Jump to content

What's on your mind?


Apoc

Recommended Posts

9 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Right now I'm wondering why it's my job to review insurance companies and look for a better deal. My wife is the one that deals with numbers and money all day, admittedly she gets paid to do it at work, but surely all that experience should make doing ours more exciting?

 

You see I work with numbers all day and so gladly leave any financial tasks or major purchases to my wife-to-be as come the evening or weekend I am usually tired of the numbers and selling game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah my wife tells me the same thing and I honestly don't mind. But every few years when it comes to reviewing insurance, or power companies, mortgages, etc I really wish it wasn't so. It's not so much the numbers that are the problem it's the way these companies write their contracts. They all offer the same basic thing but the devil is in the details. There is a cheaper price for a reason, likewise there is a dearer price for a reason. Trying to figure out those reasons is not simple because the contracts are written by legal teams with the intention of making it hard to compare. At leas that's what competition is like in Aust, I assume it's the same elsewhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just said goodbye to my grandma as a family yesterday. Almost nobody at the service was Catholic, so it was a little awkward as well as being totally bizarre. I let it just sort of wash over me. A few of us were really broken up anyway. Honestly I still haven't let her go, in my head, I still imagine giving her a phone call and telling her about all this. But it was great to see everyone. More than great, it was healing. I haven't been around all of them at the same time in 15 or 20 years, haven't experienced that give and take of the family conversation rolling around the room. It made me feel more like myself in a way that's hard to describe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm listening to the new Graveland album "Hour of Ragnarok" and thinking about how good it is compared to the other two Graveland albums that I own (Thousand Swords, Memory & Destiny rerecording). I mean don't get me wrong, Thousand Swords is good but this album just seems so much tighter with the playing and the songwriting. The folksy elements come out very well and are not pushed all the way to the back either & that's important for me. I'm about halfway through the first side and I like it so far. The editions I have are on black and gold marbled vinyl, so I'm going to keep one and resell the other when it goes out of print for a nice sum.

Glad that my recent order from Hell's Headbangers came today. I really needed some new black metal in my life. Now I wait for Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk & Kroda to get here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/25/2021 at 12:28 AM, FatherAlabaster said:

Just said goodbye to my grandma as a family yesterday. Almost nobody at the service was Catholic, so it was a little awkward as well as being totally bizarre. I let it just sort of wash over me. A few of us were really broken up anyway. Honestly I still haven't let her go, in my head, I still imagine giving her a phone call and telling her about all this. But it was great to see everyone. More than great, it was healing. I haven't been around all of them at the same time in 15 or 20 years, haven't experienced that give and take of the family conversation rolling around the room. It made me feel more like myself in a way that's hard to describe.

That's good to hear, man. Familys can be an infinite source of joy, or perpetual fucking headache. I'm glad yours seem to bring the former, rather than the latter haha.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I met one of our neighbours tonight for the first time, in the pissing rain and howling wind she was out going door to door because she had found a dog in her garden and wondered if it had ran off from one of the houses on the street and so she was out trying to find it's owner.  Just think it is really commendable, taking time out of your evening to ensure an animal is first of all safe and then checking with your neighbours before calling in the RSPCA so nobody loses a pet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm thinking about how I wish that I was working in construction again & wishing that I had more than one 30 minute break at work. The best job I ever had, which was in awning fabrication & installation for a small private company, gave us two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch. I do not get anything remotely close to that at my job now so I get one 30 minute meal break and then have to be on my feet for another 5 to 6 hours straight and it's a big deal if I need to take a piss or something. Granted I make more than a lot of the people I work with right off the bat because the job was hard up for workers, but I generally dread going to work each and every day because I know that I'm in for eight hours of bullshit, disgusting sand-pickers, and generally wishing that I was sitting in my room listening to music and chilling. The money isn't terrible, it's just the people and the nature of the work. The sad thing is that I'm good at it but that doesn't really say much because I'd rather be good at literally anything else (particularly some sort of construction, as construction is a rewarding industry to be in as you get to see the results of the work you do).

I'm also thinking about how I want more than two days off a week. I don't need to work 40+ hours, I could get by on 32 and be fine due to the fact that I actually make a lot for the type of job and company that it is. I might need to tell them that my availability is changing, and that I'm only going to work 4 days a week in another month or so. I'm just quickly getting burnt out & I didn't think that it would happen this quickly when I started a few months ago. I needed a job and this was the first one I could get, so I took it. I'd much rather still be installing windows and sliding glass doors even though that was physically demanding work in the heat and I would come home filthy at the end of the day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Long weekend after using up some leave at work.  Cleaned the house top to bottom pretty much as hate spending all weekend doing it and we have been so busy of late that it was well due a blitz.  Some items for the landfill which I can take tomorrow and then a trip over to the storage locker to put all the Halloween stuff away.  Toothache has started this past week so I might need to find a dentist this next week as suspect I have lost a filling.

