Is It Me??????

[Paul455]

I must be turning in to a crotchety old geezer......seems like EVERYTHING is now a disappointment:

• Clothes are made flimsier and cheaper - take a look a jeans
• Grocery stores have marginal fresh products - Big Y is a poster child for this
• Health care is a giant scam, and getting super expensive - A $13,000 deductible? Seriously?
• Lots of people lack basic manners - a 20 something guy hassled my 89 year old mother over a parking spot....and she is handicapped
• The traffic planners don't commute on the roads they plan, and there is gridlock everywhere - Mass Pike?
• Roadside trash is everywhere - My street is a trash dump
• Everyone is in a super hurry - Speed limits? We don't pay any attention to speed limit!

It just goes on and on......hard not to be disappointed.

Things just suck worse all the time.....good luck to the younger generation....you are going to need it!

 

[rwl1955]

I must be turning in to a crotchety old geezer......seems like EVERYTHING is now a disappointment:

• Clothes are made flimsier and cheaper - take a look a jeans
• Grocery stores have marginal fresh products - Big Y is a poster child for this
• Health care is a giant scam, and getting super expensive - A $13,000 deductible? Seriously?
• Lots of people lack basic manners - a 20 something guy hassled my 89 year old mother over a parking spot....and she is handicapped
• The traffic planners don't commute on the roads they plan, and there is gridlock everywhere - Mass Pike?
• Roadside trash is everywhere - My street is a trash dump
• Everyone is in a super hurry - Speed limits? We don't pay any attention to speed limit!

It just goes on and on......hard not to be disappointed.

Things just suck worse all the time.....good luck to the younger generation....you are going to need it!

******
Progress, NOT!

 

[Uzi2]

Its not you, the whole F'ing world is upside down in every respect.

There is very little quality in anything anymore. Most items will never last much beyond any "warrantee" if they last that long.

We can thank leftism for 99% of all the shit going on in the world today.

 

[bfm]

All those things are true.















But it is still you.

 

[Snora]

Why do you live in New England if you can't handle fast cars driven by rude people in a hurry?

 

[rwl1955]

We live in a fast paced society, especially Ma. Electronics aren't made to last because they change/improve so rapidly. New iphone is $1000.0 and will be outdated in two years.

 

[Paul455]

Why do you live in New England if you can't handle fast cars driven by rude people in a hurry?

Because my wife won't move.

 

[Uzi2]

All those things are true.















But it is still you.

Obviously you are under 30 and certainly under 40 years of age. You don't remember a time when the listed things above didn't exist to any great degree if at all.
If a 20 something was giving an 89 year old lady a hard time in a parking lot when I was growing up, he'd be picking his teeth up off the ground after being pummeled by any number of people within sight of it.


















But it is still you

 

[76Too]

I must be turning in to a crotchety old geezer......seems like EVERYTHING is now a disappointment:

• Clothes are made flimsier and cheaper - take a look a jeans
• Grocery stores have marginal fresh products - Big Y is a poster child for this
• Health care is a giant scam, and getting super expensive - A $13,000 deductible? Seriously?
• Lots of people lack basic manners - a 20 something guy hassled my 89 year old mother over a parking spot....and she is handicapped
• The traffic planners don't commute on the roads they plan, and there is gridlock everywhere - Mass Pike?
• Roadside trash is everywhere - My street is a trash dump
• Everyone is in a super hurry - Speed limits? We don't pay any attention to speed limit!

It just goes on and on......hard not to be disappointed.

Things just suck worse all the time.....good luck to the younger generation....you are going to need it!

weren't you getting banned?

 

[jhblaze1]

Because my wife won't move.

you and me both. I'd give my left nut to be rid of this whole part of the country. My wife is the only reason I'm not living somewhere that doesn't suck.

 

[Paul455]

weren't you getting banned?

Not yet.

 

[bfm]

Obviously you are under 30 and certainly under 40 years of age. You don't remember a time when the listed things above didn't exist to any great degree if at all.
If a 20 something was giving an 89 year old lady a hard time in a parking lot when I was growing up, he'd be picking his teeth up off the ground after being pummeled by any number of people within sight of it.
But it is still you

Over 40. Still remember all the same complaints in the 70s and 80s.

Everyone speeding down side streets; check.
People hassling my grandmother; check (oh, if I found them, I gave out a few broken noses)
Traffic patterns; anyone remember when if you wanted to stay on 1 South going through Boston you had to blind merge with 93 South and then get across three lane of traffic in less than 100 yards at 50 MPH?
I worked the produce bays in Chelsea years ago. Unless you are going to a farm stand or farmers market, produce has generally been bad since Sinclair wrote The Jungle.

