Weird News Thread Part III

Discussion in 'Politics & Current Events' started by Pathogen, Nov 20, 2008.

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  1. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    They do but I didn't ask for their help.
     
    crazypete13 repped this.
  2. guignol

    guignol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 28, 2005
    mermoz-les-boss
    Club:
    Olympique Lyonnais
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    if you think about it it doesn't make a minute's difference. you still need to wait in the same line.
     
  3. guignol

    guignol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 28, 2005
    mermoz-les-boss
    Club:
    Olympique Lyonnais
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    i don't mind tipping. but when you compare the work a waiter does for 10 bucks to what that bellboy did for 4 he had no reason to be upset with me imo.
     
  4. yossarian

    yossarian Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jun 16, 1999
    Big City Blinking
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I don't need to think about.....I've experienced it firsthand numerous times -- in fact, every time I fly -- and it's usually much faster in the skycap line. So yeah, it does make more than a few minutes difference in my experience.
     
  5. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    this can either go in weird news, or human race failure thread, or maybe there should be a violence against women thread, but...
    no mention is made as to whether or not she weighed the same as a duck.

     
  6. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    just in case you don't get to the bottom of the above article and miss this little gem:


    wtf is wrong with people??
     
  7. guignol

    guignol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 28, 2005
    mermoz-les-boss
    Club:
    Olympique Lyonnais
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    well, if there's a different skycap line... the only time i had my bags taken by one he just deposited them in an area where i had to go get them myself when my turn at the counter came. i considered it the biggest ripoff i had every experienced in an airport and i once bought a book from a hare krishna just so he would leave me alone.

    in any case, these days with print-at-home tickets, self check-in and suitcases with wheels airports have become fairly painless.
     
  8. yossarian

    yossarian Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jun 16, 1999
    Big City Blinking
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Strange. That's absolutely a different experience than I've ever had in any skycap line at any airport in the U.S. I've ever traveled through.
     
  9. stanger

    stanger BigSoccer Supporter

    Nov 29, 2008
    Columbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Lack of education. It's not that different than most religions.
     
  10. stanger

    stanger BigSoccer Supporter

    Nov 29, 2008
    Columbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Not in my experience. I always use a skycap to check my bags because you get your boarding pass right there and can then park the car without having to drag your bags through the airport.
     
  11. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    yeah, I suppose the US and Europe have also gone through their witch-burning phases...
     
  12. guignol

    guignol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 28, 2005
    mermoz-les-boss
    Club:
    Olympique Lyonnais
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    like i said, this was not even a skycap "line". it was a good long time ago too. and it was in newark which has to be (or was at that time) probably the worst airport i've ever been through and that includes khartoum.

    i've never minded tipping in the states per se, since i was a waiter for a long time i both appreciated it then and understand it now. in france too waiters get a %... it's just that it's calculated out of the addition by the restaurant instead of being added at the discretion of the customer.

    in a larger sense i find something, if not devious at least unpalatable about so many things in general being "add-ons" in the states. at the airport: you want faster check-in, you pay for preferential service. in the plane, everything except an inedible sandwich and tap water costs money... (and at deux magots prices). service at restaurants? over and above.

    sales tax? over and above. of course sales tax is even higher in france, but at least it's up front.

    tipping can be confusing too. tourists ask questions that seem silly to americans but are understandable really. you tip a cabbie. should you tip a bus driver? in a restaurant you tip... but at mcdonald's? no? then why do you tip at starbucks?

    and that led me to find something else wierdnewsy : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/09/starbucks-faces-lawsuit-o_n_833748.html

    which is another element of the american way of life others find bewildering: the categorical imperative to sue someone whenever anything goes wrong... and its cynical auxiliary of suing not on grounds of responsibility but of profitability.
     
  13. YankBastard

    YankBastard Na Na Na Na NANANANAAA!

    Jun 18, 2005
    Estados Unidos
    Club:
    AS Roma
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
     
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  14. billyireland

    billyireland Member+

    May 4, 2003
    Sydney, Australia
    Uhm... have you never been in the JFK international terminal? Quite possibkly the worst place on earth. I didn't mind Newark, mind.

