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

[LizzieMaine]

All those clothes look pretty much the same to me. Sweatshop crap, no matter whose name is on the label.

 

[GHT]

Around here the Walmart crowd is approximately 1/3 the Joad family, 1/3 circus-sideshow people, and 1/3 outright criminals.

That last third, do they pay for their purchases? Or has Walmart become such a thieves kitchen that the company's overseas operation has had to make up the shortfall in their profits?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

On last count within a few miles of my house...

2 Kmarts
3 Walmarts
6 Targets

 

[rjb1]

I'm not sure that the last third actually are criminals/shoplifters, but just from appearance alone I wouldn't turn my back on any of them on the outside of the store.
We do have multiple Target stores here but I don't know what those people look like and whether they are a cut above Walmart shoppers. I haven't been in one of those in well over a decade.

Lizzie's mention of W. T. Grant's, Woolworth's, and McLellan's gave me a nostalgia attack. We once had all those here downtown and they had the BEST toy selection back when I was a kid. Almost sensory overload going in those during December.

Everyone in on this discussion needs to see this short video. The whole "Walmart" problem displayed in just over two minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKv6RcXa2UI

 

[Zombie_61]

...Another questionable trend is the odd acrylic nails where they have round blobs built up, or really wide ends. Or just extremely long. I have to wonder how one can do anything with those nails.

Until recently my wife's nails were...well, they weren't exactly finger-dagger-Freddy-Krueger long, but they were longer than they needed to be. A couple of months ago she lost her right thumbnail when she fell while walking our dog; her thumbnail dug into our front lawn like a tent spike, and remained in place as the rest of her body kept moving--rrrrrrriiiiippppp!!! As a result, she trimmed her remaining nails down to a more "normal" length (maybe 1/16"-1/8" past her fingertips as opposed to their previous 1/2" length), and commented the other night about how odd it was to be able to feel the keys touch her fingertips as she typed. You see, as her nails grew they became a natural extension of her fingers, and she had simply gotten used to using them as such.

 

[CataWhatas]

In defense of the big box chains (CVS, Walmart, Target, etc...)

The local, family owned pharmacy has not had my business for 10 years, after they refused to fill a prescription for a cough syrup because "The only reason you young kids get that is make drugs from it, you don't need it." No, I did not need it. My husband on the other hand was sick and wasn't able to sleep because he was coughing too hard. He'd been up 72 hours straight before he went to the doctor, who yelled at him for not coming in sooner. I admit, I was not looking my best as I was a very new mom with a colic prone 3 week old, and I was running on no sleep also.

I let them know what I thought of them, in less than polite terms. And went to the 24 hour CVS 3 miles farther away. Where they promptly filled the prescription, gave me a hug, and the older cashier showed me how to swaddle my son, who promptly calmed down and slept for more than an hour for the first time. No comments on how I was a a drug user, no refusal to fill needed medication, no dirty looks from employees for having a less than clean shirt on and a crying baby.

I'm not saying the big stores are wonderful, and I often prefer the local stores to the big box stores, but local stores also need to look at how they serve the population. Because if the big box store beats your customer service, it's the store's fault - not the population's fault for not shopping there.

I won't pick on Walmart, it's not that close to me, so I don't usually bother going that far.

 

[CataWhatas]

Until recently my wife's nails were...well, they weren't exactly finger-dagger-Freddy-Krueger long, but they were longer than they needed to be. A couple of months ago she lost her right thumbnail when she fell while walking our dog; her thumbnail dug into our front lawn like a tent spike, and remained in place as the rest of her body kept moving--rrrrrrriiiiippppp!!! As a result, she trimmed her remaining nails down to a more "normal" length (maybe 1/16"-1/8" past her fingertips as opposed to their previous 1/2" length), and commented the other night about how odd it was to be able to feel the keys touch her fingertips as she typed. You see, as her nails grew they became a natural extension of her fingers, and she had simply gotten used to using them as such.

Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!

Even 1/2" doesn't bother me, I don't think. It's the ones that are curling around, easily 2" past the finger. Granted, I don't have any really, so I guess I'm lost on how you'd get used to them.

 

[Gregg Axley]

True, ha ha

Target is where the walmart shoppers go to buy clothes so they don't look like they shop at walmart.

Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk 2

Target was a good store when they first came to my town.
Then once they started building the super targets, things got weird.
I go to target for one or two items that I can't get anywhere else.
Other than that, I have no use for target, especially since they are very proud of their cheap items.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Nowadays I mainly go to Target and Walmart to buy groceries.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Nowadays I mainly go to Target and Walmart to buy groceries.

At the ranch, there's a Walmart and a Tractor Supply in town, and not much else. So if you want something "off the rack", be it underwear or a plasma TV, it's either drive 60 miles to Waco or Walmart. To tell you the truth, neither are particularly appealing.

 

[bburtner@moran]

Nothing,I will not be around long enough to really have any concerns about anything becoming obsolete,and frankly I don`t care!

