southsamurai

You just lose access

That's some silliness right there.

Using lemm.ee is using lemmy because lemm.ee is lemmy software being hosted on their hardware, and the activitypub that's part of lemmy connects everything.

If you're going to try to be pedantic, be right

Not inherently, no, what with school hours being absurdly early to start most places.

And that's the goal, right? To make sure they get enough rest for school. So, you set bedtime, as in ass in bed, trying to sleep at an hour that they can reasonably reach according to current best practices hours of sleep.

Currently, the general recommendation is broad: 8 to 10 hours. Trying to shoot for ten hours of sleep, it isn't realistic unless the kid on question is not functioning at the lower end.

So, if they're expected to be in bed at 10, that would mean they'd be getting up at 6.

So, totally reasonable, if that's when they're getting up.

And, while nobody wants to admit it in their teens, having a schedule that's stable when it isn't a school night is a good idea. Yeah, you give a lot more leeway during extended time off, but on weekends, if you're staying up until 1, that Sunday night is not going to work well trying to sleep at 10. So there's a limit how long things can go on weekends regularly.

But, don't be a dick. Special occasions, or even random occasions when they want to do something, it isn't going to be much of a problem to be up extra late on a Saturday or Friday. Have the late day, use the next to adjust back

Another don't be a dick thing. If you're setting the hour arbitrarily, don't. Sometimes, you gotta be arbitrary as a parent because you're trying to teach something, but it really needs to be a limited tool, and you gotta be transparent about it. So, if you're picking ten PM because you pulled it out of your ass, and it doesn't match their actual needs, just rethink it until it does match their needs.

Our kid, during the week has to have their ass either in bed, or be ready to hop in and moving that direction by ten. They have to get up at 6 to have time for breakfast, bathroom needs, dressing, all that jazz before the bus gets here. We tried other times, and 6 is what makes sure they catch the bus, so 10 is their hard limit on school nights unless there's a damn good reason otherwise. And it'll be that way until they're either 18, or graduate, whichever comes last. They know why, they know that they feel better, do better at school, and actually enjoy their afternoons and evenings more when they stick to that schedule.

So it isn't even a thing when they want an extension, or want to stay with a friend when we know damn good and well they'll be up all night. They cooperate with getting back on schedule the next day, and it's all good.

But not every kid is the same, so you gotta be flexible. You gotta pick the battles that matter. Maybe if they wanna stay up late every night, they gotta do the work of making it work out, so their grades stay acceptable, and they aren't neglecting other responsibilities. If they can make it work, let them. Extend the trust to adjust things until it either works, or it becomes evident it can't work.

15 is a good age for a kid to have a say in things like this, with the understanding that there are expectations to meet. So have a talk, explain what you expect in terms of outcomes. Maybe they fuck up and it has to go back to ten. Maybe they make it work, and everyone is happy. Try again at 16, see what happens then.

Thing is, the fact that teenagers need sleep that's regular and plentiful isn't a subject that's unclear. There's decades of data on the subject, and it's our responsibility to make sure they get it, even if they fuss and fight the whole way through. Most kids by 15, they can sit and have that conversation. But not all of them. You know your kid, I don't.

Oh, yeah I was taken to the hospital. Kerry said he'd put his size 12 boot up my cracked ass otherwise lol.

I was the least injured other than Kerry, who only got some bruises and a scrape. I had some cracks in some ribs, my knuckles were kinda split but didn't need stitches. Most of my injuries were blunt force stuff, basically deep bruises. I wanna say it was three ribs that had fractures? They weren't bad, but they hurt like hell for a few months after.

Bulldog got the worst out of the squad. Broken nose, fractured orbital, concussion, split lip and her face was shredded from where she slid on the concrete.

The kid was fucked up though. Took him days to wake up. He recovered with no disability, but it was a long recovery. Broken ribs, skull fracture, jaw broken, I can't remember what all else.

The asshole was worse off though. His trial was like a year after, and he was still fucked up. Missing teeth, couldn't walk (though I suspect he was faking that some), mostly blind in one eye, some other shit that isn't coming to mind. I know he wasn't faking stuttering and messing up words. He did end up with brain damage. I wasn't joking about Bulldog saving my life a second time, I damn near killed him. If she hadn't stopped me, I probably would have, and it was most definitely excessive use of force.

Regarding bouncers and gear, it depends on where you live, but you have to be real careful with what you carry and use. Cops tend to not like bouncers, or didn't back when I was still doing it. So you spray someone, you better have witnesses and plenty of them. I knew guys that carried knuckles, batons, even knives though, particularly at one of the rougher strip clubs. A few would carry a small handgun too, but it isn't a good idea, imo. Legal, at least in my state, but not a great idea in a setting where you're supposed to be keeping shit cool.

