Not finishing? Not even starting...
There are many things I have left unfinished (books, drawings, household DIY and even hobbies - i have half a jumper somewhere that I started knitting for my son but seeing as I started it when he was 8 and he is now 15 now, I can probably be forgiven for not finishing that one). My problem now is that, never mind about finishing things, I am not even able to start things in the first place. I registered while ago but despite having thousands of stories of failure, shame, incompetence and the rest I have only now got round to posting (cue obligatory 'first post!'). I have even created beautiful and lavish images for the image challenges only to forget to post them or go to post and realise either a) I haven't registered or b) the challenge closed three weeks before. Dammit.
It's not that I'm forgetful (although I am) it's just that I don't seem to have the time. Days, weeks slip by and I hardly notice (it is June 2010, isn't it?). How you all manage to find the time to write this stuff and do all these photoshop specials amazes me.

I wish i worked where you all do but sadly I am freelance (graphic designer) so am everyones bitch - 12 hours a day of "!!!TOP URGENT!!! need artwork back in the next 15 nanoseconds etc..." so no time for fun and frivolity with you guys. I will try harder...and try harder to be funny as i just realised that this isn't very funny.

I have bit more time before 'weekend housewife' mode kicks in so if something better than this hits me, you will be the first to know.
I thank you.

Length? about 3ft longer than a first post should be, wouldn't you say?
(faghag, Sun 27 Jun 2010, 7:36, 2 replies)

My Airfix 1/24th Spitfire ...
was fucking expensive. it cost 10 squid in 1979. Never quite finished it. I think it's in me mum's basement
(mudskipper, Sun 27 Jun 2010, 4:47, 2 replies)

Sweet mother of god what have I finished?
My whole life is a series of unfinished projects.

Lets see...

Restoring a friends camper van (there is light at the end of the tunnel).

Refubishing the house (ground floor almost finsihed - I must patch up the holes I made in the kitchen celing to fit the lights, it's only been 7 years).

PRINCE2 - I', quite ashamed of this one. Out of work, my wifes parents lent us some cash to get the training and cert. Turns out the training only covered about 3 chapters of the manual. Could have saved about £1200 and just bought the fucking manual - online training sucks hairy balls. Never did get the cert - Soz...

MCSE - got as far as the XP desktop cert. It's the most dry, artificial and banal material your are ever likely to read. I was shouting at the book that there are easier and quicker ways to get something done ffs.

Start my own business. Showed promised. Turns out one of my 'business' partners was a bit of a bull shitter and left me holding a paper work 'baby'. Took 4 years of painful form filling to get shot of that one...

Post on the message board more often... not very good at that either. Manged to loose my original login too.

Actually do something creative in photoshop - other than mocking up a 3-tier French Fancy wedding cake for a co-worker - she loved it but never had it made :(

Sort out my photos and bung a load up on an image lib as stock photography and make some cash maybe...

Countless other projects including a car-puter (I did get it installed and working but I had grand plans for using it to monitor engine temp, revs etc Have a half finsihed software and working hardware but no sensors). RGB wall art - still on going - have the hardware but programming skills in embedded systems is painfully rusty and I don't seem to have the time to re-learn).

LOL - just remembered I recently started the Win7 MCP - will I ever learn that stuff is painful.

Action script - used to love programming in Lingo back in the day when Macromedia Director would kick flash in the arse, have tried many times to learn Action script - starts off ok but then other things get in the way, and I never did like Javascript.

I'm sure there are more things I started and never finished but, like this post, i'm loosing interest now...

I think I should just give up and go live in a cave and sell cheese.
( z0mb13e has a bee in his botnet, Sun 27 Jun 2010, 0:59, 2 replies)

How does FFVII end?
Played this constantly when it came out, then got bored after Aeris died and never finished it. I kept meaning to find a guide or something to tell me how it ended, but to this day christ knows how many years later I never have.
(repooc, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 23:54, 11 replies)

I hate starting things I can't finish..
Like that painting..
And that canvas embroidery of James Spader spanking Maggie Gyllenhaal over a desk..
And the many knitted squares I have no plan of making into something because they're all odd sizes.

*sigh*
(Tangerine_Avenger, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 19:04, 5 replies)

In the loft
Is a REAL ROBOTS robot built up to about week 13 and a complete set of the rest of the magazines still in their cellophane with all the bits and bobs to continue building it.
Bought it for my son really but he was more into F2P FPS games and so in the loft it remains until I get a prolonged period at home to really nail the final assembly.
One day...
. One day...
(karnuvap, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 18:52, 2 replies)

Inevitably..
I have a feeling that England will fail to complete the job of winning the World Cup this summer.
(Dr. Scambolic, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 18:12, Reply)

Friend of mind has a cross stitch of Catherine Howard on the go.
Now she started this before she met her husband. She has been married for 15 years so she knows that she has been doing this cross stitch for longer than that, about 17 years.