    I hate how sales tax is so hidden in the US also, don't know how it is legal to do it like that to be honest.
     
  15. yossarian

    yossarian Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jun 16, 1999
    Big City Blinking
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Been to JFK international. Still nowhere near as bad as Miami's.
     
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  16. billyireland

    billyireland Member+

    May 4, 2003
    Sydney, Australia
    Never been to Miami, don't want to go if it means being somewhere worse than JFK international, even for just an hour or so. I know airport staff are not always the benchmark of customer service, but they are openly hostile to you even being there in that shit hole whether you are looking for their assistance with something or not.
     
  17. guignol

    guignol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 28, 2005
    mermoz-les-boss
    Club:
    Olympique Lyonnais
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    hmmm... yes, notwithstanding the old TWA terminal, JFK isn't very nice. first of all it's got that PA grot. second, it leaves too much place for the motorcar, which is ironic. but when i used to go transat fairly often newark was still the worst, with connexions between terminals by buses that never seemed to work on any schedule, they just waited until they were full to about 150% of capacity and then drove off.

    sales tax in the states isn't exactly "hidden", all the locals know just what to expect, but it would be clearer for others if all prices on the shelves included it, and there's no technical reason not to. it's just psychological.
     
  18. guignol

    guignol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 28, 2005
    mermoz-les-boss
    Club:
    Olympique Lyonnais
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    airports in general are never nice. how can they be? though i will give honorable mention to CDG, cincinnati and SFO.
     
  19. billyireland

    billyireland Member+

    May 4, 2003
    Sydney, Australia
    I actually don't mind airports at all, by and large. Abu Dhabi is a particularly nice one I have been in lately (though a little small and crammed for the number of people that always seem to be there). Tomorrow, Dublin and Schonefeld, Berlin - also both quite pleasant.
     
  20. guignol

    guignol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 28, 2005
    mermoz-les-boss
    Club:
    Olympique Lyonnais
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    dublin? pleasant? this is another dublin that the dublin in ireland i take it? not dublin DUB dublin?

    for arriving it's great, you're outta there in a hurry i'll grant. but for departures... between 90 minutes in DUB and 90 minutes in the dentist chair my mind's made up. never mind the novocaine doc, i'm a man, i can take it.
     
  21. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    In my day, those spinner things were higher off the ground AND we just had a 6 inch wide bench to sit on. All that was between us and the center were the steel poles that held the thing together. At the better playgrounds, those poles were spiked. We were taught that if we fell into the center of the thing, we were too weak to live. As Dad used to say whenever a friend of mine fell in and met his demise, "Darwin baby, Darwin." At least two of my pre school playmates have that on their headstones, incidentally.
     
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  22. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    Another Darwin baby, Darwin test was hanging upside down with no hands on the jungle gym above the concrete playground.

    My wife forwarded me a video made in Russia, a Russia's stupidest video collection. There is some massive stupid in Russia. One of the items was a young buck doing pullups on a construction site, from a bar that was about 30 feet above ground. And when he finished each pullup he would yank his hands from the bar for a moment, then clasp it again as he began to fall.

    Reminded me of our old schoolyard days, only the grownup version.
     
  23. guignol

    guignol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 28, 2005
    mermoz-les-boss
    Club:
    Olympique Lyonnais
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    the problem being that there are 20,000 of those spetsnaz guys already living in the US, just biding their time until obama says the word for them to crush our (well, your) freedoms under heel.
     
    Dr. Wankler repped this.
  24. billyireland

    billyireland Member+

    May 4, 2003
    Sydney, Australia
    Not so much the airport as just getting over to Berlin :D. Terminal 1 (the old one) is horrific for departures (and Schonefeld is quite similar) but I was only going to be there for 30-40 minutes anyway. Since the second (far, far nicer) terminal was opened about 2 years back, it is also less crammed and the outrageous issues with delays are gone. Prior to that iirc, DUB was the most consistently delayed airport in Europe for over a decade.

    I had to spend over two hours in Gatwick on the way back also, which I didn't mind at all. It's quite a nice airport, even if they are stingy as all hell with their wifi.
     

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