Olive garden commercials. “You do the math, I’m doing the Alfredo!”. Ugh…I can’t stand it. They all look so happy to be at Olive Garden and act as though going to Olive Garden makes them better friends. Olive Garden is awful. Anyone else with me?

I even don’t know what is Olive Garden As we are talking about commercials I hate all where people behave like complete idiots. OMG there are no such stupid people in real life. What do they want to say with this? Their customers are only retards or something? HA-HA When I watch TV I give a good blow to my nose and have pinch while they are showing us the commercials.

Playing Devil’s advocate for a bit, but that’s precisely what restaurant advertisements are supposed to say. It’s all about perceived atmosphere and nothing about food. Some of the best places I’ve ever eaten have been holes in the wall with snobbish waiters, naught in the way of atmosphere and wince-worthy prices. If cheap and cheerful is the order of the day, Olive Garden doesn’t fare too badly.

Olive Garden= Corporate Evil. I won’t go near one, or any of its clones. @Lyubo:OMG there are no such stupid people in real life. You’d be surprised. I’ve known far too many who beleive everything that every commercial tells them.

I’ve always loved the italian wannabe vibe in their ads. Where they have old world italians eating there and loving it, like wow we get to pretend to be italian.

STARBUCKS: I hate it because they don’t practice fair trade. I hate it because they are about selling upper middle class atmosphere more than coffee. I hate it because they are fucking everywhere. Disney and Teenage dramas on TV: Watching too much of these two will turn your brain to mash.

My starbucks story from Saturday: I don’t normally go there, but me and a friend went hiking this weekend and decided to get some coffee afterwards. We got two coffees and the bill was @ $6.00usd. The only bill I had on me was a fifty and when I pulled it out and tried to pay the girl said that she couldn’t take it. I told her I was sorry but that it was the smallest bill I had on me. Then she asked me if I had a debit or credit card instead. Even though I did, I told her I didn’t, and if she didn’t want to take my money she could throw my coffee out. She apologized again and said that even if she had change, management wouldn’t allow them to take large bills. So, in the end, since the coffees were already made they wound up eating the cost because I refused to budge. That’s what I hate. So many people use debit and credit cards now that when you pull out cash, people look at you like your retarded.

I’d rather not talk about all the corporate garbage and the media and what have you…icky! I get so annoyed that I can barely go to the store or watch television. Disney, McDonalds, Starbucks, it all kinda makes me ill. I refuse to use websites that have the invasive pop-up adds that take over the screen and such. I always found the Olive Garden adds (or any restaurant’s adds, for that matter) to be a little ridiculous…I know very well that I am not the best friend of the waiter/waitress when I go to one, and I am not a member of their “family.” I don’t go to restaurants very often anyways, since one meal there for my wife and I is like 4 days of groceries… Oh, and paying in cash is THE best way to do things.

Banks are legalized robbery. Always coming up with evermore ingenious ways to charge us fees, all of them are fucking bastards!

you ever done the math and figured out how many times you actually pay for your house with a 30 yr mortgage?

@ itsuke: You are wrong. I am a VP of a branch of a large United States bank. The fees that banks charge are quite justified. Furthermore, banks provide certain disclosures and addenda that lay out these fees in a very straight-forward way. If you spend a few minutes reviewing the material you are provided when you open an account, it is very easy to avoid these fees. My bank takes the position that we want all of our customers to succeed financially so we will go to extemes to educate customers about how to avoid paying fees when possible. Certainly, there are many services and transactions that a bank is justified in charging a fee for. Banks are “for profit” organizations - plain and simple. The difference between us, and say Target, is that our product is service - not tangible items. You can’t tell me that it makes sense for us to offer financial services to the public if there is no chance of us making a profit. Like any corporation, we need to satisfy not only the board but also shareholders by steadily increasing our stock price as well as our dividend. So, before you call all banks “fucking bastards” why don’t you consider educating yourself about your bank and your account with the material that is provided to you. We are not the public library, we are financial institutions that are in business to make money. Get a clue - and learn how to handle your own money so that you don’t need to blame banks for your ineptitude. FYI - I have not paid a fee to my bank and employer for several years. If I can do it, so can you. And by the way, happy snuffing!

I know banks are for profits organizations. That’s why I said the banking industry is legalized robbery. Since you work for a bank, so here’s my question, what do they do with the money we entrust in their banks? And hey, if you can list out all the fees that American banks have charged their customers and justify every one of them, then I will admit what I said was wrong. Go now, go.

