Random Musings (and associated non sequiturs) v. 3.0

Sits because they know their initial target audience will make you watch them anyway.

Disney actually scored some favor in the early DVD era because of the autoplay stuff. A lot of older people didn’t ā€œgetā€ the way DVDs presented menus, so Kid-Entertainment that didn’t require deciphering the enigma that is the remote control was a definite plus.

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I’m a racist, because I’m ā€œdifferentā€, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Here’s what happened: We pulled up to a gas station today and this thuggy looking guy is pumping gas into his car. He was half-naked, chains around his neck amongst other accessories, to which he might have been more naked, but through some untold gangsta magic, his pants somehow hung onto his thighs, despite his arse hanging out of 'em with his extremely bright blue boxers. My daughters and wife commented on them as we pulled up and I looked over. I just shake my head in my mind and proceed to pump my gas. Well, apparently, because I happened to look over at him, it pissed him off. Now, up until this point, I have not mentioned his race, and honestly, it really isn’t important to the story, but he proceeded to get upset and holler around spouting that I’d been acting like I’d never seen anyone of his race/creed/color before. I thought better of speaking up because people, most recently a month ago, had been shot for less (over a basketball that belonged to a local gym, in case you were wondering), but I thought to myself that instead it was the first time I’d ever seen someone wear their pants below their arse and how I can’t seem to get mine to defy gravity in such a way. If only he knew that just moments prior, my young daughters wondered why he was half-naked. But again, because I paid any moment of attention to the man, I’d offended him. He continued to yell to a friend within the car, a nearby lady of the same race/creed/color about how I was being so racist/offensive. He finally finished his gas, got in his car and left.

It’s left me upset, angry, and confused. Having not even said or posed any action towards the man other than merely looking at him, I’d somehow been racist. How the hell are we supposed to rid the world of this kind of attitude if we can’t even be within simple proximity to each other? Hell, I pretty much look at most people around me. What do you even do in these situations?

Feel bad, vote progressive.

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Some people simply want an excuse to be mad and will take any reason they can, no matter how small. As to how they stayed up, maybe he was wearing those suspenders that are designed to allow the pants to sag and still keep them on, kind of like garter belts for women’s stockings.

When I see people dressed like this, my reaction is to think about the practicality of it: if they have to run, aren’t the pants going to restrict how their legs move? Or, when I see someone with hoop jewelry in places other than their earlobes, I think, ā€œIf that snags on something, that’s gonna hurt.ā€

I don’t remember how long ago I saw it, but I did make mention of it here at the CoG in one of its incarnations. There was a guy walking down the street ahead of me that looked like he was trying to be cool with his clothes, along the lines of the old Dolly Parton quote of ā€œIt costs a lot of money to look this cheapā€. He had his pants slung low, and every 10-15 seconds as he walked, he tugged them back upwards. He’d done it so often that i could tell he wasn’t even conscious of doing it any more. That right there should tell you there’s a fundamental problem with your choice of clothing.

Why do many students think that it’s okay to miss the first day of class?

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In my experience, you typically lost your seat if you didn’t show. We had overcrowding, so it ended up being somewhat of a first come, first serve situation. If you didn’t make it and there was a waiting list, the folks who didn’t show lost the class and those from the waiting list who did show got your place.

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We were told on the first day of induction at university that if you miss the first lecture, you lose your funding immediately (state funding is increasingly common here). Needless to say, first lecture was always packed! The ones after though… not so much.

Seems like that’s a system that needs overhauling then. How many good students miss funding to pay for people that don’t go to class?

None, your funding is determined by household income. There are three tries of assistance: loan for fees available to virtually everyone, housing allowance for those less well off, and a maintenance grant for those who’s household income is less than … I think Ā£12,500/yr after tax.

Sorry, what I meant is how many other things don’t get funded because these people are skipping. Or how much higher are the taxes to support this sort of thing, though I suppose this would be low on the list to worry about if I was looking for government wastage.

Doesn’t this really mean it’s less of an education grant and more of a professorial employment grant?

Sounds like a way to get people to show up, at least. I have at least five people absent today. The classrooms here aren’t usually full, so seating usually isn’t a problem. In this case, though, my class is full. Those who missed today are going to get stuck in the back of the class on the less powerful computers.

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My neighbor works in college finance and apparently the thing to do is sign up for the minimum amount of classes, get your Pell Grant overage, and rinse and repeat at another university.

File this under unintended consequences. Since same sex marriage was made legal many employer groups that did cover domestic partners are now removing that coverage, since they already cover married couples according to state law. This is causing some people who have been covered, in some cases for decades, to not be covered any more. Same sex and straight couples both are hit by this one.

On one hand, I’m cool, because the standard to hit coverage was always a bit flaky and unenforcable, OTOH, you’ve been covered for 20 years, now you lose it because you don’t have the right piece of paper, On the Gripping Hand; man up and get hitched you dirty hippy slackers.

I dunno, man. We’ve been together 20 years but married? That’s a hell of a commitment.

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A friend of mine was with the same man for 45 years before getting married. They were married for 3 years and he died.

Totally jinxed it.

I have a few friends who are in committed unmarried relationships, and have been for longer than I’ve been married (28 years). They will never get married because they don’t believe in it - for multiple reasons.

Luckily New Zealand has legislation that recognises de-facto relationships (2 years living together or something like that).
Unluckily that sometimes causes confusion for people who are just flatmates.

I guess no system is perfect :laughing:

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This was in my FaceSpace feed this morning. I included my responses to the post, which start with ā€œIf we want equal rights, we should take equal responsibility.ā€
So, where is the equality in saying that drafting women puts more stress on home and marriages than drafting men? What do you mean, we may have to ā€˜revisit this equal rights thing’? I want my equal rights. I don’t want anyone telling me that I’m not allowed to do my job/hobby/interest just because of my gender. :angry:

Edit: We have veterans here. Seriously, would the military send someone who physically can’t handle combat into it? It seems to me that it would be a good way to get a lot more than that one person killed.

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I’ve heard multiple comments that barring a massive change the last thing the US military forces want is a draft.

Draft means people are basically being brought in at semi-random. They’re probably unmotivated and need to be put through a lot more effort to train than the current voluntary recruitment. It’s one thing to use drafted troops if you’re fielding a relatively low-tech force of infantry, but frankly most of us (myself included) would probably be deemed unsuitable for a lot of the specialized roles the modern armed forces concentrate on.

Basically, there’d need to be a situation akin to WWII where tons of warm bodies are needed. Skim off the 5% or whatever that can be channeled into specialist roles and let the rest do what we can. However, that’s not really a modern reality as the US armed forces are pretty technical in most cases.

(Disclaimer: Not a veteran. Although my mom freaked out about a draft being instituted back in 2001…)

Oh, I agree. No one wants a draft, but young men still have to register for it. The only difference is, now young women have to register too.