Got a pile of albums to catch up on too so 5 days straight of no work should be a great opportunity to reduce the "metal to do" list.  Now been asked to curate playlists over on the other site I frequent which has proven a nice distraction from work, so I need to stay on top of releases a bit more.

Also, putting together an exercise routine to do at home (gyms aren't my kind of places nowadays) just to try and reduce the beer gut and look after myself a bit more.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Happy birthday @Fraser. Happy birthday to me, too - at 42 I'm still a spring chicken by current forum standards. It ain't much but I'll take it. I'm going to NYC tomorrow by way of celebration. Can't wait to see my friends, maybe walk across some bridges, gawk at the buildings like the tourist I am after having been gone for this long. It'll always be home to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Happy birthday FA. Hope you have a great time catching up with your old friends in the Big Apple or Brooklyn I guess you said it was.

My contractor and close friend Wayne will be 42 on the 14th, and he is fairly convinced that he's ancient and decrepit now and all that's left for him in life is basically just waiting around watching Tik Tok videos until he shrivels up and dies. We've become good friends and I don't ever notice or think about our 18 year age difference each day while we're working and talking and hanging out. But I have to laugh at him when he says he feels so old because he was born in the fall of 1979  just after I'd graduated from high school and started in at the University. This makes me just a matter of months younger than his late mom and 2 years younger than his dad. So you still have ways to go FA, you're still relatively young so don't squander what's left of your youth. It wasn't til I was at least 45 or 46 that I started to feel like things were falling apart.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Happy birthday @Fraser. Happy birthday to me, too - at 42 I'm still a spring chicken by current forum standards. It ain't much but I'll take it. I'm going to NYC tomorrow by way of celebration. Can't wait to see my friends, maybe walk across some bridges, gawk at the buildings like the tourist I am after having been gone for this long. It'll always be home to me.

Happy Birthday man.

I walked across zero bridges when I was in NY.  Kind of regret missing so much of it in favour of the generic tourist places (Rockefeller, Ellis Island etc).  The future Mrs Macca talks of us going back someday.

 

And @Fraser

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As a native New Yorker I'm too close to NY to see it clearly and objectively, so it always fascinates me to hear about how outsiders view New York.

I did the Ellis Island tour for the first time in 2018 when my Kiwi mother-in-law came to visit and I found it quite interesting. Took her to see the Statue of Liberty as well later that same day (at her request) and I found that overcrowded and boring as shit. She wanted to see Ground Zero and the WTC holes and the 9/11 museum and the new Freedom Tower so we went back into the city another day and I can recommend the 9/11 Museum. Might've had a bit more meaning for me because I remember that day clearly, can still remember the awful smell that lingered for a couple of weeks after the attack. Also remember how so many of the businesses we served in lower Manhattan stayed closed for so long afterwards. Took years for the neighborhood to recover.

We took my father-in-law up to the top of the Empire State Building when he came to visit in 2014 back when my wife was still alive and nearly 9 months pregnant with our son. It was probably 2 weeks before he was born. The view from up there was pretty fucking cool especially because I know exactly what neighborhoods and boroughs I'm looking at but waiting on all the damn lines for all the elevators wasn't worth it, I wouldn't be keen to go back. The Intrepid Museum on the aircraft carrier moored near W. 45th st in the Hudson River there is a must see, my father-in-law really enjoyed that as a retired 20+ year RNZN man as did I.

Post some pics of your walk across the Brooklyn Bridge for us FA. I've only driven over it a handful of times in my life because most of the clubs and stuff in the city we were headed to weren't that far downtown. And also since there are no trucks allowed I always used the Williamsburg Bridge to get downtown when I was working, which aside from the architecture is much nicer anyway even in a car because the lanes are a bit wider. But I've never walked across any of the 5 East River bridges. I did walk across the Golden Gate Bridge once 30 years ago out in San Fran (we walked out to the middle and then back) but that's another chapter altogether.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 It wasn't til I was at least 45 or 46 that I started to feel like things were falling apart.

Haha, I don't remember an exact age, but I do remember hitting 40 and wondering why everyone thought 40 was such a milestone. Nothing seemed to change, nothing seemed to fall apart, I woke up the day after turning 40 and the sun was even shining so I thought everything must be good. But somewhere between 40 and 45 it felt like everything was just catching up. Aches and pains lasted longer, old injuries came back to say hello. I haven't suffered anything major but all those little things just catch up.

