Down here at the pawn shop

[Undertoad]

We paid $500 for the J-200. So that was a good deal. In the end I tuned it up and played it a little and it was awesome, amazing sound, worth every penny. Elvis played a J-200.

We sell the used black 4GB xBox for $150 with one controller and all needed cables. I think we have one in right now. They are always coming in and out -- we buy 1-2 every week and sell 1-2 every week.

We sell complete Wiis (I forget the price -- $70? This is my day off) but we don't sell any individual parts for any systems.

People ask for individual parts all the time, and specifically they ask for every charger for everything ever made. We don't carry these things, only because it would be exhausting to manage.

[glatt]

There's a thrift store near here that has a huge bin of used wall worts. It's like $2 per charger, but if you look through it, there is nothing in there you would ever want.

[infinite monkey]

How much are the Wii bits? Do they have a separate Wii bin, like mounted to the wall off to the side?

[Undertoad]

The ghetto is a very different place from the place than where you and I inhabit. The problem with "regular people" going to the ghetto is that we don't know the rules. Even after years and years of working there, Alan doesn't know all the rules. He can sense danger in the shop, but not on the street.

And so the one-block walk from the shop to the parking lot is always unpredictable, occasionally scary, and we must pretty much ignore the surroundings as much as possible. It is like watching a movie. The stuff happening before your eyes is not happening to you. You go through it and drive out the other side.

And so it was when, yesterday night, in the middle of the walk, there appeared an unaccompanied 4-year-old boy in the middle of the sidewalk. A boy starting to show alarm.

Three of us stood and asked a few basic questions of the lad, until a black woman came and asked whether that was his mom, a half-block away. She sort of took over, but not really, and ushered the boy towards the lady.

The boy looked well-kept, and was properly dressed and prepared for the nighttime cold air. His hoodie was pulled tight and tied. Did he come from the day care right nearby? Did his mother pick up 5 children, and forget one in all the confusion?

At this point, if it is not the ghetto, you might take an interest and make sure things end OK. In this case we overheard that the woman at the end of the block was NOT the child's mother and thus there continued a dilemma. So, things were NOT OK.

But we do not know the ghetto rules, and thus we don't know the different ways we could be put in danger ourselves. The boy looks like someone in trouble, but so do we. We don't know the different ways people will victimize you or take advantage of you. In any other place in the city, we stay with the boy and call 911. In the ghetto, the boy seemed to be in somebody else's hands, and so we all drove briskly away with no known resolution to the situation. Even after one of us overheard that the woman was not the boy's mom.

Fucked up - oh you bet.

On the very other side of this situation, a few weeks ago a white suburban lady came to the shop, and while she figured out whether she was getting a parking ticket, she boldly left her infant on the store counter for five minutes. We looked at the baby and the whole situation in amazement, because in the ghetto you never ever ever leave anything unattended that you don't want to be completely ripped off and/or destroyed. We briefly discussed putting the baby behind the counter until mom came back, but instead just watched it. In amazement.

[Trilby]

Just wow.

[Beest]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

, because in the ghetto you never ever ever leave anything unattended that you don't want to be completely ripped off and/or destroyed.

This was generally me experience of living in the UK, you couldn't leave anything out, even behind the house that wasn't locked up, somebody would nick it. Even if it was locked up they would probably bust it .

We lived in some low rent/student areas, but even in later years this was true in the nice area my folks lived.

Unlikely to get shot, but the constant wariness of petty crime was a grind.

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by Beest

This was generally me experience of living in the UK, you couldn't leave anything out, even behind the house that wasn't locked up, somebody would nick it. Even if it was locked up they would probably bust it .

We lived in some low rent/student areas, but even in later years this was true in the nice area my folks lived.

Unlikely to get shot, but the constant wariness of petty crime was a grind.

This was true in various areas of Ontario I lived in. People built high fences with locks and alarm systems and if you didn't, too bad for you. You could expect to be ripped off. Thugs drew knives on kids in the local high schools with impunity. Police didn't respond to calls; they were stretched too thin. I never felt unsafe while living in the US, but I felt unsafe every day during our last stint in Canada.

[DanaC]

Taint like that in the part of town where I live.

[Sundae]

The Evil Ex's family lived in a part of Nottingham that was like that. Then again his older brothers had been to prison (armed robbery and GBH) and his younger brother was known to the police for vandalism and anti-social behaviour so they fit right in.

