You Know What I Hate....?

[Mr Tulip]

I don't follow international sports, but are other countries so preoccupied with eliminating the "tie" as part of the game?  Maybe I should look up some standings in the eastern hemisphere.

This just smacks of pure shallow Americana instant gratification to me.

In most soccer leagues around the globe, a tie is a built in result. It's part of the strategy.
Your life blood is the table. That's the ranking of all teams in your league. If you win a game, you get 3 points in the table. Lose, you get nada. A tie will get you one point. At the end of the season, the top teams in the table play for trophies. The bottom teams get kicked downstairs to the shame of playing next season in a lesser division (there's also a huge financial penalty in rights, television, and player bonuses).
If you're a not-so-good team playing on the road against a good team, you might send your guys on to the field with the intent of keeping the score close and hopefully earning that one point. It's good for you. On the flip side, that really good team has to find a way to get all 3 points for a win at home against a pretender. If they don't, they probably lose ground to the other contenders. They'll pick their players and formation accordingly (remember, you can only change 3 players all game, so you can't decide in the middle to go "full offense").
It's a good system when the difference between a good team and a bad one is 3 goals. In college football, where the difference can be 50 points, it probably isn't so good.

[BrownCounty]

In most soccer leagues around the globe, a tie is a built in result. It's part of the strategy.

I completely understand and remember the days when a tie was woven into the W/L strategy in the NFL.  I'm not saying it was great thing, but to me it was better than the knuckleheaded tie-breaking solutions of today.

I'm just saying that modern American culture could not tolerate a system of such prudence, patience, and respect for the game.

It's like the evolution of Jaws 1 to Jaws 3.

Jaws 1 was tasteful, suspenseful, and strategically moderated.  There may have been 3 shark attacks the whole movie.

Jaws 3 was a picnic of flesh and blood.

Americans.  Instant gratification.

[CWSooner]

Sharknado

[CousinFreddie]

When it comes to driving, I don't mind as much what happens out in front of me, as long as I can react to it.  There are dumbshits everywhere, of course, and as long as I can pick my way around them, all's okay.

But what really gets me are the ones behind you that you can't control or avoid - the tailgaters, particularly those at night with bright headlights (whether they have their brights on, or have those high intensity halogen lights, or just have their headlights aimed too high - it's all the same general category of a-hole in my book).  I'm talking those guys who are just a car length behind you when you're already going 5-10 mph over the speed limit; totally unsafe. 

Of course, in the egregious cases, I usually just slow way down until they finally pass (if I'm on a multi-lane interstate), but it's still molto annoying.

[BrownCounty]

I hate bright light patrolman.  To me, worse than constant speed moron.

I love blinding those suckers when they come my way giving me the switch-on.

Remember Crocodile Dundee, that's not a knife, this is a knife.

Well I say, that's not bright, THIS is bright.  Buttwipe.

[FearlessF]

it's all in good clean fun, until..... you really do blind grandma with those high beams and she smacks you head-on

[BrownCounty]

it's all in good clean fun, until..... you really do blind grandma with those high beams and she smacks you head-on

Bright light patrolman are always male, between ages 20-40, typically in a truck, and typically need a good ass-whippin'.
I'm too old for the latter but I've got a swift bright light trigger finger.

[CharleyHorse46]

Bright light patrolman are always male, between ages 20-40, typically in a truck, and typically need a good ass-whippin'.
I'm too old for the latter but I've got a swift bright light trigger finger.

So I'm not the only one who's noticed the truck boys.  Seems to be the newer trucks.  The commonness of their blinding lights really annoyed me at first but now it's so very common that I suspect it's not anything the driver can control - like high beams.  Instead, I just suspect it's a combination of pickups sitting up higher and having much better lights than they used to.
For the longest time I hated the positioning of the lights on Dodge trucks.  The parking lights down in the bumper looked like fog lights.  
Now all the newer trucks seem to have very bright, somewhat obnoxious lighting.  Not necessarily like the Dodge set up but with HIDs and LED wrap arounds and being four feet off the ground, they're like mobile flood lights.