 

[sheeplady]

Shopping on Thanksgiving. The only time I set foot in a store on a holiday is a grocery store if I absolutely cannot live without something.

I think shopping on Thanksgiving represents everything wrong with modern culture:
1. Rather than be thankful for what we have we have to spend the day going out and buying more stuff.
2. We value stuff more than family time.
3. We don't give a **** that other people who shouldn't have to work are working rather than spending time with their families with no extra pay so we can buy more stuff.
4. We trample over strangers for stuff with no regard to safety.
5. We don't care that the stuff is made by people (including children) kept in slavery-like conditions in other countries.
6. We buy more stuff we don't need.
7. We're so impatient we can't wait 24 hours to get our stuff. We must have MORE STUFF NOW!

And even worse, this commercialism, this blatant disregard for how workers are treated in our own and other countries, comes on a day on which we are supposed to be thankful for what we have and think about how others are less fortunate. Urgh. They couldn't get us to send Turkey Day Cards so they gave us this.

I thought Christmas time was bad. This is so much worse.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And even worse, this commercialism, this blatant disregard for how workers are treated in our own and other countries, comes on a day on which we are supposed to be thankful for what we have and think about how others are less fortunate. Urgh. They couldn't get us to send Turkey Day Cards so they gave us this.

I thought Christmas time was bad. This is so much worse.

Well said. It's just another example of a degenerate society whose god is its belly.

The whole emphasis on marketing has driven me away from most holidays. We have a very small, intimate family meal on Thanksgiving -- no overblown feast, no imposing on anyone to spend extra money or effort. With the exception of visiting my mother on Christmas Day, I no longer celebrate that holiday at all, and the only people I give gifts to for birthdays are those to whom I'm most close. Otherwise, I completely reject the increasing commercialization of sentiment.

 

[p51]

I'm equally saddened that service-level employees have to work on Thanksgiving more than ever before.
But that said, we should have seen this coming. We've all watched the "Christmas shopping season" creep ever forward for years now. Remember the Charlie Brown TV special, "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown"? They go to a store and already see Christmas sales going on. That was made in 1974.
More than anything, I've never understood the whole Thanksgiving tradition of sitting down to pro or college football. Nobody in my family was ever a giant sports fan, but that generally was all that was on TV. I'm so glad I didn't marry into a family who had a gridiron holiday tradition. I always felt bad for the college players especially. Now, they're playing a lot of games on Christmas day, and that just seems exploitive to me.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm equally saddened that service-level employees have to work on Thanksgiving more than ever before.
But that said, we should have seen this coming. We've all watched the "Christmas shopping season" creep ever forward for years now. Remember the Charlie Brown TV special, "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown"? They go to a store and already see Christmas sales going on. That was made in 1974.

Indeed. It was offensive then, too -- even as a kid it bothered me when you'd see someone come around selling Christmas cards door to door and the World Series wasn't even over yet. But it *has* gotten worse, a lot worse. "Black Friday" didn't exist when I was a young adult, let alone when I was a kid. Now it's institutionalized. Thanksgiving Day shopping now is about at the level Black Friday was in 1990 -- so imagine what it's going to be like in twenty years. Shopping will be *part of the Thanksgiving Ritual.*

Over the highway and up the ramp

To Super Wal Mart we go.

Mom knows the way

To spend money today.

And she drags us along to go.

Along the toy aisle and to the TV's

Watch the credit card flash!

We spend and spend like there's no end

And surround ourselves with trash.

The creep is getting more and more blatant because *people encourage it.* Someone might tut-tut about how the Christmas stuff is out before Labor Day, but they'll also go in there and buy the crap because "they want to get a head start, blah blah blah."

The only way to make this stuff stop is to refuse to participate in it. You probably still won't make it stop on a national or global level, but getting it out of your own life is extremely liberating. And once you reject it, the scales fall off your eyes and you see clearly just how perverted and sinister it is.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Shopping on Thanksgiving. The only time I set foot in a store on a holiday is a grocery store if I absolutely cannot live without something.

I think shopping on Thanksgiving represents everything wrong with modern culture:
1. Rather than be thankful for what we have we have to spend the day going out and buying more stuff.
2. We value stuff more than family time.
3. We don't give a **** that other people who shouldn't have to work are working rather than spending time with their families with no extra pay so we can buy more stuff.
4. We trample over strangers for stuff with no regard to safety.
5. We don't care that the stuff is made by people (including children) kept in slavery-like conditions in other countries.
6. We buy more stuff we don't need.
7. We're so impatient we can't wait 24 hours to get our stuff. We must have MORE STUFF NOW!

And even worse, this commercialism, this blatant disregard for how workers are treated in our own and other countries, comes on a day on which we are supposed to be thankful for what we have and think about how others are less fortunate. Urgh. They couldn't get us to send Turkey Day Cards so they gave us this.

I thought Christmas time was bad. This is so much worse.

