AlSymerz

Most breakfast sound terrible, it's in the way that you present it that makes the difference. "Breakfast of champions" is a sell point for those who want to be champions but don't know how to start  

Exodus - Blood In Blood Out

Secondary schools here are pushing STEM subjects. The kids do regular trips to the TAFE as a part of their subjects and the schools are building dedicated tech, science and maths wings.

One of our biggest problems in this country is state borders and state leaders. It's been happening for years but the pandemic has reinforced the idea that we are not a united country of states but all separate. The way each and every state can go their separate ways, belittle other states and flat out ignore them when it comes to something as important as health proves that we could never be unified on something like education.

I have no idea which state is the best, or the worst but the difference between states is ridiculous. Even when I got out of tech school it was neigh on impossible to take my Victorian report and show it to a prospective employer in NSW because they had no idea how to read it. Then when Victoria introduced the VCE in the 90's and year 12 students left school with an S for satisfactory or an N for not satisfactory, no grades, no pass, no fail, the reports kids had to show prospective employers weren't just impossible to read, then meant fucking nothing as well. That has been fixed 30 years on, but we are still no closer to having any sort on unified education system where all kids of the same level get taught the same stuff no matter what their postcode.

Lockdown school was a joke, my kids hated it, the work they had was done by 10am most days, the work they had was no where near to a standard they were getting in the classroom. The teachers kept saying our job as parents was to support not teach. They were right, we had to support them by given them something interesting to do because the kids were bored out of their mind.

To me that sounds more like Maiden than the first single.

57 minutes ago, JamesT said:

Nice!  Great to see another Powerwolf fan on here.  "Bible of the Beast" is probably my favorite album from them, but their most recent release is really good as well.  "Incense & Iron" is a great track.

I was watching their 2018 live from Rockplast (or however you spell it) the other day for about the 5th time. They put on a great live show.

Megadeth - Unplugged in 2001

activity

I was referring (perhaps poorly) to all kids and by street kids I mean kids that walk the street during school hours, during night hours, not kids that live on the street, we generally don't have kids living on the street in the boonies.

I'm not saying our schools are free from problems, even extreme problems, but what happens in city schools is about 150% of the reasons why we moved away from the city when we decided to have kids. The higher wages, the easier working conditions of office work, the 'everything on the doorstep' living was easy to give up in preference of an easier life for both ourselves and the kids.

No school is perfect but I'm happy with the way our schools have dealt with problem students from the ages of 5 right through to young adulthood. Our teachers don't let one kid disrupt the entire class, where possibly they don't let things get out of hand and in many cases they deal with the problem kids better than the parents do. Sure there will always be outbursts and tantrums, but even normal kids do that from time to time.

But the other thing we've also seen is how many good teachers there are that can control a class and ensure everyone in it is educated. There will always be mediocre teachers, and ours haven't had any extra training to city teachers but we've seen first hand how even in secondary school teachers can work with the kids at all levels and not have one kid fall through the cracks because they are a slower learner, or have trouble paying attention.

Teachers of my day used to smack us with a wooden ruler, throw projectiles at us, yell, damn in many ways the teachers were bigger bullies than some of the kids. But that sort of teacher didn't help. Sure they might have spurred us into behaving for the rest of the class but there was no long term behavioural change. Just like parent smacking kids with a wooden spoon, leather belt, or whatever else was handy. If that shit actually worked we'd have only needed to be belted once and we'd never have stepped out of line again. That's not to say patting a kid on the head for being a shit is the way to handle it, but smacking them across the knuckles with a lump of wood doesn't work either. Especially not for our woodwork teacher that smacked a mate of mine across the knuckles with a lump of timber and found himself laying on the floor knocked out from one punch. The smack across the knuckles didn't make my mate think twice, but the ban from defending his Australia Jnr Boxing title sure fucking did!

