So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Hercule]

I cycle around town a lot and what really gets me riled is traffic lights...There is this one crossing that really determines whether or not I make it to work on time somedays... It´s especially frustrating when I come cycling up and the light just goes red right when I reach the intersection. I stop, knowing I will be waiting for a full cycle of the lights, which costs me about 3 minutes... I then get to watch a whole 3-5 cars in total (!) coming from the other directions while I (and a long line of cars behind me) stare at the mostly grey skies or or duck for cover in a heavy rain (just me).

Ooh, grrr..

You are to be applauded for actually obeying the traffic laws. Here it is very very very rare for bicyclists to stop at red lights unless there is a car coming.

 

[dh66]

Blabber mouth morning DJs. I begrudingly suffer all the ads because I know that's how you keep the lights on, but please shut the **** up about Taylor Swift's love life and everything else.

And don't play anymore ******* REO speedwagon, either.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I cycle around town a lot and what really gets me riled is traffic lights...There is this one crossing that really determines whether or not I make it to work on time somedays... It´s especially frustrating when I come cycling up and the light just goes red right when I reach the intersection. I stop, knowing I will be waiting for a full cycle of the lights, which costs me about 3 minutes... I then get to watch a whole 3-5 cars in total (!) coming from the other directions while I (and a long line of cars behind me) stare at the mostly grey skies or or duck for cover in a heavy rain (just me).

Ooh, grrr..

I like to go cycling and what I really hate are the signal lights on side streets where you can be waiting forever until a car comes along to activate the sensor. I've often seen the lights change for the busier cross traffic while never once turning green for me in all that time.

 

[Bamaboots]

^ Learned this as a bicycle cop, if it's a metal frame, lean the bike closely to the sensors. You can usually see the lines where they have been cut into the pavement. Worked for me.

 

[p51]

Blabber mouth morning DJs. I begrudingly suffer all the ads because I know that's how you keep the lights on, but please shut the **** up about Taylor Swift's love life and everything else.

The sad part is that stations that do this, normally do decently in the ratings. As much as you (and I, too) hate this, plenty of other people want it.
Nothing new about gossip stuff in the media, just look up all the scandals and how they were covered in the golden era. It was just as bad, then. Look up the coverage of the Fatty Arbuckle scandal to see what I mean.

 

[Bamaboots]

Blabber mouth morning DJs. I begrudingly suffer all the ads because I know that's how you keep the lights on, but please shut the **** up about Taylor Swift's love life and everything else.

And don't play anymore ******* REO speedwagon, either.

Must be a Journey fan. Heard it from a friend whooooo, heard it from a friend whooooo

 

[p51]

Must be a Journey fan. Heard it from a friend whooooo, heard it from a friend whooooo

Heard it from another, she's been messing around! :eeek:

 

[p51]

Cell phones...
Sorry for the crudeness, but no man should be talking on a phone when he's taking a dump. [huh] Earlier today at the bathroom at work, three stalls were filled and every guy in each was talking on the phone to someone.
Really, truly, if you're talking to me, tell me you're in the bathroom and I will call you back, much later!
A friend of a mine had a women guest at his brother's wedding talking on the phone to someone during the ceremony. And when people shushed her, she actually pointed to the phone in the universal, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?" gesture. Someone came over to physically take it and she did the usual, 'twist away and hold up the index finger' shtick. Another guest grabbed the phone, walked to the door and threw it out into the parking lot. People clapped, the preacher said, "Okay, where'd I leave off?" and everyone snickered. The woman apparently at no point ever got what she'd done wrong, even when she complained to other guests and was told to stick a sock in it.
A co-worker of mine has a wife who works at a clinic where cells are dangerous and banned. They've physically thrown several people out of the building for refusing to end their calls.
Seriously, I guess once cells became inexpensive to operate, people immediately decided there was no inappropriate time to use them.

 

[Fading Fast]

Bicycle enthusiasts who don't follow the rules.

I don't own a car - I walk or take public transportation everywhere and, in general, support the move in NYC (and conceptually other cities) to make the city more bike friendly with bike lanes, bike sharing programs, etc. While I won't bicycle in the city (straight out, I think it is too dangerous), I love bicycling and I fully support others who want to as it is a much more environmentally friendly way to move around.

But NYC is crowded, busy and fast pace and if some bicyclists (and it is a very small percentage overall) flagrantly break the rules - go the wrong way on one way streets, ride on the sidewalks, run through red lights, etc. - then I want the police to crack down. It might sound like a small problem, but most NYC streets are one way and a bicycle going 20+ or more mph the wrong way can easily be missed and do some real damage if he or she hits someone walking. The sidewalk are insanely crowded with pedestrians and bikes (by law) should not be on them at all for the same reason.

Space and resources are limited in this city (and in many others I've visited) and if one group - even a small subset of the group - aggressively breaks the rules and laws, they will lose the support of advocates like me and provide fuel for their enemies.

 

[p51]

In Seattle, bike riders are some of the biggest jerks out there. Fueled by entitlement and smugness, they feel they can do anything they want. For all the griping they do about how car drivers treat them, they in turn treat pedestrians far worse.
The funniest thing I ever saw was a bike rider knocked a older lady over, down along 1st Ave (where tourists often go). The bike rider laughed at her while looking over his shoulder. That bike was coming toward me and I was thinking about what I should do, when someone about 50 feet between us clotheslined the bike rider, then calmly walked away as if nothing had happened. The bike rider was soon sitting on the sidewalk while everyone who'd seen it just went on by. Nobody waited for the cops.
I heard of a similar story discussed on the radio recently, where someone pushed the bike rider over with great force, knocking him over 10 feet away. That guy reportedly walked away, too with no witnesses left.

