Healthwatch: Stupid neglected kid runs in front of waitress, gets burned with hot soup and hospitalized
leno...@yahoo.com
I say "neglected" because any kid old enough to go to a restaurant
with waiters is old enough to be expected to stay put, so these
parents were clearly neglecting their duty. (And with regard to the
need to visit the restrooms, I'm guessing few kids under 8 are allowed
to do that alone these days anyway, since that would also be seen as
neglect of a kind.)
What I like about the above thread is the similar stories in which the
manager firmly took the side of the waiters.
Also, here's another article about the same case, with lots of
comments.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/04/09/burn_0410.html
Lenona.
Michael O'Connor
accident lawyers who see this as an opportunity to rake in a lot of
cash by suing the restaurant, the manager, and the person who spilled
the soup. While I'm sure it sucks to be that kid today, it's his
parents who should be held at fault for not keeping their kid from
running around all over the place. I remember once being out at a
restaurant with some people, and I was sitting on the outside seat of
the booth. This little kid about four years old walked over to our
table, reached up and grabbed an handful of my fries right off my
plate. A waitress saw this and wound up taking my plate back and
putting a fresh order of fries on my plate, and the parents complained
when she billed THEM for the order of fries, and as my party was
leaving this kids parents were asking to speak to the management about
it. I never went there to eat again, but the waitress handled it the
right way and I tipped her well. There are way too many people who
take their kids to a public place like a restaurant or a movie
theatre, and expect the staff of the establishment to do the job of
the parents and keep an eye on the kids.
Bob Feigel
<mpoco...@aol.com> magnanimously proffered:
>There are way too many people who
>take their kids to a public place like a restaurant or a movie
>theatre, and expect the staff of the establishment to do the job of
>the parents and keep an eye on the kids.
You can say that again. We have this illness on New Zealand beaches
called "the herding instinct.' It doesn't matter where you sit or how
uncrowded the beach is, someone with children makes a point of sitting
right next to you and letting their children run around so that you
get sand kicked up onto you.
Then there's another variation of "the herding instinct" which
translates into the Kiwi habit of walking (and driving) without any
consideration whatsoever for anyone else. It's called the "the
Kiwi-Zombie instinct."
A few weeks ago, we were sitting well out of the way down on our local
beach when a group of women, children in tow, seemed to go out of
their way to walk as close as they could to where we were sitting. One
child in particular actually walked across my wife's towel (with her
on it) and smiled back at her challengingly. Fortunately, my wife was
able to stick out one of her feet and trip the little monster while
she was still looking back at her. Not only did the girl fall hard,
but face first with her mouth open so she got a nice mouthful of sand.
I probably shouldn't have been laughing so hard when the distraught
child caught up to her mother and told her what happened, but I was.
OTOH, my wife was back into her book by that time and a picture of
innocence. The mother probably thought I'd tripped her little darling.
Then there was the boy around 3 who was running around the restaurant
where we were having a family dinner last month. While the parents sat
across the restaurant ignoring the kid and the mayhem he was causing,
he was crawling under tables and generally bothering everyone else.
My wife, who obviously doesn't suffer badly behaved children gladly -
or otherwise - firmly told the kid to go back to his own table, but he
ignored her. So while boy child was under our table I gave him a
short, sharp kick in the pants.
That produced a yelp and a rapid retreat back to his parents table
plus some dirty looks towards our table - at which point the people at
the table next to ours saluted us with their wine glasses and we all
turned and saluted the kid's parents - who quickly asked for their
bill and left. We enjoyed the rest of the evening thoroughly.
--
"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wax-up and drop-in of Surfing's Golden Years: <http://www.surfwriter.net>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Carson
wrote:
>You can say that again. We have this illness on New Zealand beaches
>called "the herding instinct.' It doesn't matter where you sit or how
>uncrowded the beach is, someone with children makes a point of sitting
>right next to you and letting their children run around so that you
>get sand kicked up onto you.
And they always have to throw potato chips to the seagulls, causing dozens
of the obnoxious creatures to fly, caw, and splat all over everyone within
30 feet.
If there's one place that ought to offer an adult-only option, the beach
is it. Unfortunately, "adult-only beach" has a bad connotation to most
people.
David Carson
--
Why do you seek the living among the dead? -- Luke 24:5
Who's Alive and Who's Dead
http://www.whosaliveandwhosdead.com
Stacia
> Then there was the boy around 3 who was running around the restaurant
> where we were having a family dinner last month. While the parents sat
> across the restaurant ignoring the kid and the mayhem he was causing,
> he was crawling under tables and generally bothering everyone else.