 

Happy birthday celebrating...stop counting now it's just easier :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love the bridges so much... I used to walk and bike over the Williamsburg bridge all the time. I would walk or bike some of the others here and there - even had occasion to do it for work sometimes when I did service calls. But the Williamsburg was my artery to Manhattan. Once biked across the Brooklyn bridge, up through Manhattan, and then across the GW and back - enough punishment for a weekend, that. I just really miss walking the city, as a whole. Don't miss driving there though, what a hassle.

Thanks for the birthday wishes fellas. Old injuries have been catching up with me for most of my life, so I guess I have more of the same to look forward to. Musn't grumble. My mom always jokes that it's "better than the alternative". 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thinking about how happy I am that the one nasty, rotten, ginger manager left a note that said "fuck this place, I quit" and walked out & how I no longer have to fear going to work on Saturdays because I do not have to deal with her calling me a "retard" and a "dipshit" anymore and generally trying to humiliate me in front of my coworkers just because I don't know how to do literally everything at that job yet. I was so happy when I found out today, that I did a little dance of victory because I had been hoping that she would quit for so long and that my torments on the job would come to an end.

Also thinking about all of the vinyl I just ordered off of Hell's Headbangers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Totally random and ton of dribbling - so I love history.   Mainly war and carnage and mass slaughter which I find interesting and almost thrilling (and yes I've lived through an actual war and nearly got killed).

Stalin once said a "single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are statistic" and despite his evil, I think the line has a lot of truth.

 

And thus this article which I stumbled along which is my other historical passion  - the island of Tasmania and where I live.

https://www.fortysouth.com.au/history888/the-balfour-correspondent

Once upon a time there were lots of tiny isolated mining towns in Tasmania.  Most of them are now long gone. 

I chanced upon this article whilst researching one such town called Balfour which existed for 10 years and then disappeared over 100 years ago.

 

It's the story of a young girl, Sylvia McArthur, who never left Balfour, having died of typhoid aged 15.  The story affects me profoundly.

Thanks to modern sciences of printing presses, photography, document preservation  and the internet (all modern given humainity's 200,000 year existence) we can now have a glimpse into this girl's life.  We can read her words and see her world.  Amazingly we can remember her a lot better than those in the preindustrial age.  And thanks to the internet, she can live forever despite her forgotten grave in a town that's not more.

 

But the profound feeling was sadness which I seldom experience.

- The loss of life so young.  I guess I have a 9 year old and with COVID, global warming and China-US-Australia sabre rattling, I fear she won't get to live as long as I will.

The loss of potential is here too - obviously she was an avid writer.  Maybe if she had lived she might have been a great author or even just a decent person who made a positive impact.

 

- The transience of existence.  I've been to many a cemetery and visited the catacombs of Paris where tens of thousands are buried.   But those were in living places, in towns and cities.  And there's Stalin's point too - a single death is a tragedy - see thousands of skulls piled on one another is nearly just a macabre art installation but a single person's grave in ghost town accompanied by their writings and a photo really points out how transient life is.

 

One day you're hear, the next your gone.  And your legacy will also be gone.  In the end time and nature will reclaim everything. 

 

- My own legacy - In 41 years, I have achieved less than Sylvia did in 1912 - a middle aged bureaucrat too tired to bother anymore, a man who is too comfortable in his own petty existence to change.  A lover of history but one who will contribute nothing to it.

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm thinking about how glad I am that I am home from work for the day and that my latest order from Hell's Headbangers came today. It was a real shitshow at work today (I worked 4am-1pm, was supposed to get out at noon but we were super slammed so I stayed until 1 to be a team player because I just got a raise yesterday). I have to go back tomorrow at 4am and it's going to be even more of a shitshow then, because Sunday mornings usually are since every old fart feels the need to go to McDonald's on Sunday morning for $0.96 coffee that they then complain about being "too expensive" (the fact that they're getting something for under a dollar in this day and age should cause them to thank their lucky stars).

I'm also thinking about how glad I am that I am off on Monday, because I legitimately get worn out by this job after only 3 days on. McDonald's is probably one of the most difficult and stressful jobs I've ever worked, far worse than any construction job (but it's paying me more than I was making doing construction with my buddy). A lot of people think that it's an easy job, that they can do it, and maybe they did when they were young, but they didn't stick around to do it as a career because anyone who has done it knows just how stressful and difficult it really is, the lack of holidays, shit conditions of the work itself... I'm glad to have the job though because I went through about a year of being unemployed and loaded down with court program bullshit that made having a job impossible.

