You are describing manufacturing in the 21st century. Does it matter that something you expected to be manufactured in Japan was actually manufactured in Thailand? Well, yeah, it might. A person who came to the USA from southeast asia, in the late 1970's might be more inclined to buy a product made there, as opposed to Japan. Someone born in the USA before 1930, who remembers Pearl Harbor, might be more comfortable with a product from Thailand than one from Japan. Most of us are more likely to associate goods made in Japan with high quality and reliability, because of the reputation the Japanese made back in the 1960's with cameras, electronics, and cars. As for me, I can't help but wonder what the people who work in the Thailand factory are paid, and how they are treated by the company. I'm not real excited about plastic camshaft gears, either.

How funny, Faith. I'd forgotten about the waiting room at the U0fA, also the old emerg. at the Royal Alex. And we complain now. Most of us in the Edmonton region (Sunwapta Broadcasting area) will remember Popcorn Playhouse. I was on Popcorn Playhouse when it was a ship theme, before Klondike Eric. I think it was Captain Ernie (?). Anyway, it was my fifth birthday and it is a bit of a vague memory. I remember that we were late getting there and I missed all of the "birthday" special stuff that seemed to be the main point of going on the show. How about "Kids Bids" with the O'hara auction people? Bags and bags of Old Dutch boxtops and coupons were thrown out of my parents basement because we never made it to the show and we collected for years. And "Kiddies on Kamera" - my brother is a bagpiper and was on that show many times playing for the highland dancers. Did anyone see the anniversary show for CFRN last year? It was good, but it didn't show enough of all of this old stuff! But here's a couple we all might remember across the country. How about Romper Room ( she never saw ME in the magic mirror), The Friendly Giant, Chez Helene. Gee, that kind of took up the morning and then it was lunchtime and naptime. Or time to go to playschool. I had to laugh when you mention DH and the 8 tracks. Shortly after we moved into our new house 2 years ago, I heard Steppenwolf coming from our garage. I went out and there was my DH rockin' to his tunes. He'd plugged in an old 8-track player and found all of his old 8-track tapes. My kids, although thinking he was crazy, actually appreciated the fact that their Dad still had one that worked. Yeesh - you'd think it was an old Victrola or something. LOL. Now, that was cool when your parents or grandparents had one of those that worked! I saw Heart when they were a backup act for April Wine. I went to see April Wine about 4 or 5 times. I loved their concerts. The first concert I went to was Deep Purple in 1972 and it was, I believe, the last event held at the Edmonton Gardens before they tore it down. My mother just freaked when she saw in the paper the next day that everyone used lighters or "sparklers" to ask for the encores. The Edmonton Gardens was apparently (according to my mother) the biggest fire trap in the city. Until I just started thinking about how many concerts I did actually go to, I always thought that I missed out on alot. I used to listen to my friends talking about going to see Alice Cooper and so many others and I thought I never went to any concerts. In reality, I guess I went to quite a few. Anybody ever see Cheech and Chong live? That was funny - especially after a few t---- of wacky. No, I never did that. It was all the residual smoke around me . . . honest. But, you had to see Cheech and Chong on a high in order for it to be hilarious. Wow, I had no idea what I was stirring up in my memories when we started this thread! ...