Years ago we were at Long John Silver's (we were idiots then) and
some little kid of about 5 was running around all over the restaurant,
sticking his hands in people's food and getting under the tables.
Everyone sat there in silence with clenched teeth, so my husband and I
asked the parents to please control the kid. The guy/dad/whatever got
this nasty grin on his face and said, "He's not our kid."
The kid started screaming and crying, the manager showed up, and the
couple again said it wasn't their kid -- but they hightailed it out of
there with the kid in tow. I've never known whether to hope the kid
was theirs or not.
Stacia
Bob Feigel
<glitte...@gmail.com> magnanimously proffered:
Sounds like they deserved each other anyway.
Bob Feigel
magnanimously proffered:
>On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:16:53 +1200, Bob Feigel <b...@surfwriter.net.not>
>wrote:
>
>>You can say that again. We have this illness on New Zealand beaches
>>called "the herding instinct.' It doesn't matter where you sit or how
>>uncrowded the beach is, someone with children makes a point of sitting
>>right next to you and letting their children run around so that you
>>get sand kicked up onto you.
>
>And they always have to throw potato chips to the seagulls, causing dozens
>of the obnoxious creatures to fly, caw, and splat all over everyone within
>30 feet.
>
>If there's one place that ought to offer an adult-only option, the beach
>is it. Unfortunately, "adult-only beach" has a bad connotation to most
>people.
How about a "No Children Allowed" beach? Works for me.
Or, "Don't feed the seagulls unless it's minced children."
I'm on a roll ...
Brad Ferguson
<4d04c50a-348d-4b36...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
Stacia <glitte...@gmail.com> wrote:
Counter-example: We were having breakfast at the Cracker Barrel one
morning on the road. Sitting two tables down was an enormously fat man
around 30 years old, and beside him was his four-year-old nephew. The
nephew was very quiet -- actually, it looked as if the nephew was
trying to disappear into his plate, because the uncle insisted on
talking in a loud voice about the kid's bathroom habits, and describing
the quality and frequency of his "poopies" to the elderly couple
sitting at the table next to them. The couple tried to ignore him, but
of course that didn't work. The man simply would not shut up. What a
pig. I'll bet that poor kid still remembers that morning.
R H Draney
>
>Then there's another variation of "the herding instinct" which
>translates into the Kiwi habit of walking (and driving) without any
>consideration whatsoever for anyone else. It's called the "the
>Kiwi-Zombie instinct."
Is that anything like the "look South/walk East" syndrome that seems to prevail
around here?...I vividly recall one child of about three or four walking
headlong into my *stationary* shopping cart and then bursting into tears...this
naturally attracts the attention of any adult nearby, in particular the one who
*should* have been watching where the little monster was going *before* she ran
into the cart, whereupon said adult jumps to the conclusion that I've done
something to her little angel....
(Come to think of it, this may explain all the parents you see on the news
claiming that the Virgin Mary came and whompt Junior upside the head when he was
minding his own business)....
The sad thing about "look South/walk East" is that there doesn't appear to be an
upper age limit on it....r
--
What good is being an executive if you never get to execute anyone?
Rob Cibik
> On Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:30:16 -0500, David Carson <d...@neosoft.com>
> magnanimously proffered:
>
> >If there's one place that ought to offer an adult-only option, the beach
> >is it. Unfortunately, "adult-only beach" has a bad connotation to most
> >people.
>
> How about a "No Children Allowed" beach? Works for me.
>
> Or, "Don't feed the seagulls unless it's minced children."
>
> I'm on a roll ...
>
or you can serve the minced children on a roll.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Terry del Fuego <t_del...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> And, if quality projection ever comes back (hah!), movie theaters.
You don't like the DLP? Because I think it's freaking amazing.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
J.D. Baldwin
>
> illuminated, evenly in focus, had great color, was sharp and didn't
> have any 'scope artifacts, despite being a widescreen show. But it
> was the "Simpsons" movie, so it probably wasn't the best possible
> test, material-wise.
I saw "21" last week in Chicago, and I remember sitting there
thinking, "Man. That dude has good skin." It's *weird*.
> <nerdrant>
> My biggest complaint with digital projection is that everyone seems
> to be trying to equal standard 4-perf 35mm, which is a ridiculously
> stupid goal. If you're going to spend all that money and completely
> change the technology, what on earth is the point of aiming so low?
