Now I don't really eat much at major chain restaurants (McDonalds, KFC, Hungry Jacks et al), basically because I think the food mostly tastes pretty crap. However, I would definitely eat one of these babies. I might even come back and have a second one! (I have McDonalds every year or two and realise again that the reason I don't eat it is that it tastes so poor).
Couple other things of interest.
Came across some articles by a guy who writes for The Village Voice in New York. Going through his archives there's a great article about gangsta rap and the impact of crack crime and rap culture on young unemployed black men in the ghetto. While it's written in 2003 it's still got some great points about the glorification of gang violence and drug dealing in rap culture, even though much of that lifestyle has disappeared, while the young black men remain unemployed.
There's another great one from the same guy, published in Time magazine, about computer gaming and World of Warcraft in particular. Now, I've never played WoW, but I have played another MMORPG, back before WoW emerged on the scene. One of the reasons that I never signed up was because from all accounts I could find, it took the things that most people do in these games, such as grinding (killing lots of the same monsters to raise your level) and hanging out in safe zones, and made that the point of the whole game. The idea is, if that's what most people do, lets just give them that. Fair enough, it worked for them, as an 8million strong subscriber base will attest to.
However, enough bashing of WoW, the really interesting part of this post is looking at the reasons why people play such games. And the main ones are being able to interact with people, to form communities and do activities, and to have a feeling of accomplishment, of having done great feats, conquered foes and achieved significant goals. I can totally relate to that and still have great memories of running around a virtual world, being scared silly by things that could destroy me in an instant and the excitement of achieving major quests.
Couple more links, if you haven't seen The Escapist and you like video games, than you should. He might rant on a bit, but his reviews are quite good and funny as well. For those who hate his style, his description on Wikipedia will make you feel much better.
Last but not least, a quick piece from the US about teacher unions and their various failings. There's some similarities with Oz and there's some differences, but generally I agree with the point that unions care more about teachers than they do students (as they should, that's their role) and that we need to find some way of recognising those better teachers rather than paying all teachers identically, no matter their ability or location. Why does a crap teacher in an easy school get paid exactly the same as an amazing teacher in a difficult school when they both have the same experience?
That being said, I think NAPLAN is crap and almost useless as a diagnostic tool for individual students and the idea of relying on it for anything at all seems to be quite pointless.
Harry out!
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