As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

It's a Family Affair!

1234568

Posts

  • JansonJanson Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Also $222 to renew my passport :'(

    Janson on
  • TrixTrix Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    My mom is pretty brilliant and worked as a secretary for way too long before she went to law school just a few years ago. Supposedly she is my birth mother but unfortunately I look nothing like her.

    mom1.jpg

    mom3.jpg

    mom2.jpg

    And my dad was pretty much Cat Stevens until he became a corporate schmuck.

    dad2.jpg

    dad1.jpg

    dad3.jpg

    My family is all fair-skinned, my mom and brother have blue eyes, my dad green, and somehow I ended up Hispanic.

    me1.jpg

    Trix on
  • Houk the NamebringerHouk the Namebringer Nipples The EchidnaRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    goddamn your mom is the hotness and i wanna be your dad's friend

    Houk the Namebringer on
  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    PI, I think my grandma's house still has that wallpaper in the kitchen!
    Seriously?

    I would never lie about something as serious as horrible, horrible floral wallpaper.

    Janson, maybe you can hide Mori in your suitcase and bring him with you!

    Lost Salient on
    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • Penguin IncarnatePenguin Incarnate King of Kafiristan Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    PI, I think my grandma's house still has that wallpaper in the kitchen!
    Seriously?

    I would never lie about something as serious as horrible, horrible floral wallpaper.

    Janson, maybe you can hide Mori in your suitcase and bring him with you!
    Talking shit on turn of the century wall paper is gonna get ya cut, Salient.

    Penguin Incarnate on
  • SilmarilSilmaril Mr Ha Ha Hapless. Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Janson wrote: »
    Also $222 to renew my passport :'(

    Now that fucking sucks. How the hell is it so much? Can't all be postage?

    Silmaril on
    t9migZb.jpg
  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    PI, I think my grandma's house still has that wallpaper in the kitchen!
    Seriously?

    I would never lie about something as serious as horrible, horrible floral wallpaper.

    Janson, maybe you can hide Mori in your suitcase and bring him with you!
    Talking shit on turn of the century wall paper is gonna get ya cut, Salient.

    Actually I'd like to thank you, because if I hadn't immediately gone to research hideous wallpaper patterns of the 19-aughts, I would never have discovered websites like "Historical Wallpaper Resources" and photo galleries like "Vintage Wallpaper Collections Featured on Martha Stewart."

    It's not that I'm afraid of gettin' cut, but I owe my grandmother and you an apology. It could be way worse.
    wallpaperfc.jpgwallpaper3j.jpg

    Lost Salient on
    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • ASimPersonASimPerson Cold... and hard.Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Janson wrote: »
    So I'm being forced to take three vacation days over Christmas (and I only get 10 a year anyhow) so thinking I may go back to the UK then

    I'd miss my first wedding anniversary and my first Christmas as a married person but then again if I don't go now I won't have enough vacation accrued to visit for a whole other year

    Downside is that to get a cheap flight (i.e. half the cost of most flights) I'd have to arrive on Christmas Day and return on New Year's Day but oh well guess that's what I get for being 6,000 miles apart from family

    e-mailing my dad and hoping he'll split the cost with me

    Dude, 10 days is pretty low, even by American standards. You should ask about that!

    ASimPerson on
  • ASimPersonASimPerson Cold... and hard.Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    As for the topic at hand....

    I think I have the most average parents in the world.

    Well, I assume they weren't always that way. They're both pretty smart. My Dad was both smart and athletically talented (the latter trait I didn't inherit at all) and chose to go to West Point. My Mom grew up on a farm in Kansas, and to escape that paid her way through college and got a business degree. (This occasionally makes for an interesting comparison of their college days.) Since they're both products of the Baby Boomer generation, I have a plenty of aunts, uncles, and cousins. When I was 4, they packed up and moved to Alabama, where my brother and I grew up in a pretty typical suburban white boy experience.