 

[Penniepup1]

Your not getting crotchety, your becoming more observant of your surroundings. They now are airing commercials on simple courtesy. Sad society we have become.

 

[one-eyed Jack]

How about the .00001% interest earned on your bank savings account? Jack.

 

[45collector]

Because my wife won't move.

You should probably start a thread complaining about her then.

 

[Dennis in MA]

It's you.

I see 100x more food - and more fresh food - on the shelves than I did when I was a yowen 40 years ago.

Traffic is a function of better performing cars and aging infrastructure. Ever drive a 1960's car on 95N in PVD? Left lane? 75mph? I think not. Know why??? You'd be into the Jersey barriers more often than you'd realize. Today's cars - even crappy ones - perform well in historical comparison. Take all them cars, that many more people driving them, and they are fast AND congested.

Clothes and furniture has changed to meet consumer need. 20-30 years ago, you could get a couch that would last the next 20-50 years. At that time, there were a few discounters (Bernie & Phil) that would sell crap that lasted 5 years. Now the MAJORITY of household furniture is 5-year stuff. And it's still cheaper than that couch I bought for my office 20 years ago. Even with 20 years of inflation. They've found ways to hold down costs by making the furniture even less quality - because people don't care if it lasts 6 years. They want DIFFERENT by then.

Clothing is single-season clothing. Because people want SOMETHING DIFFERENT next year. You can certainly buy quality clothing that lasts for a while. You are going to pay for it. But you can still buy a pair of jeans for the same $30 you spent 30 years ago. That can't be without a change in quality.

If you don't think there were d-heads 30 years ago, you were blissfully ignert. Honestly, I think by and large people in face-to-face situations are NICER today than they were in the past.

Of course, if you're this crotchety here, maybe you are in real life and that's what causes people to not be nice to you.

 

[Gak44]

Its not you, the whole F'ing world is upside down in every respect.

There is very little quality in anything anymore. Most items will never last much beyond any "warrantee" if they last that long.

We can thank leftism for 99% of all the shit going on in the world today.

This is true. It only seems to be getting worse too.

 

[Ultrarunner]

We have the most consumer choices in the history of human civilization, so I don't agree with the universal quality is crap argument. I agree that people are generally not respectful, and I'm only a millennial so the change seems to have been recent...

 

[boiler_eng]

How about the .00001% interest earned on your bank savings account? Jack.

While not as high as many points in history of savings account rates, there are a lot of online only banks that you can get over 1%.

Ally for example is up to 1.2% on online savings accounts.

https://www.ally.com/bank/view-rates/?INTCMPID=HP_NAV2_RATES

Its possible to point to earlier times where the avg rate at a bank was higher than 1.2% but was the interest rate paid on loans as low as it is currently?

It's you.

I see 100x more food - and more fresh food - on the shelves than I did when I was a yowen 40 years ago.

Traffic is a function of better performing cars and aging infrastructure. Ever drive a 1960's car on 95N in PVD? Left lane? 75mph? I think not. Know why??? You'd be into the Jersey barriers more often than you'd realize. Today's cars - even crappy ones - perform well in historical comparison. Take all them cars, that many more people driving them, and they are fast AND congested.

Clothes and furniture has changed to meet consumer need. 20-30 years ago, you could get a couch that would last the next 20-50 years. At that time, there were a few discounters (Bernie & Phil) that would sell crap that lasted 5 years. Now the MAJORITY of household furniture is 5-year stuff. And it's still cheaper than that couch I bought for my office 20 years ago. Even with 20 years of inflation. They've found ways to hold down costs by making the furniture even less quality - because people don't care if it lasts 6 years. They want DIFFERENT by then.

Clothing is single-season clothing. Because people want SOMETHING DIFFERENT next year. You can certainly buy quality clothing that lasts for a while. You are going to pay for it. But you can still buy a pair of jeans for the same $30 you spent 30 years ago. That can't be without a change in quality.

If you don't think there were d-heads 30 years ago, you were blissfully ignert. Honestly, I think by and large people in face-to-face situations are NICER today than they were in the past.

Of course, if you're this crotchety here, maybe you are in real life and that's what causes people to not be nice to you.

I would agree that you get what you choose to shop for and the baseline lifetime of a lot of items has tanked.

 

[W.E.C]

I've noticed traffic way down here lately, and my supermarket is carrying new greens,

Soilent greens, in the organic aisle.

 

[Spanz]

But look at the bright side! You can smoke all the pot you wish soon, and you will no longer care!

 

[Carl in Ct]

Planned obsolescence is real but it is caused by manufacturers and consumers. As others have said people want new every 3-6 years for things like cars, couches and electronics it's more like 6-12 months.

