I didn't realise the shops were closed to today. Thought they were closed yesterday as that's when everyone celebrates Christmas here. Anyway, consequently i'm pretzels, an egg and a lettuce. No meat in the flat

Thanks! What a lovely theoretical offer. Were you not with your family i'd happily share my lettuce. I've been keeping it nice and warm in the laundry basket. 

It is a little bit depressing, actually. Just gotta wait patiently for the weekend. But then comes my birthday, which is even worse. I always get upset on my birthday. It's like a tradition. I'm expecting this one to be the worst yet.

We ought to be educated about the level of privacy and security we can implement in our lives.

That's like saying you should have privacy when in the street or in a public house, if you ask me.

We?

I have the privacy I expect to have given the realm we occupy.

With absolute privacy, how would you deal with the authorities when you need to? Or don't you want such with them?

It's why I say right to be educated.

Not that I agree with surveillance but I understand I have a network I control, be that a computer network, or network of devices I manage and also a network of friends, all of which share the information I choose to share with them and through them based on the notions and implementations of trust and security in both the physical world and where the sets and super-sets can be abstracted and applied.

You IP is just your image on the shop CCTV...some servers don't store IPs, some shops don't have CCTV.

Single
Forever alone

Friends don't care, a lot play as much as me, the ones that don't just see it as something I do. Workmates are an interesting one, most will turn their nose up a bit until I remind them that I am the only 3D artist in the office and I might have a bit of an interest in the application of my trade. Then I look like Im all post curricular and shit yo.

My wife isn't that bothered about gaming, but she can happily watch me play games for a while. She likes kinect games/wii type motion control games, and has that Dance 2014 game. She will probably want Kinect Rivals when that comes out to. Most of my mates play games, or know plenty of people that do, so they get it.

Wife is fine with it. Enjoys it from time to time although is puzzled by the amount of stuff I have. Tolerant.

With friends it comes up in conversation from time to time. Some play some don't - but none are as borderline obsessed as I am.

Have you ever had to walk away from a long relationship with a good friend?  Why?  Or have you ever drifted away from someone who was extremely close and you now regret it?

A was good mates (best mates?) with a guy in school (primary school first, then he joined my secondary school for 18 months in year 9), whose family kept moving but I stayed in touch until I was 24 or so, meeting up quite regularly and enjoying the reminiscing etc.  It was getting a bit forced towards the end, to the point where it was obvious we were just going through the motions based on an old friendship, and the meet-ups became less frequent and tbh less enjoyable.  Last time I met up with him we had a row about something silly after a day's drinking, and the only time I've spoken to him since was maybe a year after that, when he rang me up for a chat, and to let me know that he was looking at a prison sentence because someone had broken his girlfriend's nose in a pub, and he'd exacted his revenge with a crook-lock after finding the guy later in the evening.  As far as I know he went down for GBH, it sounded pretty nailed-on from the details.  It's been over seven years since I last spoke to him and not visiting him (or even finding out his sentence) is a big regret - he went off the rails a bit but he was a decent bloke, and as I said to him on the phone he did what he thought was right at the time and I'm glad he got him.

His mum found my dad on Facebook a couple of years ago, and asked him to ask me to attend his 30th as a surprise.  I planned to go, but ended up getting pissed after work and not travelling down.  I'm kinda regretting replying to this now, but I'll post it as I've typed it all out.  I feel like a c*** about it all to be honest, and it's easy to see why.

32.

Edit: Pageturn.  Replying to Tiger about my age (not giving an exact number of mates I've fallen out with).

How much alcohol do you consume on a weekly basis now?  I remember we had this discussion a long time back and some of us were going to change our drinking habits.

I'm now drinking just once a week - every Friday.  I have a few golden ales and maybe a glass of wine.

I cut mine right back then ruined it over xmas and January.
I have decided to budget myself a set amount of money a week now for food and fun. It made me realise how fucking expensive drink is and I have cut right back to 1 pub/club session and 1 or 2 "few beers from the shop" session a week. Quite happy with that tbh.

Zero.  Will likely stay that way.  Drinking holds no interest to me any more.  I have better things to spend my limited wages on.