    I would say I get along with my immediate family pretty great. The extended family can be trying because, especially on my Dad's side, my aunts adore my brother and I (growing up we were the smart, well-behaved cousins and now we're the smart, successful cousins). Also, since I moved to California, this considered somewhat exotic since my Dad's family is based in the DC area and most of my Mom's family still lives in Kansas. (Four of her 4 uncles are farmers.)

    ASimPerson on
  • L|amaL|ama Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    My mum's from canada (windsor ontario iirc, somewhere that supports the leafs anyway), met my dad when she was over here doing a master's in microbiology and ended up staying here with him. My dad's originally from quite close to here in new zealand but has done a bunch of random shit, he was in the territorials (army reserve, like national guard I think) for the career length of maybe a month. I think he then went over to australia and worked at a gold mine for a bit and worked on a drilling rig for a bit, then came back here and went to polytech and got some kind of chef certificate and worked as one of those at a restaurant here for a while where he went through 30 tequila sunrises one night (a story corroborated by my mother), and I think after that him and a friend tried to start a business growing and selling lavender which went to shit because the neighbour's sheep kept going through the fence and eating the flowers. He told the farmer that if they did it again he would shoot every one that was on his side of the fence, then went and bought deer slugs and showed them to the farmer the next day who laughed and said 'yeah bullshit', didn't fix the fence, and then a week later got pissed off at him when a bunch of his sheep went missing and he found them hung over the fence. That's how I gained the knowledge that it's possible to kill two sheep with one shotgun slug. After that I think he helped drill for the explosives for the drainage tunnels around this dam, then worked as a chef for a bit again then as a stay at home dad when mum got a decent paying job. Interspersed between all that he did quite a bit of gold dredging.
    I also have strong reasons to believe that there was a bunch of stuff he's done that I don't know about, for one when we were watching some cop show on TV one night and they were showing a weed bust he made a comment about them being scrawny and some other adjective that I usually only hear from people talking about weed plants. We also have "uncle" steve (not really steve) who is completely unrelated to us and about 10-15 years older than my parents, and has made passing comments about when he was in jail. We have video from his 50th a few years after I was born and my dad pointed out one of the guys there and told us that he was Mr. Asia's second in command.

    He also has a lot of fun "you should never do this, but when I was your age..." stories.


    Uh my sister works for an agricultural research place looking after possums while the researchers find ways to kill them (they're a pest here) and has a daughter, my other sister is getting her early childhood teaching degree and tries to bitch about the workload to me and my brother sometimes and we generally just laugh ('I had to go to class 4 days this week!'), he's working on his master's in mechanical engineering and is doing a whole class on making and launching rockets, I've just finished my first year of a physics degree.

    L|ama on
  • L|amaL|ama Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    GOGO GADGET WALL OF TEXT!

    L|ama on
  • Dulcius_ex_asperisDulcius_ex_asperis Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Once my dad broke a guy's finger for flipping him off.

    Also he once killed a squirrel by beating it against his chest.

    Dulcius_ex_asperis on
  • The Black HunterThe Black Hunter The key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple, unimpeachable reason to existRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Dulcius your dad is everything I want to be



    My mum really only cares about attention
    she asks what I did that day, so she can turn it back on her
    she is ALWAYS right

    recently it has come up that I need a car, and all she does is naysay on me and my dad, so my dad just said "You have awful car sense, it always goes wrong"
    She really prides herself on her car sense
    even though my dad was right. she thinks she knows about cars but she has no goddamn clue. She sold our perfectly functional CRV for a 1963 beetle, that hardly even drives, so she steals my car whenever she can. She tries to work on the beetle, but she only breaks it more.

    The Black Hunter on
  • Dulcius_ex_asperisDulcius_ex_asperis Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    My mum really only cares about attention
    she asks what I did that day, so she can turn it back on her
    she is ALWAYS right

    Your mom is Penelope, the one upper? From SNL?

