start a victory garden and ration your IRRATIONALLY ANGRY feelings, part 3

omg I hate that, too

I spent over half the year having to detour to a busy road with a shitload of stoplights for part of my daily commute due to bridge construction. Every day, without fail, someone would zoom around me during the one section where the road would open up, and I would always be right behind them at the stoplight. It was on a downhill section! It's like free driving, you just roll!

also bicycles will zip right past you at a crosswalk. the law does not apply to them. even when cars are waiting for me and i'm crossing the streets bikes will zip right past me. because they suck and are above all mortal laws. kinda like when i see someone jogging and i'm waiting for a stop light at the intersection and they just jog through the intersection. because that is like being a car apparently. joggers are cars.

I do a lot of yelling in cross walks.

"Learn to fucking drive!" is a favourite of mine.

all this stuff is rational though. my IRRATIONAL anger on the road is reserved for:

http://www.hamptonsedge.com/images/slide3.jpg

I'm so afraid I might hit them that i really want to hit them! and always with the science professor beards. they outta be outlawed. the bikes. not the beards.

there was a guy who lived near me in center city philadelphia who rode one of those in the streets of philly! city streets! so insane. i don't get it. i think i actually started a thread on those guys once. (99% of them are guys. #anecdotal)

Recumbents are good for people with bad backs who have trouble riding traditional road bikes, fuck off.

One of my friends was nearly killed in Wyoming last fall while cycling from Cleveland to Seattle. She just had the piece of her skull they removed re-inserted last Friday, and she's still re-learning how to walk right now. I don't find jokes about running over cyclists remotely funny.

recumbent bike guys are benign presences but it's weird how they all look like ron rifkin or bob balaban.

I remember reading about an elderly woman who was killed in a crosswalk by a bicyclist blowing through it. San Francisco, I think.

"President Keyes for the hardman pedestrian award"

Hopefully not the "There are old hardmen pedestrians, and bold hardmen pedestrians, but no old and bold hardmen pedestrians" award.

On average, cyclists in the US kill fewer than 1 pedestrian per year.

On average, motorists in the US kill between 800-900 cyclists per year.

Fuck off.

in terms of lapd, i've had the worst luck in the downtown la area, they're super strict there

never had problems on the westside but i'm mostly a law abiding resident

the suburbs are a free for all obv

recumbent bikes really, really need those visible tall flags on them

there's a particular small street in west hollywood/hollywood where a bunch of cyclists have marked territory and if you're on it it's hell because they take up the entire street and go nice and slow

oh stop i'm not gonna hit anyone. but it's fine to express your irrational anger toward my irrational anger here. x-post

i think it takes a lot of faith in your fellow man to ride one of those things though. they are hard to see and people go out of their way to avoid them on the road. often going into another lane entirely to keep their distance from them. which is kinda dangerous. and it's harder for someone who is riding one to avoid people/cars than on a normal bike i would imagine. they just scare me a little when i have to pass one. like its gonna fall over into the road. which is also irrational. there aren't a lot of them though. so, not much of a problem.

nothing beats the moped fear when i lived on marthas vineyard though. so frightening. people weaving in and out of traffic. sometimes riding on the road and sometimes on the side. lots of people who had never been on one before too. even bikes on the vineyard could be scary to drive near/around. they have put more bike paths on the island though. those roads were just not made for that many cars/bikes/etc.

i'm very careful around bicycles. but, like with car drivers, not everyone knows how to ride safely. which is why i'm careful. i just think there are too many big fast vehicles out there now. and most of them see bikes as a nuisance. i don't even think riding a bike is fun anymore. maybe if i lived in iowa or someplace with no people.

recumbent bikes seem much less rapidly maneuverable than conventional bikes. just try imagining a peloton made up entirely of recumbents. it would be static as hell. I think it is that lack of maneuverability that inspires drivers with secret dread. as a frequent pedestrian, I'd hate to have to walk anywhere that a lot of recumbents were zipping around, too.

i also don't care if i have to go slow. which seems to make me the minority. people (cars AND bikes) have to go so fast and they do stupid stuff all the time. definitely makes me angry. especially now when people drive tanks.

and i haven't even talked about how i want to kill the people who don't use their blinkers yet. which is a LOT of people these days. so dangerous!

oh yeah, there seems to be a law I didn't know about that if you're driving in a residential area you needn't ever use turn signals

As a pedestrian the combination of state laws and a regional respect for crosswalks here is still shocking and great, at least compared to Michigan where it's basically fuck you if you're not in a car. I was back there this summer and behind a motorcycle with a Washington State plate and watched him instinctively stop to let some pedestrians cross and all the other cars couldn't understand and just blew by him.

