NoNewTaleToTell: Good day everyone, hope you're all doing passably well and better if possible.

I'm considering making bacon for the first time in years, I'm not quite sure I can do that without burning my home down, but that's part of the fun yeah?

akhliber: Sarge is doing great overall. He had a bit of a rough morning, I think the sounds of the neighbors being particularly loud through the night scared him, but we cuddled up on the couch and he was back to sleeping before long. He's now snoring next to me, and I'm hoping when he wakes he'll have at least somewhat forgotten being so spooked.
His training is going great. I'm blown away all the time at how smart he is, how quickly he grasps things. We are likely going to sign him up for another actual training class (he had six sessions of "puppy pre-school," and though he's doing great training at home, we fell in love with the trainer we found, who works out of her home, and Sarge loved her too, so we're going to do at least one more session of classes with him, probably once the heat of the summer lets up, as the next course involves training outdoors around distractions to teach focus, which is really the one area he needs a lot of work with. But then, I've go the attention span of a mayfly myself, so I can't really fault him for that. :)
He's gotten to where he kennels himself at almost exactly 9:30 at night. It's the strangest thing, he just started doing it out of nowhere. Helps me keep track of time. ;)

ddickinson: Good day!

How are you today?

Can you burn your house down cooking bacon? :-)

Maybe, but as I said, I don't really watch much tv anymore, and I had more than enough of the horrible anime. It's like PC games, you play enough rubbish from a genre then it starts to remove your enjoyment of that genre.

AgentBirdnest: It's a win either way. If you succeed, you get bacon. If you fail, you get an excellent light show ;-)

AgentBirdnest: Not sure what that "kun" means (is it good or bad? :-p) but I'll take the hug *big return hug*

AgentBirdnest: It's a win either way. If you succeed, you get bacon. If you fail, you get an excellent light show ;-)

akhliber: ...and if you're prepared in advance for the possible of such a failure, you can be ready with tongs in hand to grab the bacon from the fire before you run screaming out of the house. Then you'll have bacon *and* an excellent light show. ;)

ddickinson: Latest Blue reply about the whole scammer/abuse thing. Not really much, and I think the paygating option is the best way to go, just as with Steam. But it seems that is not going to happen.

[very naughty thread name]

ddickinson: I have seen Gundam Wing, in fact it's the only Gundam series I have seen.

I did, my partner surprised me with it on Saturday. It was lovely.

AgentBirdnest: Poor forums... I'm afraid to go there anymore.
Starting to wonder if anything will ever get fixed here. I'm unpleasantly surprised that such basic features are still not available for chat. The old PM system wasn't perfect, but was still so much better than this. And how long have people been trying to get the rep system changed/removed? 7 years? :-p

GreenDamsel: You can get married as a surprise? I thought you were proposed to and said yes.
I did not know marriages can be prepared so stealthy that it could be a surprise. And don't you need to mentally prepare yourself for that day?
I am not really experienced with that stuff, so I am confused.
But. Well. Yeah. Congratulations.

ddickinson: But getting rid of the rep system would mean Owl would lose all her stars. :-(

AgentBirdnest: Yes, we couldn't have that ):-\
Maybe we need a new wishlist entry... "Remove rep from everyone else and send it to Owl" :-)

ddickinson: Someone made a suggestion of just removing the plus and minus buttons for the rep, which I think is a great idea. A post count proves nothing, and can be easily abused. Someone also suggested the paygate not stop people posting, but that it stops them using the rating system for rep and posting links. That sounds like a good idea. It would need some moderation of the forum as well, to keep on top of the scammers and abusers.

GreenDamsel: What paygate? Did I miss anything?

ddickinson: Not really, it's just one of the suggestions users are making to help prevent abuse on the forum, a bit like how Steam recently introduced their paygate system.