Boards News - July 2018

Boards.ie: Mark

Hello everyone,

Well it's been a busy few weeks. We had some amazing weather, which seems to be taking a (welcome to some) breather at the moment. We're staying glued to the Weather forum, which looks like a mixed bag for a little while.

The good weather encouraged people to get out and about, and plenty of people were sharing photos of their experiences, whether that be from their cycle, with their pets, or just out enjoying Mother Nature. The Photography forum, of course, has benefitted from people heading out and bringing the camera with them.



Last week felt like a long week without the World Cup! However, one successful experiment was the dedicated World Cup 2018 forum, which was open to all...and thankfully the Putin bots didn't invade. We'll be wrapping it up soon, just giving people a chance to do some post-tournament analysis, and archiving it for prosperity. This is something that looks like it will be worth exploring for future major tournaments too.

We're now in-between soccer seasons, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to discuss. The Fantasy Sports Arena forum is buzzing already with people setting up leagues and drafting up their provisional teams. If you are looking for a second opinion on your team or you want to show off your treasure trove of knowledge, head over to the forum and start rating some teams.

In other sports news, the Boards Golf Society has been enjoying their recent outings. They went over to Palmerstown over the weekend. More information can be found here and you can find out more about joining the Society: https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057887007. One post that caught our eye recently was Deep Thought's story from The Open 2018 where his son had a great day out. The Golf forum has also been home to some great pictures of late; we particularly liked this one from Poker Face



Every month, someone seems to complete a physical feat. delynet completed Mizen to Malin with a cycling club in under 24 hours. The 600km route took 23 hours 23 minutes in total; that's quite the achievement. They also did a writeup detailing their training plan, the route, and top tips among other points, which you can read here: http://www.dely.net/cycling-blog/mizen-to-malin-in-less-than-24-hours/

If you'd like to take on a physical challenge yourself, the Dublin City Marathon mentored novice training programme is flying it. Prep for the South Dublin 10k was on the agenda last week and you can read progress reports and race reports in this thread. It's a great resource and motivator as people offer tips, advice, and share how they are getting on.

If you like your entertainment to be more stationary, Boards has you covered too The Forum Games forum will be launching its Jurassic Werewolf game on July 29th with sign-ups closing on Monday. Meanwhile, the final of the Codenames League of Legends is underway if you'd like to watch or play along (obviously not on the thread itself!). They are also organising a meetup on July 27th so they'll be able to meet up and be friendly to one another before voting to lynch or devour one another a couple of days later.

We've had a few interesting AMAs of late, covering a range of diverse topics. A swinger (and their partner) were very open and honest about their lifestyle and, unsurprisingly, it was a very popular thread; a Bankrupt Student, someone who went bankrupt and then went back to education rather than every other student , fielded some very difficult questions; someone who recently made their debut in a wrestling ring told us about the bumps and bruises they've gotten over the course of their journey (including a serious collarbone issue which put an end to the AMA); and a diabetic opened our eyes to what diagnosis and life thereafter is like. A country barman has decided to share some stories from their life, a change from them being regaled with the same stories from alcoholics, according to their AMA.



In general forum news, resident weather forecaster M.T. Cranium announced that they'll be taking a long summer break and they've handed over duties of the daily forecasts to sryanbruen for about a month from July 21st. It's a little strange seeing a new name cropping up in the Most Thanked list beside this thread, but they're doing a great job so far and continuing a fantastic resource!

Some restructuring has been also been done relatively recently. The Science, Health & Environment CMods decided that the Phobias forum wasn't active enough to sustain a full forum and has folded it back in under Psychology: https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=604. The Archives is still available to read in case there was a particular thread that you were interested in.

Finally, I'd like to draw your attention to a competition that's running at the moment. You can win tickets to Dublin Comic Con: Summer Edition here by telling us a character that you could imagine yourself cosplaying as some day!

That's it from me. Hope ye're all keeping well, enjoying the summer, and the good weather that it has brought.