    Dulcius_ex_asperis on
  • The Black HunterThe Black Hunter The key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple, unimpeachable reason to existRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    No my mum is just a pain

    granted she also writes one of the best herpetology (on reptiles and frogs) newsletters in australia, (http://www.actha.org.au/attachments/087_ACTHA%20Newsletter%20August%20-%20September%202009.pdf) something agreed on by people all over the country, will help any friend of mine with caring for any animal, or basically anything else.
    She does also have her moments of level headed generosity, pitching in on things I would like to buy.

    She isn't as bad as I make her out to be I guess. A pain in the butt to me, but my friends think she is the best

    The Black Hunter on
  • FAQFAQ Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    you just need to move out

    FAQ on
  • The Black HunterThe Black Hunter The key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple, unimpeachable reason to existRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Yeah, It will be on the list after the car

    The Black Hunter on
  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Look on the bright side, TBH, after you move out you can spend seven glorious years living independently! ...and then move back in with your parents halfway across the world to save up money for grad school. D:

    It's so interesting to me how different some of you folks' upbringings have been from mine. As a kid I lived all over the continental U.S. (and had one brief foray into Quebec), but by and large I grew up as a suburbanite with little to no knowledge of practical life in a rural setting. Neither of my parents consider camping, farming, hunting, or anything vaguely wilderness-related to be a reasonable pastime, barring road trips through national parks; my dad grew up on the south side of Chicago, terrorizing the neighborhood and building/dismantling cars, and my mom mainly grew up in Lake Forest and Winnetka, two Chicago suburbs.

    The next generation back came from... three other areas of Chicago! And the generation before that came from slightly further away places around Chicago. Although around that time you start getting the renegades, like my grandpa, who was from Youngstown, Ohio, and moved to Chicago because 1) he met my grandmother in a canteen during the war and pestered her into a date, and 2) he got into "the best fist fight of his life" at a White Sox game when the war was over.

    Basically the flat "a" is built into my speech on a genetic level.

    Lost Salient on
    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • The Black HunterThe Black Hunter The key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple, unimpeachable reason to existRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    I have never lived outside of my hometown

    and in my memory, never been further than one city away

    and I really, really resent this. I have friends who have been all over the world, and I just feel bitter and inexperienced

    The Black Hunter on
  • NotASenatorNotASenator Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    It's an odd sensation when I read that some ultra famous is sick and I think "I wonder if I should call my uncle to see if he's heard"

    NotASenator on
  • L|amaL|ama Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Once my dad broke a guy's finger for flipping him off.

    Also he once killed a squirrel by beating it against his chest.

    haha once when we were driving past a bunch of kids one of them flipped us off so dad turned around and drove after him as he ran down the sidewalk, and just drove the same speed he was running until he stopped and then asked him why he did it over and over a few times before telling him he'd inform the kid's parents if he did it again, the kid was shitting himself. Hilarious.

    Oh and we were rabbit shooting once and my brother hit a rabbit in the leg or something and it dived in a bush, so my dad grabbed it, told my sister to turn around and faced the other way and broke its neck

    it took her a while to figure out what the sound was, I think we were about 12-14

    I have never lived outside of my hometown

    and in my memory, never been further than one city away

    and I really, really resent this. I have friends who have been all over the world, and I just feel bitter and inexperienced

    I've been all over the country, but always well south of auckland. I would like to go overseas and I'm probably gonna go to europe or something equally cliched for a bit after I graduate, or go to grad school overseas

    L|ama on
  • The Black HunterThe Black Hunter The key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple, unimpeachable reason to existRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    I remember a motor cyclist taking off in front of me when I was about 8, I had some friends around.

    He revved it really hard and the wheel spun a little.

    I quite literally said "His wheel spun", not in an excited voice, but since the world of rev hard slide hard was foreign to me I said it simply as a statement. He went up the street and turned around anf came back at us, pulled over and shouted "What did you say? what did you say?"

