Inside UDJ by Editor K.C. Meadows

I got a call Wednesday from a woman who was sad to find out that you can no longer make a phone call to find out what time it is. She is the second person this week to let me know that dialing "popcorn" will no longer give you that wonderful automated operator telling you exactly what time it is.
Where I grew up in NYC you dialed "nervous" to get the time. I don't know if you can still do that either.
This really is too bad since lots of people still depend on such services after a power outage or when daylight savings time begins or ends. I know that your cable or satellite TV menus will give you the same information, but it doesn't, somehow, seem quite as authentic as the information that came from The Phone Company.
And again, what if there's a power outage? Of course my phone no longer works in a power outage since, like most Americans I have the new sort of cordless phone in which the main phone body is plugged in. So it's useless in a power outage. Is a cell phone time set by the satellite, or by the user? Believe me, even though I carry a cell phone, I don't know. I can barely collect messages from it.
Anyway, does anyone out there know when the "popcorn" time service in California began? Anyone know why it has been discontinued? And any advice on the best place to look for the correct time anymore?

Also got a call this week from a woman who wanted the public to know that she believes that a lot of the people collecting money in front of our major supermarkets on behalf of Christian missions of one sort or another are often taking that money out of town to places in the Central Valley and Southern California and that the money is not helping anyone locally. She says she always asks and though she gets dirty looks, she feels it's important that the limited dollars local residents have to give to charity should be saved for the people who need it here.