pet peeve thread

[Antrax]

Yep, you got it. I thought it was obvious - was my phrasing weird?

[PassedOut]

Yep, you got it. I thought it was obvious - was my phrasing weird?

Your phrasing was fine and your usage was normal.

[dwar0123]

Oh? Why is that?

For the same reason that we would probably both be worried about the definition of a 'good' education by a religious fanatic. We disagree on some fairly fundamental stuff and I would worry that your gun loving small government world view would influence what you would consider a good education.

 

This may be an unfounded fear, perhaps our definition of a good education is very similar, but I would be worried until shown otherwise.

[Trinidad]

People wondering what the probability is for something that already happened.

 

As in:

 

"0 member(s) have a birthday today

 

No members are celebrating a birthday today"

 

What are the odds for that?!?

 

;)

 

Rik

[gwnn]

Babies on the airplane. No, I don't care what I did when I was their age and yes, I know the parents have to put up with them for most of the day. I still reserve my right to be annoyed when they decide to cry like their life depended upon it for the whole flight. My favourite scene was with a 5-yo girl who sat with his dad next to me and wouldn't buckle her seatbelt at takeoff. When simply ignoring her dad's nice and reasonable arguments was no longer enough for her she decided that shouting in my ears was the next measure to be taken.

[Fluffy]

google is very good at predicting individual users' preferences so if the answer to most queries is bullshit and porn then .....

 

It keeps getting me to webpages of buildings across water instead of reaching clubs and players related to a card game. Is there a trick I could do to change that?

[Cyberyeti]

People wondering what the probability is for something that already happened.

 

As in:

 

"0 member(s) have a birthday today

 

No members are celebrating a birthday today"

 

What are the odds for that?!?

 

;)

 

Rik

 

Pretty good, I suspect most of us are too old to want to celebrate our birthdays so don't put the date in :)

 

Wondering what the odds were for a particular event after the event is something we all do, particularly bridge players, it's fundamental in the question "did I select the right line" when you know how stuff broke.

[y66]

Consider the possibility that the person who didn't park in the middle of the spot parked where he did because the person on the other side of where you want to park was "over the line" when not-middle got there. "Over-the-line" leaves, someone else comes in and parks in the middle of that slot, and then you come along and blame the wrong guy for the problem.

 

David Foster Wallace would have loved this.

[blackshoe]

For the same reason that we would probably both be worried about the definition of a 'good' education by a religious fanatic. We disagree on some fairly fundamental stuff and I would worry that your gun loving small government world view would influence what you would consider a good education.

 

This may be an unfounded fear, perhaps our definition of a good education is very similar, but I would be worried until shown otherwise.

If you have inferred from anything I have said here that I "love" guns, you are mistaken. IAC, my views on guns and government would affect my definition of a good education only insofar as I believe that people should at least know the whys and wherefores of those views — as well as other views.

[Antrax]

When simply ignoring her dad's nice and reasonable arguments

lol

[GreenMan]

It keeps getting me to webpages of buildings across water instead of reaching clubs and players related to a card game. Is there a trick I could do to change that?

 

I usually include the word "contract" and, since I'm in the U.S., "acbl". Those or, say, "wbf" can usually filter out the infrastructure.

[gwnn]

lol

How else do you call 'Honey, we need to buckle up, you see, everyone is doing it, it will only be for 5 minutes, it does not hurt at all, we have buckles like this in the car, the lady in blue told us we should, please buckle up...' (spoken patiently) getting a series of shrugs and noes?

[Antrax]

No, I agree with your characterization, but it's funny how you found it noteworthy, as though if you just wrote "I sat next to a screaming five year old" people would think "huh, probably her father's fault for not reasoning with her". Kids are noisy, for most part. I don't know what I'll do if I ever have to fly with mine for a longer duration than I can get him to sleep.

[GreenMan]

I spent about 2.5 hours on a train two seats ahead of a 5ish-year-old who was screaming the whole way. Some of it was childish exuberance, which I actually appreciate in small doses, but every time her mother or guardian would try to get her to settle down, she'd fly into a shrieking rage. For hours. That's not normal kid stuff; other children in the car were observing social norms about noise in public just fine.

[billw55]

When I return to my car to find that someone has parked so close that I can't open the door, they get some nice door dings.

[Antrax]

Company car, they fix it for free while I'm at work. You can't beat my system :P

[Cyberyeti]

Company car, they fix it for free while I'm at work. You can't beat my system :P

 

How do you feel when you realise they had to park towards the edge of the bay to make enough room for the wheelchair the other side.

