Game day discussions - a report!

[BallHawk]

And just to clarify something I NEVER drink without my parents permission. And I agree with you Idle with your statement. If a parent exposes their kid to alcohol on a limited basis, that child will be less inclined to drink. A lot of the problem with Teenage Drinking is the teens want the risk involved. They get a rush from drinking behind their parents back. My Dad's taught me as well as anyone, my grandad liver is completely wrecked from drinking and his cousin died in a car crash when he was drunk and driving. If you let your kid try it, then when someone at school ask them to come to a party to drink alcohol, it is more likely they will say no. Also when alcohol is around there is usually other bad stuff there, too.

[MJZiggy]

I actually like your dad's thinking there, though in our family we usually start them out a little later with sweet wine. There were some very wise words an old teacher of mine once said. He was the coolest teacher around and let the kids call him by his first name and everyone hung out in his classroom after school. Anyway, one day the subject of drinking came up and he said he didn't drink. The kids all figured he was recovering and he said no. He said (and I will never forget this) that when he drinks he doesn't feel like he's in control and he doesn't like the feeling of not having control. I never forgot that and the one or two times in my life I had too much, I could totally relate to what he said. I agree. I hate feeling like I'm not in control of myself.

[GBRulz]

Now a days it's nothing for 12 and 13 year olds to be out boozing it up at parties. I have several friends with kids and the stuff they tell me that kids do at these young ages just blows my mind.

They also have the mindset that oral sex is fine. In fact, there is a MIDDLE school here in GB having several problems with that. Video camera's catching kids in the act.

Kids grow up so fast these days it seems.

and my last vent.... some stupid Wal-mart Back to School commercial where a Dad comes home with cell phone for his kids. The kids looked about 12 and 8 years old. WTF do kids need cell phones for?

[GBRulz]

Re: Game day discussions - a report!

For what its worth:

Some expressed concern here and elsewhere that Packerrats had insufficient membership for good discussions when games started. So I looked at the "official game day threads" at various sites:

PackersNews.com - started a new forum today, Monday August 14. It was a clean break from the old forum. No discussions or accounts were carried over. Sorry, I should have checked last night!

Packerchatters - couldn't find an "official" thread but one at game time had 137 comments and 9,117 views.

JSOnline - 113 comments and 3,450 views

Packerrats - 569 comments and 6,223 views.

Packerchatters had 1 erply for every 66 views.
JSonline had 1 reply for every 30 views.
Packerrats had 1 reply for every 11 views.

Packerrats had 5 times as many replies as JSO and 1.8 times as many views. Packerrats had 4.2 times as many replies as Packerchatters, but only a bit more than 2/3 as many views.

As I have said before, different sites offer different things, and I read and contribute at several. But after one preseason game indications are that the place to debate and discuss is here, you will lecture at other sites.

NICE work, Patler. I am impressed....as always!!!

[Partial]

Now a days it's nothing for 12 and 13 year olds to be out boozing it up at parties. I have several friends with kids and the stuff they tell me that kids do at these young ages just blows my mind.

They also have the mindset that oral sex is fine. In fact, there is a MIDDLE school here in GB having several problems with that. Video camera's catching kids in the act.

Kids grow up so fast these days it seems.

and my last vent.... some stupid Wal-mart Back to School commercial where a Dad comes home with cell phone for his kids. The kids looked about 12 and 8 years old. WTF do kids need cell phones for?

quoted so people can read it twice.

[sepporepi]

Ah alocohol this is a topic I can contribute a lot

Coming from germany I always wondered what the problem with alcohol in the states.
Correct me if i am wrong:
In most states you can drive a car with 16, but drink/buy alcohol legalally
with 18 or even 21. By the way it is the same age you can buy guns?

In my opinion this is exactly the wrong order.In germany we are allowed to buy beer an wine with 16 and everything else with 18, which is also the age you can get your drivers license.

So most guys make their first impressions with alcohol with 14 or 15 and "regular" weekend drinkings start with 15/16 in most cases.

When you finally get your drivers license you know what alcohol can do to
you, especially if you try using a vehicle .
But you explore this with a bike not a car .

So I had a lot minor accidents while drving my bike drunk. I lived in a small village and most of the way to/from a party was on little roads forbidden for cars. But nothing serious happend. One thing was and is always clear to me: never drive a car while drunk. Because I know what can happen on a bike, I always could imagine what trying to drive a car can cause.

And moreover the fascination of alcohol did not last long. Ok maybe 10 years , but now I am 29 and the last 4 or 5 years I started to drink less and less. Not because I tried to or forced me to, it is more a "I have seen and tried it all"-feeling.

So starting (legally) early to drink, leads in most cases to drinking less as live goes on. At least this is my impression.

[GrnBay007]

and my last vent.... some stupid Wal-mart Back to School commercial where a Dad comes home with cell phone for his kids. The kids looked about 12 and 8 years old. WTF do kids need cell phones for?

I used to feel the same way about cell phones until my kids started walking home from school. I got one of those cheap trak phones for my daughter and she's been very responsible with it. I just feel a lot better knowing they have a way to contact me if there's a problem.

[HarveyWallbangers]

Interesting story, sepporepi. Welcome! That being said, I think it's best for a 13-year-old living in the USA now to leave the alcohol alone. I think the drinking age should be lowered. (I personally think anybody who has graduated from high school should be allowed to drink--especially if they can serve their country). However, I'm not so sure that it's the wrong order. I think I'd rather have a 15-year-old allowed to drive a car to school over being allowed to drink after school.

[Noodle]

Agree with you Harv on the order of things, though to be honest, I'm now getting so old that it freaks me out to see 16 year-old "babies" behind the wheel.

As to the topic at hand, I was active early on the game day thread and thought it was exceptional. The only problem was that stuff was getting posted so fast, it was hard to keep a discussion topic going. ND and PB were good at maintaining some coherent topics, but I'm afraid my posts were of the more reactive, "WTF ARE WE DOING?!?" variety.

I'll try to raise the level of my game.

[Partial]

Agree with you Harv on the order of things, though to be honest, I'm now getting so old that it freaks me out to see 16 year-old "babies" behind the wheel.

As to the topic at hand, I was active early on the game day thread and thought it was exceptional. The only problem was that stuff was getting posted so fast, it was hard to keep a discussion topic going. ND and PB were good at maintaining some coherent topics, but I'm afraid my posts were of the more reactive, "WTF ARE WE DOING?!?" variety.

I'll try to raise the level of my game.

Mine too. This time, I will put a message at the start to have more detailed posts so we can tell "WTF r they dewing" the next morning

[BallHawk]

They also have the mindset that oral sex is fine. In fact, there is a MIDDLE school here in GB having several problems with that. Video camera's catching kids in the act.

It's the same here. I'm in 8th so It's not that big, but in 9th it is. It's the thinking "Well oral sex, isn't really sex." A lot of this is these girls trying to act out like these girls on TV or their own sisters. That's like I was saying earlier. There'll be a party. There will be alcohol. People will get stupid and consequences will happen.

Also, am I the only one who thinks that a sober 16 year old in a car is more dangerous than a 16 year old that is drunk, without a car? What's a 16 year old gonna do when he's drunk without a car? Break a window, crash his bike? A 16 year old with a car is more likely to try and be a show-off and crash into someone else. Hell, yestreday we almost smashed head-on into some dick who was trying to show off to his friends. My grandad's always said to me that a car is a gun. It'd be safer to higher the driving age to 18 and lower the drinking age to 16 or 18. I'm not saying they SHOULD do that, but'd it be safer.