[CharleyHorse46]

Also, I may have mentioned this from time to time over the years but it's been my observations that certain makes and models have been very popular among terrible drivers.

Back in the '70s when I first started driving, it was midsized personal luxury cars by GM - Monte Carlos, Grand Prixes, Regals and Cutlasses.  Folks in those cars would do the damnedest things.

In the '90s Nissan Maximas were holy hell.  In the 2000s it was Ford Explorers.

Now and for the last several years it seems to be Honda CRVs.   Forgive me if you drive one.  Take solace in the fact that maybe you're one of the good driving outliers among its patrons.

Bad drivers drive all makes and models, but where I live a detectable majority of bad drivers drive Honda CRVs.

They see you coming and slowly pull out in front of you any way.  As you all know, big trucks do this too because who the heck wants to broadside a big truck?     But when CRVs do it, it's just maddening.

Whenever I'm behind somebody who seems to be meandering cluelessly and erratically instead of driving purposely - they're usually in a Honda CRV.

They act like they're pulling a 27 foot trailer.  They make absurdly wide turns.  They start right to go left and start left to go right.  Can't tell you how many times I've nearly been broadsided by a wide swinging CRV I thought had turned out of my way into the opposite direction.

On a half dozen occasions I've had people in Honda CRVs just come to a complete stop in front of me on a divided thoroughfare.  Dare I pass?  Eventually I do and I look closely as I do to see if I can ascertain the reason the person stopped.  I never can.  They just stopped for no apparent reason.

Nowadays if I see a Honda CRV anywhere near me, I just try to hurry past it as quickly as I can before I have to suffer consequences for its existence.

[BrownCounty]

They act like they're pulling a 27 foot trailer.  They make absurdly wide turns.  They start right to go left and start left to go right.

Ahh yes.... the nudge left, turn right moron.  These idiots should have their license terminated and be forced into a junior college trigonometry night class.

Once they understand angles and radii and arcs and crap, then they can take another driving test.

Morons.

[FearlessF]

Bright light patrolman are always male, between ages 20-40, typically in a truck, and typically need a good ass-whippin'.
I'm too old for the latter but I've got a swift bright light trigger finger.

well, I will be in Texas tomorrow when it gets dark
I'm not too old to whip their asses!

[BrownCounty]

well, I will be in Texas tomorrow when it gets dark
I'm not too old to whip their asses!

Well I can tough talk with the best of 'em, and my bluff is rarely called.
I realize my bark is worse than my bite these days, but it's my secret.

[FearlessF]

I have to live up to my nickname

it sometimes get me into a bit of trouble

but, I ain't skeered

[CousinFreddie]

Another category of driver that I find annoying is the person trying to merge into 65 mph traffic from a ramp going all of 45 mph, expecting you to either slow down or shift over into a center lane so that you can accommodate their slow ass.  

Usually you make eye contact with these folks and they look at you in an exasperated way like you're such a rude driver when in fact you're not even speeding and often the center lanes are already occupied so there's no way to move over to let them in, even if you wanted to.

It's like they missed the memo that to get into the flow of 65 mph traffic you have to actually be doing ... duh ... 65 mph.

Then of course there was one case where no one could avoid this situation ... which was Central Expressway (75 north) in Dallas back in the 80s where the road was down in a small concrete canyon and the ramps descending into it were too way short to build up the necessary speed and it was only two lanes in one direction with narrow shoulders ... and so you had sit back and time your entrance so that you gunned it at the same time a big enough gap was coming up in the near lane.  It was like being a ball launching into a pinball game or being one of those skaters in the movie Rollerball.  

Worst was trying to get onto a busy Central Exp when I was driving my girlfriend's car, which was a Mazda GLC with a whopping 68 hp.  I only made that mistake once.