[Antrax]

Never happens, handicapped spots are marked very clearly and are 2x larger than normal to allow for ramps and the such. That's actually one of the few social norms both the city and the people in it still respect. In the unlikely scenario there's a handicapped party and all the designated spots are taken, they're allowed to park anywhere they want as long as it doesn't obstruct traffic.

 

(I AM THE PARKING AVENGER!)

[Cyberyeti]

Never happens, handicapped spots are marked very clearly and are 2x larger than normal to allow for ramps and the such. That's actually one of the few social norms both the city and the people in it still respect. In the unlikely scenario there's a handicapped party and all the designated spots are taken, they're allowed to park anywhere they want as long as it doesn't obstruct traffic.

 

(I AM THE PARKING AVENGER!)

 

OK, that's better than here, where the disabled bays are often taken by mums with buggies and lazy people who won't walk more than 10 yards.

[kenberg]

I spent about 2.5 hours on a train two seats ahead of a 5ish-year-old who was screaming the whole way. Some of it was childish exuberance, which I actually appreciate in small doses, but every time her mother or guardian would try to get her to settle down, she'd fly into a shrieking rage. For hours. That's not normal kid stuff; other children in the car were observing social norms about noise in public just fine.

 

My first rule here is that the parents have to look like they are trying. I've had kids, they don't always behave, I can appreciate parents who are in a fix..But they must try to keep the kids from annoying others. In your case, it sounds as if they passed that first test. But really, on a long train ride, they should assume the responsibility of trying harder. When my younger one was around four or five, we just stopped going out to restaurants for a while. One of us would have to get up and take her outside so that others could eat in peace. She was a wonderful child (if I do say so myself) and has grown into a fine adult. But she was not a perfect child, and adjustments had to be made.

[y66]

I found myself acting like a cranky 5 year old on a recent trip to Vermont. Traffic was a bear, our directions were imperfect and going to Vermont was my wife's idea, not mine! I think I would have been less cranky on the way up if I'd bought into the idea a lot earlier and helped out more with the planning. Just because you're 5 years old or acting like it does not mean you don't have a responsibility to think ahead about ways to make trips more fun for yourself and others and to behave like a good travel companion when things don't go smoothly.

 

p.s. Vermont was awesome!

[PassedOut]

My first rule here is that the parents have to look like they are trying. I've had kids, they don't always behave, I can appreciate parents who are in a fix..But they must try to keep the kids from annoying others. In your case, it sounds as if they passed that first test. But really, on a long train ride, they should assume the responsibility of trying harder. When my younger one was around four or five, we just stopped going out to restaurants for a while. One of us would have to get up and take her outside so that others could eat in peace. She was a wonderful child (if I do say so myself) and has grown into a fine adult. But she was not a perfect child, and adjustments had to be made.

For restaurants, our strategy with our sons was similar to yours with your daughter. Air travel was tougher.

 

For international travel, we did pay a lot of attention to making sure that we didn't disturb others. Our first long trip with an infant was to Japan when Nick was five months old, so he was content with nursing and sleeping. Later on as the family expanded, we scheduled night flights and made sure we had interesting things to occupy each of the three for the short time it took for them all to doze off. We let them know in advance what would be happening and what we expected in behavior, and included them in the planning -- including what special things they'd have on the plane. And we also paid attention to our seat locations.

 

Even so, we had a two or three years where we didn't travel internationally at all (nor go to nice restaurants). It just wasn't worth the risk of some big fuss...

[Antrax]

We have some open air restaurants, there's a nice one by the sea so unless the kid is working up an aneurism, the waves are going to drown the noise :)

[gwnn]

I admit that this is not something my blood pressure ever gets very high about but it is still something that I would like to see changed. Why can't switch manufacturers (or the guys who set them up?) ever make up their damn minds? Whenever there is a light switched on and one off, I have to make a guess on which switch belongs to which light. My father taught me (starting from the top) 'on/off, the other way is just nonsense' so that's my take on it. This seems to be more annoying than left/right side driving, although (=as a direct consequence of the fact that as per Sayre's law) it has obviously less severe dangers.

[PassedOut]

My father taught me (starting from the top) 'on/off, the other way is just nonsense' so that's my take on it.

I had a place once with two switches for one light, and to turn that light off you had to have one switch up and the other down. I'm not sure why I found that so irritating, considering all of the problems in the world, but I had it changed so that both down (or up) was off. Felt better then.

:)