The Little Things that P*** You Off

[Lethevich]

Zdeněk Fibich pisses me off.

Do I really need another great sounding Czech late-Romantic composer to have to investigate? Stop it with all the composers!

[Mirror Image]

Not in the UK, I am with the complaint. It is just a scam.

Mike

You don't get free refills for drinks like Coke or ginger ale? I can understand not getting one for an alcoholic drink, but a Coke?

[Lethevich]

You don't get free refills for drinks like Coke or ginger ale? I can understand not getting one for an alcoholic drink, but a Coke?

Nope, no X number of free trims after an initial haircut either (I was surprised when a Canadian friend mentioned this) - we're a stingy nation

[Scarpia]

You don't get free refills for drinks like Coke or ginger ale? I can understand not getting one for an alcoholic drink, but a Coke?

Free refills is fairly common but it is far from universal even in the US.  The thing that astonishes me are the enormous cups of soda people walk around with.  1000 calories of sugar water.  No wonder the US is one of the rare countries in the world where life expectancy is decreasing.

[eyeresist]

You don't get free refills for drinks like Coke or ginger ale? I can understand not getting one for an alcoholic drink, but a Coke?

You must live in some magical land where carbonated beverages run like water. Elsewhere, you gots to pay for your drinks. Except water is legislated free in pubs.

[ibanezmonster]

Where we live is better than Africa, but it's far from magical! 
Only in some fast food places do you get free refills- like McDonalds. If it's not the same in Europe, that's definitely something I didn't know!

[knight66]

McDonald's here used to give free refills of coffee; not Coke though. But that also has stopped. I was recently in Rome and here is part of the blog entry I made....

'We ate well and inexpensively, though the bug bear is coffee. Although regarding themselves as world leaders in coffee, for our taste it was never really hot, nor was there enough in the very modest size cups provided. As in many cities in Mediterranean Europe, stand at the bar and a coffee is almost free. But the tired tourist pays in pints of blood, or the throbbing credit card equivalent, for the need of rest in a chair instead of throwing it back standing at the counter. Sit down outside and you phone your bank to prepare an overdraft.'

These small coffees, (not espressos, just small), cost anything from 80 cents to 4 Euros 50 cents. The former if you stood up, the latter if you sat down outside. In Venice two years ago in a very ordinary cafe I was charged 10 Euros for two coffees sitting inside the place. I assume there was such a premium there because they did not have space outside to put chairs and therefore charge the usual outside top-up.

Mike

[Sandra]

No wonder the US is one of the rare countries in the world where life expectancy is decreasing.

Never heard of that. What are your sources?

[eyeresist]

Never heard of that. What are your sources?

Overall life expectancy is increasing, but this is an average over a very disparate population.

"There is now evidence that there are large parts of the population in the United States whose health has been getting worse for about two decades."
...
The majority of the counties that had the worst downward swings in life expectancy were in the Deep South, along the Mississippi River, and in Appalachia, extending into the southern portion of the Midwest and into Texas.
...
beginning in the 1980s, the best-off counties continued to improve but there was a stagnation or worsening of life expectancy in the worst-off counties
...
"life expectancy decline is something that has traditionally been considered a sign that the health and social systems have failed, as has been the case in parts of Africa and Eastern Europe. The fact that is happening to a large number of Americans should be a sign that the U.S. health system needs serious rethinking."
...
the stagnation and worsening mortality was primarily a result of an increase in diabetes, cancers and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, combined with a slowdown or halt in improvements in cardiovascular mortality. An increase in HIV/AIDS and homicides also played a role for men, but not for women.

The diseases that are responsible for this troubling trend seem to be most related to smoking, high blood pressure, and obesity.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080422103952.htm

[Sandra]

Overall life expectancy is increasing, but this is an average over a very disparate population.

Thank you. That's pretty sad, considering that medicine is advancing faster than ever and the number of smokers is dropping dramatically. Our health-care system must be exceptionally poor.

[The Six]

The problem with ice is it melts and waters down the drink. And I've read the ice is usually the dirtiest part of fast food, as the machines are rarely cleaned.

[eyeresist]

Thank you. That's pretty sad, considering that medicine is advancing faster than ever and the number of smokers is dropping dramatically. Our health-care system must be exceptionally poor.