I dunno how often he checks in, but @kerriganindrag@lemmy.dbzer0.com , if he notices this, he might remember some of the stuff better, if he sees this any time soon

Oh hell

That one was the Bulldog. She's still a good friend.

Short little thing, about 5'6". Cute too, and hates being reminded she is. She's a few years younger than me, and had been working on fake id, but that's a whole nuther kettle of fish

She was, and is, fairly butch, if that means anything to you. So her head comes up to about my nipple line, and my arm was bigger than her leg, and she wasn't the most petite little thing, she worked hard and exercised.

But the first thing she said to me when I came out of the office was that if I ever picked her up like that, she'd feed me my balls on a stick.

That's the Bulldog.

So, this is a drag club in the south in the nineties. Regular gay bars caught hell, but a drag club near a main road, with neon lights and parking lot full of some of the brightest flames it has been my privilege to see? It was a target for every cretin, redneck, and bigot for a hundred miles around the city.

So we'd end up having run-ins with gay bashers or at least assholes trying to act tough almost every shift during decent weather.

More than once, she would kneecap some fuckwit coming at me from behind, or when I was tangling with someone and couldn't get loose. She was also known for tackling and choking the hell out of assholes, even when they'd just stand up with her hanging on their back; hence the nickname.

So, there were knives that didn't get me, ball bats that never got swung because she had my back in every sense, and vice versa.

But the big one? Fuck me, it was bad.

A seriously crazy fucker went after one of my favorite patrons, this skinny, sweet little twink with nothing but love and hugs for anyone that would give him half a chance. But the kid was off property, halfway down the block, and we weren't supposed to go that far.

Me, bulldog, and Kerry were on the lot and door that night. Kerry is a tall, lean but athletic ex marine and drag queen. He actually haunts lemmy to, so he might chime in. But when I took off running when I saw the crazy asshole come out from a shadow and hit the kid, Kerry starts cussing, but it was Bulldog that was right behind me first. Kerry was smarter, and stepped inside to call for help, and tell the inside staff to call the cops.

Cops always took their damn time showing up there.

Anyway, me and bulldog are running hard, seeing this kid on the ground, getting beat and kicked.

The nutjob grabs some junk from the lot he stepped out of, some rebar with concrete on it and pulls back to bash that kid's head in.

I get there, thank the gods of speed for making my big ass run fast enough, before he can do it, and we go at it. I'm swinging wild, because this was back before I got serious about martial arts. I'd done some wrestling and a tiny bit of boxing, but never dedicated.

The nutter was fast, and hyped up on something. I was always slower. I got a few in before he caught me and I took a knee. He was cueing up for my skull when the Bulldog comes in growling, literally, and goes at him.

He swings with the rebar and smashes her in the face, and she goes down hard. It was fucking meaty sounding. I can see blood, so I fucked up and moved to her, and the crazy gets me in the back with the improvised club.

If Kerry hadn't been busting ass, I'd have been dead because I couldn't breathe

Kerry comes in and puts a boot upside the guy's head, then steps back between all of us and him.

But the guy is lit up by whatever it was. He's trying to get at us, and Kerry is having trouble because damn. Three people down, and Kerry ain't budging, but you can't cover everything like that.

So the dude slips by and tries to kill the kid again, after having feinted at me.

Kerry bumps him off target, and I get up.

That's when it got ugly. I kinda lost my shit. Picked the guy up, slammed him and just went off. I don't even know what I was saying, or even thinking, but Kerry tried to pull me off and couldn't.

But Bulldog? She pulls herself up, comes over to me and gets in my way. Grabs my arm and stops me hitting the crazy guy again. She's dripping blood, broken nose, plus other fractures that weren't visible. But she was the one that put herself in the way and kept me from killing the guy. She did that half blind from swelling, concussed, and bloody.

She still has scars from that. Outside for sure, but inside too.

Saved my life two different ways in one night.

Worst fight I was ever in. Well, against a human.

But, yeah, her and Kerry kept my ass alive for sure. There were other nights I kept them safe too. That's just how we did it.

At that time? She wasn't even legal to enter the bar. That's the night I found out she was using fake info, but that's not really important. But we were young. The "kid" was around the same age as me, and I couldn't buy a drink at the places I bounced yet.

It was a fucking crazy night. But our boss? That dude paid every hospital bill, not just for us, but for the kid too. I missed work at my regular job, and he just paid me like I was working full time for him. Told me I was an idiot, and not to do that to him again. But he hired on extra security so we could walk patrons to their cars when they couldn't park on site.

