I don’t really think that those are really appropriate for a DopeFest, do you? 
For a Scandinavian Dopefest possibly.
Wait until i turn up in it.
i think i really should have done something better for my 500 post, don’t you?
never mind. theres always 1000. if i’m still alive then. which by my sign on date should be early 2006.
oh well…
might as well stick the old sig on
Maybe, but its cold in that part of the world at this time of year.
Can I just point out that its T-2.5 weeks till the DopeFest. Wheeeeeee!!!
Woohoo! Can I start drinking now?
On the other hand, maybe I’d better pace myself, especially with all the rugelach-baking and assorted other Thanksgiving cooking that’s coming up. I’m just remembering a TV interview with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, the violinist, talking about she almost ended her professional career by trying to slice an onion with a dull knife. Alcohol and sharp objects aren’t a great combination.
Anyone have any good stress relief techniques that don’t involve ingesting mind-altering substances?
Does inhaling mind-altering substances count? Otherwise, try wasting time on messageboards.
Angua: OK, you’re not flirting, but you’re getting close to hijack 
Absolutely! Although I still have 12 days to go till I can drink again.
So alcohol is out then? Essential oils work well at calming me down, specifically bois de rose, but YMMV.
I had a wonderful stress relief tape once, which had you imagining you were floating, etc etc. It didn’t work. 
Playing silly computer games, where all you have to do is blow stuff up always works for me as well.
Shade - no I’m not. I’m merely responding to queries that other people in the thread have put forward. 
Well, I used to play soccer for stress relief (OK, “football” for you guys), but can’t ever since they installed the plate and screws on my left fibula. Biking and swimming work pretty well…have to get to the gym more often.
Backrubs are the best, though. Although from the lack of offers lately, I may have to settle for a nice bubble bath with my cat peering over the edge of the tub…
Oh, Angua, I just realized…so then does the Dopefest coincide pretty much exactly with the end of Ramadan? We’d all better watch out, if that’s the case, what with all the making up for lost time you’ll be doing! (Especially the menfolk.)
Sport works as well. Football is great stress relief. And amazingly enough, we didn’t lost our match yesterday - first league match that we haven’t lost. WooHoo! 
Backrubs… Backrubs… Apparantly, if I recall correctly from the BrumDope, Tir gives good backrubs, so I’ve been told. And I will vouch that our very own Bibliovore gives very good backrubs. Well, I think it was Bib, it was a Doper, I remember that much. No one else even dared enter that corner of the pub.
Yup. Eid is on the 25th November. I shall be just outside Cambridge from the 25th to the 27th, running a residential course, back to Brum to bake on the 28th, and then DopeFest.
Why would the menfolk be worried about me drinking? Unless they’re worried that I can out drink them.
Oh, you mean flirting. Now, why would I want to flirt?
Well, I’m glad to swap backrubs with anyone who has bathed recently. Although if it should become a group activity, I might feel a tad less self-conscious about feeling up a complete stranger. (Although it has somewhat more platonic associations for me than it might for some people; we used to start every high school choir warmup with backrubs. That, and I have an ex-boyfriend who was a professional massage therapist.)
Beat up random people on the street. thats therapy!
Garius: Honey… I’m really stressed could you…
Garigirl: Don’t even think about finishing that sentence.
Garius: okay
Nah, I’m a pacifist. That would be terribly out of character. Plus with all the internally installed leg hardware, I can’t run away, and kicking people is painful. Make love, not war, I always say.
Music is also therapeutic. I’m not going to schlep my guitar to England (and trust me, that’s a good thing for all concerned), but does the pub in question play music?
With my mind firmly in the gutter, I will not even comment on what I was thinking that you were thinking.
Oh, and Eva Luna, pubs that play music over here tend to be loud and noisy, and not really conducive for our scintilating witty banter, etc etc.
Well, I was thinking more in terms of a jukebox or something, not live music—live music places are noisy as hell here, too. No radio in the background, even?
(Keep in mind that so far I’ve been in a grand total of 2 actual English pubs; the one at Heathrow where I grabbed some lunch 18 months ago while waiting for the homebound flight to board, and the one across from my friend’s house in lovely, scenic Great Mongeham, Deal, Kent, a town of about 200 people and five times as many sheep. So my perspectives so far are rather limited.)
You probably wouldn’t be a 100 miles away from the truth. I’m a man. In thinking terms the gutter is a step up.
rocks in a corner at the thought of going into pubs which play music, even jukeboxes
Trust me Eva, we do not want to hang out in those places. IME anyway.
Good point. I could allow my mind to sink further, but we’d be getting into the realms of depravity…