That said, things like lawn mowers/tractors, generators, weed whackers, etc are complete and utter trash compared to the stuff sold decades ago. That's not because people are generally itching to buy a new lawn mower. It's because MTD and AYP (who make most of the residential mowers) need you to buy a new one every 5-6 years.

Even the name brand prosumer machines are only slightly better. My expensive 7 year old Simplicity (Briggs and Stratton owned) garden tractor has been in the shop all year while the 1980 John Deere 210 has been mowing my yard. My 1960-something Gravely brush mower always runs, no matter how badly I neglect and abuse it. It's because they were built to last, not to crap out in 5 years.

 

[snax]

I must be turning in to a crotchety old geezer......seems like EVERYTHING is now a disappointment:

• Clothes are made flimsier and cheaper - take a look a jeans
• Grocery stores have marginal fresh products - Big Y is a poster child for this
• Health care is a giant scam, and getting super expensive - A $13,000 deductible? Seriously?
• Lots of people lack basic manners - a 20 something guy hassled my 89 year old mother over a parking spot....and she is handicapped
• The traffic planners don't commute on the roads they plan, and there is gridlock everywhere - Mass Pike?
• Roadside trash is everywhere - My street is a trash dump
• Everyone is in a super hurry - Speed limits? We don't pay any attention to speed limit!

It just goes on and on......hard not to be disappointed.

Things just suck worse all the time.....good luck to the younger generation....you are going to need it!

It's the decline of western civiization, and everybody is making sure to do their part to achieve the dream.

 

[Radtekk]

My younger daughter graduates in 21 months. We're (Lady Radtekk and I) moving the next day. She's looking forward to it, I just deposited a mileage reimbursement check into a dedicated "moving funds" account. Watch for the ar/ak/mag sale.

 

[Picton]

You can get your hands on anything you want, including all the same old stuff you love the "quality" on; just shop at different stores.

Antique stores.

If if I really, really wanted a manual push mower like my dad used, I could easily find one and make it work. Same with old clothes; thrift stores are everywhere.

I'm with Ultrarunner: we've got more choices than anyone has ever had. That includes choosing older or obsolete stuff. Your rant sucks. It's just you.

Look harder. You'll find the merch you want.

And no, people weren't nicer to old ladies in the past. And yes, I'm over forty.

 

[lowbuckbob]

Because my wife won't move.

I would have been in Florida years ago but my wife won't move either.

 

[Carl in Ct]

You can get your hands on anything you want, including all the same old stuff you love the "quality" on; just shop at different stores.

Antique stores.

If if I really, really wanted a manual push mower like my dad used, I could easily find one and make it work. Same with old clothes; thrift stores are everywhere.

I'm with Ultrarunner: we've got more choices than anyone has ever had. That includes choosing older or obsolete stuff. Your rant sucks. It's just you.

Look harder. You'll find the merch you want.

And no, people weren't nicer to old ladies in the past. And yes, I'm over forty.

Yeah but who has the time to scour antique stores, etc? I know I don't. When my mower breaks I need a new one now, not when I can find one at a tag sale, etc.

I get your point, we do have more choices than ever, that's true. The point I am trying to make is 1970's and earlier equipment (and some early 80's) was generally good out of the box. You didn't have to go searching for quality, you could just go to the hardware store and buy something that wasn't garbage.

 

[MichaelJames1971]

It's the decline of western civiization, and everybody is making sure to do their part to achieve the dream.

Welcome to Globalism, Comrade. The oligarchy is laughing at our 'troubles'. We are all dog-food for their machine.

 

[mass]

And just try throwing your smartphone at your kid for mouthing off. $900 down the drain and a visit by DYS. The old MA Bell rotary phones were made to last, not only could they leave a grapefruit sized knot on a forehead for a lesson well learned, you also use the cord and tie the little b@stard up if anyone came the the door to see what was going on.

Don't even get me started on today's crappy music.

Sent from State Prison with contraband cellphone.

 

[Picton]

Yeah but who has the time to scour antique stores, etc? I know I don't. When my mower breaks I need a new one now, not when I can find one at a tag sale, etc.

I get your point, we do have more choices than ever, that's true. The point I am trying to make is 1970's and earlier equipment (and some early 80's) was generally good out of the box. You didn't have to go searching for quality, you could just go to the hardware store and buy something that wasn't garbage.

Agreed.

But my point was that that you can still buy that stuff. That SAME stuff. And sorry, but "who has time?" The internet can bring all that old stuff to your door via eBay. Combine the old with the new!

Or just don't take the time to do either. But if that's your choice, don't whine on the internet about it. And yes, I know you're not the one who's whining.