Room 101
anataman
Who needs a title?Where am I? Veteran
There are many things we may dislike about the world we live in and want to condemn them to oblivion.
If you feel you have a real pet hate about something or other, feel free to try and dump it here and we can all vote them in or out, but you have to give a good reason why...
Here's mine: Boris Johnson
He's the mayor of London, but is probably going to be elected to parliament as an MP (after all he's in an almost un-loseable seat [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11093857/Boris-Johnson-selected-to-stand-for-Tories-in-Uxbridge-and-South-Ruislip.html], and I think there is a hidden agenda to make him the next prime minister. NOOOOO! This cannot happen, or the world really will be in a mess!
Just because he is a character, doesn't mean he has character (to quote The Wolf in Pulp Fiction)!
Comments
Oh gosh... where to begin...!
My dearest, darling husband, when he sleeps......
I think explanation is superfluous.
I think there may be other things that may vie for first position in a while....I daresy I may come back in time to expand further!
I think if you dare to/dutifully (delete as appropriate) follow him then of course you can put your poor spouse in it! But I'm not voting to put mods. in at this point!
New-age gurus!!
does age have awareness...?
Nothing wrong with new age gurus - everyones got a point of view!
Pah!
Those automated switch boards, where you phone an organisation and they say "Press 1 to be totally confused", "Press 2 to be totally frustrated", "Press 3 for both", "Press 4 if you want to be left on hold for ages with crap music playing", and "Press 5 if you need a check-up-from-the-neck-up".
Isn't this more of a General Banter topic, rather than Buddhism For Beginners?
^^ And that's ANOTHER pet hate!!^^
Moved!
As a born-and-bred Yankee, initially I didn't "get" the title of this thread until I looked it up online. So my entry is: Those who assume that the forum users are British.
We're all British deep down.
Yes, I'm sure the Buddha attended Eton and Oxford.
Yes, old chap, the Buddha was really an English gentleman, an ancestor of Lawrence of Arabia as it happens. Part of a long-term plan to make the natives more peaceful.
Now we are getting somewhere - Obliviate Boris! - done...
Next!
Of course the buddha was English @SpinyNorman - he just happened to be reborn in India at the time!
Well of course rebirth was also invented by an English gentleman.
Well, I've done some minor research on this, and 'cor-blimey, my socks were blown away - oo'd of fort of it but none other than a good old English Gent!leman born before the first world war, and died just after I was born!'
I have also done some additional research and having attained a certain level of merit - self assessed mark you - I may actually qualify as a non-returner and be born in a pure-land according to the Sutta Pitaka.
My next nomination for room 101 is 'self-agrandizement' ...\101/...
@SpinyNorman Just mash 0 on the phone until the system gets confused and says "connecting you with a customer service representative." It works about 98% of the time. Every once in a while you'll find a system that doesn't like your button mashing and will say "we did not understand your request. Goodbye."
I try to let go of my pet peeves, especially because so many of them involve simple human mistakes committed by people who just make mistakes. It's more fun to laugh it off and wave and smile than to just get perpetually annoyed. Yesterday at a 2 way stop (other guy had astop sign, I did not) a pickup almost hit me, and then gave me the finger and honked at me as he sped through the stop sign. Heh. No reason to let it ruin my day, though, better just to get a chuckle at him thinking he was so justified in being rude when he was so totally breaking the law, LOL.
One of my worst pet peeves, which thankfully I don't have to deal with much anymore, is when someone doesn't understand someone else, and so talks louder as if that will help. I used to do tech support, and whenever a non-native English speaker would call, there was a girl on our shift who would get irate and would just scream into her phone, as if talking VERY loudly will make the caller understand English better. Repeating "UNPLUG THE ETHERNET CABLE!" louder each time to someone who doesn't know what an ethernet cable is doesn't resolve the issue. So I guess you could say utter lack of respect for other people is a major pet peeve of mine.
On more than one occasion, my good American friends and fellow members have posted threads and comments exclusively pertaining to all matters American, exclusively.
It's a multi-national forum and sometimes threads do get specialised. Something I and everyone has to understand and accept.
It's not going to stop any time soon....
It's good to have to look things up when you aren't sure what they mean. Not everything needs to be spoon fed and catered to Americans. We might think we are the center of the world. Reminders that we are not are good!
Also, when I looked it up I found first the reference to George Orwell's book (which I should have remembered because I've read the book, lol) rather than the BBC tv show. So, it's hardly a strictly British term.
Whingers and Whiners
na!- I like whingers and whiners because they've got something to whinge and whine about, not like us here on NB eh
!
