191–200 of 285 posts
My hometown of Los Alamos has a video store called Film Festival. It's still in business, still renting tapes, DVDs, etc. When I went back to visit a few years ago I was amazed
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Not only that, the tween years used to be when you developed the skills of independence that you'd hopefully more or less be able to use to be a teenager. A 9 or 10-year-old would have permission to walk or bike around the neighborhood, to and from school, maybe to a nearby shopping center or corner store... Today they're kept under lock and key for that whole time since we're afraid of having the cops called on us f…
Hey, cut us some slack, we were raised by Boomers.
For most of my 13 year old kid's friends, I only know their grandparents. Never see the actual parents.
This has been going on for a while, hasn't it? Radio shows, and then the TV. People could begin to entertain themselves without going out. My grandfather talks about how his father and mother went out dancing every week. It's probably an exaggeration brought on by fading memories but we don't to seem to have that as much any more.
This week I found a book called “let’s go all around the neighborhood” and read it to my 3 & 4 year old sons. It’s from 1982. A girl and her mother walk around doing errands. Mailing a letter at the post office. Buying shoes at the shoe store. Playing at the park. Eating at a restaurant. Going to the library. Buying an eggbeater at the hardware store. Stopping at the fruit and vegetable stand. They interact with huma…
You'd crack eggs into a bowl, stick the whisk in, and turn the crank. The end result was a homogenized mix of yolk and white, good for cooking with
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I've always found the concept of mailing a letter from your house really interesting. My understanding is that it's common in the US (which is why they have the little red thing on their mailboxes I think?), but I've never lived in a place where it's a thing. For such a capitalistic country, the way the US historically treated the USPS as a common civic good is really cool.
USPS is run as a federally owned business. It was traditionally self sustained by postage fees not by taxes, but it is nice that it was from our country's earliest days, a key piece of infrastructure. Nowadays mailing any letter is pretty rare as most people communicate via text, email, etc but it is still absolutely possible to do so. And yes the red flag is to indicate a letter needs to be picked up for delivery.
The end of interest-based 3rd places is one of the many things contributing to the compartmentalization / socioeconomic bubble of modern society. People used to frequent in person things like specialty retailers, arcades, hobby clubs, religious groups, etc. When you meet real life people in person based on shared interests, you make connections across socioeconomic groups. I just don't see nearly as much of this in t…
This week I found a book called “let’s go all around the neighborhood” and read it to my 3 & 4 year old sons. It’s from 1982. A girl and her mother walk around doing errands. Mailing a letter at the post office. Buying shoes at the shoe store. Playing at the park. Eating at a restaurant. Going to the library. Buying an eggbeater at the hardware store. Stopping at the fruit and vegetable stand. They interact with huma…
Even in 1982 you could mail a letter from your house, order shoes from a catalog, and order delivery food to your house. Admittedly, your choices were basically pizza, subs or Chinese for that type of delivery, but still, DoorDash mostly competes with cooking at home not with going out to restaurants (in fact, it has become more common to dine out than it was in 1982). I do lament the decline of brick-and-mortar reta…
Subs blew my mind because for almost all my childhood it was only pizza and Chinese.
I was at a friend's house and they got them for the whole family, couldn't believe it.
Then in cities, at first, it was like any ethnic food.
Then that crazy bastard started taking photos of people's menus.
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USPS is run as a federally owned business. It was traditionally self sustained by postage fees not by taxes, but it is nice that it was from our country's earliest days, a key piece of infrastructure. Nowadays mailing any letter is pretty rare as most people communicate via text, email, etc but it is still absolutely possible to do so. And yes the red flag is to indicate a letter needs to be picked up for delivery.
Hah, that's very interesting to learn. I've always thought the little flag was lifted by the mailman, so that the homeowner could tell from a distance that they got mail. Cool that it's actually the other way around.
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Even in 1982 you could mail a letter from your house, order shoes from a catalog, and order delivery food to your house. Admittedly, your choices were basically pizza, subs or Chinese for that type of delivery, but still, DoorDash mostly competes with cooking at home not with going out to restaurants (in fact, it has become more common to dine out than it was in 1982). I do lament the decline of brick-and-mortar reta…
I've always found the concept of mailing a letter from your house really interesting. My understanding is that it's common in the US (which is why they have the little red thing on their mailboxes I think?), but I've never lived in a place where it's a thing. For such a capitalistic country, the way the US historically treated the USPS as a common civic good is really cool.
This week I found a book called “let’s go all around the neighborhood” and read it to my 3 & 4 year old sons. It’s from 1982. A girl and her mother walk around doing errands. Mailing a letter at the post office. Buying shoes at the shoe store. Playing at the park. Eating at a restaurant. Going to the library. Buying an eggbeater at the hardware store. Stopping at the fruit and vegetable stand. They interact with huma…
But you can still do all those things from the book. Don't do the things you don't want to do.
