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What Does The FL Think of So-called Black Friday?

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,728
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
My grandfather. While watching the Red Sox. To the day he died, he couldn't say the name "Don Zimmer" without inserting at least half a dozen concise reflections on Mr. Zimmer's legitimacy and the possible occupation of his mother between the two names. And they were never the same twice. That's a real gift.
 

vitanola

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,254
Location
Gopher Prairie, MI
Lord knows folks try. I can't begin to scratch the surface of how much poor quality work gets done by low skilled / low paid migrant workers. Why on earth would I pay an electrician $75+ an hour to wire my house when I can find a couple of day laborers who will do it for $10 an hour and be done in half the time? How bad do think this could get?
Please don't think I have any kind of problem at all with immigrants. I absolutely do not, I figure that unless you are a Native American you pretty much wouldn't be here, but often times employers are only looking at the bottom line and overlook the fact that willingness to do a job is not the same as knowing how to do a job.

Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk 2


Some contractors in our neck of the woods are now "training up" Amish Electricians.
 

vintageTink

One Too Many
Messages
1,321
Location
An Okie in SoCal
I've got plumbers, roofers, and a contractor all at my house now, banging away. They are have good lives with nice trucks and homes and families.
No matter who you are, and what the economy is doing, the ****er still gets clogged and the roof still leaks. lol
The trades were abandoned in the country both educationally, and socially. That's a damn shame too. When I was a kid, we had metal, wood, power-mechanics, and home-ec classes, not to mention three years of driver's ed. We were taught to be able to do anything. Today, you have kids with 200k in student loans for a fem-lit degree that is not worth the paper it was ink-jet printed on. What an elfin' mess.

Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs has been campaigning and offers scholarships to those wanting to learn trades. I think it's a wonderful idea!
 
My grandfather. While watching the Red Sox. To the day he died, he couldn't say the name "Don Zimmer" without inserting at least half a dozen concise reflections on Mr. Zimmer's legitimacy and the possible occupation of his mother between the two names. And they were never the same twice. That's a real gift.

One of my favorite stories from Ball Four was the description of Joe Schultz and his two favorite swear words...and all their possible combinations.
 

sheeplady

I'll Lock Up
Bartender
Messages
4,479
Location
Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, USA
Veering back towards the subject of the downside of over-shopping, here's an interesting article from the New York Daily News: Man Commits Suicide At Mall After Girlfriend Insists On Buying More Shoes

You may now proceed with the "Fall specials" and "Shop 'til you drop" jokes; I'll save you a seat in Hell. :cool:

Besides the obvious statement that he likely had other issues, I do think all this consumerism causes people stress.


This time of year I think a lot of hoarders. When I was a kid we used to go to a lot of auctions. Many of the houses were packed full- from floor to ceiling. You couldn't sit on a chair, or sleep on a bed, or eat at the table because of this hoarding. Mostly "old stuff" in crates. It would take days to auction off the entire house- starting everyday at 8am and going until 6pm. At the end of the third day they'd start auctioning off rooms- you could get a whole "room" of stuff for $15 back then, but the deal was you had to take everything out of the room.

It is a mental illness. I'm not talking about having a dump room in the house that is messy or overcrowded, I'm talking the whole house is a dump room. It is incredibly sad. It is quite horrid to be a hoarder- there is a lot of fear and anxiety there.
 
Messages
10,181
Location
Pasadena, CA
If you ever watch "Hoarders" you'll see most are indeed mentally ill. Some are worse than others. Many have lost a child/spouse and it starts when the tragic event happens. For some it's fear of not "being prepared" and they spend every cent on "bargains" and the homes are filled top-to-bottom, as well as garages and yards, etc.
Sometimes I even feel myself looking on eBay when I'm bummed out. It's so easy now to buy things without even leaving the house that I imagine we'll see more cases of this.

We've spent the last year going through our collections and paring down. You go through phases when collecting X is fun, then it dies down. Our goal is to really cut back and simplify the house now. We're all collectors here, so that's kinda tough to do, but you do wakeup sometimes ad think "wow, it's time to sell some things" :)
 
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If you ever watch "Hoarders" you'll see most are indeed mentally ill. Some are worst than others. Many have lost a child/spouse and it starts when the tragic event happens. For some it's fear of not "being prepared" and they spend every cent on "bargains" and the homes are filled top-to-bottom, as well as garages and yards, etc.
Sometimes I even feel myself looking on eBay when I'm bummed out. It's so easy now to buy things without even leaving the house that I imagine we'll see more cases of this.

We've spent the last year going through our collections and paring down. You go through phases when collecting X is fun, then it dies down. Our goal is to really cut back and simplify the house now. We're all collectors here, so that's kinda tough to do, but you do wakeup sometimes ad think "wow, it's time to sell some things" :)

They can sell my things after I die. :p
 

Gregg Axley

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,125
Location
Tennessee
Complaining about your investments in their future?
How dare they. :D

What I've noticed about stores now, is that they include discounts (usually reserved for in store) online.
The number of stores doing this has grown each year.
Now I can get the same discount, just cruising the net, as people fighting to get a parking spot, rushing into the store in the hopes they haven't run out of a certain item, and elbowing their way to the register just to get out of the madness.
Plus there is no line at my food court, or at my restroom. :D
 
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Complaining about your investments in their future?
How dare they. :D

What I've noticed about stores now, is that they include discounts (usually reserved for in store) online.
The number of stores doing this has grown each year.
Now I can get the same discount, just cruising the net, as people fighting to get a parking spot, rushing into the store in the hopes they haven't run out of a certain item, and elbowing their way to the register just to get out of the madness.
Plus there is no line at my food court, or at my restroom. :D

You have a point there. My wife sent me to get cat food and told me how much it should have been. I get to the store and find out it is $5 a bag more on the shelf! I take it to the register and find out she has looked on line and gotten a coupon attached to our store card and a store discount for the area we live in. In the end? $10 less. I almost fell down. :p
Safeway does that I guess. :D
 

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