So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[GHT]

Proof that Satan exists.

Quite so, as Satan is an anagram of Santa and as we all know he's the guy who comes around at Christmas, and what is de rigueur on the plate of your Christmas meal? Brussel sprouts of course.

 

[2jakes]

Depends.
If you’ve been naughty, this is de rigueur on your plate.

 

[Fading Fast]

Quite so, as Satan is an anagram of Santa and as we all know he's the guy who comes around at Christmas, and what is de rigueur on the plate of your Christmas meal? Brussel sprouts of course.

I don't know what the heck goes on at your Christmas meal, but the Fading Fasts (really Fading Fast's girlfriend's family) don't have a hateful brussel sprout anywhere in sight at Christmas - thank God. Brussel sprouts fall outside the boundaries of food I will ever, ever considering eating again.

 

[MisterCairo]

Proof that Satan exists.

You know, I've said myself that it's the devil's cabbage?!

Much as parsnips are the devil's root vegetable...

 

[MisterCairo]

Quite so, as Satan is an anagram of Santa and as we all know he's the guy who comes around at Christmas, and what is de rigueur on the plate of your Christmas meal? Brussel sprouts of course.

Not in my home, not ever!


Ick...

 

[GHT]

How to get your kids to eat their brussel sprouts.

 

[Touchofevil]

Flyers/advertisements left on the front door, the front gate, the front yard. As well as the newspaper-like advertisement thrown up against the house or car, on the lawn, or in the driveway. It seems like litter to me. I didn't subscribe to have garbage left on or around my property on a weekly basis. How is this legal? They should have to pay postage just like all the other junk mailers.

 

[tonyb]

Flyers/advertisements left on the front door, the front gate, the front yard. As well as the newspaper-like advertisement thrown up against the house or car, on the lawn, or in the driveway. It seems like litter to me. I didn't subscribe to have garbage left on or around my property on a weekly basis. How is this legal? They should have to pay postage just like all the other junk mailers.

It peeves me too. Beyond it creating another little task for me to perform, it serves as an advertisement that no one is home.

I'm not quite to the point of advocating for its illegality, but I pay sufficient attention to what is printed on these pieces of litter to know which businesses to avoid.

The parking garages at the local light rail stations post signs warning against leaving fliers on cars. I can just imagine how much litter this stops before it can start.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Some years back, while living in another town, my driveway was continually littered by free newspapers. I called the publisher and asked that these not be left on my driveway. It didn't yield the hoped-for result. My response was to collect a number of these rain-soaked rags. I drove to the office of the publisher and dropped them on the receptionist's desk, explaining that I thought these belonged to them.

 

[tonyb]

How 'bout phone directories?

I haven't had need for a phone book in a decade or more. Yet the damn things still appear on my doorstep. They go directly into the recycling bin.

 

[Touchofevil]

How 'bout phone directories?

I haven't had need for a phone book in a decade or more. Yet the damn things still appear on my doorstep. They go directly into the recycling bin.

We recieve phone books multiple times throughout the year instead of the once it used to be. It seems backwards from how it should be/should've been. Ask me if I want it before it is thrown at my property.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I use the phone book regularly. Whenever I try to call a local business -- a plumber, a roof-repair company, a tree-removal service, a garage, whatever -- that see listed on the internet, more often than not it ends up being a number from years ago, and half the time the business doesn't even exist anymore. The printed phone book at least has the advantage of being reasonably up to date -- internet directories are like digging thru a wastebasket that never gets cleaned out.

 

[Fading Fast]

I have not seen a phone book in +/- a decade. They used to leave them in the lobby - once a year, usually - of every apartment house I've lived in, but that stopped a long time ago.

My experience has been the opposite of Lizzie's in that I just Google the name of the business or service, etc., that I'm looking for, but then I go to the individual business' website and, honestly, can't remember having a problem getting the right phone number.

Growing up, I loved phone books as, looking back, they, like the Sears catalogue, were a bit of the Internet of their day, but now, I wouldn't waste the shelf space, but that's not really an issue as, as noted, they don't appear in the lobby anymore.