But as a frequent driver around a university this mindset combined with entitled or oblivious students is terrifying as they frequently cross streets without even bothering to look around or signal their intentions, regardless of weather or darkness and completely ignoring the laws of physics required to stop a car going 30 miles an hour on snowy roads.

I think people are Michigan-esque here in that there are a bunch of drivers who think all streets are 55mph highways that occasionally go through small towns/commercial areas even when they are in a dense pedestrian district

A lawyer who specializes in head injuries once gave me the following rundown: imagine a $4 million dollar settlement for a disabling car accident. That's if you were crossing the street at a crosswalk when the walk light was in your favor. If you were crossing the street somewhere other than a crosswalk, cut it in half. If you were crossing when the walk light was not in your favor, cut it inn half again.

A car knocked me off my bike once. I got about $1600 for it.

A bike knocked me off of my horse once. Now I can't add numbers.

A horse and a recumbent bike walked into a bar once. The bartender said, why the long faces?

Rod Stewart walked into a bar once. The barkeep poured gasoline on him and light him on fire and everybody thanked him afterward .

rip he was sexy

LIDL repackaging fairtrade bananas so the package labeling is the same colour as the other varieties. Used to be distinct enough to spot so you could tell at a glance if they had them in. Now got to pick up packs to check.

I work in a corporate building which also provides ESL classes for children in the afternoon. I get IA when these kids run in and out of the bathrooms screaming, with little regard for keeping the bathroom clean. Maybe this belongs in the disgusting savages thread.

the spelling of 'reneges' is an absolute disgrace

People repaying you for basic decency. I helped out someone having a medical emergency the other day, and I come into the pub today (she's barstaff in my local) and I have 5 pints in the barrel for me. And it really bugs me - it feels like turning ordinary social interactions into a material transaction. Or something. I can't quite express why it annoys me so much - hence this thread.

I understand that completely. But hey, it doesn't completely sound like an "ordinary social interaction" or "basic" decency is what compelled her to comp the pints for you.

Meanwhile, I called the cops on a burglary in process at my neighbor's house last summer while he was out of town, and he promised us some home-baked cookies. Guess who hasn't gotten his cookies yet?

I think you're allowed to break in and take whatever cookies you find

It wasn't her for most of them - she bought me a pint, the rest was from others. But perhaps it's the same part of me that hates compliments? And I didn't do what I should have - I wanted to call an ambulance, and she told me not to. She was admitted to hospital later - I should have ignored her. But regardless of this case, it bothers me when people insist on repaying stuff: you help each other and that's it.

Obv. Cookie promises should be fulfilled.

sounds like they were just celebrating you being a good person with an unofficial toast

Yeah dowd I think you're off base here. Don't look at it as a transaction or repayment - I doubt they think of it that way! It's more like "here is a token of our gratitude - a physical symbol of the esteem we hold you in for what you did"

you did them a favor, by buying you a beer they had an excuse to order one for themselves

keep in mind this is the IRRATIONALly angry thread, Tim

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 1 February 2017 12:34 (one week ago)

:) indeed

You should have asked for all 5 pints at once and then poured them on the ground one by one in protest

Worst yet

My step-dad has this thing about restaurants offering something free - like desserts or comped drinks - to make up for inferior service (like a long wait.)

His point is that he doesn't want to be "bought off" for his inconvenience. I'm not sure how else a restaurant manager is supposed to make amends with a disgruntled customer, but I see where both sides are coming from.

This is a different situation from dowd's, but it got me thinkin'.

Agree with step-dad.

xp it doesn't fix the problem just masks the symptom

door to door marketing with horrible value propositions

i tend to avoid most people knocking on my front door unless it's a recognizable neighbor, or a car is broken down right outside or something and someone needs help.. or a girl scout with cookies..

talked to a couple people from the local phone/internet company who were letting people know they were now offering fiber internet in the area and were trying to sign people up. i use the cable/internet company and, while there are service interruptions on occasion, it's pretty much fine

i was listening to their spiel until i finally asked what speed their offering was and it was 12mbps and i was like GUYS LET'S NOT WASTE ANY MORE TIME THAT IS REALLY BAD. my irrational anger is strong when people are going door to door with horrible value propositions

Don't want to mellow mh's harsh, but want to say one thing about the popular notion of Girl Scouts going from door-to-door with cookies that they are selling. They may sell door-to-door, but usually not like that.

In actual practice, what they do is go around with an order form. Then they return (weeks later) to deliver the cookies you ordered. Payment is due when you get the cookies, not when you place the order.

We are going through this in my house just now, so I'm reflecting on how different those logistics are from the movie/TV idea of it, which is a Girl Scout showing up with cookies and asking if you want to buy them.

Carrion.