I agree too many parents seek out a diagnosis for their child that suits them and that creates problems for many of those kids throughout life. However by the same token it also means there is just as many kids on the other side of the fence who go through life struggling because their parents can't or wont see that there is problems, so they never get diagnosed.

curtains

Haha, I think disliking other peoples kids is par for the course. Spend any time at a shopping centre and it doesn't take long to realise how many parents think coffee shops and food courts are child minding centres where you dump the kids, sit down and have coffee and forget the kids exist until it's impossible not to.

Out in the boonies where I live we don't have a huge street kids problem, it does exist but no where near to the extent the city has it so it is a bit easier to forget that some kids are shits just looking for trouble. In general schools a lot better these days with bullying and generally shitty behaviour, again it happens but nowhere near to the extent we had it where school was one fight after another, detentions, suspensions and a majority of kids quitting at 14 1/2 to get jobs at the local abattoir.

Sabaton - The Great War

Helloween - Keeper 1 and 2

There is a lot of reasons why such cargo can't be loaded on trains and wont be for a very long time, at least not in this country.

There is also a reason in this world of job titles we/they (not me currently) are called "steering wheel attendants" and it's not because of the Rhoads Scholarship education or the scintillating conversation we can offer.

However it can be a very genuine thing where people who spend a lot of time on their own forget how to interact with other people. Even the truckie who has to make multiple log book stops in any given day and talks to people and staff at truck stops and delivery points spends so much time taking to them self that it's easy to forget how to act in company. That's not an excuse, some people actually like turning into those people, but for some it's a huge struggle to fit into society. It's not as bad as it used to be where the truck driver was the enemy of the road and car drivers genuinely hated trucks and many abused them, but it still not always easy.

wound

Powerwolf - Blessed And Possessed

17 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

My ideal life is basically empty and devoid of most things associated with human existence.

 

Become a long haul truckie. Sydney to Perth 48 hours travelling in 3-4 days then return to Sydney and do it again. No family, no fixed address just the cabin of the truck and the voices in your head. It's about the closest I've ever got to devoid of human existence. Sure you see people occasionally but it's a complete mind fuck if you don't take measures to stop it.

Or if you're really into testing your sanity do it with someone else and see just how hard it is to live with someone when abode you choose is not much bigger than the average bathroom.

Even if those completely happy in their lives wrote a step by step guide to their life, would you read it?

I know I wouldn't.

My life, my mistakes, my way. No blame, no guilt, no regrets.

I'm not going to copy the life of someone I don't know just because they managed to get a book published.

Life is what you make of it, not what someone else tells you to make of it.

salads

I didn't like Dukes' efforts with Exodus at first but in the last few years with no Exodus I've definitely changed my thoughts.

I also never liked Sabbat when their albums first came out, took me more than 20 years to go back and give them a listen and decide I liked them.

And Warbringer, I wasn't immediately blown away by them like many were, at first I really didn't like War Without and End and Walking into A Nightmare but around the time Woe To The Vanquished was released I went back and started to like what I was hearing.

Exodus - Exhibit A & B

stink

Sodom - Agent Orange

The Beatles - White Album

I work from home and do the stay at home dad thing while my wife works in an office 8ish hours a day and neither of us would have it any other way. It started out as a necessity given that my wife can't get a licence to drive, but these days she loves the idea of little to no house work, being out of the house and not having to put up with the school politics. She's also the one that gets to come home every/any night with the new shoes, new toy, or cakes because when I shop I buy what we need and when she goes for a walk at lunch time she buys what she calls the 'nice' things.

Barring things like lockdowns and school holidays I can play music all day if I want to because even my clients know it's better to email me rather than ring.

Sabaton - The Great War

You should move to Melbourne and be like all those other parents complaining that they can't take their kids to the park because the government shut them down and the police are enforcing it!

I do kind of agree, most of my family I wouldn't choose to interact with but thankfully I don't have to they are spread so far around the country that seeing them before covid barely happened, but now it never happens. Although I tend to be the opposite to a lot of married men in that I don't mind visiting the Outlaws on the other side of the country. Some of them are just fruit cakes but my wife's side has more people I'd be happy to drink with than mine and going there has the added bonus that I know it wont be for too long!