| |
97_98_articles/TribuneK.TXT School is hard. If you adults who are reading this article can remember all the way back to your school days, it was hard. Even if all you remember is your wife being in your tenth grade biology class, or when you got to finally free yourself and go home, only to work on the farm (At least for some of you) . Even within all those good memories there are bound to be a lot of bad memories, and that’s what us kids are having to go through right now. The bad stuff.
Now think of your job. There’s plenty of bad stuff going on there I’m sure. In fact, in a lot of ways, it’s exactly the same. There’s bound to be plenty of ugly rumors going throughout the office, and that’s one thing that thrives in schools-gossip. There’s also happy lunch time, where you get a break from your chores at the office, and it’s just the same as school. You get to talk with your friends, laugh, maybe even laugh at the boss, or the teachers in my case. And of course, the work is also there.
The common idea is the office is “real” work, making big business presentations and sorting through lots of paperwork. Well guess what? School is a lot like “real” work, too!
So I’ll get to my point. I really, truly believe that kids should be payed to go to school. Now, for you people who are just going to think that this whole article is a bunch of nonsense and will have a cranky disposition for the rest of the day if you read this, then just stop reading this and go read Dave Barry. For the rest of you who actually think I may have a point, keep reading and you could be enlightened.
First of all, think about school this way-A bunch of small children aged all the way down to five years old and all the way up to eighteen years old, and sometimes higher, though we’re not opening that can of worms. Now think of all those young, and old, children working away at a small desk doing tedious writing work, with a pencil of all things, and doing so not for five dollars an hour, not for one dollar an hour–not even a small quarter an hour, but for free! It’s the worst slave labor I’ve ever seen since that Kathy Lee scandal, but we’re not opening that can of worms either.
Yes, school has plenty of work just like businesses do. You have to give presentations, do plenty of paperwork (the teachers try to make it sound more fun by calling it ‘homework’) and sometimes, which may just be the hardest, take over the job of being the boss, which would be the teacher. Yes, it happens in a lot of the classes. The kids usually have to teach their peers at some point or another in the year. Amazing, huh?
So you might say, “Sure, that’s fine and well, but what you kids are doing doesn’t affect anybody except maybe a few other kids in your group! What we adults are doing affects the whole stinkin’ community!” Well I’m sorry to say that kids affect the community too. First of all, we’re all affecting ourselves and our futures, which is just as big as a lot of things out there. If you totally foul up while you’re working at McDonald’s by doing something even Jim Carrey would look down upon, you’ll either be fired or it will be forgotten quickly. Even if you do get fired, chances are you’ll get a job at the next local Burger King or some other fast food place. But if you totally mess up on the biggest test of the year, there’s no redoing it! If it makes you flunk the course, you’re totally lost! You will always, no matter what, have that big fat scar of an F on your record.
Now of course, you say, “Where will we get the money from, huh? If kids are expected to get payed, we’ll need a lot of greenbacks! In other words, Show me the money!” Well, how ‘bout we all chip in an extra dollar, huh? I’m guessing that maybe, just maybe if everybody in the state of North Dakota would donate one extra dollar for this new system, we might be able to pay all the kids.
Of course, we’d only pay the kids that do their work. Let’s say little Bobby doesn’t enjoy school at all, wishes he could just go through life happily uneducated, and so he doesn’t do any of his daily work and flunks all the tests. He would definetly not get paid. Now little old Peter, on the other hand, is the one who gets all his assignments in on time and never gets an F all year long (I doubt that, but anyway…) . That is the type of kid we’d definitly be paying.
Now don’t get me wrong, school is fine, but it’s sort of unhuman. First of all, it’s forcing little children into a big building for seven and a half hours a day, five days a week. The school has God-like power over them, such as telling them when they are ‘allowed’ to go to the bathroom, or even when they’re allowed to go to the bathroom! Sounds like another reference to that Kathy Lee story, but like I said earlier, we won’t delve into that one!
So anyway, I think that kids should get paid to go to school, as you may have been able to tell after reading this article. This may not ever happen, but if you remember way, way back, many people thought slavery would never end, because it was just the ‘way of life.’ And not all that long ago women couldn’t vote. That was also the ‘way of life.’ But now look how much society has changed. And maybe, if something really great would happen, the school system could change a bit, too.
We don’t have even enough money to pay teachers
Where will the $$ come from?
This is just a crazy idea
You kids should just be lucky you have it so good
You kids are just plain spoiled
This could never happen because this is the way it has always been (note: slavery was also thought of this way as well as the lack of women’s right to vote)
Oh boy, but I feel kind of dejected right now. First let me say that your site is THE best sports site for Mac games on the net. But the reason I feel dejected and crappy is that there are pretty much no mac sports games at all! I hate this!
I'm not just talking about those terrible text simulators. Sure, they're great for a few times, but then you get sick of them and end up trashing them the same night you got them. I want some real games, such as NBA JAM. I really don't like it that that game's now been cancelled.
But still, there is a little bit of hope for us out there. It sounds like MacPlay or Interplay (One of them) is going to be coming out with a VR Sports games series, and it sounds from the title that it's probably going to be in 3D. If they actually stick with this series, they could be ready to make some serious money. All Mac games need some basketball shootin' once in awhile.
I really think that EA could just port over a few of their NBA Live and NHL games to the Mac. It wouldn't be that hard at all, really. But still, because they're not doing that it leaves the shareware market more open. Also I didn't really send this to your great site just for this, but I am working on some Hypercard sports games and will hopefully be starting something in C code pretty soon. And yes, these are real games. I'm surprised that I could actually get Hypercard to get a basketball to move around that well. I have already programmed it to get shot and to pass, though there are a few bugs in it. I also made a RACE • City Track 1 which might start a series of racing games, but please do not put this in your games section because it's not ready for anything like that. If you'd like I could send you a copy, though it's a bit big. 1.4 MB. It's also in black and white, but it is rendered in 3D and looks pretty cool. Actually, I've just figured out a way to get a color version of this to work, and I might make that sometime soon.
I also started on a jet skiing game on Hypercard, in B+W, but it goes pretty darn fast and is pretty cool. You have to ski some of the bigger rivers in America, like the Red River (Not big but I know what it's like) , the Mississippi, and the Rio Grande. It'd be pretty cool when I finish it.
But I digress. I better finish just yammering on and actually hit the Submit button. I hope I haven't screwed up your eveing or anything by some of my complaining, but I'lll end my letter nicely-Really great site. Best site on the net if you ask me.
Oh, one more thing. Only if you wanted to, you could stop by http://www.btigate.com/~funkboy and check out a few of my games (They're not sports games, but I wouldn't mind the hits.) . I suppose I'll be quiet now. See ya.
Questions? Thoughts? Concerns? Dinner and a movie? Contact
us.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
 |
Karl
Becker, the author of all these articles, uses New
Tricks for his writings.
Try it out now! |