The crazy dude did serious time, attempted murder, multiple counts.

Now, I gotta be honest here. I've told this story a few times between reddit and lemmy. Kerry tells me that none of them are fully accurate. That I keep getting things mixed up in the order they happened and such. I know that when I remember it, there's a lot of blurry edges, and stuff comes to mind scattered. It's flashes of stuff that was terrifying and I was flooded with adrenaline, fear, and anger, so it's hard to be confident in the details.

I'm certain about Bulldog's face, because it made me cry to see her like that. I know for sure that the kid was in a bad way, and almost died on the way to the hospital. I can remember his face too, when I rolled him over before the first ambulance got there. And I know I was fucking hurting lol. My back, my hands, my knees, my face, alllll beat up lol. It took me a few days to walk upright and not hobble.

Well, my first real job, meaning not a temporary thing in fast food with plans to GTFO ASAP, was as a nurse's assistant.

My high soul school had a class for health care work prep. I had the goal then of being an RN. So I figured some of the basics might be nice ahead of time. Medical terminology, chances to have professionals in various branches of healthcare do talks, etc.

The last year, the program allowed you to take the state test to be an NA, and if you passed at over 95%, you could get the certification no matter your age. It involved also doing clinicals, at a wide range of facilities. One of the facilities was a nursing home, and it turned out that not only was I physically right for carrying patients, but I had a knack for helping the worst off patients cope with being helped. A lot of dementia patients can't process what's going on at all.

For whatever reason, I could kinda slip through their confusion and talk to them, and they'd be less combative, or more able to cooperate with what was going on. By the time clinicals at that facility was over, the director of nursing had contacted the instructor and I had a job waiting as soon as the state processed everything. So that's what I did for the next twenty years as my main job, though I left that facility, and eventually all facility work within three years. I did go back to school for my RN, and life interfered. Then I went back for my bachelor's in psychology, and that ended before I could finish.

---

But, as you may or may not know, nurse's assistants get paid shit. And not just the literal shit we have to clean up, the pay rate is horrible.

So I had side gigs.

My most stable side gig was working as a bouncer, which led to security work in other ways.

I mostly worked for two guys. They each owned multiple bars. One guy had mostly LGBTQ focused bars, oxidizing including the drag club that was my main and favorite place to work of his. The other guy ran mostly strip clubs, which was not as much fun as you'd think, but I still enjoyed as a bouncer.

Anyway, the first guy was the one that got me into bouncing. My best friend is gay, and by the time I was old enough to get into bars and clubs, so were almost all of my friends. I just like the community. But we were at the club for a drag show. It may help to know that back in high school I had started power lifting, and had been picking up 400lb people out of showers for a good while at this point. I was a big ol boy lol.

So, you know how weekend drag shows can get. Everyone and their sister crowded in, trying to dance, get laid, and enjoy the show. Spats happen.

Well, one of them started getting bad. The staff was trying to get in and break it up, but it was wall to wall people.

One of the more inebriated patrons took it from just screaming and shoving into serious territory, grabbing a bottle and starting to swing with it.

I picked him up and shook him a little. He dropped the bottle and started crying and hugging me. So, since me doing that had kinda stopped the show and the crowd was now watching us I carried the dude over my shoulder to the bar and sat him down, while the bouncers on staff (one of whom later on saved my life a few times) made their way to us.

The owner was there that night, and saw it go down. Had the head of security ask me to come into his office. He gave me a blast of hell for risking my neck, and then offered me a job lol. I would work weekends here and there, some weeknights.

The other guy and him were friends since they didn't really compete much, and I got introduced that way, and would work for either of them as needed for the rest of the nineties and into the naughties.

Between them, I also ended up doing some low grade security work too. Mostly escorting bar owners to make deposits at the end of the night, or being visible muscle when interacting with unfamiliar fellow business owners. Which had its benefits. I got a chance to talk to some interesting people that way, since once everyone was chill, the muscle tended to be superfluous, and just sit around drinking coffee, bullshitting. I got offered a job doing celebrity work, but didn't want to travel like that. Closest I came to that was taking a few trips to other cities with some of the better known Queens that weren't as friendly to the community.

Anyway, I pretty much fell into both jobs unintentionally. They weren't the only jobs I did, but they were the consistent ones, and the ones that I miss.

They set up a new version. Chapo chat or some such shit

Has anyone followed the links to see what the deal is?

The one on .world just shifted to literature.cafe.

The .world one was set up by an occasional contributor to the subreddit.

