Things you wish nobody had thought up...

[Rooster_Ties]

"New Look, Same Great Taste!!"

Quit changing how the fucking packaging looks. Just quit it!!

[RDK]

So many things about the grocery store have annoyed me for a while now, including the produce stickers.

Grocery bags. I'm glad that the trend is to bring your own bag to the store again. My grandmother used to bring her own bags. Maybe that's why it made no sense to me that people would take trash from the store and throw it away at their house.

Do I really need a bag to put my bag of potato chips in? No. Would I like a bag for my chapstick? Seriously? One bag is plenty for the orange juice.

Produce bags. Do I really need to bag my apples? God forbid they touch my tomatoes.

Unfortunately, I know someone who makes their living selling bags to grocery stores. I understand why they push those damn things on us.

Where the heck do you shop? For as many decades as I can remember, cashiers have asked me, "Would you like a bag with that?" They rarely force bags upon you, and most people I know only take one when they have, well, a bag-full of stuff that they need to easily carry around.

[RDK]

Grocery bags. I'm glad that the trend is to bring your own bag to the store again. My grandmother used to bring her own bags. Do I really need a bag to put my bag of potato chips in? No. Would I like a bag for my chapstick? Seriously? One bag is plenty for the orange juice.

My theory is to make disposable plastic (or paper) grocery bags the same price as the reusable canvas bags.

In other words, charge $2 per bag, no matter what kind it is, paper, plastic, or canvas.

If everyone had a pay a $2 surcharge for every bag they DIDN'T bring to the store for reuse, that'd fuckin' cure people REAL quick of using BILLIONS of 'disposable' bags per year.

I'm serious.

Do most people really just toss away the paper or plastic bags they bring home from the market? I dunno, maybe it's just me, but whether paper or plastic I reuse them for either trash or recycling bags in my kitchen. Heck, the bags I get from the market come in handy in my house. Don't understand all the complaints.

[Christiern]

In NYC they not only automatically bag every item, the plastic bags are so thin that they generally have to use two. When supermarkets hit a slow time, it is common to see check-out clerks doubling up their empty bags. Ridiculous waste.

[Chuck Nessa]

Ann, bless her heart, has made shopping bags for the two of us. We get a $.05 discount per bag at local stores.

I will never forget introducing Henry Grimes and companion to self checkout and shopping bags a few years ago. MM said "If they did this in NY, I'd never pay for anything".

[papsrus]

Employee self-help web sites. They've managed to turn a 5-minute phone call into an hour-long nightmare of navigating a security-obsessed, overly complex and ultimately useless corporate website.

Efficiency my ass. :bwallace2:

[connoisseur series500]

Great thread! I agree with the complaints. Corporations have achieved cost cots in exachange for "time theft" on the part of the employee and consumer.

I hate the fact that every new electronic device has to come with new and useless extra options and buttons. I can't exchange my old cellphone for another without having to go through a technical class to learn how to operate it.

[connoisseur series500]

Employee self-help web sites. They've managed to turn a 5-minute phone call into an hour-long nightmare of navigating a security-obsessed, overly complex and ultimately useless corporate website.

Efficiency my ass. :bwallace2:

I call this employee and consumer time theft. Saves the company money but robs us of energy and time.

[.:.impossible]

Grocery bags. I'm glad that the trend is to bring your own bag to the store again. My grandmother used to bring her own bags. Do I really need a bag to put my bag of potato chips in? No. Would I like a bag for my chapstick? Seriously? One bag is plenty for the orange juice.

My theory is to make disposable plastic (or paper) grocery bags the same price as the reusable canvas bags.

In other words, charge $2 per bag, no matter what kind it is, paper, plastic, or canvas.

If everyone had a pay a $2 surcharge for every bag they DIDN'T bring to the store for reuse, that'd fuckin' cure people REAL quick of using BILLIONS of 'disposable' bags per year.

I'm serious.

Do most people really just toss away the paper or plastic bags they bring home from the market? I dunno, maybe it's just me, but whether paper or plastic I reuse them for either trash or recycling bags in my kitchen. Heck, the bags I get from the market come in handy in my house. Don't understand all the complaints.

I have neighbors to the left and right of me. Each week, our recycling bin is overflowing. Our trash can is usually about half full. They don't even put out a recycling bin. Maybe they just don't drink as much beer as me! (Is it time for a kegerator SS1?)

I'm glad that you get it. And I'm glad that the grocery stores in L.A. get it. But, where I am, people still don't get it.

We have two small trashcans in the house that we use plastic grocery bags in. They get emptied once a week. Usually, there are a couple of pieces of tissue in them, a q tip or two, occasionally an empty tube of toothpaste. I'll get a paper grocery bag once a month for peanut shells.

[.:.impossible]

So many things about the grocery store have annoyed me for a while now, including the produce stickers.

Grocery bags. I'm glad that the trend is to bring your own bag to the store again. My grandmother used to bring her own bags. Maybe that's why it made no sense to me that people would take trash from the store and throw it away at their house.

Do I really need a bag to put my bag of potato chips in? No. Would I like a bag for my chapstick? Seriously? One bag is plenty for the orange juice.

Produce bags. Do I really need to bag my apples? God forbid they touch my tomatoes.

