Flushing the Toilet

Also, if you have a light socket, and you don't have a lightbulb screwed into it, electricity leaks out everywhere and can kill you.

AH, I think you actually have to stick your tongue INTO the socket for that to happen. Try it & let us know? ;-)

i can never tell if alan is kidding or not. i heard you should keep everything at least 3 feet away from the flushing of the toliet because of the toxic cloud.

I tried it, I liked it!

I thought you'd gotten a perm!

Thank you for not commenting on the birds circling my head and the Xs in my eyes where the pupils should be.

why? it's a good look for you

I noticed that I have to change the flapper in the toilet at approximately every 2+ years. Is this normal? Does NYC water erode corrode the rubber?

here in PCV the toilet turns brown every three days or so. but the people seem to thrive here, so maybe it's a good cloud. or they all put down the seat before flushing.

what happens to women in japan? i read a piece years ago that indicated that they were extremely likely to flush WHILE they were using the facilities. i think a governmental study on the issue is warranted.

http://sternberg.posterous.com/googles-toto-electronic-toilets-are-frighteni

The Japanese toilets do it all. And I mean everything.

I try to be careful & healthy but I like what Jay Leno says about germs: "If it's not bigger than I am, I don't worry about it!" However, that toilet water cloud has a huge ICK factor.

NYC Water shold be healthy, but it's scary to hear that people are daily exposed to brown water. it's not just cooking since you can buy water or install a filter, but there's showering & laundry, etc. Older buildings must have a great deal of minerals trapped in the pipes, or is it rust?

One nice thing about Rushmore is that Extell is filtering all the water before it enters the building. A nice feature that is just too expensive on buildings already up and running.

And what are the odds that they change the filter at the right time?

On a related note, go to Phoenix (or probably almost any city in the US outside NY) and fill a glass of water from the tap before you go to bed; put it aside. Look at it in the morning ... surprise!!!

The water in california is foul. i don't know if it is unhealthy, but it is disgusting. we brita just in case, but the tap water seems fine. upstate i have the water (well) checked every two years. this time ok but the other two times had to shock the system because of bacteria in the water.

what's really frightening, also, is i wouldn't know to have the water tested under most circumstances. when we bought the place it had been vacant for a couple of months. we had the water tested, bacteria. our broker told us it's very common when the system isn't used for awhile.

We are so obsessed about everything it's scary. You have to die one day. Will we end up living in a bubble that isolates every danger and germ? Isn't this micromanaging our surroundings? Nothing better to do?

i'll take my chances with the toilet cloud, but i wish i could avoid buying ANYTHING made in china.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/09/pollution-creates-cancer-villages-in.html

I agree with you AR-I am completely paranoid about buying items from China--it is nearly impossible but I try to avoid as best I can -but one serious problem is that some foods are processed and packaged in China-so please read labels carefully--for example: frozen foods, spices and even some chocolate

Afriad of buying from China? Borders on bigotry.

not nearly bigotry
just avoidance of harm
harm quite prevalent due to poorly regulated globalization
we used to care about the behavior of our trade partners
business at all costs!!
weve set such a great example with our recent spin on capitalism!!

I am hardly a bigot-I just don't want to ingest lead or promote unfair treatment of workers!! There have been too many incidents with products from China to ignore--I agree with Ubottom--it shouldn't be only about getting the cheapest products!!

we used to care about the behavior of our trade partners

HUH?

i was speaking to a mother this morning who has a baby about this issue. said she won't buy any toys that are made in china (good luck with that).

babies gum things, they suck on things, they wear things over rashes. i think that's cautious, but certainly not a nutcase position.

fleurdelys, thanks for the heads up. i don't buy that much that is processed, and when i do it's generally whole foods or trader joe's, but i'll keep my eyes open.

"Also, if you have a light socket, and you don't have a lightbulb screwed into it, electricity leaks out everywhere and can kill you."

lmao

"i'll take my chances with the toilet cloud"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=toilet%20cloud

AR: It's not as hard as it seems to avoid toys made in China. Even big plastic ones.

10023, that's good to hear. i wasn't aware of any of this when i was buying toys. i'm not sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

With a caveat. I've never bought our kids stuffed toys (they all seem to be made in China) and they have one doll purchased by us. I can't control what other people get us as gifts.

At least before the worldwide economy tanked, more and more manufacturing (especially lower-tech items) was moving away from China's growing labor costs, and to places like Laos, Vietnam, various places in Africa, etc. ... I'd trust China for honest quality control way sooner than I'd trust those more recently-emerging places.

But let's remember the poison-patty hamburgers that emerge from US factories every couple of years. Not to mention all the hormones, pesticides, etc. in US foods.

We might as well all just kill ourselves now. Or the stress of all of thinking about toilet clouds and stealth electricity will do it for us.

Anyway, SE should mandate that any thread titled "Flushing the Toilet" must be about declining values in a certain large neighborhood in Queens.

We have with us tonight, Mr. Irwin Mainway, President of Mainway Toys. Uh, Mr. Mainway, your company manufactures the following so-called harmless playthings: Pretty Peggy Ear-Piercing Set, Mr. Skin-Grafter, General Tron's Secret Police Confession Kit, and Doggie Dentist. And what about this innocent rubber doll, which you market under the name Johnny Switchblade? [ holds up doll ] Press his head, and two sharp knives spring from his arms. [ demonstrates ] Mr. Mainway, I'm afraid this is, by no means, a very safe toy.

Irwin Mainway: Okay, Miss, I wanna correct you, alright. The full name of this product, as it appears in stores all over the county, is Johnny Switchblade: Adventure Punk. I mean, nothing goes wrong.. little girls buy 'em, you know, they play games, they make up stories, nobody gets hurt. I mean, so Barbie takes a knife once in a while, or Ken gets cut. You know, there's no harm in that. I mean, as far as I can see, you know?

Consumer Reporter: Alright. Fine. Fine. Well, we'd like to show you another one of Mr. Mainway's products. It retails for $1.98, and it's called Bag O' Glass. [ holds up bag of glass ] Mr. Mainway, this is simply a bag of jagged, dangerous, glass bits.

Irwin Mainway: Yeah, right, it's you know, it's glass, it's broken glass, you know? It sells very well, as a matter of fact, you know? It's just broken glass, you know?

Consumer Reporter: [ laughs ] I don't understand. I mean, children could seriously cut themselves on any one of these pieces!

Irwin Mainway: Yeah, well, look - you know, the average kid, he picks up, you know, broken glass anywhere, you know? The beach, the street, garbage cans, parking lots, all over the place in any big city. We're just packaging what the kids want! I mean, it's a creative toy, you know? If you hold this up, you know, you see colors, every color of the rainbow! I mean, it teaches him about light refraction, you know? Prisms, and that stuff! You know what I mean?

this is a different world than it was 50 years ago, we are living in the age of the chemical revolution, and everything is about the bottom line, delivering maximum value to shareholders, the capitalist machine, nothing is sacred. trust nothing!