Angry's Blog of Doom (or idiocy....take your pick)

[Angry_Games]

Well, I refuse to believe that there isn't a job for EVERY single person that wants one here in the United States. Will that be their "dream job"? NO.

 

My personal conviction is that there IS a job for every person that wants one. Why do you think we have an illegal immigration problem?

the problem that a lot of people can't see, or won't see, is that the jobs available for them are not paying enough for them to live.

 

Why would you want to get a job at Wal-Mart paying $5.60/hr and then lose your monthly Food Stamps? With 3 kids? Come on, how can anyone survive on $6 hour is beyond me, and all social welfare programs basically state that once you start working, they reduce your monthly welfare to the point where it is better to not work at all than to work.

 

 

This is the big disparity

 

too many people don't want to work at all, and just get the handout. I understand that. I know these people. I've dealt with these people wanting to buy computers off me with their AFDC money or tax returns instead of doing something smart like paying their rent ahead a few months just so they can be a little worry free for a bit.

 

(momma and I are constantly 6-12 months ahead on our rent so just in case my big mouth gets me fired, we have a minimum of 6 months where we don't have to worry about our biggest bill, the monthly rent)

 

 

too many people, however, can't be bothered to understand that social welfare doesn't work because it doesn't give you enough of what you need.

 

What you need is a skill or education so you can get a job that pays more than minimum wage, and become a productive member of society and pay your taxes which should be going to help others that were in the same boat as you.

 

 

Part of the problem is we are making a nation of non-education. Momma is 23 and can BARELY get the money to go to school from the government because she still has to rely on her parents, at TWENTY-THREE YEARS OF AGE! That's the government's policy.

 

She's resorted instead to taking out federal student loans, and let me tell you the cold hard truth...it ain't so simple as just going to your local college's financial aid office and asking where to sign up.

 

I've never seen such a hassle...oh wait, I have once before...when I was married and my wife wanted to return to college. We were poor then and we both had to work at least one job, but we usually had two jobs. Being unskilled at that time, it was serve tables at restaraunts for her, scrape old paint and labels off propane tanks and paint then refill them in 95F Florida heat for me.

 

We didn't complain much, but we really couldn't because we never had time. We couldn't qualify for any welfare because we both worked, but mostly because we didn't have any kids and when we did have a kid finally, it was back to that choice of "work and get almost nothing from welfare other than taking a day off work to spend 9 hours in line to talk to a social worker to get $36 a month in food stamps", or "work two jobs and pay outrageous prices for daycare and end up nearly as bad off as quitting your jobs and getting on welfare full-time".

 

Now you tell me what kind of choices those are...and then you can probably answer yourselves why so many simply choose to not work at all.

 

Oh, I don't deny that there aren't the lazy good-for-nothings that just don't want to work, and/or the types that get that gov't money but do nothing for their families and spend it on beer and dumbass food like Strip steaks and . like that, and it is all gone in a week.

 

This is reality

 

 

but the bigger reality is that there are way too many lower-income people that WANT a better life, and will do almost anything to get that better life, but there are simply no avenues for them to get to that better life.

 

Want a better job?

 

got to have an education from college or trade school

 

Want to get that education?

 

got to have money for school, and more importantly, money to pay rent, utils, food, etc while going to school

 

So you go to work, and then have to drop out of school...if you could even begin going to school at all.

 

This is a vicious cycle and I've lived it myself. I refuse to ever live that way again and now that I have this job, I have refused to let momma quit school. Boy did she ever want to quit school but I think I preached and scared enough into her to make her realize that she better get it done NOW while the gov't is giving up federal student loans and I'm willing to support her financially so she can focus on school instead of trying to juggle work + school.

 

Not too many are as lucky as her, and she will tell you all just how lucky she really is. She hates school sometimes, like we all did, but she knows that it is only a couple years of her life and then she'll hardly ever have to worry about working that minimum wage job ever again.

 

 

It really burns me up when I hear people say flippantly "oh just get a job and get off welfare"

 

because people who say that only think about the losers in life that have been on welfare all their lives and are too lazy or stupid to get away from it and start fending for themselves. It's a stereotype, and like all stereotypes, it is rooted in truth.