At least I feel like I put in an honest day's work at the end of the day. Aside from money, that's all I can really ask for.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm starting to wonder if we are ever going to go more than 2 days with high winds and rain this Spring. Reports are bushfire season starts here this week, but there is no way any bushfire will take hold at the moment with all the flooding and the torrential downpours every few days. Don't get me wrong a few days of hot weather and no rain and we are as deep in bushfire season as the northern parts of the country, but right now La Nina's got a grip on us and she's keeping it very wet.

 

23 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

McDonald's is probably one of the most difficult and stressful jobs I've ever worked, far worse than any construction job (but it's paying me more than I was making doing construction with my buddy).

This is one of the reasons that it makes comparing Aussie wages and living with America wages and living difficult. Even McDonalds Managers here don't get paid the sort of money available in the construction industry. If we want to buy something from America it's an easy conversion of around $1US = $1.36AUS, but that doesn't work with wages and living in general.

In this country a McDonalds worker gets anything from about $16 ph as a young casual to about $25 ph as an adult. (I haven't checked that I'm only going by what the media claimed a while back). Yet in construction the wages are much higher, partly because most construction jobs are full time, but there is more to it. Even a first year apprentice building a house will get upwards of $40K plus they get most of their tools supplied. By the time the same apprentice is into their fourth and final year they would easily be up around $70K with most building companies. Various trades change the value a bit but not that much, from memory sparkies do get paid a bit more than chippies.

But a worker on a construction site in the city, building high rises, building office blocks, just working in the city really makes shit goes north very quickly. We've got what is essentially unskilled labourers earning over $100K on some building sites. They are working their arses off and they are breaking a sweat, but the have little to no responsibility and no decision making. We've got apprentices in the first four years of their career earning over $150K and we've got seasoned tradies pulling down figures in excess of $300K. Construction in this country is a massive cash cow for many people.

We've even got Stop and Go sign spinners standing at road work zones, doing little more than wearing hi viz and spinning that sign around that get paid more than $80K a year because it's considered a dangerous job. But all those high wages are weighted by the fact that in the city a 2 bedroom apartment could easily cost more than $500K, some suburbs it will be more than a million. Suburbia is not much better, there was a house sold yesterday 20 minutes out of Melbourne for $17M, but the average price of a 'family' home in Melbourne is something like $550K now. Sydney is even worse. People just doesn't seem to understand in this country that it's great to be able to say you earn $100K a year, but higher wages means everything else rises in price as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Even a first year apprentice building a house will get upwards of $40K plus they get most of their tools supplied. By the time the same apprentice is into their fourth and final year they would easily be up around $70K with most building companies. Various trades change the value a bit but not that much, from memory sparkies do get paid a bit more than chippies.

See, a big part of the problem down here in Florida now, is that there simply are no apprenticeships anymore the way there were when I was a lot younger (although they were already starting to dry up back then). Construction companies want guys who can either already do the work so they can pay them below market value and work them to death, or they simply want perpetual unskilled laborers that they can work to death and never train on how to do the more important and crucial aspects of the job. It's a real problem around here and I'm wondering if it's going to be different when I move back up north, because then I would give construction another shot because I generally feel inadequate working at McDonald's despite the fact that I'm making decent money with no experience whatsoever. It's just a very difficult and stressful job and I feel like eventually it's going to give me an ulcer, particularly because I am on the customer service end of the spectrum, which was literally the last thing that I wanted to be doing because I do not like people (but am apparently great at dealing with them according to my boss).

My buddy and fellow metalhead and I have talked about it at length. You don't get apprenticeships anymore, so it's become exceedingly difficult to break into the trades. Sure, you can get a job as an unskilled laborer when you're young, but that's because most places are looking for young guys that they can work to death and then never teach them how to do the job at all... but still expect them to have some experience, prior knowledge, and tools. We talk about it because he's worried about what his 16yo son is going to do for a living since the kid is obviously not going to college with the kinds of grades he gets. He didn't want construction labor for his son, but with the inability to get an actual apprenticeship down here in Florida anymore, it's looking like his son is going to follow in his footsteps of being a general laborer and maybe, if he's lucky, land a job where he can pick up a skill naturally from working.

