So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[LizzieMaine]

I think if it's someone else's kid, there's not much you can do except yell. It's just not really effective

Indeed. I'd like to have a dollar for every kid that some Modern Parent has allowed to run across our lobby during family-type shows, regardless of the danger of stairs or causing other patrons to trip. When I see this going, it's not going to work for me to find the parent and calmly reason with them, let alone the kid. What works is me to yell, in a glass-breaking fishwife voice, NO RUNNING! That stops them dead every time, and if the parent is offended they're welcome to a great big complimentary bowl of "I Don't Give A Spit."

 

[Trenchfriend]

NO RUNNING! That stops them dead every time."

I like that!
Probably, I would have yelled my version: HEY KIDS, NOT SO HASTY!!

 

[2jakes]

Yelling ?

Why bother ? All you get is a sore throat.
Taser works better & you don’t disrupt the patrons watching the program.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I keep trying to get a license for a tranquilizer dart gun, but the authorities frown on this.

 

[2jakes]

Priorities !
Ban auto transmissions or allow tranquilizer dart guns.

But as a dictator, why not both.?

 

[Trenchfriend]

Oh no no no! You can't take us german petrol-heads our beloved hand-gearbox! Then, the revolution will coming up!

 

[Fading Fast]

I think if it's someone else's kid, there's not much you can do except yell. It's just not really effective.

And I have had people admonish my daughter in ways I don't like. I used the cookie example because at a party on Halloween I let my daughter have two cookies (after asking the host). A woman (who I don't know) said to my daughter: "we don't want to eat too many cookies, we'll get fat!" My daughter, who's two, was like, "um, my mommy said..." to her credit and turned towards me, at which point I said, "she asked nicely and I checked with the host. She can have the cookie."

Cue the end of the night and this woman's letting her son gobble up all his halloween candy as long as he eats a baby carrot before each piece. My child could pick out one piece for that night and still has halloween candy. But two cookies will make her fat....

This is, IMHO, partly why the community raising model was and is not sustainable for long periods of time. For a moment in time, in some communities it worked, but as I noted above, it was already breaking down in my small town by the '70s. Too many things have to come together - a shared sense of values and ethics, almost all decent people, no one too severe in either their discipline or in their take-offense meter, etc. And in today's world where we don't try to cultivate one common "American" culture but embrace diversity, it is even harder as different cultures have different approaches to child rearing. I'm glad I saw it kinda work for a small part of my childhood, but I don't see it coming back.

 

[2jakes]

I keep trying to get a license for a tranquilizer dart gun, but the authorities frown on this.

As projectionists at the Strand, has there been a time when the projector stopped.

I'm thinking of the days when the audience would stomp on the floor & yelled
when ever the film came to an abrupt halt.

 

[sheeplady]

Indeed. I'd like to have a dollar for every kid that some Modern Parent has allowed to run across our lobby during family-type shows, regardless of the danger of stairs or causing other patrons to trip. When I see this going, it's not going to work for me to find the parent and calmly reason with them, let alone the kid. What works is me to yell, in a glass-breaking fishwife voice, NO RUNNING! That stops them dead every time, and if the parent is offended they're welcome to a great big complimentary bowl of "I Don't Give A Spit."

In that case I'd totally support yelling at the kid. I'd yell at my kid in that situation... it falls into a health/ safety thing or destruction of property at that point.

But I'd only yell a few times. Then it's consequences time. We're going home... unless you fall flat on your face. Secretly I hope for a mild tumble, because natural consequences are such a good teacher.

 

[Zombie_61]

...When I'm dictator automatic transmissions will be banned, and drivers will be forced to think about what their vehicle is doing.

I think you'd have to train those drivers to think about what they're doing first.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As projectionists at the Strand, has there been a time when the projector stopped.

I'm thinking of the days when the audience would stomp on the floor & yelled
when ever the film came to an abrupt halt.

It's happened far more often since we switched to the digital cinema system -- not so much the projector stopping as a switching failure between input sources. I installed an inside lock on the projection booth door last year to keep random jackasses from storming in to bother me when I'm trying to fix the problem.

In the days of 35mm film, I could splice a break in less than thirty seconds -- the screen went dark, but not for very long.

