Well, I’m having a difficult time coming up with a thought-provoking and fun Inquisition. Non-Skepchick life is pressing hard against me, and I just can’t seem to get it in gear. But I don’t want to complain about external influences this afternoon. I just don’t feel like crying or being angry about how things are going in my life today.
However, I don’t mind at all if you guys do it.
So in the spirit of good griping, I’m just going to open the floor and allow you all to unburden yourselves of anything that’s bothering you. Go ahead and complain about an injustice, whine about something nit-picky, bitch about something that’s bothering you, rail against something outrageous, or pick a fight like a street thug; whatever.
Let’s hear it:
Skepchick readers, what’s your beef?
The Canadian government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Canadian_parliamentary_dispute
Canadians, absolutely hate them.
The lack of kindness coming from some people makes me upset.
My beef is that I like Christmas, the gifts, the tree, the lights and the general happiness of everyone. The beef part is religion or more precisely organised religion, I hate it, would like to see it go away but can’t see it ever fully going away with good old X’mas still around. See the problem? Although we do celebrate Hallowe’en and noone believes in ghosts…
@mikekoz68:
Wow, that’s a very topical beef. One that I share.
My work computer died in spectacular fashion the other day. There was smoke and everything. The PSU overloaded and blew, taking several key system components with it, including the hard drive (tried mounting it in another computer, but it doesn’t spin up). I lost about 8 months of archived emails and some test code that hadn’t been checked into source control. Luckily, it was nothing critical, but it set me back a bit.
I’m getting sick and tired of listening to people espouse a good mass transit system only to continue driving everywhere in an SUV the size of a bus.
@mikekoz68: Yeah I’ll amend my previous beef. Christmas starting on 31 Oct is a way bigger beef for me than the stupid government. Because I have to deal with that for 2 months every single year…possibly for the rest of my life.
Also, I’m hungry.
@JSug:
You need some beef.
@JSug: That is one of my large fears on my work laptop. Hopefully that never happens to me, I would cry.
Alrighty then … The chili I had for lunch is too salty and meat is all fatty. I feel like going downstairs to the deli and give them a piece of my mind … Also, that thing between the Muslims and the Jews.
The day is going too slowly and it’s only freakin Thursday.
People in malls, stores, or shopping centers who walk … really … slowly … for no discernible reason.
I’m not talking about the elderly or the disabled. I’m talking about young, healthy people who practically bound across the parking lot, and then, upon entering a commercial establishment, start walking two and three abreast in a kind of listless shuffle.
I mean, I’m in fairly poor health and approaching middle age, but at least I don’t forget how to walk in the presence of consumer goods.
I can’t stand the fact that I have no cell phone service when I am inside my office building. There is perfectly good service outside, but the moment I enter my building, I lose all reception. It makes it really annoying for multiple reasons:
1) If I leave my phone on, my battery drains like crazy.
2) If my phone stays on and I randomly walk to an area with service, or the magic waves hit my phone just right, it starts to blow up due to all the e-mails, texts, etc that I have missed due to the lack of service.
3) Seriously, you would think having cell-phone service would be important to a company in a new building, but nooo.
Right now my beef is with an entirely too gullible co-worker whose views are shaped by an entirely too gullible media. I want to show all the flaws in thinking, and silly claims, but I don’t want to come off as a know-it-all jerk. In other words, the eternal skeptic’s dilemma. Ugh I say.
Something that bugs me a little is that there isn’t more substantive discussion at this site about the issues ‘movement skepticism’ deals with. Sure there’s general mockery and condemnation, but it would be nice if there were a bit more detailed analysis. I know that doesn’t really fit the general tone of the site, but I would like to see it occasionally. As it is, I have to post at a psi-believer forum to get my fill of dealing with the scientific issues, while Skepchick content stays a bit more fluffy.
I am a Hedge
It makes my wife very happy to enjoy holidays to the fullest and buy me presents. I don’t enjoy holidays and hate gifts. The problem is my greatest joy is making my wife happy. And around we go…
@Sam Ogden: So many off-color jokes just popped into my head.@Geran Smith: Get yourself one of these. Kind of pricey, but maybe your employer would chip in, since it would benefit everyone.
Sam, asking a question like this to a site full of cantankerous curmudgeons such as we are… you may be opening a Pandora’s box where not even Hope will remain once all the vice and venom have fled :-P
Inconsiderate and lazy people irritate me. As I pulled into the parking lot at work recently, I saw two SUVs trying to grab a choice spot near the door. I parked at a spot farther back which, unsurprisingly, no one fought me for. I got out of my car and walked past the two SUVs that still hadn’t finished parking yet.
As I walked to the door, I saw a coworker ahead of me. He was talking on the phone. He walked right in front of a car, causing it to brake to avoid hitting him. He barely looked up. When he reached the door, he pushed the handicap-access button to open it, despite having one hand free.
Also, my local grocery store parking lot is frequently littered with abandoned carts. Even when the carts are returned to the corral, they’re often just pushed in the general direction instead of stacked properly. I’ve been grocery shopping with two kids in tow and still managed to put my cart away. I have to assume that people who don’t are either too lazy or too stupid to figure out how to stack them properly. Maybe they think there’s a special tool or some sort of irreversible geometry that prevents them from returning the carts to the state they found them in. Maybe their HFCS-ravaged bodies are too exhausted after pushing a cart full of Cheetos and Pop Tarts through the aisles. Maybe the think someone else will take care of it; probably the same someone that they think will take care of the bunch of bananas they inexplicably left in the toilet paper section.
Sometimes I imagine what it’d be like if Dante’s version of hell really did exist. I’m sure there’d be a special circle reserved for these people. Maybe some sort of Sisyphean punishment involving shopping carts and parking lots.
My beef is that Comcast are filthy lying crooks.
My beef is with my younger sister, who seems to have no self-worth and is communicating again with the father of her child, who got out of fucking prison this October. He was in prison for beating her nearly to death and tying her up in a closet.
RAGE.
Also, another beef is that it is not 3pm tomorrow, because that is when my weekend starts. Stupid slow weeks.
@Steve DeGroof: I hate crowded parking lots and usually will automatically go near the back/end, where I know there will be more than enough empty spots. And then I walk. Even in the summer, when it’s 115 out. Of course, we Arizonans are known for finding a parking spot with shade, even if it means having to walk 3 blocks to where we need to be lol.
I work in a state office that gives financial assistance to low income families with children who have chronic medical conditions. One of my collateral duties is to do name changes in our system. Because of the social-economic stature of our clients I see a lot of creative names. When they just make up names it makes me role my eyes. “Sorry we misspelled Tanica, it’s Taniqua, gotcha.†But what really bugs me is when I have to go into our system to change a correctly spelled name into a horribly misspelled one or delete a proper name and replace it with a nickname so it matches the child’s birth certificate. Jasmine becomes Jazmyn. William becomes Billy Joe. Baby Girl becomes Babie Girl.
I wouldn’t really categorize this as beef. I guess I just feel sorry for the kids when they grow up and try to find a job. Nothing says “hire me†like a misspelled first name on a job application.
I got a beef with the high price of good scotch and medical science not curing the common cold.