Octopus Overlords

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 9:54 pm**

Whoa, whoa whoa. You're 50? They're probably just mad because you're getting the AARP discount rate on membership.

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 9:55 pm**

Show up with an easel and start doing one of your silver fox oil paintings.

"What? IT'S ART!!"

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 10:03 pm**

Smoove_B wrote:Whoa, whoa whoa. You're 50?

I rarely act it.

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 10:05 pm**

hepcat wrote: But I feel like showing up tomorrow with one of those giant cameras they use for movies. Then yelling "WHAT?" whenever someone looks at me.

I started to post "You should figure out who it is that's spying on you and take plenty of pictures of them, just to be safe", but I deleted it before I submitted.

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 10:05 pm**

hepcat wrote:I rarely act it.

I know...that's why I was surprised. Good for you - it gives me hope.

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 10:05 pm**

We have an abandoned post thread. Although, TK-421 should have been the OP.

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 10:18 pm**

Smoove_B wrote:
hepcat wrote:I rarely act it.
I know...that's why I was surprised. Good for you - it gives me hope.

You want to be an emotionally stunted man child who's accused of being a pervert in gyms now?

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 10:38 pm**

Again.

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 10:40 pm**

<shrug> Okay

You want to be an emotionally stunted man child who's accused of being a pervert in gyms now?

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 10:45 pm**

From the people Ive seen going to and coming out of gyms Id think those two would be happy that anyone wanted their ugly ass pics taken.

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 10:55 pm**

I'm a bit calmer now. But that seriously bugged me for quite a few hours tonight.

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 10:58 pm**

hepcat wrote:You want to be an emotionally stunted man child who's accused of being a pervert in gyms now?

Why should gyms be any different?

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 11:03 pm**

I hope you're not talking about Furry conventions. I'd hate to think someone thought I was doing anything deviant while dressed as a 6 foot panda in a diaper.

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 11:08 pm**

It's not the diaper on the outside that creeps people out.

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 11:12 pm**

Fair enough. I should probably get that hole stitched up.

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 11:33 pm**

hepcat wrote:
Smoove_B wrote:Whoa, whoa whoa. You're 50?
I rarely act it.

Pup.

Posted: **Tue Sep 20, 2016 11:41 pm**

What the hell is wrong with me lately. I've suddenly gotten testy, argumentative, and stubborn. I'm known as a patient person, but over the past two months I've gone from 43 to 87.

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 1:52 am**

hepcat wrote:But I feel like showing up tomorrow with one of those giant cameras they use for movies. Then yelling "WHAT?" whenever someone looks at me.

Or get a giant inflatable phone, and follow Dom Joly's hilarious routine from Trigger Happy TV back in the day:

"'ELLO!? YEAH, I'M AT THE GYM!! WOT!? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!! NAH, IT'S RUBBISH!! TOTAL RUBBISH!! YEAH, OK, CIAO!!"

It may get you summarily dismissed for disturbing the sweaty peace, but at least it would be in epic fashion.

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 2:36 am**

you clearly hadn't thought this through. the only way you lose is if you don't go back. otherwise, it's a WINNING SITUATION for you all the way down, now:

you keep going back to the gym staring zombie-like at your phone while jogging in place as before. the offended parties will note that you are still in attendance and have not been banned from the premises. they will:
a) accept that nothing will happen and deal with it - and maybe, just perhaps, even come to appreciate a glimmering notion at the back of their entitled helicopter-parent-raised minds that they could have been possibly ... wrong? END - WIN
or
b) become very upset that you haven't gone away. in this case, they will:
c) depart in a huff, thus inconveniencing their lives and you don't have to deal with them anymore. END - WIN
or
d) go to management again (there is 0% chance they would ever confront you in person) and complain even louder this time. at this point, management will:
e) tell them to shove it, where they deal with it or leave in a huffypants maneuver. END - WIN
or
f) have to take their concerns pretend seriously, in which case they will nervously, reluctantly call you in again. you go in and throw an even huger righteous indignation temper-tantrum (perhaps involving misdemeanor property destruction this time - remember, you're in the right and get to break a few tchotchke eggs to make your point omelette) and win the argument again, or get a huge cash-settlement payout to never come back. END - WIN

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 3:09 am**

Dont gyms have cameras of their own watching the entire inside? Go back and do what you do. If they bother you more or want to ban you or your phone then sue them. Their own records will let you win. Free money.

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 3:22 am**

Wear a camera that looks somewhat like a Fitbit If you wear black shorts and clip this to your waist nobody can see it. But it'll record. If you wear a black Tee you can clip it to your collar but it's more conspicuous.

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 6:39 am**

I get confused when Daehawk and Kasey post right after each other because, out the corner of my eye, their icons look the same.

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 8:47 am**

Has anybody ever seen them together?

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 9:47 am**

hepcat wrote:I'm a bit calmer now. But that seriously bugged me for quite a few hours tonight.

It'd bother me too. Not the gym. We live in a stupid society and it's kind of their responsibility to follow up on complaints. What would bother me, is the people making the assumption and presumption of guilt with no reason other than their own insecurity or conceit. I also let things stew a lot more than a reasonably person ever should. Every time I'd end up at the gym I would feel a sort of contempt for the people around me because of those two anonymous hypochondriaclike vigilantes.

One more reason to be an anxious shut in.

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 11:32 am**

Yup, those were my exact thoughts too.

But I decided I'm not going to let them run me off. And I won't change a damn thing either.

...well, the giant panda in underwear costume, maybe. It does make the stair master a bit tougher.

