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Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
ia02140777.jpg
09-08-PlWa.gif
 

3fingers

One Too Many
Messages
1,797
Location
Illinois
Bottled water is the greatest scam of our time. If you look at the label of the majority of it you will see something like bottled from the municipal water supply of Anytown, USA. People complain about their municipal water bill being 20 or 30 dollars, but think nothing of paying through the nose for 20 ounces of the same thing. We have done some calculations on cost. If we charged 20 ounce bottled water rates the monthly water bill would be more than most peoples gross annual salary. Think about that one.
 
Messages
16,873
Location
New York City
Bottled water is the greatest scam of our time. If you look at the label of the majority of it you will see something like bottled from the municipal water supply of Anytown, USA. People complain about their municipal water bill being 20 or 30 dollars, but think nothing of paying through the nose for 20 ounces of the same thing. We have done some calculations on cost. If we charged 20 ounce bottled water rates the monthly water bill would be more than most peoples gross annual salary. Think about that one.

We are a tap water family (all two of us), but as noted in earlier posts, for taste, have been using Brita filters, but not religiously. But when out and about, if one wants water, the options are pretty limited other than buying it.

But, big picture, I agree with you. I have no complaints with our water bill - seems reasonably priced for all the water we use. Now, property taxes are a completely separate conversation with a separate conclusion.
 
Messages
10,603
Location
My mother's basement
Bottled water is the greatest scam of our time. If you look at the label of the majority of it you will see something like bottled from the municipal water supply of Anytown, USA. People complain about their municipal water bill being 20 or 30 dollars, but think nothing of paying through the nose for 20 ounces of the same thing. We have done some calculations on cost. If we charged 20 ounce bottled water rates the monthly water bill would be more than most peoples gross annual salary. Think about that one.

We wouldn't be watering our lawns with it, anyway.

Got a friend who devised a system for using filtered rain water for flushing toilets in a four-unit building he owns. Part of me thinks he did it just to prove to himself it could be done, and that was the person to do it.
 

3fingers

One Too Many
Messages
1,797
Location
Illinois
Got a friend who devised a system for using filtered rain water for flushing toilets in a four-unit building he owns. Part of me thinks he did it just to prove to himself it could be done, and that was the person to do it.
Good for him.
He must not live in California. I've been told it is illegal to harvest rainwater there, since according to the state it belongs to the state.
 

Haversack

One Too Many
Messages
1,193
Location
Clipperton Island
3fingers wrote: "He must not live in California. I've been told it is illegal to harvest rainwater there, since according to the state it belongs to the state."

Not since 2012 in California I think. During the most recent drought, the City of San Francisco was giving property owners free 55 gallon rain barrels for people to save rain water. In most Western states water rights tend to follow the doctrine of 'First in time, First in line' with some water rights going back to the 17th Century. Its only in the past ten years or so that this has begun to change.
 

Haversack

One Too Many
Messages
1,193
Location
Clipperton Island
Lithia Park in Ashland Oregon is famed for its mineral water which coincidentally has a high concentration of Lithium Oxide. It is not bottled for sale but instead is available at a public drinking fountain in the town plaza.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
It's called the Edwards Aquifer which is spring or artesian water
that comes from underground source that supplies the city.
It is one of the greatest natural resources on Earth
serving the diverse agricultural, industrial, recreational,
and domestic needs of almost two million users in south
central Texas.
For over two centuries, the city and many other cities
in the surrounding region were able to grow and prosper
without developing surface water or other water resources
because of the Edwards Aquifer.
 
Last edited:
Messages
10,603
Location
My mother's basement
3fingers wrote: "He must not live in California. I've been told it is illegal to harvest rainwater there, since according to the state it belongs to the state."

Not since 2012 in California I think. During the most recent drought, the City of San Francisco was giving property owners free 55 gallon rain barrels for people to save rain water. In most Western states water rights tend to follow the doctrine of 'First in time, First in line' with some water rights going back to the 17th Century. Its only in the past ten years or so that this has begun to change.

Yup. Prior appropriation and all that.

I was a bit taken aback on learning that in Colorado, where I had recently relocated, it was unlawful to gather the rainwater falling on one's roof. In the far cooler and damper Maritime Northwest, where I had resided over the preceding 46 years, residential rain barrels had become a common sight.

Legislation in Colorado changed that a couple sessions back. Now residents are allowed two 55-gallon barrels, I believe. And few people have adopted the rain-gathering practice, leastwise not many I've noticed.

Even if a majority of residents gathered the rainwater falling on their roofs, limited to no more than 110 gallons on hand at any time (the overflow going into the soil or the storm sewer), it would still amount to a minuscule portion of the water descending from on high.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,057
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Large curd cottage cheese.

I haven't bought cottage cheese in a while, but I was craving some tonite, so I hit the grocery store on the way home, and reached for my usual container of Hood's Large Curd, which I've been eating all my life, and instead found Small Curd, Small Curd Lo-Fat, Small Curd Lactose Free, Small Curd with Weird Fruit Flavors and Chives and Crap, but no large curd. No Hood's Large Curd, no Oakhurst Large Curd, no Cabot's Large Curd, no Breakstone's Large Curd, not even any lousy Hannafid's Store Brand Large Curd. So much for "consumer choice." Have any kind of cottage cheese you want as long as it sucks.

When did large curd cottage cheese go extinct? Who even eats that gross small curd stuff, that's like milk that you forgot and left in the back seat of your car for a couple of days in the sun and tried to use thinking maybe it wasn't too far gone but it was. Feh. Meh. Bleah. Blech.

It's got to be another scheme by the Boys -- you can sell more whey with smaller curds, and whey is cheaper than curds. Bah. Blah. Grrrr.
 

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