 

[Bamaboots]

I'm a lifelong cyclist and even spent three years of my career pedaling on patrol. One of my fondest memories was stopping a cyclist for the first time and issuing a citation for disregarding a stop sign. Had a great time explaining to this fellow about how the rules of the road apply to all who use them. It was not the last time this occurred.

 

[Stearmen]

^ Learned this as a bicycle cop, if it's a metal frame, lean the bike closely to the sensors. You can usually see the lines where they have been cut into the pavement. Worked for me.

Unfortunately, cities like mine have gone to cameras that sense movement. They are suppose to see even bicycles, but, speaking from experience, you can sit on a motorcycle forever, and they may not see you. I saw a friend of mine on his Harley Road King, (you don't get much bigger then that,) the camera did not register him through two light cycles! I have run the red light on a couple of occasions, one councilman is trying to make that legal, if you have to sit through two complete light cycles.

 

[GHT]

On Monday, during the final hole of the playoff round of the Open Championship, 84 year old BBC announcer Peter Alliss said, as the camera panned to eventual winner Zach Johnson's wife Kim, "She is probably thinking, 'if this goes in I get a new kitchen.' "
This crated such an outrage on social media that the BBC issued a formal apology for his "sexist" remarks.

Cricket never really caught on in The States, that aside, we had the most wonderful cricket commentator in the late Brian Johnson.
Commenting on a test match between England and the West Indies, Brian described the scene of the West Indian fast bowler, Michael Holding, bowling to England batsman: Peter Willey, thus: "The bowler's Holding. The batsman's Willey."
Willy is a Britspeak childish slang for his manhood.

 

[Bamaboots]

Cricket never really caught on in The States, that aside, we had the most wonderful cricket commentator in the late Brian Johnson.
Commenting on a test match between England and the West Indies, Brian described the scene of the West Indian fast bowler, Michael Holding, bowling to England batsman: Peter Willey, thus: "The bowler's Holding. The batsman's Willey."
Willy is a Britspeak childish slang for his manhood.

Your right, cricket never caught on here but Willy did.:rofl:

 

[HudsonHawk]

I cycle around town a lot and what really gets me riled is traffic lights...There is this one crossing that really determines whether or not I make it to work on time somedays... It´s especially frustrating when I come cycling up and the light just goes red right when I reach the intersection. I stop, knowing I will be waiting for a full cycle of the lights, which costs me about 3 minutes... I then get to watch a whole 3-5 cars in total (!) coming from the other directions while I (and a long line of cars behind me) stare at the mostly grey skies or or duck for cover in a heavy rain (just me).

Ooh, grrr..

Of course, another option would be to leave for work 3 minutes earlier, making the traffic light irrelevant to you being tardy or not.

 

[Hercule]

Of course, another option would be to leave for work 3 minutes earlier, making the traffic light irrelevant to you being tardy or not.

Seriously?!! You must be retired. Once you leave the house in the morning, you're at the mercy of a myriad of unforseen factors working against you. While I regularly leave early only to get to work late, I have on several occasions, believe it or not, left late and got to work early!

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Of course, another option would be to leave for work 3 minutes earlier, making the traffic light irrelevant to you being tardy or not.

The rule of thumb is to give yourself an extra minute for every traffic light en route. For example, if there are fifteen traffic lights on your way to work you should give yourself a fifteen minute headstart.

 

[tonyb]

Of course, another option would be to leave for work 3 minutes earlier, making the traffic light irrelevant to you being tardy or not.

Yeah, no ****.

If arriving on time is truly important to a person, that person makes allowances for whatever obstacles to that end might be reasonably foreseen. There are unforeseeable circumstances, for sure, so arriving late on account of such a circumstance might happen once in a blue moon. But if it happens routinely, well, those circumstances are surely foreseeable, and not making allowances for them is plainly indicative of a person's casual attitude toward punctuality.

This is a particularly sore subject with me, having been routinely kept late by a habitually tardy co-worker. I had a commute of more than 40 miles and somehow managed to reliably arrive on time, whereas she had to cover a small fraction of that distance and was reliably late.

She got away with it largely on account of her occasionally ****ing the boss. Me, I wouldn't have touched her with his ****.

That's been decades ago now. Last I heard of her, she was living in a rented room, getting by on some sort of disability payment, and perhaps a little extra plying that most ancient of professions, although I can't imagine that she would have much appeal to the higher paying clientele, what with her not being particularly attractive when she was still young and nubile, which she no longer is. I had heard (from a long list of guys) that she was quite skillful at such things, way back when. Such accounts never left me thinking I'd missed out on much.

So no, I can't say I like her, but my pity for her is stronger than my dislike. I strongly suspect that she had been routinely abused in her early years. Indeed, those who knew her better than I ever did had intimated as much.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The best way to avoid being late for work is to basically never go home from your job. Sort of the deal I have going.

 

[tonyb]

Yeah, but you love it. And that's more than most people can say about their work.