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 12:31 pm**

It would be very weird if that event just rolled off your back. Glad the chill of it is coming off.

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 1:55 pm**

Amadeus

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 2:09 pm**

Who is Falco?

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 2:22 pm**

hepcat wrote:Who is Falco?

hotlinked.

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 2:35 pm**

hepcat wrote:
Smoove_B wrote:Whoa, whoa whoa. You're 50?
I rarely act it.

I pegged you to be around my age which is younger than fifty... well only two years younger now but still. Damn we're a bunch of old nerds but at least we can program our DVRs to "tape" shows.

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 2:40 pm**

In my mind, you're all the same age you were when we first met on Gone Gold, and every time someone mentions their age, it gives me a moment's shock. Remember this?

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 2:55 pm**

hepcat wrote:I'm a bit calmer now. But that seriously bugged me for quite a few hours tonight.

Good thing they hadn't heard of this cloud thing.

That accusation would upset me too. There really is no good solution. Phones do a ton of things besides take pics/videos, but they also take pics/videos.

There's just no good way to enforce a rule like that (no pics/videos) without restricting phones from the floor, which is probably a good way to make half your clientele pissed off.

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2016 6:58 pm**

Attitude over age, hepcat.

Are you certain no one was trying to get rid of their competition for all the hotties?

Posted: **Thu Sep 22, 2016 9:43 am**

An hour of yard work last night, couldn't get to sleep for over an hour, fewer than six hours sleep had me close to nodding off on the drive in.

Maybe I should lager some caffeine gum at the house for mornings like this.

Posted: **Thu Sep 22, 2016 9:48 am**

Isgrimnur wrote:fewer than six hours sleep

Man, I remember the days when I used to get six hours or more of sleep . . . .

Posted: **Thu Sep 22, 2016 2:37 pm**

Between the wife snoring, the dog whining and/or chewing on her rawhide, the windstorm, my brain working overtime, and the overnight freeway construction, I got about 3 hours of sleep last night. I'm a complete zombie today, and I have a major proposal due by COB. I'm barely able to function, much outline a cogent roll-out strategy, yet here we are. Can't wait to re-read it tomorrow and find out what I actually proposed!

Posted: **Thu Sep 22, 2016 3:21 pm**

I go to sleep easily. If I turn out the light at 10:30, I'm dreaming by 10:40.

But then (and this happens nearly every single night) I wake up at 3:00 or 3:15 or 3:33, and there's no knowing whether I'll be able to fall back asleep by 4:00. Every worry I have comes back to me. Every small regret I've had in recent days and every major one I've had in recent decades come rushing in on a wave of unhappy wakefulness. All in all I probably get six or seven hours a night, but it's interrupted by this sad and lonely witching hour.

Anyone else have this pattern?

Posted: **Thu Sep 22, 2016 3:25 pm**

Some:

More than one-third of American adults wake up in the middle of the night on a regular basis. Of those who experience "nocturnal awakenings," nearly half are unable to fall back asleep right away. Doctors frequently diagnose this condition as a sleep disorder called "middle-of-the-night insomnia," and prescribe medication to treat it.

Mounting evidence suggests, however, that nocturnal awakenings aren't abnormal at all; they are the natural rhythm that your body gravitates toward. According to historians and psychiatrists alike, it is the compressed, continuous eight-hour sleep routine to which everyone aspires today that is unprecedented in human history. We've been sleeping all wrong lately — so if you have "insomnia," you may actually be doing things right.
...
References to "first sleep" or "deep sleep" and "second sleep" or "morning sleep" abound in legal depositions, literature and other archival documents from pre-Industrial European times. Gradually, though, during the 19th century, "language changed and references to segmented sleep fell away," said Ekirch. "Now people call it insomnia."

You can blame the shift in your sleeping habits on Thomas Edison's lightbulb and the Industrial Revolution.

Ekirch explained that in the past, and especially during winter, darkness spanned up to 14 hours each night. Except for those affluent enough to burn candles for hours, folks were left with little to do but go to bed early, and this gave a great deal of flexibility to their nightly sleep requirements. Segmented or biphasic sleep patterns evolved to fill the long stretch of nighttime, and as observed by anthropologists, segmented sleep continues to be the norm for many people in undeveloped parts of the world, such as the Tiv group in Central Nigeria.
...
In the 1990s, a sleep scientist named Thomas Wehr discovered that everyone sleeps biphasically when subjected to natural patterns of light and dark. In Wehr's well-known study, he subjected participants to 14 hours of darkness per night, and found that they gradually shifted to a routine of taking two hours to fall asleep, then sleeping in two four-hour phases separated by about an hour of wakefulness—a pattern that exactly matched Ekirch's historical findings.

Posted: **Thu Sep 22, 2016 3:30 pm**

Oh, I know the waking up isn't weird. The miserable ideation is what bothers me.

But I've always dealt with low-level depression in one form or another, so it's not surprising. At least my daytime depression is more or less under control.

Posted: **Thu Sep 22, 2016 3:33 pm**

I've always attributed it to my sleep apnea. I get too much sleep and yet not enough. I irregularly fall asleep anywhere between 19:30 and 00:00. I regularly wake up between 03:00 and 03:30. I fall back asleep easily enough but then wake at around 04:00 and then again around 05:30, and then every ten minutes between 06:00 and whenever I drag my ass out of bed still sleepy and not rested at all.

All of these wake up happen directly from a dream state.

If I make it to early retirement, I will likely go with whatever my body wants for sleep, which will probably mean getting up and cleaning around the house at 03:00 and going back to bed when I get tired again.

Octopus Overlords

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