some records he'd let me play them. I'd love to eventually emulate that set up that he had.
I am really gonna show my age now, but I remember when I was a kid going to my gran and grandad's, they had a wind-up gramaphone that played 78s. The ones they had were almost exclusively brass band music because the local truck firm had a pretty famous brass band that my mum and her sister used to travel all over the country with. I don't really have any wish to emulate their setup!!
I own in excess of 1000 releases on CD, but since my last laptop packed in, well over a year ago now, I have been unable to play them as my new one has no disc drive. I have been getting increasingly frustrated by my inability to listen to my own stuff, especially the ones that don't appear on streaming, so I finally bought an external CD/DVD player for my latest laptop from Amazon. I ordered it at lunch time on Saturday and it was here by teatime, which is frankly amazing to me. It's a cheapo chinese bit of kit (Bunud - never heard of them before), it only cost £20, but it is actually pretty fucking good and I get to listen to all my obscure doom shit once more, so thumbs up all round.
I have nowhere near that amount of CDs but I have a couple of shelves worth and I have a Marantz CD player as part of my hi-fi set up. I should play it more but life just gets in the way and if I am sat at home working next to my desktop PC it is easier to click on something to stream it. My grandad on my mother's side had an amazing hi-fi set up in his living room, he was a proper connoisseur of set up. He only did vinyl or cassette though on that set up, there was a CD player in the back kitchen dining room from memory as they used to live more or less exclusively in that room (despite having a three bedroom terrraced). There's a few recordings of him singing songs to his wife for when he was away working so she could listen to them which is kinda cute considering to look at him, he was this big tattoed guy with a missing finger (in reality the nicest man I ever knew). He only used to play country and western though but whenever I went round with some records he'd let me play them. I'd love to eventually emulate that set up that he had.
I am really gonna show my age now, but I remember when I was a kid going to my gran and grandad's, they had a wind-up gramaphone that played 78s. The ones they had were almost exclusively brass band music because the local truck firm had a pretty famous brass band that my mum and her sister used to travel all over the country with. I don't really have any wish to emulate their setup!!
I own in excess of 1000 releases on CD, but since my last laptop packed in, well over a year ago now, I have been unable to play them as my new one has no disc drive. I have been getting increasingly frustrated by my inability to listen to my own stuff, especially the ones that don't appear on streaming, so I finally bought an external CD/DVD player for my latest laptop from Amazon. I ordered it at lunch time on Saturday and it was here by teatime, which is frankly amazing to me. It's a cheapo chinese bit of kit (Bunud - never heard of them before), it only cost £20, but it is actually pretty fucking good and I get to listen to all my obscure doom shit once more, so thumbs up all round.
I have nowhere near that amount of CDs but I have a couple of shelves worth and I have a Marantz CD player as part of my hi-fi set up. I should play it more but life just gets in the way and if I am sat at home working next to my desktop PC it is easier to click on something to stream it. My grandad on my mother's side had an amazing hi-fi set up in his living room, he was a proper connoisseur of set up. He only did vinyl or cassette though on that set up, there was a CD player in the back kitchen dining room from memory as they used to live more or less exclusively in that room (despite having a three bedroom terrraced). There's a few recordings of him singing songs to his wife for when he was away working so she could listen to them which is kinda cute considering to look at him, he was this big tattoed guy with a missing finger (in reality the nicest man I ever knew). He only used to play country and western though but whenever I went round with some records he'd let me play them. I'd love to eventually emulate that set up that he had.
I am really gonna show my age now, but I remember when I was a kid going to my gran and grandad's, they had a wind-up gramaphone that played 78s. The ones they had were almost exclusively brass band music because the local truck firm had a pretty famous brass band that my mum and her sister used to travel all over the country with. I don't really have any wish to emulate their setup!!
I have over 1000 vinyl records and probably the same amount of CDs, but I virtually stream all my listening these days. I have no room in the house for any kind of set up (the turntable sits looking sad in a cupboard). With both of us working from home these days and the kids having so much stuff (piano, electric drum kit and a number of guitars) around the place there isn't even a corner I can use these days. So streaming it is these days. Maybe one day, I'll get back up and running.
I am really gonna show my age now, but I remember when I was a kid going to my gran and grandad's, they had a wind-up gramaphone that played 78s. The ones they had were almost exclusively brass band music because the local truck firm had a pretty famous brass band that my mum and her sister used to travel all over the country with. I don't really have any wish to emulate their setup!!
Our parents had a gramophone when we were kids too, mainly as a bit of a novelty. They used to plat Nat King Cole 78's when people would come over. The real attraction was the antique juke box though & my father & I would head to the local record store every few months to purchase new 7" singles to stock it with. It was quite the asset for parties.
I still have extensive record & CD collections but never play any of it these days with most of it sitting untouched in cupboards that we rarely open. Come to think of it, I don't even have a CD player any more! My record player is a USB one that I used to use to rip my techno so that I could manipulate it using Ableton Live software when DJing in clubs.
The real attraction was the antique juke box though & my father & I would head to the local record store every few months to purchase new 7" singles to stock it with. It was quite the asset for parties.
That is so cool and I am really jealous. I would have loved a jukebox but they were always well out of my price range. I have a shitload of singles from my very oldest Slade, T.Rex and Sparks 7 inchers I bought when I was a kid through late 70s punk and into 1980s metal and gothic rock and it would have been awesome to have them all cued up in a jukebox.