What I can’t stand? Political correctness in all its forms!!!

Sorry to butt in but here goes - @ lincolnsnuff: I went overdrawn on my account by £2.50 last month and got charged £35.00 for ‘administrative costs’ - so that one email notification- not even a letter - sent to me costs 35 quid? Is that fair and just? I don’t think so. I’m working a minimum wage job and that charge makes a hell of a difference to my monthly budget. Sorry, but if you can explain exactly what type of ‘service’ that is, I’d be grateful.

Never trusted banks, or hospitals, or auto mechanics… My opinion of hospitals and mechanics has increased slightly, but banks… My wife’s bank on more than one occasion deposited our money into someone else’s account, and on more than one occasion failed to deposit her funds at all! And everyone loves the $30 “overdraft fee”, which is quite a bit less than the £35 that was charged to toffeenose! Google says that’s damn near 58 American dollars! For £2.50! My condolences Debbie! I understand the concept of being overdrawn, but jeez, that’s an insane amount of money for a a “service.” My credit union also charges $2.00 if I run my debit card as “debit” at a store, but not if I run it as a credit card (??) so I prefer to carry cash but they charge $2 dollars at an ATM on top of the $1.50 (or more) the ATM’s owner charges. Charges aside, my local credit union is a pleasure to bank with when compared to the big bank branches, and that’s not saying too much.

@toffeenose Same thing happened to me. No mentions from them whatsoever, just the revelation that I was $300 Dollars in the hole. Had just come back from having Heart surgery, unable to work for several months and boom. Went in to close out my account afterward and they wanted to charge me to do that, too! Their representative backed out of doing that when I gave her a happy psychotic stare-down.

Well…this will be a LOADED thread. I DESPISE people that drive, constantly, in the left-hand lane. Highways are set up with passing and travel lanes for a reason. I think the Germans have driving figured out. I live in Massachusetts and most drivers here are called “Massholes”. I used to work for Darden restaurants (owners of Olive Garden but I worked for Red Lobster) and if you only knew what went into or on the food you’d go there less than once each year. There’s something called “buttery sauce” that goes on many things…ha! buttery sauce…with nary a trace of dairy in it. About the banking thing…the ATM fees generate over $10,000,000,000.00 (Yes, Billion) each year. If you search around you can find banks that allow you a set number of ‘foreign’ ATM’s w/o fee each month. At any rate banks have to make money somehow…they’re certainly not getting the loan thing right.

I was in overdraft trouble about 6 years ago. Right now my account does not have overdraft protection. So if I run out of cash, then it’s gone. The fact is, banks offer a service. With any service there is a cost. What do I hate… Hate is a rather strong word. I dislike movie theaters these days. People bringing little kids in and not watching them. I was in a theater a few months back watching Disney’s EARTH. In the middle of the movie this little girl who was probably 7 or so, starting yelling at the screen because she saw an Elephant. Then it was a Lion. Then a Monkey. On and on it went. Finally the straw that broke that Camel’s back was when she saw India on the screen and she started screaming “IT’S INDIA, IT’S INDIA!”. I quickly turned around and noticed that the adults were laughing, so I gave a nice sharp “SSSHHHHH!”. Once she started yapping again I walked out and talked to the manager, who did nothing. I then asked for a refund and some comp tickets. The manager claimed that she didn’t hear anything, so she couldn’t do anything. I kindly reminded her that she was NEXT TO THE SCREEN and the little girl was at the top of the theater. That really jaded me. I also don’t understand bringing infants to a movie… really? And of course I love the little toddlers in a R rated horror movie.

The problem and unfairness in bank fees, are that they penalize you financially when you are already in financial trouble. They kick you when you are down in other words. If you are rich already, then banks (and pretty much our whole financial system) works pretty well for you. If you are poor, the system tends to work to make you more poor. In past generations when banks were small and locally owned (and their profits much smaller of course), they made most of their money on interest charged on loans. Now when tradtional banks have given way to mega-banks its hard for the little guys to compete so the big guys get away with highway robbery. They’ll nickel and dime you for every little thing. I can remeber a time when there were no ATM fees, beleive it or not. Now they go up almost every year.