Catherine Howard died at the age of 16, so this cross stitch has taken longer to do that the subject was alive.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Sat 26 Jun 2010, 17:40, 1 reply)

Twilight
I acquired a PDF of this book (didn't buy it, I'm not that insane) just to see what all the fuss was about. 6 chapters later, I gave up. It was sapping my will to live.

What's wrong with it? Well, nothing if you don't count the appalling writing, the cliché storm and incredibly uneven pacing. Oh, and the fact that the main character is a complete Mary Sue who can do absolutely no wrong (I counted at least one crash she was in that was partly her fault only to be told it wasn't) who is so super special (despite being kind of a bitch) that us poor blokes have no choice except to fall desperately in love with her upon the merest glimpse of her.

I didn't even get to the sparkly vampires bit, which is just as well cos I'd have probably broken my laptop.

As an aspiring writer, it is good for one thing. If shite like that can get published, surely I can. Well, if I ever finish the five or so novels I've started...
(williamthebloody, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 15:47, 16 replies)

The Elegant Universe
I like to think of myself as an educated type - I'm a post-grad, got a Mechanical Engineering degree, teach Maths, well read on Philosophy and History...

But this book, about two-thirds of the way through, is a complete nailed-on BASTARD of a read.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 15:36, 3 replies)

My PhD
Well, it's not guaranteed I won't finish yet, but since I'm somewhere around the lower echelons of people capable of doing a PhD in physics at all, and various organisations thought it was a good idea to enforce something on me that was about the worst possible PhD for me makes it look unlikely. It's actually like they worked hard to figure out what I would REALLY suck at and made me do that, banning me from anything I'm actually good at. Then shipped me off to a lab with no student support in the form of professional sympathetic people to go to with problems (one was later employed, whose basic response to anything is it'll be worth it on completion, just man up) and said my funding would be cut if I tried to leave the lab and work somewhere stupid like MY UNIVERSITY.
(GothicTechie, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 14:15, 7 replies)

Wheel of Time...
I started reading Robert Jordan's classic along with a bunch of friends from home at the age of about 16 (i'm 23 now). On reflection, we were quite a literary bunch, doing the usual teenage things of meeting up to smoke lots of illicit substances in public places, but usually with our heads buried in the next WoT epic. We raced through the books, and it was with great excitement when we finally received news of book twelves release. When we heard of it's release, I was adamant that I would read all eleven books again, plus the prequel, so as to refresh my memory. The boys couldn't be arsed, and mostly just read book eleven. I ended up stalling at book 10, with Book 12 looking at me meaningfully from my bookcase. I have a feeling none of this would have happened if Robert Jordan hadn't croaked it (may he rest in peace), as i'm not completely convinced that Sanderson would've done it justice. Ah well. I'm starting to suspect i'll never know how it ends... flunking my GCSE's will have all been for nothing.
(Ragathi wants to know where his evil twin is on, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 13:23, 9 replies)

Online courses
I started an online course in Office 2007 as it was cheap and I could get an NUS card. That was 1.5yrs ago and I've completed 1 module. All I have to do for the second is format a pre written word doc and I've not started, due date is next week.
Haven't even applied for the NUS card as I can;t be arsed to log on and tick the yes please button!
I'll do it next week...
(Something funny, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 12:25, Reply)

Not me, but my dad
He bought one of those wooden models of the HMS Victory, the ones you build yourself. He started to build it for about a week, and then stopped. I don't know why, and as I was 5 at the time when he bought it, I can't remember why he stopped.

That was 17 years ago. It is still in a state of unfinishedness, still alternately winking and glaring at my dad who, every winter, sighs and looks at it and says that he really ought to finish it off. Who reckons I ought to take up the mantle and finish the job my dad started?
(Ghost Atreides enjoying incontestable health benefits on, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 12:12, 1 reply)

Catch 22
Every year or so, I try and read the "historical, satirical masterpiece" that is Catch 22. The problem is I get about one third through and just give up since it is sooooo incredible dull and badly written! I don't know why it is hailed as a masterpiece in literature but it's awful dribble! I try and read as I want to see what all the fuss is about.
Maybe that is the real Catch 22 - to understand the greatness of the book, you have to read it, yet to read it you find out it's a pile of shit and the greatness is lost!
(maddave, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 11:21, 17 replies)

Tattoo
I have a friend who recently bought himself a tattoo gun.
Every time I see him he seems to have some kind of new doodle on his leg or arm.
Recently however he got quite bored and decided to tattoo his cock...
he said the dot would have become a smily face if it didn't hurt so much.

Length? small and shrivelled after pain.
(eggs and spam *insert witty sig here*, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 10:52, 2 replies)

"A Brief History of Time" by Duracell Hawkings
I expect to join a long line on this one.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 10:33, 7 replies)

The Road to Reality
by Roger Penrose. It's always been a dream of mine to really understand the laws of the universe, it's just a shame I'm never in the mood for 'hard sums' when doing a spot of bedtime reading.

