I'm a beer newb and haven't yet acquired the taste for it. Does anyone have any advice for someone that wants to get into drinking beer? I'm considering drinking a can of it every day so that I can work up the taste for it and it won't make me gag anymore.

Was anyone else in a similar situation of needing to acquire the taste for it? What worked best for you? What should I avoid doing? Etc.

Right now I'm totally buying the idea that we're in a simulation. I could totally see us as a super advanced game of Sims for some other life form.

"Zantareous" was my username in RuneScape - I was trying to make something medieval-ish (start it with an uncommon letter - Z - and through in tons of vowels seems to be Medieval Names 101).

As I started using the name on other websites it was condensed to "zants" or sometimes "Zanty" because 1) some websites I signed up for said "Zantareous" was too long; and 2) at the time, I was scared that people would Google "Zantareous" and find out that I played RuneScape (I eventually stopped using Zanty for that reason as well - it could be tracked back to RuneScape forums that I had used it on).

RuneScape's basically all I've played the past 11 years. Um, I hate it (especially now that nearly all of my old friends have quit), but I'm driven to keep playing it because "I've put this much time into it, I might as well finish these goals so I can quit" - repeated every damned year for the past 5 years. Basically, the sunk cost fallacy and the fear of missing out keeps me playing, though I have to imagine this is the same story for most MMO players.

I actually took a break in 2011-2012, which turned out to be the worst decision of my life. Life after the MMO is a fucking weird, scary place. My grades plummeted, I became much more depressed and anxious, and overall I had no idea what to do with myself during the 12-16 hours of the day that I would usually be playing the game. I had crafted my daily routine around the game, and when I ripped it out everything fell apart. So I've since started playing more again, though probably too much as of late. Even though I'm back to having "no life", it feels a lot better actually having some direction in life and being able to finish homework (and having high grades again) than to be lost, failing at everything, and contemplating my existence constantly.

Just water for me. I keep a cup and a big jug of water next to me at all times while at home (otherwise I always have a water bottle on me).

I don't know how to make coffee so it doesn't taste terrible. Though caffeine simply doesn't work on me anyway (damned body chemistry), so I definitely don't feel the need to drink it if I'm not getting any of the benefits. Also I really hate how it makes me smell (especially when I go to the bathroom... like how do people stand that? - and on that topic, how it acts as a laxative is pretty annoying), days after drinking just one cup and my body still smells like the coffee, so gross.

Occasionally I get really into tea, but the need to constantly go to the bathroom gets annoying really quickly. Also, like coffee, doesn't leave a good taste in your mouth (really promotes good habits with brushing your teeth, lol).

As for alcohol: I would love to get into casual drinking but just haven't been able to yet. Beer for me is definitely an acquired taste, and currently I haven't been able to work up to drinking more than half a can (literally every sip causes me to gag). Liqueur doesn't bother me so much, but I reserve that for parties (I tried drinking a gin and tonic yesterday at home but didn't find it very good, I definitely need to be around friends for that type of stuff). I think sometime in the next month I'll start (force) drinking a can of beer per day so I can work up the taste for it.

This is my daily routine (except Tuesdays) in order.

Preliminaries:

- Sticky note notification appears on my computer telling me it's time to exercise.

- Put on some clothes for exercising (usually includes a shirt to attach my MP3 player to and a sweatshirt over top).

- Put on MP3 player (for listening to podcasts - the MVP that makes all of my exercise routine possible since I go insane listening to music or just thinking to myself the whole time), put earbuds in ears.

- Brush my teeth.

- Put shoes on.

- Leave my house at 8-9 pm.

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Running:

- 10-15 minute warm up (walking to the location that I run).

- Stretch my neck while walking to a park bench (not so much a problem anymore, but running used to really mess with my neck at first as I was so used to just sitting at my computer all day).

- Two quick leg stretches against a park bench.

- Warm up stretches until I get to the spot that I start running (takes 5-10 minutes).

- Run for about an hour (though I don't keep track of time or distance, I run about the same path every time - if I feel like going hard I can finish in 40 minutes, or most days it might take me closer to 75 minutes). Currently I do intervals (run for X time/distance, walk for Y time/distance) until I work up the stamina to run the whole time (which is taking me a very long time).

- 10-15 minute cool down (walking back home).

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Stretching:

- If there's no bugs (mosquitos) outside, I'll stretch outside after running and then do the cool down walk. If there are too many bugs, I'll do the stretching when I get home. Stretching takes 10-15 minutes (try to do 20 seconds per stretch, though I zone out a lot).

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Abs:

- Various ab workouts. Right now I've reduced it to just 2-3 workouts (I was doing 3 sets of 10 for each, currently I'm doing 10, then 20, etc. up to 40 or 50, and then sometimes going back down to 10... idk, this part of my routine is a mess that stresses me out with how much I change it). I keep changing which ones I do because ultimately I do all of this exercising because I enjoy it (at least in comparison to my shitty school and computer responsibilities), and I try to cut out things that I don't enjoy.

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Ending:

- Shower (my most hated part of the routine. It's so difficult to shower when you're so tired, but you know you need to do it or else wake up the next day with your skin being fucking gross. I just don't understand how healthy people take so many showers lol, I find them so annoying). - Ice my legs.

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I usually finish everything at 1 am, totalling 3-5 hours, which is probably(?) a fucking lot of time for one thing. I've been able to devote that much time over the past year because I took a break from college and then did only one class the previous semester (and I haven't had a job yet). I have no idea how I'll work this into my routine when I'll be a full time student again this coming Fall and hopefully working as well, or in general how anyone finds time for exercising if they have no other commitments.

I'd like to start biking and doing a small run in the morning as well, just haven't got around to doing it yet. Also going to the gym would really help me, but thus far I've been too scared (same reason that I run late at night - so I can avoid people). And until writing this just now it never occurred to me that these things would take up even more time (like, several hours). Yeah, I have no idea how people manage to do all of this stuff when they have actual responsibilities.