Largely, you'd already gotten good advice on how to sabotage a sub.

The key is automod, but don't forget that the goal is to keep reddit from just undoing it all and replacing you before things get so bad nobody comes back if they do.

So you gotta put some time into it, and implement changes over a few weeks. Start by bumping up the account age setting to something high enough to weed out a lot of casual users but not everyone. Add in some automod filters to remove common things. Let that rest for a day or two, then add in some more filters so that posting becomes harder, but not impossible.

At some point in there, people will complain, so you'll have to tweak automod to remove references to mods as well.

That's the process. By the time things get bad enough that reports would get crazy, enough people should have just left in a huff that the reports don't get so high that reddit pays attention.

By the end of it, any new posts will have to jump though major hoops, so you'll effectively keep out bots. Place a final automod rule requiring some specific words and walk away. That's the best you can do. Maybe reddit undoes it, maybe not, but by the time they get around to it, it won't matter.

Haaave mercy.

Never in my life did I expect to have pet chickens.

If I had, I do not believe I would have imagined having spolied rotten pet chickens.

My little girl, she's been spoiled since the day she came home with us. Her going pew-pew, and cheep-cheep-cheep on the ride home melted everyone. A few weeks in, she was nesting in my beard, and I would glare at anyone daring to disturb her. Even when she pooped in my beard before we got her pad trained, she was gently sat aside before I would dash to wash up lol.

But big boy? He was half wild, even when we thought he was a hen. Back then, the only one he would allow to touch him was my kid, and even that was for short periods. Wouldn't take treats from our hands without a lot of urging and patience.

So, last night, we bring the girl in, set the supplies up for volunteer hen and the rooster outside, and big boy comes in for his visit.

I'm feeding him choice tidbits of biscuit, petting him, and he's being his regal self. We get it all set up, and my wife and kid head inside. I'm communing with my broski. He's supposed to sleep outside, since we're finally having a night that isn't too cold for safety.

Well, he hops down at one point, and heads the general direction of the door. I follow him to let him out (enclosed back porch). He goes out and gobbles at me, so I come out and follow him around a bit. He's bok-ing and scratching, and occasionally humping my shoe. You know, chicken stuff.

My back has been giving me trouble, so I say goodnight to come in. I open the door, and he jumps up onto the porch and moves over to the chair and waits on me.

So I sit down, he hops up, and gets scritches. And some more biscuit, because he's being sweet. We're just talking to each other, chilling. But my back has limits, and I set him down on the floor and move to let him out.

He walks over to the crate and stands there, boking at me. I open the door and tell him to GTFO, it's warm enough, and he knows damn good and well he loves his roost in the window planter. He buk-buk-buks at me and hops back and forth a little.

I tell him to hush and get out the door.

He crows at me. ER-ER-ER-ERRRRRRRRRR! And then gobbles while hopping from foot to foot, looking back and forth from me to the crate.

I tell him fiine!, get his feeder set up, the water, and a bowl full of bugs because why not.

I point at the now prepared crate that's maybe a foot off the floor, well lower than my lap, for damn sure. He hops back and forth burk-burking at me. Now, if you don't speak chicken, the difference between a bok-bok, a buk-buk a tuk-tuk and a burk-burk may not be evident. I, however, have been learning chicken the last two years

Burk-burk-burk is, loosely translated: "monkey, ah say monkey, ah insist you obey me, suh" yes, he sounds like Foghorn Leghorn, he's a propah suthren burd. In my head anyway.

So, I go over and poke him in the butt and point to the ramp that leads into the house. My back ain't bending over to pick up his butterball butt. He bawk-AWKs at my rudeness, "well, I nevah, suh, I nevah!", but he moves up to where I can reach him. I scoop him up and tickle his wing pits, which elicits a quite offended bawk-AWK-gobble-gobble. Which, as you can imagine is "how dare you tickle me under mah wings, suh!"

I carry him back to his crate, and sit him down. He proceeds to tuk-tuk-tuk as he pecks, then picks up and puts down assorted dried insects. Happy as a pig in slops. Which is pretty damn happy, if you've never seen it. But I might wager that "happy as a rooster pecking bugs" might actually be happier.

He eats some bugs, then moves over to the small roost inside the crate, fluffs his butt up, and settles in while peacefully buking at me while I talk him to sleep.

You can tell he's asleep when he makes a few burbles, sighs, and then goes quiet.

So, in short, I spent half an hour convincing a damn chicken to go to bed, gave him a snack, and read him a bedtime story.

Nah, he's not spoiled at all.

She is, indeed, a blivet