If I could do it all over again, I'd have chosen to go to tech school and trained for a trade but the problem with tech school is that the only tech schools around here have little to no job placement for graduates (and the local businesses don't care about tech school credentials). I mean, I guess I could try climbing the ladder at McDonald's and seeing how high I can go, but despite what I am told and the raise I earned, I don't feel like I am good at the job because I cannot do more than one thing at a time (and I think this might be due to my condition), particularly I cannot take orders over headset and prepare food at the same time. Or handle cash. It's either one or the other because my memory is so poor (again probably due to psych meds) that I can't simply memorize what people are ordering and then enter it into the POS system while I do something else.

I don't know, maybe I am too hard on myself. I just see what management is capable of doing and feel like I will never get to that point even though I've been at this job for less than 90 days already (and managed to get a raise already)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Join Metal Forum

    joinus-home.jpg

  • Our picks

    • Whichever tier of thrash metal you consigned Sacred Reich back in the 80's/90's they still had their moments.  "Ignorance" & "Surf Nicaragura" did a great job of establishing the band, whereas "The American Way" just got a little to comfortable and accessible (the title track grates nowadays) for my ears.  A couple more records better left forgotten about and then nothing for twenty three years.  2019 alone has now seen three releases from Phil Rind and co.  A live EP, a split EP with Iron Reagan and now a full length.

      Notable addition to the ranks for the current throng of releases is former Machine Head sticksman, Dave McClean.  Love or hate Machine Head, McClean is a more than capable drummer and his presence here is felt from the off with the opening and title track kicking things off with some real gusto.  'Divide & Conquer' and 'Salvation' muddle along nicely, never quite reaching any quality that would make my balls tingle but comfortable enough.  The looming build to 'Manifest Reality' delivers a real punch when the song starts proper.  Frenzied riffs and drums with shots of lead work to hold the interest.


      There's a problem already though (I know, I am such a fucking mood hoover).  I don't like Phil's vocals.  I never had if I am being honest.  The aggression to them seems a little forced even when they are at their best on tracks like 'Manifest Reality'.  When he tries to sing it just feels weak though ('Salvation') and tracks lose real punch.  Give him a riffy number such as 'Killing Machine' and he is fine with the Reich engine (probably a poor choice of phrase) up in sixth gear.  For every thrashy riff there's a fair share of rock edged, local bar act rhythm aplenty too.

      Let's not poo-poo proceedings though, because overall I actually enjoy "Awakening".  It is stacked full of catchy riffs that are sticky on the old ears.  Whilst not as raw as perhaps the - brilliant - artwork suggests with its black and white, tattoo flash sheet style design it is enjoyable enough.  Yes, 'Death Valley' & 'Something to Believe' have no place here, saved only by Arnett and Radziwill's lead work but 'Revolution' is a fucking 80's thrash heyday throwback to the extent that if you turn the TV on during it you might catch a new episode of Cheers!

      3/5
      • Reputation Points

      • 10 replies
    • I
      • Reputation Points

      • 2 replies
    • https://www.metalforum.com/blogs/entry/52-vltimas-something-wicked-marches-in/
      • Reputation Points

      • 3 replies

    • https://www.metalforum.com/blogs/entry/48-candlemass-the-door-to-doom/
      • Reputation Points

      • 2 replies
    • Full length number 19 from overkill certainly makes a splash in the energy stakes, I mean there's some modern thrash bands that are a good two decades younger than Overkill who can only hope to achieve the levels of spunk that New Jersey's finest produce here.  That in itself is an achievement, for a band of Overkill's stature and reputation to be able to still sound relevant four decades into their career is no mean feat.  Even in the albums weaker moments it never gets redundant and the energy levels remain high.  There's a real sense of a band in a state of some renewed vigour, helped in no small part by the addition of Jason Bittner on drums.  The former Flotsam & Jetsam skinsman is nothing short of superb throughout "The Wings of War" and seems to have squeezed a little extra out of the rest of his peers.

      The album kicks of with a great build to opening track "Last Man Standing" and for the first 4 tracks of the album the Overkill crew stomp, bash and groove their way to a solid level of consistency.  The lead work is of particular note and Blitz sounds as sneery and scathing as ever.  The album is well produced and mixed too with all parts of the thrash machine audible as the five piece hammer away at your skull with the usual blend of chugging riffs and infectious anthems.  


      There are weak moments as mentioned but they are more a victim of how good the strong tracks are.  In it's own right "Distortion" is a solid enough - if not slightly varied a journey from the last offering - but it just doesn't stand up well against a "Bat Shit Crazy" or a "Head of a Pin".  As the album draws to a close you get the increasing impression that the last few tracks are rescued really by some great solos and stomping skin work which is a shame because trimming of a couple of tracks may have made this less obvious. 

      4/5
      • Reputation Points

      • 4 replies
×
×
  • Create New...