Unfortunately, I know someone who makes their living selling bags to grocery stores. I understand why they push those damn things on us.

Where the heck do you shop? For as many decades as I can remember, cashiers have asked me, "Would you like a bag with that?" They rarely force bags upon you, and most people I know only take one when they have, well, a bag-full of stuff that they need to easily carry around.

Wilmington NC!

[RDK]

Wilmington NC!

Point taken!

Seriously, a lot of that same shit goes on out here too - though either ironically or amazingly I just heard some recent study that declared L.A. the second (iirc) greenest city in the U.S. based on some specific emissions. Has to do with the weather and relative non-use of air conditioners...

[paul secor]

Our local supermarket gives a .05 for every bag you bring in and use for your groceries. I saved .10 this afternoon, but I'd use my own bags even if there were no discount. Those plastic supermarket bags are a blight on society. Granted, there are worse blights, but this is one I can help do something about.

[Dave James]

Back in the day, it used to be pretty easy to open a container of milk. Sometime in the last 15 years or so, it became almost impossible to open one of these without ripping the shit out of the spout. I would imagine that this change, like so many others, may have been precipitated by the Tylenol poisoning, but it doesn't make it any less annoying.

Up over and out.

[Rooster_Ties]

Our local supermarket gives a .05 for every bag you bring in and use for your groceries. I saved .10 this afternoon, but I'd use my own bags even if there were no discount. Those plastic supermarket bags are a blight on society. Granted, there are worse blights, but this is one I can help do something about.

Like I said before, charge $1 for every bag (otherwise given out by the store now for free), and DON'T charge $1 if you bring your own bags in and use them instead -- and that'll reduce the number of excess bags being used by 98%.

[Jazzmoose]

Our local supermarket gives a .05 for every bag you bring in and use for your groceries. I saved .10 this afternoon, but I'd use my own bags even if there were no discount. Those plastic supermarket bags are a blight on society. Granted, there are worse blights, but this is one I can help do something about.

Like I said before, charge $1 for every bag (otherwise given out by the store now for free), and DON'T charge $1 if you bring your own bags in and use them instead -- and that'll reduce the number of excess bags being used by 98%.

Well, when you get the job of dictator, you can put this into effect, but before that, good luck. A similar plan was suggested here in Oregon, and as you can guess, people went absolutely bugfuck.

[Jim Alfredson]

I need to get some cloth bags. The plastic ones are starting to piss me off.

[Rooster_Ties]

I need to get some cloth bags. The plastic ones are starting to piss me off.

Get at least four canvas bags for every car in your household, and KEEP THEM IN THE CAR (or cars). When you buy things, bring them in the house, and then immediately hang the bags on the inside doorknob of the front door -- so they get put back out in the car the next time you go out.

My wife and I had canvas bags for years, but always forgot them at home, time and time again. The only thing that's ever worked for us is to keep them in the car, in every car (we only have two cars). Works like a charm.

[Jazzmoose]

Here's another one that burns me: those 'anti-theft' RC tags that stores put on movies and CDs (even though the manufacturers already add them internally), clothing, condoms, razor blades, and damn near anything high theft. The equipment is always shitty; the cashier can damn near beat the thing to death over the deactivating pad and it still trips the alarm on the way out. Then you get the store security person coming over wanting to see your receipt while you wait, which is kind of stupid, because the people who are actually stealing beat it the hell out the door already, probably already moving fast before they even got to the sensors.

I gotta tell ya, and this is speaking as someone who used to do store security, if I hear an alarm go off as I'm leaving the store, I just keep walking. Fuck 'em.

[BruceH]

TV commercials at movie theaters. That blows.

[.:.impossible]

spam.

[Ted O'Reilly]

Up over and out.

I wish Dave James had never thought to add "up over and out" on each of his postings...

[Jazzmoose]

Now that you mention it, we could have done without the signature function on this board as well...

[Ted O'Reilly]

Now that you mention it, we could have done without the signature function on this board as well...

If that means all the stuff that appears all the time under certain posters' entries (such as Jazzmoose doesn't have a personal statement currently) me too. Whadda waste of bytes...

Edited September 23, 2008 by Ted O'Reilly

[AndrewHill]

Now you have me thinking about that sticky tape they use on the Blue Note CDs!

(Which is much harder to remove than the similar tape they use on OJCs for example)

And those stickers plastered all over Columbia/Legacy's cd's. Those big square yellow ones in particular (those gold Miles stickers are ok to get off) whose glue comes right off the sticker and stays on the jewel case-WHAT A PAIN IN THE ASS TO GET THAT FRICKIN' GLUE OFF THE CASE

[papsrus]

Now you have me thinking about that sticky tape they use on the Blue Note CDs!

(Which is much harder to remove than the similar tape they use on OJCs for example)

And those stickers plastered all over Columbia/Legacy's cd's. Those big square yellow ones in particular (those gold Miles stickers are ok to get off) whose glue comes right off the sticker and stays on the jewel case-WHAT A PAIN IN THE ASS TO GET THAT FRICKIN' GLUE OFF THE CASE

I've stopped trying to peel those stickers off. Easier just to buy a box full of empty jewel cases and move the booklets, covers, disc, etc., into those.