Leaderboard

I'm not going to pull any punches here, so I'll apologise in advance if I put a nose or two out of joint. In my past I have lost several people extremely close to me, the hardest one to deal with was the passing of my first wife to cancer when she was at the tender age of 31. She used to get so angry at people even contemplating suicide, seeing as she was literally fighting for her life during a long and protracted illness. She DIDN'T want to die, but to live and grow old. See her daughters grow up and do all the things that most of us take for granted. I have the same philosophy on life. Depression is difficult to overcome I fully understand that, I've been there myself. Ultimately, the individual is the only person that can actually make the choice to get themselves out of that rut. I just wish people would see past the bad things that they perceive to be taking over their lives and look at all the good that is around them. You get to wake up every morning with your physical health very much in tact. You do not have the very black cloud of terminal illness hanging over you. You have a full life to look forwards to, LIVE IT!! The only time that I think suicide is justified is if illness or impairment are so bad, that you cannot function in any way as the person you were. I watched my step father go through all the awful processes of motor neurons disease, which completely takes away every aspect of your bodies functionality, even to the point of breathing on your own. He suffered beyond what I could possibly imagine and I watched the life literally drain out of him. I am so thankful to have the gift of life and health, we ALL should be. There are so many people in the world who simply survive on a day to day basis. We, in the Western world don't have a clue how that must be, yet we over complicate our lives to such an extent that we can't see the wood for the trees. I truly wish that people would take a leaf out of Mike's book. He has more to deal with on a daily basis than many of us would see in a lifetime and yet always seems to look on the brighter side of life. We all have bad days, granted. BUT that is all it should be, a bad DAY! We have one shot at this life and we are lucky to live where we do. I have seen poverty and hardship when I travel for work, and I am always thankful that my life by comparison is so much easier.

Mike I have never seen that video before but I gotta say wow. What a great video. I actually just saved it to my bookmarks. And honestly that describes me and the way I have lived my life for the past 8 years to a tee. There's one line in there where he says - “If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you'll spend your life completely wasting your time. You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don't like doing, which is stupid. Better to have a short life, doing what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way." That's something I have been saying to my family and friends for the past 8 years. Some of them understand me and some don't. For the first 15 years of my adult working life (from age 19 till age 34) I did "What we are supposed to do" which was to have a career. I did not come from a rich family and I was just getting out of high school about the time a lot of you guys here were just being born so back then there were less people that went to college than in this current day and age. So not going to college I went into the learned trades field and I became a welder/fabricator. I did that for about 15 years and then about eight years ago when I lost my job welding I was bringing home close to $500 per week, which for a single guy without a college degree in 2005 was pretty decent money. When I lost my job I could have pretty easily went to another place and got the same type of job because I was an experienced certified TIG welder and that is a trade that is always in demand, but I decided not to do so. I ended up taking about six months off of doing anything and went up to my cabin on the river and spent some time there just fishing and thinking about life and what I wanted to do. When I came home I had made the decision that I was tired of spending 50% of my life doing something that I did not "want" to do, getting up at a time I did not want to get up at, taking orders from someone I did not even like (I hated my old boss) and simply was just tired of throwing away half the time in my life in exchange for money. So what I did was I decided since my true love in life, the one thing I loved to do more than anything else in life was to fly fish and to enjoy everything to do with fishing and the outdoors, then I would take something that I enjoyed doing (building custom fly rods) and turn that into a business so I could do something that was related to something I loved. So that's what I did and have been doing for the past eight years. The real trade off there was giving up a steady income and not making money the goal in my life. Because back then I worked so I would get that paycheck on Thursday. Now the past eight years I really live pretty much month to month. Rarely do I have more than a few hundred "extra" bucks in the bank after I pay the bills each month. I don't have any real insurance if I get sick, I have something called "care credit" which is basically a credit card used just for doctors which I pay for entirely myself like you would a credit card. Yet I'm happier now doing this than I ever was when I was making good money as a welder. Because I enjoy what I am doing There's times when I actually work longer hours now than when I punched a clock, perfect example was today. It' Sunday, yet I worked on rods from 1pm till 11pm today so that's a good 10hrs of work today. But it's different when you enjoy what your doing. While working today I had on some fishing videos, had on a couple movies, watched "Deck the halls" to get into the Christmas spirit since that is coming up, and just did my work while enjoying movies and shows. So I built rods for 10 hours but can I say I really "worked"...I dunno, you be the judge. This lifestyle is not for everyone though. I'm single, no kids, not looking for a wife and not looking to have a family of my own, don't care much for fancy namebrand stuff or any of the other high dollar items or such. I call those kind of people "plastic people" and that's just not me. But I understand people that want wives and families or big houses and all have to do careers they may not enjoy, that's just not me though. Like I said I don't have the money I use to have, but that's fine with me. As long as my bills are paid each month and I have the few things I enjoy like my immediate family, my aquariums, and being able to go fishing when I want then to me that's all I need to have an enjoyable life. Money is something that is man made and is the cause of a lot of pain and suffering IMHO. Just my .02