Never lived anywhere like that though.
I wouldn't leave anything I valued outside overnight in the rougher parts of town, but I'd consider that taking care rather than fear of crime. Talking an unlocked bike etc, not Christmas lights or a BBQ out back. There's occasional vandalism (telephone boxes, bus shelters, new trees) but it's not yet endemic. And not common even where I live - which isn't considered high class.

In some ways I think the farmers get it worst because they are easy targets with expensive machinery sitting in isolated locations. Farmers might be armed, but it doesn't seem to help much. You simply cannot stay up all night, every night when you're working the land. And those are organised gangs as opposed to petty criminals.

[DanaC]

The part of Salford J and I lived in for a while in the early 90s was a bit that way.

Think: Chatsworth Estate, a la Shameless. But less lovable.

We lived in (rented) reclaimed and redeveloped council flats. They'd been bought up, painted up, gated and given security guards etc, and sold to people under the pretence that they somehow classed as the new Salford Quays development. They weren't. They were the outer edge of Salford's notorious Ordsall estate - cheek by jowl with the people that the fence and guard were intended to stop :p

One of the memories of living there that always sticks in my mind, was walking at night down to the little precinct to use the cashpoint machine. And yes...it was to buy drugs :P

Along the way I walked past a patch of wasteground on which small children were whooping and squealing and having a jolly old play time on and around the still smoking wreck of a burned out car. The only adults in sight who appeared to be taking on some kind of supervisory role with them were the four or five assorted unleashed dogs of Scary Fuck breeds.

A few nights later, the Ordsall riots kicked off and they burned down the big Carpet Warehouse and a few other places. We watched the smoke rising in the sky from our window.

[DanaC]

Ha! Found a news clipping from a couple of years after that about 'No-Go Britain':

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...y-1370749.html

Ordsall Estate, Salford

Pop: 7,079

Problems: Drug-related violence. In July 1992, rioters shot at police and firefighters following 18 months of trouble including arson and car theft.

Unemployment: 21% (whole ward)

[footfootfoot]

That's one of the reasons I left the city. I like that peple can leave their stuff out around here.

I think I already posted about one time my BIL came to visit and saw a huge pile of carpenters tools on the grass near the curb in front of my neighbor's house. He asked me what was up with the tools. I told him someone borrowed my neighbors truck and took the tools out.

At lunch, they were still there and my BIL was surprised. At dusk they were still there and he couldn't have been more amazed.

The only thing that was stolen from my yard in 12 years was a raccoon trap. WTF?

[orthodoc]

Organized gangs going after farm equipment? Yikes. I read about a farmer who tried to defend himself against a home intrusion and ended up being charged rather than the intruders. That's what happens in Canada as well.

Although the firearm death rates may be lower in Canada, the predicament of not being permitted to defend yourself coupled with the high incidence of violentl crime (and no legal recourse) was what made me feel unsafe in Ontario. No one was looking out for the law-abiding folks; if you became a victim people figured you hadn't been careful enough, or shrugged and said, 'What can you do?'

My father, who is 79, has had his home robbed twice in the past few years (nice suburban area of the nation's capital). The second time he returned home to find the criminals loading a small truck with his belongings. He pulled across the driveway to prevent them leaving and they drove across the lawn, digging up his garden with their tires. When the police came by a few days later to take a report, he told them he'd thought about pulling into the driveway and rear-ending their truck to disable it. The police told him in that case they would've charged him, and not even to think about it if he didn't want to be arrested. Not because it would be unsafe to confront criminals! But because they would consider him a criminal. You're expected to lie down for this kind of thing and do the Canadian shrug.

[Trilby]

For Dana - ah, memories....


http://youtu.be/8eswiifPgi0

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Trilby

For Dana - ah, memories....


http://youtu.be/8eswiifPgi0

Oh, bloody hell. Ha! Indeed.

Surrounding Salford Crescent train station (a bizarre little no place station that feels like it is entirely separate from the world around it) are a slew of 1960s tower blocks. They'd been renovated some by the time we were living near, but a few years after they were built to house the residents of streets cleared in the slum clearance project, the conditions were so bad that the residents co-operated in sending a message. Spelt out with a letter per window, running across the blocks was the message: Get Us Out Of This Hell!

The flats we lived in were lovely. nice little places. We had the ground floor. They weren't high rise, but maisonette type flats, with four floors.

But by christ some of the housing we were surrounded by was truly appalling.