You were lucky!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=85114404&v=Xe1a1wHxTyo&x-yt-ts=1422579428
You know those packs of ham, cheese or bacon, where you've got a see-through plastic film to peel back (they normally have a handy little liftable corner you can grab and pull back)...?
They're crap. They don't work, and it's about time manufacturers dispensed with the expensive technological machinery which makes them, because they're pants, ineffective, and you still have to use A F$*&)%ING KNIFE TO OPEN THEM WITH!!!!
Having to prove your identity all the time. I know, they have to do it because of identity fraud and illegals working and such, but it's really tiresome.
I've been having this problem a lot recently re: my mum coming to live with me. Grrr!
Case in point... the JobCentre... There I am, 'au milieu' of, at a glance, at least a half-dozen people from 'other EU member States', some of whom barely have a grasp of the language - and I, with my English Degree and cut-glass accent, have to show my passport.....
Such Fun!
Aspartame. Disgusting, revolting dietary addition, peddled as a natural sugar, which literally makes me sick. It literally does. I honestly cannot stomach the stuff, and I can taste it almost before it hits my tongue.
And do you know, in the UK you cannot buy a single stick of gum that ISN'T sugar-free?? Kids' confectionery, yes (hubba Bubba, that kind of thing) but standard sticks of gum? There isn't a single pack anywhere, that still has sugar as an ingredient, instead of aspartame.
I honestly defy anyone in the UK t find it, freely on sale.
Well, I can't do it....
The stuff is poison (aspartame). Just last week, I got on line and wrote to Wrigley's (they make Doublemint and Big Red chewing gum, to tell them that a year ago, I noticed that my favorite (Big Red) didn't have aspartame in it, and the last pack I picked up did have it on the list of ingredients and that I avoid it like the plague and would they please make at least some of their gum with no aspartame. I said I wouldn't buy any more gum with aspartame in it.
Is diet coke aspartame? I like diet coke. Sugar (sucrose or table sugar) is also bad news.
http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/health/lowdown-on-sweeteners.html
Aspartame - definitely should go in room 101! I would rather give my kids a proper sugary drink than one with Aspartame - Sounds artificial as well - in fact it is derived from phenylalanine (an amino acid) and aspartic acid (another amino acid) - both exist widely in nature and are essential for life - but the name, 'As Part a Me' - sounds a bit corrupted ...\lol/...
Yes, regular diet coke has aspartame. They do sell a diet coke made with splenda instead (soda stream pops are made with splenda as well) but the jury is still out on whether splenda is really that much better. Curbing the pop habit is ideal, there's nothing, absolutely nothing, good in pop for you. In some aspects, you'd be better off having an occasional regular can of coke than drinking diet coke.
We can get Pur gum here that doesn't have aspartame, and I think there are a couple that are made just with xylitol, but be a little careful with that if you chew a low of gum. Too much xylitol (and for some people it doesn't take much to be "too much") will leaving you spending extra time in the bathroom.
It's all relative. Aspartame isn't a bad vice relatively.
Here is my room 101 peeve. People who are killjoys and tell me all the unhealthy things I do. Depends how they do it though. You can be humorous and say "gosh that looks like a heart attack" and then there are the people who are seriously telling you with an agenda to make you stop.
On the sugar/aspartame thing and the discussion about soda drinks....If you were to go to Costa and buy a coffee, then add the same amount of spoonsful of sugar to your coffee that there is in a can of ordinary soda - everyone would think you'd have gone stark raving bonkers.
It's true. There is no good in soda drinks:
And while you're at it, check the ingredients in those 'refreshing fruit-flavoured, thirst quenching waters'. yech....
There are some newer sodas that are sweetened with a plant called Stevia. It does have an aftertaste, though. One brand here in the States is Zevia.
Splenda is Sucralose, a modified naturally occuring sugar (sucrose), which cannot be metabolised by the body - so where does it go when you ingest it? I remember being told when I was kid if you swallow chewing gum, it wraps itself around your heart; thats why there are so many dirty white marks all over the pavements and why I get sticky shoes!
People continually addicted to their mobile phones and other portable devices.
Very neurotic, IMO, and quite rude when face-to-face conversations are continually interrupted. Also quite dangerous when people are texting while driving cars and so on!
When people post something (anything) in a public space and then get POd that people offer their opinions on what they posted. That's kind of how the internet works...if you don't want people's input, then don't put it out there, or at least make it a private post that others can't see!
Even non-calorie, non-carb, non-sugar sweeteners have an effect on the body, even the ones that are more natural. Your body starts the digestion process the second you put food in your mouth. When your body anticipates "sweet" tastes, it prepares to release insulin before the food hits your stomach. It's part of why diet drinks can still make people overweight. It messes with your hormone balance when the body is prepared for something incoming, and it never really arrives.
