pawnsters

[george graves]

wow...Please tell me all that was a joke?

[s0urce]

wow...Please tell me all that was a joke?

We can only hope.

[RobertK]

LOL.. you guys make me giggle inside.

[dom]

LOL.. you guys make me giggle inside.

but if you're giggling inside, you can't "LOL".

[RobertK]

but if you're giggling inside, you can't "LOL".

You and your details

[chucko]

holy shit, crack open a god damn book. Plenty of skills out there....and the library is free too.

Agree that a library is a very valuable and underutilized resource. I don't think it's as easy as what you're implying though. I believe it takes a certain level of literacy, reading comprehension, and discipline to be able to go to a library (every day for a long period of time) and learn the "in demand" skills necessary make yourself more desireable to a prospective employer. IMO, discipline and work ethic are not intuitive (inherent) personality traits, they're learned qualities.

[Jordan325iC]

What a fucking cop-out. I take responsibility for every action I take, both good and bad. Biggest crock of shit I've read since Kevins middle earth theory.

You lose.

Fuck you. I'm not making excuses. You guys made the mistake of trying to over-anylize whether or not we are responsible for our situations.

In my mind, that kind of talk is useless because in the end it all boils down to nothing. At the most basic level there are no choices to be made. The choices have already been made at the atomic and subatomic level.

Every atom in the universe, in one frame of time, is endowed with certain properties, momentum, position and charge to name a few. Because of these properties, and because of the physical laws, the next frame in time is already set. Subsequently, so is every preceeding moment in time.

You guys all argue about whether inate laziness, society or bad parenting are to blame. These things are not mutually exclusive. There is no one true cause. The entire universe is the cause. The whole discussion just seems silly to me.

[Jscotty]

IMO, discipline and work ethic are not intuitive (inherent) personality traits, they're learned qualities.

And qualities like that cannot be learned through reading library books. Some things have to be taught one-on-one through example. Like when I go to the fast food joint, customarily the cashier is supposed to announce the total amount that's due. These days they just hold out their hand and look at you like you are crazy until you give them the money. Personally I just stand there and stare at them as they start to squirm trying to figure out what to do next. And when you do that, you can see that they are having trouble because they KNOW that it would be improper to say, "Gimme the money!" but they are clueless about the fact that they should say, "Ok, sir. Your total is $5.74."

Also, while I am on the topic, people these days do not know how to properly count back change. If the total is $5.74 and I give them a $20 bill, they should be counting back the balance up to $20 starting with the 26 cents. But what they do is they count the number of bills that they are handing back to me. So being that my change would be 14.26, they say, "$14.26 is your change; here's 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14.. and 26." When the correct way is to start by giving me the 26 cents and starting the count at six. Then every subsequent $1 bill will count up to $10.. and then when I am handed the $10 or a pair of $5's, then the cashier says, "and 10 makes 20."

Younger people who are not familiar with this method probably think that this is a stupid way of counting back change but essentially it is a foolproof method of ensuring your accuracy. In the 21st century every depends on the register to make the correct calcuation but I have witnessed times where the register was wrong. I had even gotten into a heated arguement with this airbrained cashier who was insistant on telling me that my my change was $3.35 from a $2.98 purchase that I made with a $10 bill. I am not sure if the register was wrong or if she just keyed it in wrong but she could not see that $10 minus $3 did not equal $3 and some change. It must be that new math that they are teaching in the public schools.

[Jordan325iC]

Oh, and for the record:
My material-deterministic viewpoint of the universe does not affect my how I operate my life. If I fail a test I don't say "Oh well, the universe made me do it."

I do firmly believe that at the most basic level, free will and randomality do not exist. However, this belief is far to depressing and hopeless to apply to my day-to-day existence. I'm not trying to cop-out everybody from their responsibility.

[equate975]

Gah, you guys give me bad luck...

Just last night my sister ipod was jacked out of her car, ended up going to every pawnshop in town lookin for it.

Didn't find it :(

[1991 318is]

All the stuff I see in pawn shops is crap. Tool sets with the 10 and 12mm sockets missing, crappy music, beat to death power tools, crappy electronics, etc. On top of that the prices are ridiculous. They have the same stuff on the shelves for months. In this random chaos the predetermined shit slides downhill.
Entropy is increasing! Quick, somebody call up God and tell him to pay attention and count the change correctly.

[AdironRider]

Yes you can do something about it, but you can't do it by yourself. We're not born with skills, they have to be learned, which means someone has to teach you. If your parent has no skills, and their friends have no skills, where do the skills come from?

Girls love skills. Computer hacking skills, nun-chuck skills.....

[LivingLegend06]

Wow you guys got deep with this and went really fucking off topic.

I dont think there is such a thing as destiny, anything can happen at anytime, and anyone can become or do just about anything.

Not all people living in poverty go to pawn shops and blame other things for their problems. I have a family friend who is currently homeless. He has a sad past and i really feel that anyone else who had gone through his experiances (bad war experiances, losing two children to diseases and being diagnsed at one point with 3 months to live from cancer) would not be doing as well. he began his homless life by choice when he was diagnosed with cancer, he left on a hike with pretty much just some blankets and a pocket knife into the forest and survived for 6 months and returned with no trace of the cancer at all. Now he just lives in the forest outside of town and actually helps take care of the other homeless people, the younger children without homes, the people with drug problems, anyone who is having trouble surviving. He knows everything that goes on in town. We had a car broken into and he is so well connected that he was able to track the guy responsible down (we didnt ask what happened after he tracked him down though, the less we know the better). The whole point is that he has been living as homeless for a few years now and he could easially get a job and an apartment and rejoin normal society if he wanted to. It's all about the choices you make reguardless of your situation, this guy has been through all the worst case scenarios and he has control of his life. I beleive that almost anyone (execeptions for disabled people both physically and mentally) has the capapability to make something of themselves. Problems from having too big of a family or from the law are brought on yourself in most cases.

[RobertK]

Being homeless and poor are two totally different situations.

Like you said before, most homeless people choose to be homeless.

Also, there is a difference between being broke and being poor. I've been broke in my life but I've never been poor. Poor is a state of mind.

When you do poor people things like pawn possessions, play the lottery, and take out payday loans you get to be poor people.

When you do rich people things like save your money, utilize a simple budget, and find ways to obtain better job skills then you eventually get to rich people.

There is a reason you won't find many pawn shops or check advance stores in the rich parts of town and it's the same reason rich people aren't lined up to play the lottery every other day at the gas station.

[Jscotty]

Gah, you guys give me bad luck...

Just last night my sister ipod was jacked out of her car, ended up going to every pawnshop in town lookin for it.

Didn't find it :(

The theif probably sold it on the street or to someone he knows. In my neighborhood, there was this woman who made a fortune buying stolen merchandise from crackheads and then selling the stuff at the flea market. If you want to track down the ipod, ask the people who use drugs as to where you can sell stuff. I don't know what the slang terminology is these days so you would have to know a vagrant drug addict very well for him to trust you if you do not know how to talk the talk.