So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Edward]

I think this is what my wife likes about the old rotary phones...the weight of the handset. It just feels more substantial and like you're talking on the phone. She hates any sort of headset or earpiece, she likes the feeling of holding the receiver. I think I'm going to get her on of these:

I've seen similar concepts before, but never one in quite this style. Very nice. My grandmother used to be confused by her mobile; she could never quite figure out how it could both let her hear and be heard, when it wouldn't reach her mouth and her ear at the same time. If she'd lived to another Christmas, I was going to buy her something like this.

 

[Fading Fast]

My mother used to do it. The only worse job was being the voice of the time signal - which for a long time was done manually. Some poor soul sat alone in a room with a Western Union clock and a microphone and read out the time at thirty second intervals, for a full eight hour shift.

I - like most people - have had some crummy jobs, soME boring jobs, some hard jobs for little pay, but I simply could not do that job - reading out the time every thirty seconds - I'd probably put a bullet in my head first.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'd think that job would make one unusually conscious of their own mortality.

There was a radio play called "MEridian 7-1212" which focused on the "speaking clock" service and the people behind it. One of the operators was on duty as her convict brother approached his date with the electric chair and she had to count down the final seconds of his life......

 

[GHT]

I think this is what my wife likes about the old rotary phones...the weight of the handset. It just feels more substantial and like you're talking on the phone. She hates any sort of headset or earpiece, she likes the feeling of holding the receiver. I think I'm going to get her on of these:

There's quite a selection of retro style ports that a smart phone can be used with: See here.

 

[Bamaboots]

This ones been on my mind for awhile. Anyone who has looked at my postings know that I'm a pet person. Five dogs and cat until about a year ago when we had to let Ripley the cat go. We live in a small subdivision with a single access/egress, so we are all familiar with one another.

Our jurisdiction, as most, has leash laws that require all dogs be leashed outside their property boundaries and "poop" be scooped by the owners responsible for said dogs. After watching my dogs go crazy, looking out the windows, as one of our neighbors walked and allowed his dogs to come into the yard and our flower beds to do as they choose, I'd finally had enough. This after watching his dogs do their business in my yard and cleaning up after said dogs on a number of occasions.

I've bi....d about it for some time and the missus has discouraged me from being confrontational, but to me, this about general consideration for others and not being a rude ba....d. Things I still believe in.

Tonight, as his dogs roamed our yard, I spoke with the gentleman and he was more than agreeable with my concerns. I'm almost certain I didn't revert to "Cop Mode" , something that I let go of several years ago. I'm also certain that I didn't use this lengthy post to bleed my adrenaline that may have risen a few minutes ago.

 

[Zombie_61]

There's quite a selection of retro style ports that a smart phone can be used with: See here.

Okay, I can die now because I've seen it all. Cell phones were created so that people could get away from having to be anchored to a phone connected to a desk or wall by a wire, right? So now there are companies producing hardware to turn cell phones back into the very thing they were designed to not be??? That right there is a special kind of stupid.

...Our jurisdiction, as most, have leash laws that require all dogs be leashed outside their property boundaries and "poop" be scooped by the owners responsible for said dogs. After watching my dogs go crazy, looking out the windows, as one of our neighbors walked and allowed his dogs to come into the yard and our flower beds to do as they choose, I'd finally had enough. This after watching his dogs do their business in my yard and cleaning up after said dogs on a number of occasions...

Laws aside, it's simple common courtesy to those around you to clean up after your dog has taken care of business. This irritates my wife and I regardless of whether it's been done on our lawn or on the lawn of one of our neighbors, and we've come to the conclusion that some people are just selfish idiots.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've been standing in front of the theatre on a summer night and I've seen people walk right past me and let their dog take a horse-size dump right in the middle of the sidewalk. I bring it to their attention and they just shrug and keep on walking. And when I go inside to get the shovel to flip the mess into the gutter, someone invariably *walks right thru it* and leaves a trail of fecal footprints all the way down to the corner. Unless they walk into the theatre and grind it into the carpet.

I like dogs just fine, but if they ever propose an ordinance prohibiting dog-walking on Main Street I will be first in line to testify before the city council on its behalf. We actually had an ordinance about twenty years ago but that was directed against biker gangs with ferocious dobermans and was repealed when the bikers left town. But I'll say this -- those bikers *always* cleaned up after their dogs.

 

[Rockapin-up]

I've been standing in front of the theatre on a summer night and I've seen people walk right past me and let their dog take a horse-size dump right in the middle of the sidewalk. I bring it to their attention and they just shrug and keep on walking. And when I go inside to get the shovel to flip the mess into the gutter, someone invariably *walks right thru it* and leaves a trail of fecal footprints all the way down to the corner. Unless they walk into the theatre and grind it into the carpet.

I like dogs just fine, but if they ever propose an ordinance prohibiting dog-walking on Main Street I will be first in line to testify before the city council on its behalf. We actually had an ordinance about twenty years ago but that was directed against biker gangs with ferocious dobermans and was repealed when the bikers left town. But I'll say this -- those bikers *always* cleaned up after their dogs.