 

But like ExRoadie always says, the drive-by media only shows you that aspect. They only show you the downtrodden who don't make any effort, those who abuse the system. You yourselves, you probably don't even think about all the hardworking people who have hard lives and can't seem to break the cycle of poverty. Instead you focus on fat Jane and her good-for-nothing drunk husband Billy-Bob and their 3 dirty kids and the death-trap mobile home they live in yet they drive a brand new Ford F-150 pickup truck and have a shiney new BBQ grill on their porch, yet they are 3 months behind on rent and neither of them has probably worked a single day in 9 years since the first little rat popped out of Jane's womb.

 

 

Step back a moment and think about real Americans who are born into poverty. I'm one of them. I worked my butt off all my life and only when I was about 27 did I finally break out of the poverty lifestyle, and begin living not paycheck-to-paycheck, but really started living.

 

We sacrifice a LOT to live our lifestyle. As I've just stated in another thread, we don't make hardly any money at all, but we enjoy season tickets for pro hockey, I enjoy playing hockey (a rich white-man's sport honestly...christ it's expensive for equipment!). We are going to enjoy going to Vegas to hang out with ExRoadie in August.

 

We sacrifice eating out at restaraunts. We don't drink or go to bars or nightclubs. We don't have monthly payments on credit cards, cars, etc. We have a few nice things....the few things that we really wanted to enjoy. We live pretty frugal, though some think we are stinking rich just because there's about 100k of computer crap laying in the lab (and yet, have you ever seen me sell any of it other than a few extra motherboards laying around at Xmas time when I wanted a little extra cash?).

 

Life is %@$#@ hard. Life is unforgiving. But if no one ever stopped being hard and unforgiving to me, I'd still be poor and I'd have never been able to probably pull myself out of the poverty pit.

 

A few nice people along the way in life helped me. Not by giving me money, but by giving me a chance. Social welfare programs helped us out when it was truly necessary. We used those programs the way they were originally intended to be used...to help us get on with our lives to the point we didn't need the government or anyone else's handouts.

 

 

I think it is wrong to simply imply that welfare is bad and anyone on it is a lazy baby-machine. That is simply not true.

 

It is true that these days too many are abusing the system, because they know it is easier than having to get a job and fending for themselves. It is also true that a lot of those abusers don't use any of the social welfare programs to help their families...they only use them to help themselves, and that is WRONG WRONG WRONG.

 

 

But then I always forget that not a lot of people are as strong-willed as I am. I hated being poor. HATED IT.

 

I grew up having to wear %$#@@# Sears welfare jeans to school, and Payless shoes, and all kinds of clothes and school supplies that just screamed really loud BEAT ME UP BECAUSE I AM TOO POOR TO CARE!!!.

 

I hated it. I was ashamed of it. Every kid I grew up with that didn't live in our little low-income duplex 'project' knew we were poor, and I always sensed either disdain, or pity.

 

I made up for it by being smarter than just about everyone else in school, and I made up for it with the snobby groups by being better at most sports than anyone. I had a chance to play minor-pro baseball and I pissed it away with my poverty attitude (got into drugs and quit school and such because that's what poor people do when faced with hard choices right? )

 

It haunted me all my life until I grew up in my late 20's and decided I was goddamn tired of living like that.

 

I know what being poor is. I know what being on welfare is. Our rent was $37 a month when mom wasn't working (she worked seasonal agriculture jobs), and was $246 a month when she was working (this was late 70's through mid-80's so that was still a chunk of money since minimum wage was $3.35/hr to $4.15/hr and the bean factories were only working 2-3 weeks out of a month for 4-6 months a year and she had no skills and eventually no motivation to even look for other kinds of work since welfare was actually the better choice).

 

My mom was probably an abuser, but not at first. She let that lifestyle keep her down, and as the years wore on, she worked less and less because the welfare money was easier to get and actually did more for us than the crappy little paychecks did.

 

I'd also like to say if it wasn't for grandma, we'd probably all be dead from starvation...so thank your gods for grandmas cuz they are lifesavers even when they are just as poor.

 

My sister on the other hand...she grew up on welfare and to her, it's the perfect way of life. Let's use our monthly check to buy a playstation and some RPG games and sit on our fat asses and have a baby or two, and collect that food stamp booklet and our AFDC check and get our monthly housing paid for by yet another gov't agency. ....we never have to work again!