I'm going to have to put some serious effort in. I haven't got past complex numbers yet. I am a maths graduate as well, but that was sooooooooo long ago.

Stupid universe is too damn complicated.
( TheFinch is getting to grips with the complex plane on, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 10:29, 5 replies)

Xbox live account:
Played 90-odd games
13000 achievement points.

I've got 1 game completed, and that was an XB Arcade game for 200 points.

Hang about....there's something through this, this square portal that is built into the wall before me...what is this? Sunlight?

*un-nerds*
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 10:17, 8 replies)

while I'm on the subject of sheds
www.b3ta.com/questions/unfinishedbusiness/post767114

My mate's old man had a great shed. Proper little workshop, including a wood burning stove, old sofa and booze.

When he was building the shed, about 20 years previously, his missus had voiced her concerns about him disappearing for hours on end. "Tell you what luv" he said "I'll put an intercom system between the shed and the kitchen, so you can press the button and speak to me whenever you want"

True to his word, they day after the shed was completed, he put the intercom in. "I've run out of cable luv" he explained to his wife "I've only got it working from the shed to the kitchen. Let's check it works now, then I can sort out kitchen to shed bit later"

A minute later he was in the shed ready for the inaugural intercom message...."Bring us up a cup of tea luv, ta."

And do you know what? He never got round to fixing the intercom to work both ways.
.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Sat 26 Jun 2010, 10:15, 4 replies)

I'm the king
of starting something with the intention of learning as i go.
Heres a short list of my failure..

A lawnmower powered go-kart made of old bike parts which i discoverd needed to be welded together not tied up with string.

A huge book filled with dungeon maps and room explanations which i wrote when considering playing dungeons and dragons which it turns out they don't let you become dungeon master if you don't know how to play.

Once tried to start a band with my brother and his mate, apptly named "motor cycle supposotory" we wrote loads of songs designed album covers even stage costumes.Turns out we couldn't play instruments or in fact afford them.

Become a decorator , i practised on my bed room and thus is now coloured two shades of orange meeting at the middle.

When i was young i wanted to be pilot, i had a real passion for planes my dad decorated the ceiling with model aeroplanes that he's built and painted himself.I joined the air cadets and worked hard to learn as much as a i could. My parents even paid for me to fly a small cessna on my thirteenth birthday,which was one of the best experiences of my life.

When i reached the age of 15 i was informed that you couldn't be a pilot in the RAF if you where over six foot three inches , which i was.
Also my eye sight started to deteriorate making me severly short sighted which would affect my ablity to see out of a cockpit apparently.


Length oh about an 8 hour flight to America on a school trip making engine and machine gun noises and pretending to mow down germans ..... i was 16.


ps:Wasn't a very rich school cost my parents a cool £700
(shake'n'bake Tally Ho, Biatch!, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 3:58, 3 replies)

I once started something that I couldn't f

Oh look, a mouse!
( ousgg is not seeking approval, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 2:10, 4 replies)

Video games seem to be the go, so
Wipeout, I played that litte bugger for six hours a day for five months, and never got past the 4th track in the 2nd faster level. Wip3out was completed with no problems, but I feel Wipeout is impossible.

I still play it every so often. One of the great games of all time IMHO.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 0:45, 3 replies)

Having read this qotw so far
I'm detecting one thing- a hint of regret, or in some cases more than a hint. And in some... well. Best left unrepeated and unremarked, apart from my passing reference. To that end, I make a simple suggestion.

Get off your fat arses and do something about it!
( jim_bob can herd cats., Sat 26 Jun 2010, 0:17, Reply)

the teenagers in my back garden
have started on a crate of lager. i doubt they'll be able to finish it before the police arrive.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sat 26 Jun 2010, 0:09, 4 replies)

Last week in fact!
I was at a wedding last weekend, and got horribly drunk. I woke up in the bridesmaids' bedroom! Sunday breakfast was the akward time of whether to say anything or pretend nothing happened so as not to offend the bride.

My coach left at 2pm and I didn't even get a goodbye snog... Bummer.

Next time, Man the fuck up flip!
(roadieflip Who nicked the jokes from my lolly sticks?, Fri 25 Jun 2010, 23:46, Reply)

I thought I'd
do one of those jokes where I just finish part way through the joke, but I don't feel that I could finish it.
(patchsticles Me and you, elbow fetish club:, Fri 25 Jun 2010, 23:39, Reply)

Alex the Kidd
I got to the level where the hidden castle appears, but never got past it.

I tried so many times, i had memorised all the rock/paper/scissors outcomes.
(Frample Tromwibbler climbs an obstacle like old people fuck, Fri 25 Jun 2010, 23:34, 10 replies)

I do thi

( --- ---, Fri 25 Jun 2010, 21:29, Reply)