Afty’s TV Rip-Offs is back with another edition of Room 101. If you are not familiar with Room 101, to be brief, it is a fictional place taken from the novel 1984 by George Orwell. It is a place of everything horrible and terrible. However, for the purposes of this article, players are invited to rid the world of some of their own personal pet hates.
In this week’s issue well find out what five objects, items, places, or whatever MysticWig has chosen to be put into Room 101. It will be my job to defend the choices from Room 101, stating why they should be allowed to stay in existence. As always, of the five choices, one of them must be Bootleggers related.
Let’s have a look at MysticWig’s first choice:
1. Text Speak
Reason behind the choice:
It is seriously annoying. I am like "Do you want to buy a vowel?" Everyone who doesn't type full words should be sent back to school or a cleverly structured grammar course.
Argument against:
Text speak is one of my own pet hates. I can sympathise with MysticWig because I’ve had texts that have needed to be decoded to understand. However, some elements of text speak are very useful. Abbreviations like ‘WTF’, ‘OMG’, and ‘LOL’ are useful and I do use them. I like abbreviations in the case of initials being used, but I hate things like ‘L8R’.
One could argue that it’s a case of saving time. It’s quicker to right ‘K’ instead of ‘Okay’ and not only does it save time, it saves space. Text messages used to have a limitation on the number of characters per message. This isn’t so much the case these days with smart phones and such. However, it was created as a way of sending a longer message in a short amount of space.
The big issue that I have with text speak is that it isn’t always used on text messages. It found its way onto the internet. Often found in online games, mostly with young players, text speak is usually a clear indicated that someone is a noob. For this reason, there is only one thing that I can say for text speak…
2. The British Goverment
Reason behind the choice:
I don't believe I even have to explain why. Just that they have sodomised us more than George Michael in public Toilets.
Argument against:
The British government is pretty useless, I have to admit it. The majority of the government comes from a particular background. A wealthy, upper class background with no real information or understanding of the average person or family, yet they claim to represent us, the people in every aspect of life when they make major decisions that affect everyone. They are okay to make cutbacks in the public sector; people might lose their pensions and jobs, but as long as they come out and say “we’re all in it together” despite that most of the government is run by millionaires.
However, my issue with putting the British government into Room 101 would be this: what is the alternative? If you got rid of the government then who would run the country? Aren’t they keeping us from the brink of chaos and anarchy? Look at the London riots, if the government simply ceased to exist on Monday morning, wouldn’t there be riots everywhere? We have a Royal Family, but we don’t want that band of nutters in charge. Don’t we have a democratic government, where we, the public, elect the leaders and our government? So ultimately, aren’t we to blame?
I messaged MysticWig again to get his view on my argument against getting rid of the British government. He followed up his argument with: “My adverse option would be: that if there was no government the riots wouldn't happen. The riots were because of what the government did. Therefore remove the government you remove the riots.”
He does make a fair point. I think for the good of the British public, I have to save their sanity…
3. Weathermen/women
Reason behind the choice:
Simply put, they are incompetent. Eight times out of ten it’s wrong so my plans are scuppered due to unforeseen and incorrect weather predictions.
Argument against:
It is very annoying when you watch the weather forecast for the day which states “warm and sunny” yet when you look outside it is cold and cloudy. It’s like being offered a free ice cream, it sounds nice, but then you see it on the ground… it isn’t so appetising.
Are the weathermen to blame for this though? Should we blame newsreaders for all of the terrible news that they have to tell us about? A weatherman is someone who stands on TV, reads from an autocue and is pointing a green screen behind them, which is showing the map of the country and weather to whoever is watching. The blame surely lies with the organisations whose job it is to predict the weather.
For that reason, I do not think I can put weathermen/women into Room 101, so…
4. Burger King’s Chips (Fries)
Reason behind the choice:
They taste like cardboard flavoured with added floor dirt. I guess their disgusting taste is counter balanced with the gorgeous burgers but still I wouldn’t even feed them to the third world.
Argument against:
It’s been a long time since I have eaten at Burger King. Though, this is mostly because I don’t like beef burgers. Yes, yes, I know I’m strange. I remember eating their chips though and I don’t recall them being so bad. I remember that they are quite odd, that they had a different texture or taste to other fast food restaurants.
Although, maybe that is their real problem, Burger King chips are never going to live up to McDonalds chips. They are just too nice. KFC chips are quite nice too. Yes, for American readers, KFC sell chips (fries) in the UK, we don’t want none of this mashed potatoes lark. I guess most people would find this decision easy, but I’m a big fan of the chip. I’m not sure that I can easily condemn it to Room 101 for the rest of eternity. But the truth is, they just aren’t as nice as McDonalds’ chips, and for that reason they are doing a disservice to all that are chips. So for that reason…
5. Bootleggers – Keno
Reason behind the choice:
It's Evil. In all my time in BL (4+years) I have never once won on Keno. I must have lost in the excess of 50million over the course of the years. I think it is rigged towards me.
Argument against:
I definitely share your frustration on a casino that other players can seemingly always win on, but when you have a go, you end up with less money than Greece. Keno is especially frustrating because you are the one that picks the numbers. I was betting on Keno earlier in the round and I like to bet in an “A” shape. If I had moved my “A” over by three places then I would’ve hit ten numbers. Seeing that is enough to make me want to quit betting.
However, Keno is definitely one of the most popular casinos to bet on and to hold. Without Keno you’d end up trying to win $2,500 on Blackjack. Roulette isn’t for everyone, and slots are too boring to bet on, I think Keno might be the best casino, even if I too dislike it.
I’m afraid that I don’t think I can put this into Room 101.
Thanks to MysticWig for getting in touch and giving his choices. Some were good and there were some that I had to argue against, but that’s what this weekly is all about. If I put everything in then we’d all be in there and some gimp like Justin Bieber would be the only one left alive.