1. Ahh, talk about parenting. I don’t like it when parents don’t hold onto their children on subway platform; letting them run wild in public places; and not holding their hands when crossing the street. 2. Since I am an ethnic minority here in NYC, racist insults were shouted at me on numerous occasions when I was just walking down the street, minding my own business. The funny thing is, those people where minorities themselves, how pathetic. 3. I ride my bike to get around the city. There are times when I must ride on the sidewalks because the roads were either packed with cars, too narrow, or plain dangerous during bad weather. I go extra slow whenever I am on the sidewalks, but a few pedestrian always like to tell me to get back onto the road. That really pissed me off. It’s not like I am going any faster than their walking speed, or the sidewalk is not wide enough to accommodate for me and other pedestrians.

After unloading on the Banking industry, I guess I should go off on a few other targets. Lol! The far right and left wing equally cheese me off. I would dearly like to tie Ann Coulter and Michael Moore together with duct tape and send them off on a cruise through the Bermuda Triangle. I’m definitely with cstokes on parents who cannot or will not control their children in public places. I was raised with somewhat Victorian ethics. My older sister and I were expected to act like perfect little Ladies and Gentlemen when we were in Cinemas, or Restaurants. If we didn’t we got smacked for it when we got home. Reality television shows. If these people are real, than I’m flying to Jupiter. People who insist that I must eat Chicken or Fish when I mention to them that I’m a vegetarian. Try as I might, there is no Earthly evidence of a Chicken tree. The second question “Well, what DO you eat?” is usually greeted with a chuckle and the reply: “Everything else.” Prohibitionists. If it’s enjoyable, then it’s immediately outlawed? I can’t light a cigarette in a public place anymore without some idiot telling me how awful I am for doing so. If I decide to indulge my senses in something green and calming, I risk arrest? Come on. Making a plant illegal is like trying to legislate the weather. Starbucks. I hate them and that’s that. Wal Mart. If you want to save money, they’re helpful, but recalling what they told me in High School Biology class, I was warned that whenever you lose brain cells, they never grow back. Thousands die by the skull load whenever I go in. Lipton Tea. If this is Tea, than I am a Thompson’s Gazelle. The new Dennis The Menace in The Beano. I preferred it when he looked like Sid Vicious. Employers that insist that you take a personality test when you apply. “I’m sorry sir, but you aren’t our sort of person. Perhaps, if you were more like L. Ron Hubbard, you would have gotten the job.” Companies with “mission statements”. Uh… You’re in it to make money? No? You want to make the world a better place because you have more money. Aww screw it! I probably have more, but I’m developing a case of typing cramps.

_I would dearly like to tie Ann Coulter and Michael Moore together with duct tape and send them off on a cruise through the Bermuda Triangle._Now I would pay good money to see that.

@Asherael I’ve limited my “Wal Mart Brain Sucking Experience” to the grocery section. They’re the only store in my area that carries Cabot Cheddar.

I feel myself get a little dumber every time I go to Walmart…and, at least around here, people are freaking rude when they go there…I always say excuse me when there is an old guy chilling in the middle of the aisle chatting with another older guy, for instance, and they will both just glare at me and not say one word…or try to move out of the way for that matter…eight times out of ten. So I guess that’s another thing for our list: really rude people. I’ll only go to Walmart if nothing else is open and I really need something, or if my wife forces me. Even their produce sucks. (Decent tobacco selection, though.)

If I ever happen to find myself in a walmart (God forbid), one thing I always notice is that they have about 50 checkout lanes and only 5 of them are ever manned with a cashier and the lines at those 5 are about 25 people long each. Come on get it together!

Lol couldn’t agree more @zaratzu I’m getting angry and impatient just thinking about that.

Yes, they should hire the unemployed

Midnight at wallyworld is its own entertainment in itself, goodnight! 8-}

Olive Garden is to Italian food as chocolate chips is to thermal nuclear war…

What are commercials for anyway? It’s all about getting you in the door for the first time! I know many Mediterannians (mostly Greeks) who swear by our local Olive Garden… It’s all about the local management and staff! I’m more of a spicy-hot Asian food connoisseur myself! (Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Laotian, Mongolian, Szechuan, Korean, etc.) Luckily, there are enough places that fit the bill right in my own neighborhood to keep me happy!

I’d get hot dogs and fries before dining there. Yuuuuccckkkkkkk…

I’ve never been to Olive Garden because everyone I know hates it. Commercials can’t trump friends