    I tried to explain, but I just could not get the words out of my mouth, A friend stepped in and said "He said you span the wheel, that's all"

    It didn't really affect me at all, but I remember it

    The Black Hunter on
  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Everyone should travel! I guess I feel pretty fortunate for all of the places I've worked/lived/visited as a tourist. I still feel bitter and inexperienced sometimes and I've done a lot of stuff.* The hardest bit is, I think, finding a way to give yourself that push out the door.

    NaS, is your uncle... Perez Hilton?



    *This could be because I am sort of a whiner and a crankypants by nature

    Lost Salient on
    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • taoistlumberjaktaoistlumberjak Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    My great grandpa and great uncles were in the 442nd.

    taoistlumberjak on
    grillsgrillsgrills.jpg
  • L|amaL|ama Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    one of my great grandparents was in the 2nd boer war on the british side

    woot oppressing other whities instead of browns for a change

    L|ama on
  • NotASenatorNotASenator Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    NaS, is your uncle... Perez Hilton?

    No, I have a whole set of new relatives now that I'm married and one of them is a big business guy and a friend/business associate of someone I read about being ill. I'm meeting this new uncle in person for the first time over Thanksgiving, so I'm not necessarily used to having that in my family.

    Prior to that, the best I could claim is that my sister met Jessica Simpson once.

    NotASenator on
  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Do you think it'll be one of those stressful, "Oh heck, what do I say," introductions, or is the extended family pretty chill?

    Also my great-grandfather was in the First World War, but since he was an American, even enlisting voluntarily, he wasn't over there for very long. He did bring back a spent shell casing that he turned into a lamp, though. Which is awesome.

    Lost Salient on
    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • NotASenatorNotASenator Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Do you think it'll be one of those stressful, "Oh heck, what do I say," introductions, or is the extended family pretty chill?

    Also my great-grandfather was in the First World War, but since he was an American, even enlisting voluntarily, he wasn't over there for very long. He did bring back a spent shell casing that he turned into a lamp, though. Which is awesome.

    I've talked to him on facebook before and every one thinks we are going to get along incredibly well, so who knows. I'm not going to be nervous about it, it's just a new thing that I've never had to think about before.

    NotASenator on
  • L|amaL|ama Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    I have a 4 inch shell casing for a rubbish bin and a .50 as a bottle opener

    neither are very good for their respective duties

    L|ama on
  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    The lamp works really well! It's from a 75mm. It's interesting because it's got an AEF stamp on it, but generally shells weren't stamped like that at all, so it was a flourish added during/after to make it an attractive souvenir for soldiers on their way home.

    Also NaS, I would give a kidney - not mine, but one from someone I was fond of - for that sort of aplomb. I stress out about things like that, for really no reason at all.

    Lost Salient on
    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • Dulcius_ex_asperisDulcius_ex_asperis Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    My grandma's pretty awesome. When I was younger she would basically pick up on guys for me.

    Now that I type that it sounds really creepy. It's not. She's awesome.

    Actually several of my friends thinks she's hot. Is 23-70 too big of an age gap, or should I hook him up?

    Dulcius_ex_asperis on
  • NotASenatorNotASenator Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    The lamp works really well! It's from a 75mm. It's interesting because it's got an AEF stamp on it, but generally shells weren't stamped like that at all, so it was a flourish added during/after to make it an attractive souvenir for soldiers on their way home.

    Also NaS, I would give a kidney - not mine, but one from someone I was fond of - for that sort of aplomb. I stress out about things like that, for really no reason at all.

    Look at it this way, I've already married his niece, he can't really affect that, so basically the worst he can do is not give me a job or run over me in a car, but really he's just like anyone else in that regard.

