What POSITIVE CHANGES are you making in your life?

Frohike wrote:

Gary Sax wrote: www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sc...0802-snap-story.html

Flossing very overrated. Definitely no need to do it multiple times a day or anything like that.

I think it depends on the structure of your teeth and body chemistry (some people just have a more acidic pH, I think). To be anecdotal, my dentist always seemed to find cavities during my visits, or at least once a year, until I started flossing once a day. I was a regular brusher, occasional flosser, and decided to just pick up the habit & see. I haven't had any problems since then, going on 20 years now.

I had a crown a few years back because of a cavity that happened between my teeth. Lots of discomfort and $1200 later, it was fixed. If the dentist says to floss, I'll floss.

Mad Dog wrote: When I got into board gaming back around 2000/2001 it was more about socializing with friends and making new ones. At least 90% of my friends I have I met through playing CCG/RPG/BG's and they are all great people to know. But as my various game groups spread out in life over the years I'd see them less and less. I'd also gotten jaded about going to random game nights anymore because I was meeting mainly hardcore gamers (particularly cult of the new and euro-snobs) where I used to meet a lot more casual gamers or people just looking to socialize. So I would interact with people online for the past decade more than I would with many of my local friends. This led to me spending more time reading about games online and talking about them online than I would spend playing them offline. Which somehow led to me trying to fill a growing hole in my life with more games that I'd only play a few times to keep up with the online part of the hobby when I should have been filling it with more local friends even if they didn't play games. You can't change to a new path until you realize the one you've been on isn't going anywhere anymore.

Yes. You have almost perfectly described my experience, buying games to fit a group that doesn't exist or telling myself that my family will play this when I know they won't.

I played games in high school a little, saw some Cheapass games while on vacation in 2005, and brought a card game back and played it with my sons, who were five and nine, respectively. My wife got mad and we fought because she felt I was excluding her and my daughters, who were one and four years of age. For a short while she played games with me, but has since given up. I really should have paid attention to that moment and thought about it more, and saved myself years of frustration.

My first real game was Railroad Tycoon, which made my head explode. I've never been super best buddies with most of the groups I have played with in the last twelve years, although we get along ok, even though our main group has sort of dissipated. Some of them still get together on their own, but meeting at a public game store has its perils. I always feel this weird disconnect with the puzzle/euro/economic game players, but the problem is I don't really feel like I'm this punk rock Ameritrasher either. It's like I don't have enough Asperger's to really enjoy Caylus, but have too much Asperger's, combined with my puritan upbringing, to really immerse myself in drunken Thunder Road. I've had some good Heroscape sessions with my sons, and a few family games, but they are often punctuated by my teaching the game poorly, or my wife getting upset about something because who knows, or me anticipating my wife getting upset and becoming defensively overly sensitive and oh shit who cares at this point. One son has moved out, the next oldest doesn't like to interact with us, and my daughters are awesome but don't like most boardgames. So I'm selling almost everything. I think I'm only holding onto

Dixit (the girls like this)
Innovation (we have played it before)
Thunder Road
Daytona 500
Wits and Wagers
Mormon Settlers of Catan (the kids have been playing Settlers with their friends, so they can use this copy. My oldest daughter basically said that playing with the family sucks)

I can't bring myself to sell the Heroscape, even though we have a lot (but never did get the Gorillanators). I guess I'm hoping I'll play it with grandkids in fifteen years, when I'm retired.

And some card games that nobody really wants, including Cosmic Eidex. Part of me feels relieved at not having to stare at those games and wish I was playing them. And I'm going to quit going to one group because I can't see the point of playing games I don't like with people who have almost no social interaction and often social skills that are even less developed than my own. I keep retelling this story in various forms on this site, like that guy in Memento. I need to get off this hamster wheel of regret and recrimination.

We might buy snowshoes with the extra money, but they strike me as something we'll use twice and then put away. Forgive the negativity of this post, I woke up at 2:30 a.m. after sleeping five hours.

The irony of all this is that a board game cafe opened up by us, and my wife suggested we should all go there some time. There's a $5.00 entrance fee and mediocre food.




I wrote almost this exact same self-pitying post three years ago . Very Groundhog Day.

Gary Sax wrote: www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sc...0802-snap-story.html

Flossing very overrated. Definitely no need to do it multiple times a day or anything like that.

You definitely don't need to do it multiple times a day... but you DO need to do it once a day or try at a minimum for 4-6 times a week. I have no idea why there is this recent anti-flossing push in the media and through studies. In my limited time practicing I can promise you I'll spot a non-flosser everytime, its easy because their gums look like a bloody shitshow and they likely are suffering bone loss from periodontal disease. Go to the practical source that sees this everyday, not the cases looked at and reported in in the labs.

Also I love me some Fortress: Dentaltrash. Keep it rolling!

I don’t floss and although I have no cavities, my gums hurt and have receded in two spots below the root which causes pain and makes some stuff, like eating pita chips, impossible because of pain and discomfort. I recommend flossing.


I also recommend not fucking goats but I won’t get into why

"Fortress: Dental Trash"

[img]http://https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FrankDeafeningKoi-max-1mb.gif

Da Bid Dabid wrote:

Gary Sax wrote: www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sc...0802-snap-story.html

Flossing very overrated. Definitely no need to do it multiple times a day or anything like that.