I'm in love. Will you marry me?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I'm equally saddened that service-level employees have to work on Thanksgiving more than ever before.
But that said, we should have seen this coming. We've all watched the "Christmas shopping season" creep ever forward for years now. Remember the Charlie Brown TV special, "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown"? They go to a store and already see Christmas sales going on. That was made in 1974.
More than anything, I've never understood the whole Thanksgiving tradition of sitting down to pro or college football. Nobody in my family was ever a giant sports fan, but that generally was all that was on TV. I'm so glad I didn't marry into a family who had a gridiron holiday tradition. I always felt bad for the college players especially. Now, they're playing a lot of games on Christmas day, and that just seems exploitive to me.

I too lack the sports gene. I usually spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with my cousins and of course my uncle, the one male cousin and the husbands of my other cousins are all into the football game so that kind of leaves me the odd man out.

 

[sheeplady]

The whole emphasis on marketing has driven me away from most holidays. We have a very small, intimate family meal on Thanksgiving -- no overblown feast, no imposing on anyone to spend extra money or effort.

I am a huge celebrater (?) of holidays. I love them. I dress up the house, I put on a big meal, etc. But I am not about buying all sorts of junk to do it- most of my stuff is the pickings left after the previous holiday- and I save *everything* as decorations from year to year.

I always felt bad for the college players especially. Now, they're playing a lot of games on Christmas day, and that just seems exploitive to me.

There's this show on our local public television station called Ivory Tower Half Hour. It's a show were they have about 6 different professors from history, political science, etc. who talk about current events. One of the guys on there has always gone on and on about how college players, particularly those in impact sports with high risk of injury aren't compensated well enough.

For the longest time, I was like most of the other people on the show, thinking "that's the most stupid thing I've heard. They get free scholarships and free room and board. That's like $50,000 a year to toss around a ball in their free time." But then I started thinking about it. College sports are a huge way that schools bring in money. Our basketball coach at the local university makes about $800,000 a year, plus outrageous benefits. (We live in a low cost area- you can buy a nice nice house here for around $300,000.) The football coach is not far behind. The sports program brings in at least $20 million in a year after costs.

So what about the players that generate $20 mil a year? The education these scholar athletes receive may often be sub-par- they are forced to take "easy" majors and a lot of general education classes that don't tend to qualify them for much on the job market. That is because they are often spending 40 to 60 hours a week practicing and playing- at a minimum. If they are injured, their scholarships are not continued- meaning that many of them cannot afford to continue their degree if they are hurt on the field. (Many student athletes come from lower income families and/or go for a scholarship at a much more expensive school than they could otherwise afford.) Most will not qualify for professional teams, so they are not guaranteed to get rich quick. All while they have the risk of serious injury or death while the schools make huge amounts of money off of them. Their bodies get the wear and tear of playing hard- often as hard as the pros- while making pennies compared to pro-athletes.

While it is by far not the most exploitative area out there, it certainly is not fair considering the money that is made.

I'm in love. Will you marry me?

Sorry, taken. Otherwise, I appreciate the proposal.

 

[p51]

The only way to make this stuff stop is to refuse to participate in it. You probably still won't make it stop on a national or global level, but getting it out of your own life is extremely liberating. And once you reject it, the scales fall off your eyes and you see clearly just how perverted and sinister it is.

I have never participated and neither has my wife. The one time she ever went to one of those 'midnight before black friday' sales was when a friend of hers begged her to come along because she didn't wanna be outside waiting alone. My wife was not inclined to do that again (nor was her friend, it turned out).
We buy Christmas presents throughout the year, as we encounter them ("Oh, _____ would love that, I'll just put it away until it's needed...") but having never contributed, sadly, hasn't done anything to curtail the 'creep' which i don't see ending.

I too lack the sports gene. I usually spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with my cousins and of course my uncle, the one male cousin and the husbands of my other cousins are all into the football game so that kind of leaves me the odd man out.

The only Football watched on either side of the family is when my Alma Mater (Florida State) plays, and only if there's really nothing else going on. I was raised in a family where everyone was into history. I got stories of Nathan Bedford Forrest's battlefield exploits or my Uncles telling me about hunting Tigers (and Japanese soldiers) in the Pacific, stuff like that. Grown men playing with a ball for millions of dollars seems sort of... sissy, in comparison to that.

 

[rjb1]

My parents had a clever way to keep us kids (me and my brother) from being too greedy and materialistic at Christmas. From a kid's perspective, if you could just ask Santa for stuff and it would be there on Christmas morning, why not ask for almost anything and everything?
To put a stop to that, my parents told us that we could ask Santa for stuff and we would likely get it, but that my Dad had to repay Santa Claus for whatever we got. It seemed perfectly reasonable to us, and we acted accordingly.
It made us think long and hard to make sure we got things that we wanted, but that also my Dad could afford.
We got some good toys over the years, but it made us more responsible about Christmas "materialism" from an early age.

Later, our family gave up giving presents completely and Christmas was just a time to get together.