    NotASenator on
  • UsagiUsagi Nah Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Look on the bright side, TBH, after you move out you can spend seven glorious years living independently! ...and then move back in with your parents halfway across the world to save up money for grad school. D:

    It's so interesting to me how different some of you folks' upbringings have been from mine. As a kid I lived all over the continental U.S. (and had one brief foray into Quebec), but by and large I grew up as a suburbanite with little to no knowledge of practical life in a rural setting. Neither of my parents consider camping, farming, hunting, or anything vaguely wilderness-related to be a reasonable pastime, barring road trips through national parks; my dad grew up on the south side of Chicago, terrorizing the neighborhood and building/dismantling cars, and my mom mainly grew up in Lake Forest and Winnetka, two Chicago suburbs.

    The next generation back came from... three other areas of Chicago! And the generation before that came from slightly further away places around Chicago. Although around that time you start getting the renegades, like my grandpa, who was from Youngstown, Ohio, and moved to Chicago because 1) he met my grandmother in a canteen during the war and pestered her into a date, and 2) he got into "the best fist fight of his life" at a White Sox game when the war was over.

    Basically the flat "a" is built into my speech on a genetic level.

    Highest of fives for genetic "eh"

    Let's go drink Faygo and play in the greatest lakes on earth

    Usagi on
  • Sara LynnSara Lynn I can handle myself. Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    ASimPerson wrote: »
    Janson wrote: »
    So I'm being forced to take three vacation days over Christmas (and I only get 10 a year anyhow) so thinking I may go back to the UK then

    I'd miss my first wedding anniversary and my first Christmas as a married person but then again if I don't go now I won't have enough vacation accrued to visit for a whole other year

    Downside is that to get a cheap flight (i.e. half the cost of most flights) I'd have to arrive on Christmas Day and return on New Year's Day but oh well guess that's what I get for being 6,000 miles apart from family

    e-mailing my dad and hoping he'll split the cost with me

    Dude, 10 days is pretty low, even by American standards. You should ask about that!

    Wait, people get vacations?

    Sara Lynn on
  • ButtersButters A glass of some milks Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    My family on my dad's side has tripled in size with both my dad and his older brother remarrying in the last 5 years.

    Butters on
    PSN: idontworkhere582 | CFN: idontworkhere | Steam: lordbutters | Amazon Wishlist
  • JigrahJigrah Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    My dad is a terrible gift giver, absolutely terrible. He found a pack of playing cards that had a Pokemon theme, held onto it and gave it to me for good grades, this was my junior year in high school when it was quite clear I had nothing to do with Pokemon anymore.

    I think it was my senior year he gave me a really cool knife set (assorted pocket knives, they were cheap but functional) as a reward for something I did well. One of the knives though was missing, and he was saying how oh it probably didn't come with it. Months later I see him using the knife that was supposed to be missing. I am pretty confident in thinking he saw the knife set, saw the knife he liked and was like Hmm, I know how to get rid of the others.

    One year my dad didn't have a Girlfriend so he did all the Christmas shopping. We didn't think this was a problem until my brother and I started getting the same items. My dad literally went to Sams, grabbed two of the most random things and put them in the cart. This was such a funny Christmas my brother and I are going to make it tradition, every couple of years we get duplicates of everything and just gift them all.

    Jigrah on
  • ButtersButters A glass of some milks Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    My dad buys very nice, thoughtful gifts that I have positively no use for.

    Butters on
    PSN: idontworkhere582 | CFN: idontworkhere | Steam: lordbutters | Amazon Wishlist
  • UsagiUsagi Nah Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    My dad has a habit of sending me NERF weaponry and LEGO kits for Christmas and my birthday

    He's awesome

    Usagi on
  • Muse Among MenMuse Among Men Suburban Bunny Princess? Its time for a new shtick Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    My family only ever gets me clothes that don't fit. When will they learn!?

    My mom doesn't like cooking, but she's so good at it. I have inherited none of her talent. My dad isn't that bad either. Just that he can only make desserts. Every time it rains he makes us sweet rice soup; it tastes like sunshine and rainbows.

    Muse Among Men on
  • tastypastrytastypastry Can somebody please remove these cutleries from my knees?Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    My little sister is the coolest. She has the best sense of humor in the world.

    tastypastry on
This discussion has been closed.