> It doesn't have to be IMAX, but could it at least have the
> resolution of Todd-AO or VistaVision or Technirama? You know, at
> least bring it up to the state of the art as of OVER FIFTY YEARS
> AGO?
I can think of some reasons. Lousy ones, but I bet there's truth
somewhere in here:
1. If you did that, *every* movie would have to use it, and that idea
probably scares the shit out of producers (as well it should).
Why would they all have to use it? Because movies that came out
in "regular" digital projection would be at a huge disadvantage,
from a marketing standpoint, right off the bat.
2. The "gotta see it in the big screen format" market niche is being
filled (I suppose) by IMAX. That's why you're seeing "regular"
movies released as "<TITLE>: The IMAX Experience" more and more.
They got me: I drove 45 minutes, one way, to see "Batman Begins"
and "300" (shut up) in that format, so they're squeezing an
extra two bucks a head out of some of us for a few select features.
> But, of course, the quality is a secondary issue. This is really just
> a continuation of "platter syndrome": The real point is to be able to
> operate as many screens as possible while employing as few technically
> trained people as possible. And even that would be OK if the
> technology turns out to be reasonably close to 100% foolproof. I
> don't know if DLP is or not, but platters aren't...and if something
> goes wrong on a plattered screen, the odds are very good that no one
> will do anything about it unless and until an audience member gets up
> and misses part of the movie to complain. At least with changeovers,
> someone *had* to look every 18 or so minutes. So, big surprise, I'm
> pessimistic.
My wife threatened -- not 100% seriously, but not without an edge in
her voice -- to leave me if I went to see another movie at the theater
closest to my house. She was tired of hearing the steady and loud
stream of profanity out of my mouth every time I came back from there.
The final straw was watching a headless Ralph Fiennes talking in "The
Constant Gardener." You will be pleased to hear (maybe) that I was
thinking of you when I ranted to the manager:
"HIS DAMNED HEAD WAS MISSING! Don't you have anyone, you know,
watching the framing?"
"Sir, I'm so sorry, the young lady assigned to that was performing
other--"
"I know. She was over there, doing her real job: selling six-dollar
pretzels[1]. I don't care. Give me my goddam money back and I'll be
out of your life."
[1] Well, to be fair, for the six bucks, you get a drink, too. And
it *is* a pretty big pretzel.
Then they opened the fully-DLP theater nearby, and I didn't go back to
the crappy place for two years. (They were the only ones showing
"Across the Universe" -- but thank God by then they'd converted some
screens, including the one important to me at that moment, to DLP.)
I don't know about "foolproof," but after maybe 15-20 movies in DLP,
I've never seen a problem, and been fairly impressed every time.
> The other thing that worries me is that my understanding is that the
> projectors are made up of thousands (millions?) of little moving
> mirrors. How many will have to give out before the theater springs
> for repairs?
I have some possibly encouraging speculation for you. I know nothing
about how TI enforces its DLP licenses, but I was once involved with
the technology and business side of a media delivery system, and the
company was very aggressive about making sure that public exhibitors'
licenses required maintenance contracts. The idea was that if they
let it get crappy, people come to associate the product name with,
well, crappiness. And that is not in the interests of the trademark
owner, who is trying to protect his asset's value.
So it makes a certain sense that TI would require the same of its
customers. Maybe, anyway.
J.D. Baldwin
I'm casting my vote for "Smerte," as in "Smerte og Ekstase." It just
sounds dirty.
Speaking of which, did anyone catch Naked Hedy Lamarr (not 'Hedley,'
thank God) in "Ekstase" on TCM last week? Remarkable.
Joe Pucillo
> While I'm sure it sucks to be that kid today, it's his
> parents who should be held at fault for not keeping their kid from
> running around all over the place.
About ten years ago, I took a photo at a wedding that didn't turn
out very well, but I trot it out from time to time to illustrate
this very point:
http://www.pucillo.net/images/kid.jpg
As you might have guessed, the parents thought the photo was
adorable. Feh.
JP
R H Draney
>
>About ten years ago, I took a photo at a wedding that didn't turn
>out very well, but I trot it out from time to time to illustrate
>this very point:
>
>http://www.pucillo.net/images/kid.jpg
>
>As you might have guessed, the parents thought the photo was
>adorable. Feh.
If the kid ever puts out an album, he's already got the cover....r