Sorry it's rainy where you are, Sturgis! Makes for a miserable fall. It's been quite nice here. I'll try to send you some sun!
Racing? What kind? I've been to races: horse, dog, car. The only racing I've ever done has been in a go-cart, unless you count running. I used to run. How about you?
I did some go-cart racing when I was younger...crashed into a cement wall. I love NASCAR and the other car races. Horse racing is fairly limited to the occasional televised, mainly the Triple Crown and a handful of others. Never saw a dog race (except on a Bugs Bunny Cartoon), and I never run.
What about bowling, is that a popular sport where you are?
It's very popular here.There's bowling greens all over the place.Mainly old stagers but a few young ones get going at it.It's cut throat.Most of them play as if their lives depended on it.They have local leagues.I take the piss out of it in the pub.One of my pals plays.
But if ever I'm stuck for a comfortably off well bred lady of mature years just starting to go to fat I'm off to the bowling greens in Torquay.They have uniforms there.White ones.All starched.
There's a lot of betting on the big matches.And some skulduggery as you might expect.
It's raining here too.
Why,in baseball,do the batters always slog?How does the scoring work?
Okay, Spendi-, what does "slog" mean?
To hit wildly and vigorously.To swipe.A wild stroke.A hit or miss.
When I see baseball the batters always slog.There are no subtle glances past short gulley which also defeat third man's despairing dive,and he's bowling next so tiring him out is useful, using the bowler's (pitcher's) own energy to make him look silly like there are at cricket.
Why did Americans think they could improve on cricket?What sort of arrogance does that symbolise?
Wouldn't pretend to know. Is cricket like rounders?
The history of it interests me.
I don't think pro baseball especially is what it used to be. I was a PR girl for a minor league team in Phoenix, AZ. The "big boys" seem to be all bravado once they've made it, forgetting almost what got them to where they are - hard work, learning the game, their natural skills, teamwork, etc. It's really a shame.
Are cricket or rugby or football players over there just as "stuck up"?
Most of them are but not all.It goes to their heads.
It is a shame I agree.The disappointed hopefuls.Hundreds of thousands of them.There are loads of guys with natural ability who can get girls without training themselves daft.I think most top class sportsmen must not be so well endowed with the exception of Lynford Chistie of course.
Isn't "hard work" rate busting?
"Rate busting"?I'm not sure what you mean by that. We may have an across the pond failure of communication, and I don't want to assume you mean one thing when you mean another.
Rate busting is an American expression.It means dropping your mates in it by showing the boss how fast you can go when they have already persuaded him to accept an agreed fairly easy speed.A swot in schoolgirl terms.Teacher's pet.
Is there another meaning?
(See you tomorrow my little ckickadee.)(And you Sturgie my old pal.)
ni-night, Spendi-. Never heard the expression, really! Wondering if Sturgis or anyone else (American) knows the term "rate busting"?
So, back to a couple of posts ago, Spendi-. working hard IS rate busting? Or am I just all confuzzled?
No lady who is "gobsmackingly gorgeous" is ever confuzzled.
As far as I understand it when time and motion study first appeared in American production line factories (thirties I think) a "rate" was agreed between management and unions.Above the rate generated bonuses so a bloke who needed more money to fund his habits worked harder.This caused management to say "if he can do that why can't you all?" etc etc.This could lead to the rate being increased and the bloke who caused it was called a "rate buster" and thrown in the river.
Anybody who knows anything about training procedures for top sportsmen and women sees them in a similar light.Journalists,being lazy idle good for nothings like me, think of these sportsmen and women as targets for ridicule and contempt.Some fundamentalists see married women working in order to out-do the Jones's in conspicuous consumerism as rate busters.And also as pointless because if married women didn't work the demand for labour would increase and men's wages would thus increase and thus the married women workers are working for nothing unless they have another motive such as meeting other men in storerooms and such like venues.
It is to be expected that governments will encourage women to work on account of how much trouble they cause when they have not much to do.
Does that make any sense?
Perfect sense. You do paint things with a broad brush stroke, don't you? It seems you have a rather black and white view of things it seems, in my humble opinion. I don't know if it's a male / female difference or even masculine / feminine trait, but I tend to see things in many shades of gray.
In a "perfect world" we'd all just do our best & that'd be good enough. Some people's best is better than other's. Oh well.
Would you believe I've BEEN a 'rate buster'? I worked in a factory for a summer in college and they knew I needed money for college and very kindly put me on a machine. I wanted to make as much money as I could so I ran it "on the hop" - continuously, without stopping it and made over $15 dollars an hour which was really good then, but I did bust the rate as you say.
Where were we again?
Where were we?We just got a confession out of you that you have been a traitor to the working class.Did you go back to the factory afterwards to see if the management had made your rate the new standard for your fellow workers on the grounds that they should all be on the "hop".
If I messed about with the grey areas these posts would be miles long.It's a question of getting the main point over in as striking a manner as possible.
I was simply wearing an amateur economist's hat.
Have a look at my two posts on badboy's thread in Philosophy and Debate.That's another example of the same technique.
I'll give you something else to think about.If you work hard the product comes cheaper and thus becomes useless for status symbols.For a product to carry status it needs to show that an inordinate amount of wasted time has gone into it.Preferably skilled wasted time because just acquiring the skill speaks of geared wasted effort.Once upon a time the windows of the poor were made of glass with faults in it.Now they put these faults in on purpose at great expense and they are status symbols.
I should be charging you for this stuff don't you think?(Psychoanalysing your customers for you.)
(These days I insist that at mealtimes the knives and forks are in a heap in the middle of the table then I can't be accused of having a slave owners mentality.)
That's hilarious! I mean about the silverware.
Me, a traitor to the working class?! I was 18 and desperate to pay for college!
I don't like to go near the philsophy or debate threads! Except maybe to watch, and that is very, very rarely!
I SEE the black and white. I just deal in the many shades of gray when I work with someone to get at their issues, so it's the way I tend to think.
Life's too short for that as I see it.
Is there anything you would like to ask a question about?
spendius wrote:No lady who is "gobsmackingly gorgeous" is ever confuzzled.
As far as I understand it when time and motion study first appeared in American production line factories (thirties I think) a "rate" was agreed between management and unions.Above the rate generated bonuses so a bloke who needed more money to fund his habits worked harder.This caused management to say "if he can do that why can't you all?" etc etc.This could lead to the rate being increased and the bloke who caused it was called a "rate buster" and thrown in the river.
Anybody who knows anything about training procedures for top sportsmen and women sees them in a similar light.Journalists,being lazy idle good for nothings like me, think of these sportsmen and women as targets for ridicule and contempt.Some fundamentalists see married women working in order to out-do the Jones's in conspicuous consumerism as rate busters.And also as pointless because if married women didn't work the demand for labour would increase and men's wages would thus increase and thus the married women workers are working for nothing unless they have another motive such as meeting other men in storerooms and such like venues.
It is to be expected that governments will encourage women to work on account of how much trouble they cause when they have not much to do.
Does that make any sense?
It means you class all women as whores without equivocation. Thats all
Well dev has accused me of saying things too quick so I thought I'd show her some cute meandering stuff for a change.
Would you like a job translating Wittgenstein into the vernacular?
No thanks. Unless you REALLY want to, just nice conversation please, and no fighting, okay boys?
Yes Madame.Anything to oblige Madame.
Do you appreciate the irony in having two plastic figurines dancing a waltz on the top layer of a tiered (i.e. expensive)wedding cake?
Quite. It's as ironic as a cubic zirconium for an engagement ring.
Would you agree?