The people who really annoy me are the ones who go out to the concession stand and ask the kid there if we can pause the film while they go to the toilet. STAY HOME IF YOU WANT TO PAUSE/REWIND THE FRIGGIN MOVIE.

 

[LizzieMaine]

But I'd only yell a few times. Then it's consequences time. We're going home... unless you fall flat on your face. Secretly I hope for a mild tumble, because natural consequences are such a good teacher.

We've had a few of those. There's two low steps from the doorway to the lobby proper, with brass railings on either side, and kids love to climb on these and jump on the railings like it's a jungle gym. If I catch them I tell them to stop in my BAD DOG voice, but sometimes I don't catch them and they fall and land on their faces. I always get the stink eye from the mother -- the fathers, generally, couldn't care less, but the mother always tells me in a supercilious tone that I reeeeeeeally ought to take those railings down because somebody could get hurrrrrrrt.

 

[Matt Crunk]

The people who really annoy me are the ones who go out to the concession stand and ask the kid there if we can pause the film while they go to the toilet.

People really have the audacity to do this? Amazing. Asking you to stop a motion picture for a theater full of moviegoers so they, one person, can go relieve themselves without missing anything? How self-entitled we have become as a society.

 

[tonyb]

This is, IMHO, partly why the community raising model was and is not sustainable for long periods of time. For a moment in time, in some communities it worked, but as I noted above, it was already breaking down in my small town by the '70s. Too many things have to come together - a shared sense of values and ethics, almost all decent people, no one too severe in either their discipline or in their take-offense meter, etc. And in today's world where we don't try to cultivate one common "American" culture but embrace diversity, it is even harder as different cultures have different approaches to child rearing. I'm glad I saw it kinda work for a small part of my childhood, but I don't see it coming back.

I've long held that people who profess such a tremendous belief in "diversity" are mostly trying to convince themselves.

When I lived in and reported on a rapidly gentrifying district, the frequently heard refrain from the recent arrivals was how they so treasured the "diversity" of the area. The chorus was made up almost entirely of white people -- well-educated white people in professional occupations. Apparently all that advanced education never touched on self-delusion. Breathtaking as it was that these people apparently failed to recognize that the district was made all the less racially "diverse" by their very presence there, their concept of diversity was only of the most superficial sort. Let's see how much they treasure the diversity when the biker club moves in next door, or the Young Republicans, or the Mormon missionaries. Sure, they just love diversity, so long as those diverse sorts share all their political views and sense of decorum and taste in music.

I suspect that most people recognize this. Most people know that any society needs normative values. Those values change over time, and new arrivals to this country bring pieces of their old cultures to the mix. But there is such a thing as a mainstream culture, we are considerably more alike an unalike and thank the god of your choice for that.

 

[ChiTownScion]

My view is that the only diversity that matters is diversity of thought, opinion, and outlook. I may not want to hear a particular opinion at any given point in time, but I sure as heck will defend with my life your right to express it.

 

[GHT]

Let's see how much they treasure the diversity when the biker club moves in next door, or the Young Republicans, or the Mormon missionaries.

Or those people who like to light up the street with their, better than everyone else, through the garden, up the house, over the roof, down the other side, and just in case you missed it, all over the garage too, outside Christmas decoration fairy lights. Fairy lights? Hell some of those budding light show impressarios, could upstage a WW2 searchlight. Snobbish of me or not, if I lived within sight of a house like that, as soon as the festivities were over, the "for sale" board would go up outside my house.

 

[Stearmen]

Let's see how much they treasure the diversity when the biker club moves in next door, or the Young Republicans, or the Mormon missionaries. Sure, they just love diversity, so long as those diverse sorts share all their political views and sense of decorum and taste in music.

You should be so lucky to have my motorcycle club move in next to you! Motorcycle clubs, donate thousand of hours and millions of dollars a year helping people in their communities! Remember, the past president of that motorcycle club might just be me.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Thanks!

 

[Trenchfriend]

The Awo 425 is based on the BMW R25.

 

[GHT]

You should be so lucky to have my motorcycle club move in next to you!

Another good way to annoy the neighbours is to party until the early hours.