 

My brother...he hated it and got out at 17 and moved away and worked his butt off and went to college, and is now after all these years a bigshot manager at Nextel and is spending the next two weeks on some crazy $8,000+ vacation to San Diego/Cozumel/Acapulco etc. He's earned it. At 40 years old...it took him a long time to break the poverty cycle, but he did it, and I'm proud that I always looked up to him as my #1 idol even if he kicked my butt regularly growing up.

 

Me...I'm still breaking the cycle, but as i mentioned, we are 6 months ahead on our rent, we have no monthly bills other than water and electricity and car insurance, and the few luxuries in life we want like Eve-Online (a MMOG game you have to pay monthly for), my $7/mo gamespy.com premium account, cable internet...NHL Center Ice on tv...stuff we really really want and we agreed to sacrifice stuff we don't need to get it.

 

 

Soon enough she'll be done with school and she'll work for the state as a high school teacher (for now, she might hate it but she'll have that 4 year degree which is worth more than the teaching job she'll get coming out of school). We'll have a dual income...since she'll make almost the same exact as I do (so that tells you something...I barely clear what a school teacher does and you know that unless you live in Alaska, school teachers don't make .).

 

It's been a long 4 years together, but we are proud. She's taught me to be supportive beyond anything I've ever been in my life (I've been a real selfish SOB my whole life, headed down the same road as my worthless sister). I've taught her perseverance, and sticking out hard things that she didn't want to finish.

 

We've taught each other to save our money and only spend it on the things we need first, and the things we want that we've saved for second. We've taught each other that we don't need to have money to be in love and to have a good life, and since we've found out how much we love each other and good we've lived on a single pretty weak income, how much we can have on a dual income when she goes to work at a real job (and we don't plan to rush out and buy a home and two cars and plasma tv's etc...we'll drive our crappy little cars until they can no longer drive anywhere, and we'll rent our house until we have at least 25% - 50% of a new house in the bank so we only have to pay for a 10-15 year mortage at extremely low interest rates etc).

 

 

So I know I'm a little preachy at times...but it really annoys me when people say they understand but in reality they really don't and they base things off what is on tv, or the low-budget friends or family that disgust them.

 

 

There are a lot of hard working americans who deserve more in their lives, and who want to work as hard as necessary to get somewhere other than a piece of crap minimum wage job or a monthly welfare check.

 

I think they deserve more.

 

But as we've all stated...the social welfare system that was setup is not the same social welfare system that we live under today. It is a bloated, corrupt system where the real people who deserve chances slip through the cracks while the ones who have learned to cheat the system end up benefitting, which leads nowhere other than more cheating to get more welfare.

 

We need a social revolution in this country instead of a bunch of people yelling about how welfare is bad and it's a poor person's fault they are poor and can't have more in life.

 

It isn't fair to deny someone else a quality of life just because you know someone who doesn't deserve it. It isn't fair to judge everyone just because you don't have to live their lives and you can't put yourself in their shoes to understand exactly what kind of choices those people face every day of their lives.

 

You know that if things go bad, you can always get into your SUV and get back to your home or apt in the suburbs

 

Some people don't have that luxury and they have to live their lives based on real choices, and when you are presented with a bad choice and a worse choice, what kind of life is that?

 

I'm not advocating that we just give in and have an EU type of social system

 

But it is up to us, the people, to get rid of the corruption and policies that have made welfare a joke, and an insult. Just because you don't have to be on welfare, or just because you were never so poor that you had to choose between paying your rent or having food for the next 19 days doesn't mean it isn't partly your responsibility to stand up and change things for the better for those that have to live that way.

 

It isn't communism. It is compassion for others and bringing about change for the better. Until you can honestly say you've done your part by doing something to change the status quo, you can't judge anyone and you damn sure can't kick sand in the face of welfare nor anyone on welfare.

[calvintang]

should teenagers have acess to pron?

[ReelFiles]

18 is still a teenager, do you mean younger than that?

[wevsspot]

HG, you make some valid points and poignant observations (as usual). And it's pretty cool getting to know a little of your history. Now wouldn't this make a cool thread - "getting to know the members". No philosophy, no political or religious commentary, just things like where do you live, what do you do, where did you grow up, what kind of jobs have you done - what do you do now, what are your hobbies etc.

 

A real forum family building excercise

 

Calvin, you Malaysians are CRAZY. My wife works at a civil engineering firm and they have a bunch of engineers, born in Malaysia and many educated at OSU. I always enjoy their company - and they are an absolute riot to play baseball or softball with

 

And only you could come up with a question out of the blue like "should teenagers have access to pron?" Unless that's some new designer drug I'm not aware of I think you wanted to know about teenager's access to p*rn.

 

Well, I think teenagers have always had access to p*rn. Only the medium has changed. In the sixties, seventies and eighties it was Playboy, Hustler etc. In the late eighties it was satellite t.v. (remember those great big 10' wide dishes where you could rotate the satellite and get OH MY GOSH the Playboy channel.)

 

And now it's freely available all over the internet. The stuff I absolutely despise is when it hits you (or your 12 year old daughter completely by suprise!) i.e. redirected to a website, click an inadvertent link on a webpage or receive the crap via email. Those things should be outlawed and it ought to be a felony offense. The only problem is alot of that crap comes from offshore, so we would need to get a global consortium together to address the issue effectively.

[Jachyra007]

A Meet and Greet Thread? Sounds like a winner...

 

Hi, my name is Jeremiah, and I have a problem. I used to constantly buy new components, scraping up what little money I had, too proud to ask for handouts, but since I've joined this forum, I've been overclocking for 115 days *clap*clap

 

Isn't pron kinda like Tron, only with a little twist at the end?

 

I gotta have tons of respect for you Happy, it takes a strong person to go through all that and break the cycle. I also know people who dont bother with trying to better themselves or their lifestyle, who also abuse the system - and inadvertantly end up only adding to the problem of keeping such systems up and running.

[calvintang]

18 is still a teenager, do you mean younger than that?

why not?

not under 14? they havent reach puberty yet

i have a friend thats dirty enough to bring a 'storybook' to read it in school .

too bad i can't read chinese characters well..

 

@wevssport

nah... im just thinking of a good question.

always have access but pron IS illegal here (a guy got caught with pron,went to jail/fines butbut i think its kiddie pron )

With the Islamic laws and all...the police here can request to 'look' into your handphone for pron and delete it . But i dont think its illegal in the states ( you guys even have tv programs ...:drool: ,Adult Entertainment eh?)But of course all the 'good' free websites have affiliates with those web filters like Net Nanny.

[wevsspot]

Thanks for reminding me why I'm happy to live in the US

 

Just goes to show you how fortunate we are to have unfettered access to information and entertainment, even if it is trash.

[KimTjik]

Thanks for reminding me why I'm happy to live in the US

 

Just goes to show you how fortunate we are to have unfettered access to information and entertainment, even if it is trash.

Will I soon hear: "may Larry Flint be blessed, he was after all a true American"!

[Angry_Games]

should teenagers have acess to pron?

pron, drugs, alcohol, etc

 

should be stuff that you wait until you are an adult until you decide to sample

 

I'm not advocating drinking, drugs, pron, etc

 

I'm just saying that it is never good to allow young people with little life experience to experience these things until they've had life experience and can think (hopefully) in proper terms, in proper context, and have the maturity to properly decipher what it is they are seeing/reading/ingesting/drinking/experiencing

[Angry_Games]

well

 

just in case anyone cares

 

 

for the last 9 days I've poured my heart and soul into this customer's machine (which is why I only build 2-4 of these per month for customers and charge them premium price for the labor)

 

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread...?t=6576&page=11

 

 

as well as working on the Maxtill mouse pad thing

 

 

that machine is busting out 270x10 and is in the OC Database already...but I'm having a problem getting the Asus Radeon 1900XT to overclock...the instant you go above stock speeds it crashes the monitor/video but a simple reset cycle brings it right back...

 

ah well...I might just replace his card with one of my built-by ATI X1900XT's that all have been clocked up to 700/700 (and the one in particular has hit 725/730 on air so should be just as good for the gpu on water if not a little better)

[wevsspot]

HG, what ATi driver are you running on that X1900XT? Have you tried feeding it some extra volts using ATi Tool?

[Gothic Case]

Angry, Where da f**k is NEOAethyr? Has he been banned, or did he deleted his own profile?? The nf2 section died without him =/