![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
There's a marvellous minor character in The Simpsons who, once every 50 episodes or so, can be heard shouting "won't somebody think of the children!"
To which my response is, as I snuffle my way through another cold, "won't somebody think of the adults?"
I want to work in an office where none of the staff have kids of a school age. That way I might, just might, avoid the myriad of diseases which their Typhoid Mary parents bring into the office to spread like so many anthrax packages.
I suppose I would accept working with parents who educate their children at home and who don't allow them any contact with other children, but I suspect that I might be wary of such parents for other reasons, one of which being that they would clearly be total nutters.
I've always been rather suspicious of parents who don't let their children watch television, although my suspicion is tempered by my knowledge that they are doing what they do from the best of motives.
On the plus side: Your kids are not indoctrinated with consumerist pap and mindless pro-American cartoons
On the minus side: Your kids will have even less in common with other children than they would have had anyway (not much, since any parents who are suspicious of television are obviously head and shoulders above the normal chav-parenting fare I see pushing prams through Lewisham shopping centre). This is a big minus. Being radically different from your peers when very young is horrible and changes your attitudes to society for life. Mixing becomes harder and alienation becomes more likely. Is a slightly higher score in knowledge worth these disadvantages? Certainly the people who "get on" don't look to be the types who were denied popular culture in their youth. They are people who can get on with those of all levels; and if that includes the ability to discuss Transformers cartoons when you were a kid, then so be it.
But stating "oh, my parents didn't have a television" has the unsaid corollary of "and your parents were bad for letting you have one".
++++++
Big Up for Andy "7-C-Killer" Ward for his chop in the Tunica Sven-Card-Stud tourney (he is in Tunica now, isn't he?). Unfortunately I miscalculated the prize money by a factor of 10, so I was confidently expecting him to have trousered $65K for the five-way split, rather than the $6,500 that he actually pocketed. Good grief man, you chop a bracelet tournament and only get $6,500? Is it worth getting out of bed, I ask myself.
Well, of course it is, but it does rather show how our tournament prize money expectations have increased. Andy expressed himself delighted that the weak-tight old lady who had smirked every time another player busted out, thus increasing her prize money by $500. I know how Andy felt but, hey, $500 is $500 and, surely she would want that woman to survive as long as possible (preferably to the heads-up stage) rather than end up five-handed with four opponents, all of whom knew how to play.
It's another one of those situations where the player you dislike most is often the one you emotionally want to get shafted but intellectually want to win pots (so that you can win the money off them later).
To which my response is, as I snuffle my way through another cold, "won't somebody think of the adults?"
I want to work in an office where none of the staff have kids of a school age. That way I might, just might, avoid the myriad of diseases which their Typhoid Mary parents bring into the office to spread like so many anthrax packages.
I suppose I would accept working with parents who educate their children at home and who don't allow them any contact with other children, but I suspect that I might be wary of such parents for other reasons, one of which being that they would clearly be total nutters.
I've always been rather suspicious of parents who don't let their children watch television, although my suspicion is tempered by my knowledge that they are doing what they do from the best of motives.
On the plus side: Your kids are not indoctrinated with consumerist pap and mindless pro-American cartoons
On the minus side: Your kids will have even less in common with other children than they would have had anyway (not much, since any parents who are suspicious of television are obviously head and shoulders above the normal chav-parenting fare I see pushing prams through Lewisham shopping centre). This is a big minus. Being radically different from your peers when very young is horrible and changes your attitudes to society for life. Mixing becomes harder and alienation becomes more likely. Is a slightly higher score in knowledge worth these disadvantages? Certainly the people who "get on" don't look to be the types who were denied popular culture in their youth. They are people who can get on with those of all levels; and if that includes the ability to discuss Transformers cartoons when you were a kid, then so be it.
But stating "oh, my parents didn't have a television" has the unsaid corollary of "and your parents were bad for letting you have one".
++++++
Big Up for Andy "7-C-Killer" Ward for his chop in the Tunica Sven-Card-Stud tourney (he is in Tunica now, isn't he?). Unfortunately I miscalculated the prize money by a factor of 10, so I was confidently expecting him to have trousered $65K for the five-way split, rather than the $6,500 that he actually pocketed. Good grief man, you chop a bracelet tournament and only get $6,500? Is it worth getting out of bed, I ask myself.
Well, of course it is, but it does rather show how our tournament prize money expectations have increased. Andy expressed himself delighted that the weak-tight old lady who had smirked every time another player busted out, thus increasing her prize money by $500. I know how Andy felt but, hey, $500 is $500 and, surely she would want that woman to survive as long as possible (preferably to the heads-up stage) rather than end up five-handed with four opponents, all of whom knew how to play.
It's another one of those situations where the player you dislike most is often the one you emotionally want to get shafted but intellectually want to win pots (so that you can win the money off them later).
