Room 101

There's a tv show on the BBC called Room 101, in it guests, usually English celebrities I don't know, are invited to come up with about 5 things they hate and would like to see gone from this world. The host of the show and the guest then discuss these things and figure out what's so bad about them and whether a world without these things would be a good thing, if it is these things are dropped into Room 101 and are gone. Forever. But probably only in England cause they're still here. The host generally is pretty critical so Britney Spears did end up in Room 101 but 'spit' didn't because we need it to swallow stuff. Britney Spears is just plain useless so there's no problem there.

The funny thing is that if you think about it at first coming up with stuff you hate and want away from this world so bad seems pretty hard. Even I a, these days, part-time cynic, had a pretty tough time at first. But once you start they just keep on coming:

Fred Phelps, T0m Delay, that girl from The O.C., back-hair, religion, Paul McCartney songs, Paul McCartney himself, movies that have Julia Roberts playing someone who pretends to be Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts movies in general (excluding Erin Brokovich), everybody dating Orlando Bloom, most of my family specifically those who say I "it's only history" when talking about my study, pregnant women who want to be treated like gods because they're pregnant, children that scream, adults that scream, cd stores that are too expensive but do have the cd's you want. All bad things that should go away. Like now. I mean it. Go! There's one thing that's even worse than all those things together. AIDS? George W. Bush? 3d world hunger?

All horrible indeed, but not as bad as tourists on bikes in Amsterdam.

You can recognize them by the fact that their bikes are all rented but also by the fact that they always drive on the sidewalk while there's a clear bike path next to that where all the Dutch people ride. They also never understand how the bell works, usually can't steer or stop so they always almost ride into you while screaming "MOVE!". They are also usually Americans so they think they own the city anyway. Generally speaking they also tend to almost hit trams and seem utterly. I don't know how many tourists die while riding bikes every year, but in my imagination every evening an entire boeing leaves Amsterdam airport for the US filled with caskets of those who didn't survive their meeting with a canal. In the past I have threatened abandoning and never speaking to American friends that came to the city wanting to rent a bike ever again and so far it works. Unfortunately I don't know all tourists so the threat has only a limited effect on most bike renters.

I really have no idea why they get on them to begin with, it's not safe and really not that fast plus bikes get stolen a lot. I think the main reasons are the fascists who wrote their tourguides (Are you reading this Rick Steves? I'm talking about you, you bastard!... which reminds me Rick Steves needs to be in that list too) who prefered to stay at their hotel and have sex with our legal prostitutes and smoke our legal drugs than to actually go out and, oh I don't know, do something useful for their readers and figure out the public transportation system (which I should add is fine) or at least explain you can walk around the city center too without any problems (that's all I do, works fine for me too... excluding the rental bikes of course).

But the ones I really blame are the bastards that rent the bikes. If I ever get hit by one of those tourists (and considering I study in the city center every single day of the week that's probably just a matter of time) the first thing I'll do is sue those rental morons for everything they've got. My theory is that after the 2nd world war ended the Dutch Nazi party held a conference on how to get back at the rest of us and bike renting was one of their schemes (together with Baantjer novels and Dutch sitcoms). If we ever get a civil war here and are suddenly allowed to kill people for no particular reason my first stops are MacBike, Rent a Bike and Bike City.

Pet hates? Moi?