I usually play Domination and Kill Confirmed in Call of Duty but I'm finding myself completely addicted to Cranked to the extent I'm in the top 100 on PC - this is a reflection of how much I've been playing the mode and not how good I am at it;-) It's really good for ranking up fast although this isn't one of the reasons why I primarily opt for the mode but the points on show are very high for seemingly minimal work. I am still not completely sure how the frantic scoring works but even 15 or so kills can see you walking away with the equivalent of 35 kills in TDM in half the time. The games come thick and fast and so do the kills. It's a bit annoying if you are lagging but if you get 'cranked', you can really build on the kills in rapid time. The mode is tied to a reduced map-rotation with the likes of Freight, Tremor, Sovereign, Strikezone, Prison Break and Octane popping up regularly but this isn't so bad as most in the list are some of the better ones associated with the game. The likes of larger maps such as Siege, Chasm and Stonehaven aren't to be seen. This makes for matches lasting from between 3 to 6 minutes at most and points are fairly rife to accumulate. You can also walk away with some huge killchains in quick succession on people that aren't cranked. A good start is very important as if you fall behind, you may fall victim to numerous opposition that are cranked and the match can be lost and you could walk away with a very bad score. On the whole, this is a fantastic fast-paced mode that offers huge points through quick-fire games. If you have good gunplay abilities and snappy reactions; this is definitely a great way to rank up and above all; is pure frenzied fun.

It was, but she left me with 2 beautiful gifts. My daughters

Losing your wife that young is heartbreaking .

I'm sure someone is going to type up something that is worth the read. I'm not really good at advise on life. I feel like I haven't experienced life yet. But i'll tell you what I do know, and that is that you're not alone. Everyone on this forum has been depressed at one point or another. Some of us, we are just depressed more then others, and that's okay. But when you start thinking about these suicidal thoughts, that's not. Suicide is a selfish act. You have a new nephew coming and you want to be there for him, correct? You have a twin brother, that probably wouldn't be able to look at himself in the mirror without thinking about you, trust me, I know. That alone should be enough for you to stop thinking about those horrible thoughts. You know what you want to do with your body, you just need motivation to do it. I suggest using this forum as motivation. Use your PPR as a workout diary. Take some notes on what you have done, post some weekly improvement photos and/or get involved on one of Spectre's threads on working out. I find that when I'm trying to work out my body, I tell people and if they are noticing me not doing it, it embarrasses me. That is my motivation, not letting others down, while continuing to improve myself. I'm here for you, as always. You have my number and you know where my inbox is.

This is a 3 minute video that I really enjoyed. I was just thinking of my future yesterday and I am so undecided with what I want to do when I finally go to school. I would rather do something I hate to get money, then something a love to do. But after watching this video, I can say that I think I've changed my mind. What would you guys do if money wasn't an object? Or are you already doing what makes you happy?

I would like to run a 2v2 Sniper tournament. If you are interested, please reply with your team and I'll make a bracket. Rules: Radar Always On - to stop camping once a team is in the lead. Throwing Knives for equipment only No tactical Grenades No "Off the Grid" perk No "Awareness" perk No Assault or Support killstreaks Specialist Killstreaks Ok. Bolt Action Sniper Rifles only XBOX ONLY I welcome any other rules that might need to be considered. Please vote on what game type you prefer. TEAMS SO FAR SPECTRE / BO7H B4RRELS JSYN - TIGERBURGE

My 2 cents is that Kill Confirmed is your best bet, on Strikezone. Record it as well, I want to see TigerBurge go 0-50.

Game's a blast, and if you set up a private match with just friends you can do it on the ARAM map(No idea the name of it) and it's just endless amounts of fun.

Oh I'm happy xD Gonna watch last nights episode now.

I agree. I hope those that complained about no tank are happy now. I think he'll ruin it for them to stay at the prison, and just like I said, by mid-season finale, they will be on the road again.

Great episode last night. Ready for next Sunday

So, a fella over on the Forge Forums wrote this huge really rambling guide I edited out a ton of really useless info from this guide to better show how I handle ID conflicts, and rewrote some of it for you here

I have actually been thinking about this sort of lately, I hate my job... Well maybe the place I work I've been there since school so now its coming on 28 years its paid for everything I've needed and its given me the cash to bring up my kids who have recently left home. Now its been a struggle but I've just recently got to a place where I'm financially not too bad, yes I have debts but its nothing out of the ordinary thing is works slack next year and I could end up with near 50% pay cut due to lack of hours but I can't leave as I need the redundancy I would be owed. Now I have said to my wife if I was to be made redundant I'm done with that industry I am apprentice trained skilled engineer but I'm done, now I've been into fitness recently and what I've been trying to get to is I've read about all these adventures and way of living some people enjoy and I got thinking I missed out, if I'd only seen or thought about it earlier, I even thought I'd wasted my life so far when I was a little down, obviously I've raised some great daughters but it seems something was missing maybe it will turn up. I ride bikes some people ask as its dangerous don't you worry, nope I would rather be glad I tried than regret I didn't. Fair play to Steve for taking the path you did.

So you lied to me. I'm crushed

Heck if there is a bar, that's a place to sleep right there. Hopefully I come home with 2 eyebrows

via

Xbox Live: