So, as I’m sitting here, reading various threads here, my music switches over to Neutral Milk Hotel. This group has relatively quickly become at least one of my favorites, if not my “#1,” at this point I realize that I came across this group on this board, back a while ago there was a thread on this board asking people what they thought the saddest songs were (I understand this sort of thread comes up every now and then, this one was quite a while ago). And someone, forgive me for forgetting who, mentioned Neutral Milk Hotel’s “Holland, 1945” and “Two-Headed Boy,” I promptly found myself a copy of them, because they stood out to me for some reason, and have since gathered more and more of their music.
So this is rather mundane in the scope of things I suppose, but it made me wonder, surely if something that random has influenced me to the (albeit comparatively short) extent that this has (Since I put so much into what music I like) more people must’ve been affected by the things they’ve seen/read here. So, my question is pretty much as the thread’s title asks, how has this site/board affected your life, whether it’s something incredibly life altering or just a slight change in your habits, this board seems to have quite a bit of power, so I’m interested to see what sort of range we get here (and who knows, maybe it will break my current streak of awkwardly unsuccessful threads).
Not a life altering experience but it certainly has given me something interesting to do during the hours I spend on dialysis. I find I learn something new every day here which is always a good thing.
It has given me something to do during the slow times at work.
And, on a less positive note - has lured me into spending way to much time on the internet when I should be working.
It also keeps me up to date on current events (you can find a Pit thread about just about anything that appears in the news) and allows me to see a number of opinions I may not have been exposed to.
Oh - and lots of good books. God bless the “recommend me some good sci-fi” threads.
I’ll credit this board with preservation of the precious little sanity I have left. After every interaction with my close, loving, ignorant fundie relatives, I come here and read. Glorious antidote, reminds me there’s still intelligent life out there.
I’m currently living with a Doper couple in Oregon and lived with a Doper and his wife in Nebraska for five months before that. I’ve also been the best man at a Doper wedding.
There’s an mIRC chat room that a few dozen Dopers chat in and I’m a regular in there. After being there for a few months, I had some serious drama with my mother over my lifestyle choices (I’m an atheist bisexual and my mother’s a Christian convert. Do the math. :)) and was told to leave*. At the same time, I had been unemployed for months and having serious problems getting hired so one of the people in chat offered to take me in.
I jumped at the offer but it didn’t work out as well as it could have. In five months there, I only got one job and it was only for two weeks. By that time, another person that is around chat sometimes but not often, **Gr8kat **, needed a caretaker to replace the one she had just fired and since I had shown interest in the job back when I moved to Nebraska, she offered it to me knowing I’d probably take it and I did.
I’m actually at Kat’s house right now housesitting. It’s a Dopefest every day.
*My mother and I are fine now. Neither of us can hold a grudge for long.
Interesting, sounds like it’s been a useful thing to have in your life. Though, I really think I need to check out this IRC chat room, might be an entertaining complement to the SDMB, could I bug ya for the info on it? (Lemme try to keep this from getting too far off subject though, haha)
Sure, CrakMine. Either download mIRC and join the #straightdope room or go to http://www.undernet.org/webchat.php and type in your user name, join the channel it offers and then type in /join #straightdope when connected.
This is only my second post here, but i did quite a bit of lurking before i decided that i needed to post. SD has made me a less ignorant person almost as much so as www.snopes.com , and the boards have made me laugh and also have gotten rid of some of the disease of stupidity. That’s pretty much it, nothing too life changing. Maybe i need to spend more of my time here…
I lost my 6-year-old daughter to cancer a year and a half ago. The SDMB poured out love and support. That memory will be one of the positive ones of that devestating time of my life.