Wow that is rude and low class. How could you NOT pick up after your dog especially walking on busy side walks. Aren't there laws about picking up after your dog? Or is it just supposed to be common courtesy.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We have a clean-up ordinance, and there's even signs up that say DOG WASTE DEGRADES OUR CITY, but I suspect that the dog-owners responsible for said degradation live in their own little self-contained worlds where the needs of the collective community are of no consequence.

Last summer the kids spent an entire day digging up the little square of dirt in the middle of the sidewalk that we laughingly call a garden and replanting it with flowers and a rhododendron -- and by the end of the summer every single thing they'd planted had been killed by dog urine. Really makes you feel like putting out that extra bit of effort to beautify your little corner of the world.

 

[Zombie_61]

We have a clean-up ordinance, and there's even signs up that say DOG WASTE DEGRADES OUR CITY, but I suspect that the dog-owners responsible for said degradation live in their own little self-contained worlds where the needs of the collective community are of no consequence...

And the truly sad thing is, if you allowed your dog to do it's business on their property without cleaning it up, these self-important *insert expletive here* would be on the phone to the local police before your dog was done.

 

[GHT]

The difference between city life, as in London, and the rural life we now live, can be judged by dog mess. Here there's none to be seen, the wild horses leave their mark in the forest and the cows that roam leave cow pats everywhere, but nowhere is there a single dog turd.
What did amuse me in London was how quick the expression 'doggy-doos,' crossed the pond. It cracked me up when I saw a young woman, who looked like she had just stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine, step into a stinking mess. "Sh*t!" she exclaimed to her friend, "I've just stepped into some doggy-doos."

 

[Fading Fast]

In NYC, in the '70s, dog poop was everywhere as the city was breaking down - crime was up, even "good" neighborhoods weren't safe from muggings and worse - then, starting in the '80s, but really picking up steam in the '90s, NYC followed the "broken window" model of policing (in short, it's the theory that policing "little" crimes like broken windows has a big impact on society as, otherwise, society see all these "little" things as a decline and it encourages criminals to become more aggressive and commit bigger crimes) with the city actively enforcing its "pooper scooper" (pick up after your dog) law.

As a resident, the change was noticeable and immediate. Once people started getting fined for not picking up after their dog, the streets improved dramatically. As a dog owner - and someone who cleans up after his dog 100% of the time - I and other dog owners like me are infuriated when we see other dog owners not picking up (or making a half effort) as it gives us all a bad name. I've noticed it getting worse over the last several years and I'm hoping the city gets aggressive again in its enforcement as it is both the right thing to do and will improve non-dog-owner's view of dog owners.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

I've noticed it getting worse over the last several years and I'm hoping the city gets aggressive again in its enforcement as it is both the right thing to do and will improve non-dog-owner's view of dog owners.

Not with Mayor De Blasio. Has anyone heard from Rudy?

 

[Fading Fast]

Not with Mayor De Blasio. Has anyone heard from Rudy?

You would think enforcing "pooper scooper" laws wouldn't be another Right-Left thing, but I agree that De Blasio doesn't seem to have a passion for the day-to-day policing of "small" issues that Giuliani had.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The problem here is that we can't afford the cops to do that kind of enforcement. We have one traffic-enforcement officer who works a part time schedule, and not at all on weekends, and it's all he can do to keep up with handing out parking tickets. Personally, I think the time has come for some vigilante justice on the dog-turd front.

Back in the '80s, I lived in an apartment building that edged a parking lot behind a drugstore, with a picket fence between the lot and my garden. Sitting on the back porch one morning I saw a fancy foreign convertible with Massachusetts plates pull in, and the driver got out, walked up to the fence, unzipped, and "watered the garden." He then went into the drugstore to buy a new cocaine spoon or something. While he was in the store, I went to my own bathroom, picked up the wastebasket, full of all sorts of interesting things, went out to the parking lot, and dumped its contents into the back seat of the convertible. Vigilante justice.

 

[dh66]

You are makin' my day Lizzie!

Sent from my XT1030 using Tapatalk

 

[GHT]

You are makin' my day Lizzie!

Me too. I thought of making a note of that.
Some years ago in the British press, there was a report of something similar that turned nasty and wound up in court. On a camp site somewhere, a dog walker just left their pooch's mess for someone else to clear up. Incensed by this, another camper followed the dog owner, noted where his camp site was, went back and got his porta-potty and returned and emptied it at the entrance of the dog owner's trailer. Fisticuffs ensued and as I said, both went to court, where they were fined and bound over to keep the peace.

 

[Trenchfriend]

What do you mean, how much percent of allday-drivers got a pee-bottle (Punica-bottle or hospital-peebottle and so on) in their car?

Ok, cabriolet-drivers would be brave...

 

[tonyb]

We once accepted stepping in dog poop as one of those unfortunate realities. And we put up with dogs running loose and digging in garden beds and even the occasional snarly dog that scared the children and other sensible people.

And a kid with a box full of almost-weaned puppies at the supermarket on Saturday morning was a not uncommon sight.

No more. And that's mostly to the good.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It was a common thing on farms in the Era to drown unwanted puppies and kittens by putting them in a paper bag and dropping them down a well, and every year the Old Farmers Almanac included a section on how to chloroform unwanted pets. Fortunately by the end of the 1930s there were enlightened people fighting these practices and encouraging the spaying and neutering of pets, and this movement led directly to the establishment of "no-kill" animal shelters.