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What's something modern you won't miss when it becomes obsolete?

Messages
13,460
Location
Orange County, CA
Groups of smokers outside the school gate, who turn the last 5 meters into the Oncology Gauntlet. The number of times my children have been nearly burned by a careless wave of the hand is staggering.

You also see this in front shops and restaurants. The employess having their cigarette break out in front. If I was manager I would have them take their cigarette breaks out in back of the shop.
 

Virginia Creeper

One of the Regulars
You also see this in front shops and restaurants. The employess having their cigarette break out in front. If I was manager I would have them take their cigarette breaks out in back of the shop.

Back in the long-ago times, when I was still a smoker, I was the assistant manager of women's clothing shop. The manager had frequent tantrums because I would take my smoke breaks out on the back steps, rather than in the stockroom. Explaining that me smoking in the stockroom would be illegal didn't sway her much, either. I was simply an ingrate, as she had rearranged the stockroom to make it easier for me to smoke in there. :der:
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,715
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
You also see this in front shops and restaurants. The employess having their cigarette break out in front. If I was manager I would have them take their cigarette breaks out in back of the shop.

The restaurant across the street from us is guilty of this, and it's disgusting. There's nothing I could think of that would make me less likely to go into a place for a meal than the sight of the cook and the waiters standing out front, big as Billy B. Damned, sucking on cigarettes.
 

Shangas

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,116
Location
Melbourne, Australia
A lot of the people who work at the local charity shop smoke. I'm not one of them, but I could count at least a half-dozen who are. They have the decency to smoke in the small back lot behind the shop, well away from customers...and me. I can't stand the stench of cigarette smoke. It makes me queasy.
 
Messages
13,460
Location
Orange County, CA
The restaurant across the street from us is guilty of this, and it's disgusting. There's nothing I could think of that would make me less likely to go into a place for a meal than the sight of the cook and the waiters standing out front, big as Billy B. Damned, sucking on cigarettes.

And even worse is seeing this in front of the hospital! Besides that you would think that someone who works in the health care field would set a good example. :doh:
 
Messages
13,460
Location
Orange County, CA
Extra long shoelaces that come with new shoes. You're constantly stepping on them or tripping over them. And I equally hate it when the suggestion is made that I should cut them down to size because 1) it leaves them frayed and 2) In my opinion, it's something that I shouldn't have to do.

I found out the reason for the extra long shoelaces. Generally the manufacturer will order stock shoelaces for their largest fitting size, which could be as big as Size 16, instead of ordering shoelaces in varying lengths and matching them to the right fitting size because to do so is more time-consuming and thus more costly. So you're getting Size 10 1/2 shoes (my size) with Size 16 shoelaces! :rolleyes:
 
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Stanley Doble

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,808
Location
Cobourg
When I see remarks like "cigarette smoke makes me sick" I just shake my head.

Imagine such delicate stomachs in the past, living in towns and cities heated with coal fires, full of automobiles with no pollution control, horses doing their business in the street, surrounded by people who not only smoke,indoors and out, but believe one bath a week is plenty and never heard of deodorant.
 
When I see remarks like "cigarette smoke makes me sick" I just shake my head.

Imagine such delicate stomachs in the past, living in towns and cities heated with coal fires, full of automobiles with no pollution control, horses doing their business in the street, surrounded by people who not only smoke,indoors and out, but believe one bath a week is plenty and never heard of deodorant.

Suffice it to say that there is a good amount of the population today who would be long gone in a few months. :p
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,715
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Imagine such delicate stomachs in the past, living in towns and cities heated with coal fires, full of automobiles with no pollution control, horses doing their business in the street, surrounded by people who not only smoke,indoors and out, but believe one bath a week is plenty and never heard of deodorant.

I lived in a town with two sardine canneries, two poultry-evisceration facilities, and a fish-waste processing plant, all of which pumped their waste into an open river. In the summer, it smelled like you were stuck in an elevator with Death Himself.

And it still didn't stink as bad as cigarettes.

"A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse."

-- King James VI, 1604
 

Stanley Doble

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,808
Location
Cobourg
Reading one of Paul Theroux's travel books a few weeks ago. It was about a river trip in China,written in the 80s. A group of rich tourists on a cruise on a river boat.

Passing through one city the air was thick with the smell of coal smoke, sewage, and a touch of kerosene. One of the travellers, a distinguished looking Englishman about 70, said the smell reminded him of Leeds when he was a boy.

Ah the good old days.
 
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LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,715
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
The idiotic high school where I went back in the day had a smoking lot on campus!

We had a *student* smoking area, at which the flower of youth gathered every morning. You had to run a gauntlet to get into the building.

Once one of these fine young people stuck a smouldering butt into the side of the first locker they encountered while walking into the building and set fire to the coat hanging inside. Building evacuation, fire department, the whole bit. It would've been fun if it hadn't been ten below zero outside.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,715
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Reading one of Paul Theroux's travel books a few weeks ago. It was about a river trip in China,written in the 80s. A group of rich tourists on a cruise on a river boat.

Passing through one city the air was thick with the smell of coal smoke, sewage, and a touch of kerosene. One of the travellers, a distinguished looking Englishman about 70, said the smell reminded him of Leeds when he was a boy.

Ah the good old days.

I miss the smell of kerosene, to be honest. It was always the smell of fall in our neighborhood and whenever I catch a whiff of it today it's just like home.
 
I lived in a town with two sardine canneries, two poultry-evisceration facilities, and a fish-waste processing plant, all of which pumped their waste into an open river. In the summer, it smelled like you were stuck in an elevator with Death Himself.

And it still didn't stink as bad as cigarettes.

"A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse."

-- King James VI, 1604

Ah yes, King James' A Counterblaste to Tobacco. Written in 1604. I have used it frequently when people tell me that they never knew the risks of tobacco. lol lol
 
We had a *student* smoking area, at which the flower of youth gathered every morning. You had to run a gauntlet to get into the building.

Once one of these fine young people stuck a smouldering butt into the side of the first locker they encountered while walking into the building and set fire to the coat hanging inside. Building evacuation, fire department, the whole bit. It would've been fun if it hadn't been ten below zero outside.

Well, at least ours was at the back of the school---far away from the lockers.
Our denizens of the lot were the future troglodites of society. :p
 
Messages
13,460
Location
Orange County, CA
:p

Sultan Murad IV (1612-1640)
Banned alcohol, tobacco and coffee making it punishable by death. Murad even had his own sting operation roaming the streets and taverns of Constantinople disguised in civilian clothes enforcing his edict.

"Wine is such a devil that I must protect my people by drinking all of it."
...Sultan Murad IV
It should be noted that "Murry" died of cirhossis of the liver at age 27

401px-Murad_IV.jpg
 
:p

Sultan Murad IV (1612-1640)
Banned alcohol, tobacco and coffee making it punishable by death. Murad even had his own sting operation roaming the streets and taverns of Constantinople disguised in civilian clothes enforcing his edict.

"Wine is such a devil that I must protect my people by drinking all of it."
...Sultan Murad IV
It should be noted that "Murry" died of cirhossis of the liver at age 27

401px-Murad_IV.jpg
I always enjoy a little hypocrisy from leaders. lol lol
 

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