I do use the phonebook. It’s sometimes nice to have it right in front of me. Plus, if the internet’s not working, I like having a backup around. I occasionally use the online yellow pages too, though.
Maybe I’d be a bit more upset if they tried to send me 10, instead of one.
I don’t even have a landline and I still get a unbelievable number of phone books at my house. I take them to my office and put them in the outside garbage can. I don’t even want those thick things filling up my home garbage can.
We keep one around (very useful for restaurant menus) and simply throw out the old one every year. I can’t say we use it much, though - I’m more likely to go online to look up a phone number. This year the Yellow Pages were delivered to us twice - the second pile (3 books, although the 3 doors lead to 4 apartments) stayed on the front balcony for a week before we simply tossed them in the recycling the next time it went out.
We do get quite a bit more use out of the nifty neighbourhood Yellow Pages - all businesses and services that are in the Outremont-Plateau area of Montréal. It was very useful in the first few weeks after the move, since it helped us find services that were nearby much faster. I don’t need to know about Business X in Kirkland - I want to know if there’s one nearby!
I agree with your entire rant except I think it’s a good idea to have at least one. We had an ice storm two years ago. My pipes froze and burst and then I lost power. If I didn’t have a flashlight and a phone book, I would have been screwed trying to find a plumber.
I actually keep two, but I’m just an edgy rebel that way.
One stays in the house and collects dust, but the other one gets tucked into the little drawer thingy under the car seat. That one actually comes in pretty handy for quick on-the-go checks of business addresses, etc. The updated maps are useful because I have absolutely no sense of direction or locational memory.
But otherwise, yeah…all those extras get tossed right into the recycle bin.
It’s even worse at work. Entire pallets of the damned things get dumped off. Pure insanity, and pleas to stop/reduce the deliveries don’t help at all.
Amen. :eek:
You might want to at least glance through them before you recycle them - the newer books have quite a few pages with discount coupons, and usually coupons from places you might actually frequent.
But I am in total agreement…I toss most of them into the recyle bin the same day and use my phone book once a year, if that.
Sort of makes you feel bad for the small businesses laying out the money for a large ad in books that seem to be tossed the same day.
Hmm, I am definitly in the minority here, but as I thumb through my 2002 directory, I think wouldn’t be nice to have a 2006 one? It is a problem of distribution. But all the same, ten of them? I would throw nine of them into the recycle basket. Problem over
If you don’t want those extras, send them to me. I use them to start fires in my fireplace. This gives me the perverse (if somewhat juvenile) pleasure of putting me in touch with my conservative book-burning side without offending my liberal books-are-sacred side.
“That’s right, burn, bitch! Yeah, I know you’re a book. Shut the fuck up. Nobody likes you.”