You definitely don't need to do it multiple times a day... but you DO need to do it once a day or try at a minimum for 4-6 times a week. I have no idea why there is this recent anti-flossing push in the media and through studies. In my limited time practicing I can promise you I'll spot a non-flosser everytime, its easy because their gums look like a bloody shitshow and they likely are suffering bone loss from periodontal disease. Go to the practical source that sees this everyday, not the cases looked at and reported in in the labs.

Also I love me some Fortress: Dentaltrash. Keep it rolling!

My mother said “Only floss the ones you want to keep.” My family has soft ass teeth and despite this, my mother at 79 still has all of her chompers.

Also worth mentioning that there’s a direct tie to oral health and heart inflammation; they’re now finding that the same bacteria that love the sugar in your face shit acids that both eat your teeth and inflame your arteries and heart lining.

So yeah, I floss in the shower every day. I carry mint toothpicks too (not a good habit). Best place to floss is in the shower. After every tooth I wash the string in hot water because I think using a flosser and not rinsing it is basically transferring yuck from one tooth to the next. My gums are bleedy as fuck due to smoking and genetics, but I floss and brush like a fucking tooth warrior because God only gave me one set of adult teeth and dental work is expensive as fuck.

SuperflyTNT wrote: My gums are bleedy as fudgesicles due to smoking and genetics, but I floss and brush like a fudging tooth warrior because God only gave me one set of adult teeth and dental work is expensive as fudge.

My son quit smoking by vaping, and then phasing out, but he had only been smoking for a year; I doubt this would work with long-term smokers.

Another long-term non-flosser here too. Probably because nobody got me into the habit or showed me how when I was younger. Due to bad experiences I didn't go to the dentist from 14-32. I only learned two years ago that you're supposed to brush for at least 2 minutes. Now I have a sonic with a timer so at least I've got that covered. I'm trying to get into the habit of flossing by doing it while I watch TV at night.
DaBid, whats your opinion of that pipe-cleaner brush? I'm guessing it needs to be rinsed after every tooth or your just spreading stuff around?

Had my last cigarette in June of 2016. I still dont floss as much as I'd like to. The gums have receded enough in a couple of spots that taking skin from the roof of my mouth and repairing has been suggested. Its covered by my insurance so im going to go for it. I have some friends that are losing teeth for lack of care and I'm not interested in that look.

Aside from quitting smoking I'm just trying to be nice to everyone and not cuss at traffic/drivers anymore.

I never flossed when I was young, because my teeth were so close together that the floss was always getting stuck and broken, leaving a ticklish piece of floss stuck until I could toothpick it out. Then three of my wisdom teeth were removed in my 30s, and suddenly my teeth had a little bit of breathing room. I still didn't floss, and by my late 30s, my gums started to recede a bit. Gum recession is bad, because it exposes a part of your teeth that lacks protective enamel. On the rare occasions that I stay semi-disciplined about the flossing for a few months, the dentist tends to notice a bit of improvement in the recessed gums.

The other thing I have noticed about regular flossing is that it starts to feel a little uncomfortable if I haven't flossed for a few days in a row.

[cranberries’ too much Aspie/Too much puritan]

ONE weekend at my house would be enough to break you of this. They say that the people make the game, and the Esteemed Messr. Theel will tell you how we roll. Or with Dave Roswell... fucking guy is a madman.

cranberries wrote:

SuperflyTNT wrote: My gums are bleedy as fudgesicles due to smoking and genetics, but I floss and brush like a fudging tooth warrior because God only gave me one set of adult teeth and dental work is expensive as fudge.

My son quit smoking by vaping, and then phasing out, but he had only been smoking for a year; I doubt this would work with long-term smokers.

I wasn’t a heavy smoker, but I had a stubborn habit that lasted for about 15 years. The gum and patch never did it, but then vaping came around and I tried it out for awhile. It weaned me off of tobacco pretty quickly and I started to taper the nicotine down to 6mg. The habit started to get annoying with its gadgety upkeep, so I eventually stopped buying juice or atomizers but kept my battery (it has a cool ohm detector that lets you set whatever wattage you want without doing the math). In hindsight, it was a relatively painless and smooth transition away from nicotine altogether and I don’t regret it. Now I just use the battery for weed cartridges.

Mad Dog wrote: DaBid, whats your opinion of that pipe-cleaner brush? I'm guessing it needs to be rinsed after every tooth or your just spreading stuff around?

Proxy brushes are great tools to help clean interproximals (between teeth), just like floss, pick aids, waterpiks, etc. Primarily these things aren't "cleaning or spreading stuff" in the mouth and gums, they are disrupting the biofilm which harbors both helpful and harmful flora that live in your mouth. If people have big recession areas or gaps and the proxy brush can fully get in the space they do a damn fine job... however I always recommend just plain floss as the best tool. That said, if you will regularly use a proxy brush and be more consistent with it than floss alone that will do a better job than flossing once a month or for the week before you come see the dentist. Consistent results in keeping shit clean can be verified your next trip at the dentist, so if you introduce something new it won't be a mystery if its effective or not.

I just deleted my Facebook account (for about the fourth time) and deleted my Twitter account after ten years. They were just sources of second hand anxiety.

I unfollowed everyone on twitter except chuck tingle.