I've got a buffer face at the moment @karasti! Was that a POd reaction to me and my post on sucralose or was that just something you wanted to dump here...
Either way it's 101 material! Obliviate
Ain't it great you can just get rid of the cr@p from your life like this!
...\lol/...
Monkey puzzle trees.
Where I live people have a post stamp size garden. And what do they do? They plant one young monkey puzzle tree; they cover the earth with gravel. Et viola. Garden ready.
The thing is an insult to trees. Putting one in front of your house is an insult to the passing people.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/outdoors/dick-warner/no-riddle-monkey-puzzle-tree-is-just-ugly-162050.html
(I actually like them, but agree with you that Location, Location, location is of the utost and vital importance with them... They CAN look stunningly majestic as a single specimen, in a rolling green field with specimen shrubs and an azure backdrop... and you're absolutely right - their wood is utterly unique... But you're spot-on... planted in the middle of a 6' by 6' mid-terrace suburban garden, just a few feet away form the front parlour window... well, that's just asking for trouble....
MY most favouretest tree of them all, is the Ginkgo Biloba.... oh hang on, this is 'Room 101' not 'My favourite things'....
@federica
Okay, in a park when the tree is fifty years old it can stay. And the wood looks surprisingly nice.
But I dreamed about forming a terrorist group with chainsaws against them (the trees that is, not the owners).
People who sit in the right lane (fast lane in Australia) and drive either at or just below the speed limit.
Do they not see the sign every few kilometres that states "KEEP LEFT UNLESS OVERTAKING"!!!!????
Rant over.......
I think worse than that, is the "middle-lane-squatter" who insists on driving there for the entire journey at 55mph (UK limit is currently 70) so that every driver behind him has to either overtake, or dive into the inside lane and steam past, negotiating gaps in the traffic. Sadly, such drivers are either petrified spinsters of a certain age, or geriatric nonogenarians!
@anataman LOL no, it wasn't a response to anyone in particular here. I just see it a lot, especially on FB. Especially lately with the big vaccine debate going on.
Driving, it really bothers me when people don't turn on their headlights. They might be able to see without their headlights on, but no one else can see them. In the winter people with white or dark colored cars (our background is largely dark, rock and pine trees) or just in general. Our law is, any sort of precipitation requires your lights to be on. At least 50% of people don't even turn them on when it's raining or snowing. And people who park their cars and open the doors into traffic to get out without even looking. I'm amazed I've never taken off someone's door because they don't bother to look. I swear I've lost years off my life from swerving so I don't rip off someone's leg, or worse, a small child who is climbing out of the car, onto the street, with no adult help.
Which leads me to my next peeve. People who don't use, or don't properly use, child safety seats. &*$%^@. It's not that hard. It's an easy way to protect your child, and you don't even have to worry that your kid is getting "bad chemicals" or autism from them! Car seat safety class should be required before a baby leaves the hospital, and at time of drivers license renewal otherwise (for those with kids). The number of people who incorrectly use the seats, or use the wrong seat for the wrong age/size child just grates on me. You suggest they are doing it wrong, they throw a fit. Then people turn around and post on FB that their child died from an improperly installed seat and they wish someone had told them.
Drivers who believe that sunglasses are only needed for SUMMER driving.... I got news for you - that brother is LOWER in the winter, then your sunshade may well be utterly useless, and it's just as damned bright.... I see them driving along, using one hand, and shading their eyes with the other.... squinting through frosted screens they haven't bothered to clean properly (and that's ANOTHER gripe!!)
I went into a mini supermarket today to buy a few provisions - it was snowing and cold, I was also thinking about loads of gripes I could deposit here in 101, and the guy (possibly sri lankan was my guess) serving me said, 'mumble', and I said 'sorry, I was lost in my thoughts, what was that?, did my card not go through?' and he said, 'no I was just asking how you were today' - double-double take, and I smiled and said 'sorry', as I collected my thoughts and things ''then recollected myself and said 'have a nice day' sincerely and realised I wore a genuine smile! got home and started griping again as internet wasn't working/ had to do filing and accounting/door fell off cupboard and dented and chipped the door opposite the cupboard which was recently decorated/dog pee'd on floor...
Well at least I didn't die today!
it's not over yet....
Yes but I am not expecting the unexpected
Islamic State needs to go into room 101 - every last one of those sick-minded individuals
Just sickening - not even al qaida felt that Jordanian should have been burned alive.
'nuff said...
Oh if anyone has the name and address of any member of IS please send them to this guy:
Minister of Justice
Bassam Talhouni
Tel: 465 - 3533 Fax: 464 - 3197 Website: www.moj.gov.jo