Attention, shoppers! If you take a half-gallon of fudge ripple ice cream from your supermarket's freezer case and then remember you are on a diet, don't leave it to melt on the rack where the tabloid magazines scream "Tom Cruise Marries Alien!" Likewise, in a department store, if you suddenly realize that a pink poncho will be passe in a month, don't fling it over a display of men's socks and walk away. Nor should a four-pack of 60-watt light bulbs be wedged between the boxes of fettuccine and ziti. For a few minutes, pretend I'm your mom -- your shopping mom: Were you raised in a barn? Will you never learn to pick up after yourselves? Stop rolling your eyes and look at me when I talk to you! Listen up: More and more of you are not putting things back where they belong when you go shopping. It happens at high-end and low-end and everything-in-between stores. It occurs in supermarkets, clothing stores, toy stores, stationers and any place where merchandise isn't too heavy to lift. It even goes on at the Gap, despite clerks -- only those with eyes in the backs of their heads are hired -- who attempt behavior modification in customers by pointedly refolding polo shirts milliseconds after they are mussed. It occurs even in bookstores, where, as in libraries, there are often tables or carts with posted pleas to place unwanted books on them so that people who know exactly where they should be shelved can do so. Still, you'll find a John Grisham tome next to "101 Ways to Cook Cauliflower." Especially during sales, the dressing rooms of department stores look like pigsties -- clothing in dumping grounds on the floor or falling off hangers and hooks -- because customers won't even return them to collection racks at the mouth of the dressing room so employees can restock them. Don't make the excuse that everybody does it. What if everybody jumped off a cliff? Would you? Experts who study what is called "shrink" -- the term for inventory loss due to shoplifting, employee theft or error, and damaged or "distressed" items -- estimate that less than 1 percent of all shrink is caused by shoppers who act as though they are royalty being shadowed by a maid. (A major grocery chain has about $500,000 worth of shrink a year, according to recent studies.) This number would be higher if alert shoppers and employees didn't see wrongs and right them, says Larry Miller, president of Trax Retail Solutions in Scottsdale, Ariz., and national director of the National Supermarket Research Group. Miller estimates that shoppers (acting as mothers the world over do) or store employees rescue about 60 percent of dumped grocery items. "Most people don't look at a pound of ground beef sitting on a grocery store shelf and ignore it. They take it back to the refrigerated meat section," Miller contends. "This has always been a problem, and it occurs at all stores no matter where they are," says Barry F. Scher, vice president of public relations for Royal Ahold NV's Giant Food LLC chain. He notes that the cost for supermarkets is especially high when the item involved requires refrigeration or freezing. Even though employees are instructed by managers at various times during the day to scout for misplaced items, perishables most often have to be thrown out because it is not known how long they've been sitting around. Scher says that Giant stores don't have staffers dedicated to performing the task called "shop backs" but that it takes employees away from other duties. "Stores also lose out because the stock isn't where someone can find it and sell it," says Jon Schreibfeder, president of Effective Inventory Management Inc. of Coppell, Tex. This means that, to be confident that they have enough of any product, managers must overstock items. Schreibfeder, whose company advises retailers on ways to control inventory, says that although the practice isn't nearly as large or troublesome as shoplifting or employee theft, "we talk about the [dumping] problem continually" with clients. Schreibfeder's prescription has been to have his clients schedule regular "stock straightening" for several times a day, especially when the store isn't busy. He also said a retail customer in Bermuda learned that nothing works as well as a departing ship in making people evacuate a store, leaving stick deodorant next to the asparagus. "A cruise ship would come in and the passengers would begin shopping. They'd find they were running out of time and would leave stock scattered everywhere," Schreibfeder recalls. He and his employees helped the store employees realize that they should scurry to round up misplaced products in between dockings. He also advised the owner to mark shelves that were most often victimized by shoppers and to have employees combing those prone areas. Schreibfeder says it's conceivable that, down the line, radio frequency identification (RFID) might be able to beam out an all-points bulletin (APB) to store managers, saying, in effect: "I'm over here -- and I'm defrosting!" to help in the roundup. Both Schreibfeder and Scher are inclined to be soft on consumers who dump products thither and yon. "People these days think they are too busy. Everybody's in a rush," Scher says. But Dorothea Johnson is unforgiving. Johnson, founder of the Protocol School of Washington and an etiquette teacher for 40 years, says we all must put things back because it is right and proper and is a tiny thing we can do to keep the world from chaos. She can think of no excuse for not returning merchandise to its shelf. Practicing this daily has the side effect of increasing self-esteem, she says. "Oh, you see, not putting things back is not being mindful of the next person who comes along. Although salespeople are trained to watch out for such things, I always put things back. I can then tell myself I did the right thing," says Johnson from her home near Portland, Maine. Even parents who spend the livelong day harping on children and spouses about tidying up can slip up now and then and ignore their inner Miss Manners. The other day, in a fit of fitness, someone left a pound of bacon next to a mound of tilapia packages after glancing about the store furtively to see if anyone was looking. But do as I say, not as I do. And don't run with a stick in your hand. You'll poke your eye out.

I live in an area with an opiod epidemic. People are being brought back with a shot from the cops or EMT's MUTLTIPLE times daily! Most are young people who turned to heroin when other pills became too expensive. Nearly none were prescribed them for pain by a doctor. And they are looking for obliviousness to some mental pain they feel unable to cope with or withstand. I have had multiple discs in my back crumble over the years. It IS painful, but after a day or so of bedrest and an NSAID, moving is usually the best option. Only once was it deemed necessary to prescribe PT for me and I did do it. Mine is somewhat self-limiting as I also have a lot of arthritis in my back - it kind of does what the old surgery (not discounted) of injecting cement into a crumbling disc did! As much as it hurt, I would not have chosen to take pain meds. I did this for a few years - my doctor prescribed Tramadol as at first, it was considered to have a VERY low risk of addiction and was not even a Scheduled drug. I took one 50mg tablet three times weekly before going to pulmonary rehab. It allowed me to exercise far more vigorously and I lost 70 pounds. Then I started noticing symptoms - I "crashed" on the afternoon after I had taken that one pill. I did more research and realized my body HAD become addicted to this drug. I stopped it cold turkey (probably should not have, but I wanted nothing more to do with this drug). I will never again take it and it is now recognized as being highly addictive to some people and is a Scheduled drug. My DD had the flu a couple of years ago, even though she had her vaccination. I was appalled that her HIGHLY respected primary care physical prescribed an antibiotic (she did NOT have a secondary infection), prednisone for the inflammation, and oxycodone for the pain of flu. Yikes! She should not have prescribed ANY of these meds! She gave her patients what they wanted so they could quickly get back to work - her affluent patients in high performing jobs. Well, she sure lost my respect! I wonder how many of her patients have become addicted to oxycodone. When my husband was dying of prostate cancer, he could have all the pain meds he wanted - he had a pump and it was his choice how to use it (with physician set limits). He knew what more meant in terms of his wakefulness and clear headedness. He did not suffer. But I regularly see middle-aged and older women at the Ft Knox pharmacy arguing with the pharmacist to refill an expired prescription that their doctor will not authorize a refill for. I think they may have been given them originally by a doctor for a valid condition, but did become addictive to them. Drug addiction and alcohol addiction share some similarities. Some people have a highly addictive personality; some have what is probably a biological predisposition to becoming addicted to any substance. People don't start having a drink in a restaurant in hopes of becoming an alcoholic, but many do eventually do just that. These pain meds were far too frequently passed out "like candy" by some doctors, and many patients did not use them appropriately and also follow up with other treatments etc. It's a very bad situation. And yes, when one is in an ER asking for ANY form of pain relieve, one will be treated like an addict needing a quick fix. It's sad - unfortunate - but that is what staff in ER's see over and over, every single day. We have 3 large downtown hospitals - the addicts go to each. Hospitals caught on and now notify the other hospitals that this person will soon be at their ER. Until the opiod epidemic is under control, ER's will continue to operate that way, be they Kaiser or any other "brand".