Correct. We can have as many names as we like too.

However there’s various documents available that are proof that one is using a name. So for example my bank wouldn’t let me change my name unless I present something like a deed poll. Said deed poll is literally just a print out with some stock phrasing and the signatures of two witnesses.

We don’t have a central database that covers everyone in Britain (unlike, say, Sweden). If I want to change my name I can just start using the new one. Amusingly lots of people in the UK don’t know this and are sure it’s not the case. I ended up switching banks because the final straw was how poorly the staff were trained on the subject. My new bank and the DVLA did not have similar weird ideas, thankfully, so now my name is updated on my driving licence, etc…

I mentioned how my deed poll is a print out earlier because so many people seem to think it needs to be something notarised, or on special stationery, or something (usually they’re not sure what, they just think it seems wrong). When they consult the law they tend to then have a bit of a laugh with me because the law is indeed a bit mental (such as at the registry office when I got married a few months ago).

I don’t think that’s really the point.

There’s no such thing as “legal names” in the UK.

I was honestly just being flippant.

I do find it quite obnoxious how Microsoft handles Xbox stuff. There’s a lot of “because fuck you” to their interface design.

Finally a way to be rid of that crap? Amazing.

A colleague titled a slide “how is babby formed?” at work a few weeks ago. Still makes me laugh.

Actively wanting to date someone less intelligent than oneself feels like predatorial behaviour.

To steal a joke from Milton Jones:

My sister suffers from hayfever, diabetes, and vertigo. I try my best to be supportive but I’m not sure whether my efforts are going down so well. I’ve sent her flowers, chocolates, and sometimes I just give her a call to say hi(gh).

That doesn’t sound like something someone in a favourable position would say.

I really don’t get what the goal is here. Is it just that they’d rather fight reality than come to terms with the truth?

Teenagers making poor choices? That doesn’t sound right. Why back in my day we were all sensible!

What is the goal here? Do they have another planet to live on or something?

Given the history of Battlefield, so what? Anyone buying at launch only has themselves to blame.

Best of luck with that, idiots. How are you planning to tell the difference between my personal VPN and my work VPN?

Essentially I found the implementations of many puzzles annoying. As in, I’d figure out the solution but implementing it was tedious or unclear (the hot air balloon, that awful cave maze, submarine navigation, the Atlantean maze section…).

When it was good I enjoyed it but much of the time it let me down. Perhaps I had excessively high hopes but people praise that game so much. I replay the first two Broken Sword games every few years and love them but Fate of Atlantis was just kinda meh for me.

That, uh, wasn’t the issue. I had both speech and the best quality music available.

I wish I could agree. I was so disappointed when I played it earlier this year.

Yay!

You’re taking this extremely personally for some reason

I think that could be said for your entire response to me. I’ve no interest in further interacting with you. I’ve attempted to relate to you, be friendly in disagreement, and be clear in my position. That’s not working and this interaction is just proving a source of needless stress. Goodbye.

These things always irk me.

We are all weird.

I’ve met plenty of normal people who aren’t weird. You might not remember them as they actively blend into the background and are as memorable as a margerine sandwich. At some point they probably had the potential to be interesting and weird but decades of avoiding being weird has sanded all the interesting edges off like stones on the sea shore.

Everyone’s pretending. No one knows what they’re doing.

This is the one that gets my goat. It’s reinforcing learned helplessness and generally encouraging lousy self image.

I’ll bet dollarydoos to doughnuts that most people do know what they’re doing but constantly compare themselves to a mythical idealised adult that they feel they should be. Said adult is based on their perceptions of adults as a small child. Someone who, comparatively, knows everything in the world and when the viewer was small and scared was in no way phased (because they’d done whatever mundane thing a thousand times before).

What are we even defining as “knowing what you’re doing”. What level of knowledge and experience would be sufficient to satisfy this criteria?

When I cook my home made lasagne that I’ve made on countless occasions, am I pretending?

When I realise that I have a flat tyre and pull over to replace it, am I making it up as I go along?

When I attend a party and make social connections with new people, would I have to have a precise game plan of every conceivable circumstance I could encounter (and a plan of action) to be considered to “know what I’m doing”?

We should all be giving ourselves a lot more credit. Either you’ve got this or you’re about to learn something new that will see you competently tackle this situation in future. As you build your skills and experience you’ll find lots of stuff is transferrable and new stuff just isn’t that hard. It’s all based on shared human experiences - it’s rare that anything is designed to be as alien as possible to us!

Do whatever you want. Have you tried that yet? It’s fucking amazing.

This bit though - do that. Be sillier. Or more serious. Whatever you feel like. Ideally don’t make other people’s lives hell though. Conformity is over rated.