 

[GHT]

I don’t mind the flyers, mail ads,

Every time I get unsolicited mail it gets a sticker put over my address, the letters RTS written on the sticker and posted right back. The problem with today's purchases is that it's often payment by plastic card, when you do that, as with having a loyalty card, you are leaving a footprint. Have you noticed the compulsory fields that you have to fill in to purchase something online? Time was, vendors bent over backwards for your business, nowadays they know everything about you, they act like they are doing you a favour. And how do they know about you? Every credit card purchase, every loyalty card scan is recorded, collated and sold on. Hand on heart I never get plagued with things like unwanted texts, just by giving a defunct number, same with email and as for credit card payment, cash is king. Vendors don't like it, am I shedding tears for them?

 

[HudsonHawk]

We have the large three volume set of phone books for the entire city, but there's a much smaller version for just our area. I use that one quite a bit because I want to find businesses that are reasonably close to my house. If I looked in the big yellow pages for say a plumber or an electrician, it might be someone 50 miles away.

As for looking it up online...that's certainly reasonable these days. However, I'm not sure how it is at everyone's house, but the computer is not always on at mine. By the time I go get my laptop, turn it on, google, sort for location, etc I could have already found something in the phone book.

 

[tonyb]

I sometimes go days without looking at the iMac. Got an iPad and an iPhone and the dewy-eyed bride has a Microsoft Surface.

My phone has in many ways become my newspaper and reference library. I'm sure I spend at least a couple hours per day on average reading news on the thing.

 

[Fading Fast]

We have the large three volume set of phone books for the entire city, but there's a much smaller version for just our area. I use that one quite a bit because I want to find businesses that are reasonably close to my house. If I looked in the big yellow pages for say a plumber or an electrician, it might be someone 50 miles away.

As for looking it up online...that's certainly reasonable these days. However, I'm not sure how it is at everyone's house, but the computer is not always on at mine. By the time I go get my laptop, turn it on, google, sort for location, etc I could have already found something in the phone book.

We have two computer that sit on all day - literally, tap a key, enter your password and your on the internet in ten seconds or less (we shut them all the way down at night as, over time, they get wonky if you don't).

I work on mine all day, so by the time I'd pull a phone book from a shelf and started flipping, I'd be like John Henry trying to beat the steam-powered hammer (even if I had won, the stress would break me).

That said, I'm not arguing a point at all - every house and its computer usage / set up is different - whatever works for you makes sense to me.

 

[tonyb]

But I do miss the Sears catalog, though. I suspect that surviving examples of the older ones are now collectible and are priced accordingly,

I got a box full of 1940s and '50s vintage Colliers and Life magazines. Paging through them, especially the ones dating from the war years, tells of those times in a way nothing else does.

 

[MisterCairo]

I use the phone book regularly. Whenever I try to call a local business -- a plumber, a roof-repair company, a tree-removal service, a garage, whatever -- that see listed on the internet, more often than not it ends up being a number from years ago, and half the time the business doesn't even exist anymore. The printed phone book at least has the advantage of being reasonably up to date -- internet directories are like digging thru a wastebasket that never gets cleaned out.

Agreed.

But surely, one copy is sufficient? We have the Bell Canada version, one that is strictly Yellow pages, one produced by our local newspaper of all things, AND a big print version (whether requested or not).

SAVE THE TREES!

 

[LizzieMaine]

But I do miss the Sears catalog, though. I suspect that surviving examples of the older ones are now collectible and are priced accordingly,

I got a box full of 1940s and '50s vintage Colliers and Life magazines. Paging through them, especially the ones dating from the war years, tells of those times in a way nothing else does.

Sears and Monkey-Ward catalogs are among the most valuable windows that exist into how ordinary people actually lived for most of the 20th Century. You can get a very close picture of what any part of that century was like just from a close reading of a sampling of those catalogs, and when you'll do so you'll find some things that will surprise you. For example, you could buy birth control products and vibrators in the Sears Catalog in the 1930s. What, you mean your grandma didn't tell you about that?