Not wanting to get all political, but I imagine being on a low income would be much more anxiety-making in the US than other Western countries, most of which have a much stronger social safety net ("socialism!"  ), and this anxiety would in turn exacerbate hazardous behaviours like smoking and over-eating (though some might argue this is nature's way of eliminating the unemployment problem). For myself, I'd probably be dead if not for Australia's generous medicare system.

[DavidW]

The problem with ice is it melts and waters down the drink. And I've read the ice is usually the dirtiest part of fast food, as the machines are rarely cleaned.

You know I never thought about that... oh boy I think you're right I should demand "no ice!" everytime!  Besides the drinks are already cold.

[ibanezmonster]

Not wanting to get all political, but I imagine being on a low income would be much more anxiety-making in the US than other Western countries, most of which have a much stronger social safety net ("socialism!"  )

Well, yeah. Lack of affordable housing is the number one reason why people are homeless. I know two right now who were homeless for an extended time, despite having full-time jobs.

[eyeresist]

I know two right now who were homeless for an extended time, despite having full-time jobs.

That is just nuts.

[springrite]

"We demand good medical care for the elderly and affordable housing but NO SICIALISM!"

[Sandra]

Not wanting to get all political, but I imagine being on a low income would be much more anxiety-making in the US than other Western countries, most of which have a much stronger social safety net ("socialism!"  ), and this anxiety would in turn exacerbate hazardous behaviours like smoking and over-eating (though some might argue this is nature's way of eliminating the unemployment problem). For myself, I'd probably be dead if not for Australia's generous medicare system.

Describe how it is in Australia. I'm curious.

Let's say you're a 20-something year old student with a job and no health insurance, and you get some kind of cancer, for example... The treatment costs 10s of thousands of dollars. So you walk in to the hospital. What happens then?

[Wendell_E]

Our bizarre rules about what may and may not be seen and heard on U.S. television.  During last night's telecast of the Met's Nixon in China,  "goddamn" and "motherfuckers" were bleeped, and appeared in the subtitles as "***damn" and "mother******".  Interestingly, given the title of this thread, they had no problem with "pissed", so I've corrected the title of my post.   

Of course, there was no problem in showing a depiction of the extreme violence of the Cultural Revolution.

IIRC correctly, the broadcast of the original Houston production did include the "goddamn", but the whole "We'll show the motherfuckers how to dance" line was cut.

[eyeresist]

Describe how it is in Australia. I'm curious.

Let's say you're a 20-something year old student with a job and no health insurance, and you get some kind of cancer, for example... The treatment costs 10s of thousands of dollars. So you walk in to the hospital. What happens then?

Assuming public hospital, you show them your medicare card and get treated. There may be a few hundred dollars to pay on top of the basic coverage. (Medicare covers essential treatments. Elective things (e.g. facelifts) you pay for yourself.)

To me this makes perfect economic sense. The prime asset of a nation is the health of its citizens, after all.

[ibanezmonster]

That is just nuts.

Well, the thing I forgot to mention is that they had to pay child support. Without that, with a basic full time job (maybe a dollar an hour more than minimum wage) you'll be able to afford to rent a room and stay with someone, if you can find someone cheap enough.

Just out of curiosity, is it like this in Australia? When I read about the causes of homelessness in Australia, it ranked the leading causes being:

Causes according to the 2001 census
Domestic and family violence (22%)
Eviction/previous accommodation ended (11%)
Relationship/family breakdown (11%)
Usual accommodation unavailable (11%)
Financial Difficulty (10%)

While in the US:

According to the United States Conference of Mayors,[5] the main cause is the lack of affordable housing.
The four next primary causes are:
mental illness or the lack of needed services,
substance abuse and lack of needed services.
low-paying jobs.
Government policy - Child support enforcement keeping drivers licenses from citizens and other civil rights violations.

Assuming public hospital, you show them your medicare card and get treated. There may be a few hundred dollars to pay on top of the basic coverage. (Medicare covers essential treatments. Elective things (e.g. facelifts) you pay for yourself.)

To me this makes perfect economic sense. The prime asset of a nation is the health of its citizens, after all.

That must be nice... 


I don't know much about socialism. Is it just mainly middle class instead of a high class-low class system? I don't care about getting rich- just being comfortable financially would be good enough for me. If Australia is that way, I think I'd prefer that type of system.