151. People who yawn loudly. You’ve heard them… they make it a point to go “wuaaahhhh” while yawning rather than doing it silently like a normal person. One would think it would be easier to not have to exert the force on your vocal cords to yawn at 629 decibels… but no…
152. “Scandal” when it’s relating to celebrities. The word actually had meaning at one point… it indicated a prominent political figure’s particularly shocking disservice or disregard for duties, usually for personal advancement or gain. When it’s applied to people with two-digit IQs that I don’t care about, I call verbicide.
153. The timing of commercials in general. I can’t really argue with the fact that it’s good marketing tactics, but do they really have to place commercials right when things get remotely interesting? Even worse is when a show is slated to start at, say, 9:00 and it doesn’t start until 9:06 due to commercials. No excuse there…
154. People who wait until they reach they’re rung up at the cash register to realize they don’t have sufficient cash. When you’re in front of me, I don’t want you blathering on about being a dollar short, shifting about aimlessly as if something’s going to get done. Is it really so hard to do basic math? No, they’re not going to let you go. Yes, you have to put something back. Go. Now.
155. People who ask questions after an explanation clearly addresses them. Recently, I was in an elevator that, for whatever reason, had an operator. He called out “to the ground floor” a good half-dozen times. When we get all the way down and the doors open, some idiot asks, “Is this the bottom floor?” No, it’s Botswana. Maybe you should get off here so that everybody who has had the misfortune of coming across you doesn’t have to deal with you anymore.
156. Bling. I would call it pretentious, but wearing a few kilograms of cubic zirconia on your appendages and neck is hardly flaunting wealth. At the end of the day, it just makes you look ridiculous. If it’s for some sort of validation, then there’s not much that can help you.
157. Those advertisements for IQ tests that are appearing more and more often on the sides of websites. Not only are they perpetuating numerous misconceptions about IQ in general with the stupid test attached, as well as perpetuating unclear and unconfirmed IQ’s of various people, but now they’re advertising IQ’s of fictional characters. Peter Griffin's IQ is not 73. It’s 0.
158. People who put emphasis on words by repeating the last letter a bunch of times. I’m aware that the internet often limits the full expression that people may want, but stressing words like thisssssssss only makes me think you have a speech impediment. There’s a little thing called punctuation for that.
159. People who deliberately misspell things in advertising 'to be cute’ or 'attract customers.' It's one thing if you're writing someone and it is a pun, but elsewhere, the only kind of customer you're going to get is a seething, foaming at the mouth customer armed with Eats, Shoots, and Leaves. (This one might look a tad familiar...)
160. People who say, “Do you know what pisses me off… people who make lists about things that piss them off,” when I talk about this list. Do you really think you’re original? Screw you.
161. Blind corners of any kind. When I’m turning a corner on my way to class with my arms full of books, the LAST thing I’m expecting is somebody to be turning around the same corner in the opposite direction, coming within an inch of colliding with me. Of course, somehow, it’s always MY fault too.
162. Cars that, either due to size or incompetence, have the need to block off the right turn lane at a red light so I can’t get by them. Usually, I’d have no reservations about hitting you, but unfortunately, there are a few laws against that. I’m fairly convinced that a good 2/3 of the drivers on the road at any given time would NOT be able to pass the driving test were a DMV person to fall from the sky and into the passenger seat… somehow…
163. While on that subject, people who walk in the middle of the road in traffic, seemingly for the sole purpose of impeding movement. They might be trying to make a point – or perhaps they’re just unaware that they’re in the middle of the street, but please move before I just step on the gas anyway.
164. People who exclaim “I can play that song on Guitar Hero!” when a song either comes on or is talked about. Don’t get me wrong… Guitar Hero is awesome, but it’s not all that impressive. Oooh! You can press plastic buttons! So can I, actually. I’m an Expert plastic button pusher. You don’t see me bragging about that every time Freebird comes on…
165. People who can’t fathom hypothetical situations. If I pose an idea, asking somebody to suppose something that may not necessarily be true yet in real life, if you reply with “That’s not true, so it can’t happen,” you’re not being clever. Yes, I knew that, thank you. Now if you had an iota of intelligence in your body... oh wait… “That can’t happen,” you’d say.
166. People who take pictures of others against their will. I honestly don’t give a crap what I look like in pictures for the most part, but on sheer principle, it’s just obnoxious if you’re taking pictures of people if they’re sleeping, doing something else that diverts their attention away from you, or something else along those lines. Worse yet if it’s a video…
167. During finals or any test at all, how whenever anybody sneezes, there’s a 30-second chorus of “Bless you” and “Thank you” before everybody can recommence working. It’s more distracting than anything, and, as always, accomplishes nothing. I pose the following: at the beginning of a test, everybody is automatically “blessed” and thus need not worry about your soul being blown out of your nose. Deal?
168. When people sign out of AIM or a similar instant messaging system randomly, be it on their own volition or not, in mid-conversation without warning. This makes me immediately think I’ve done something horribly wrong and offensive. Yes, I know sometimes it’s out of your control and such, but please, try to squeeze a brief valediction in there, lest I tear my hair out trying to think of how I may have screwed up. (And as always, if I DID do something wrong, I invoke #76.)
169. People who automatically crack up anytime someone says the word 'balls.' Balls are round, often bouncy objects that children play with… not male genitalia. Do you support children indiscriminately playing with male genitalia? I didn’t think so…
170. People who have never heard of Caltech. When I would tell people that I wanted to go to Caltech (and now that I am going to Caltech), I would sometimes get the response “Isn’t that that school that you hear about on TV all the time?” No. That would be ITT Tech. Slight difference, there.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Things That Piss Me Off, #121-150
121. Products that come up with their own ratings to describe them. A prime example is Knudsen “Gold Star Quality” Milk (despite its propensity to feel pain…). ‘Gold Star’… as opposed to what? Silver amorphous blob? What makes it ‘Gold Star’ so? And may I ask what I had been drinking before?
122. People who write “thousands” as “1000s.” The “1” at the front is superfluous, as this would cause it to be read “one thousands”… and nobody says that (unless perhaps if they’re referring to the 11th century.) Does a little bit of extra effort really turn these people off from coherency?
123. Apple in general. Whenever they come out with their new “generation” of iPod, the cheapest ones available still have such gobsmackingly useless amounts of capacity that can hardly be dented by my hardly modest music collection. Will I ever hit 20,000 songs? Maybe… I don’t know. Would I, along with a great many others, have gotten an iPod with 1/3 the capacity for even ½ the price were it available? Absolutely.
124. “Beep if you…” or “Honk if you…” signs on vehicles or other external things. These are just obnoxious and defeat the purpose of having a horn in the first place: to possibly prevent an accident. With horns gong off all around me without warning on the road, I get a little skittish…
125. People who use their texting devices at absolutely any time, without regard for their surroundings. If we’re in a study session or a meal or something, and you get a completely unrelated text from somebody not with us, IT CAN WAIT. I promise it’s not going anywhere and there are people right in front of you that you are already conversing with. If you’re the girl from #52 and I'm tutoring you, then don’t go #70 on me when I pull #77 on you.
126. When it is suggested that I eat when I’m not hungry. Given I’m almost eighteen years old, I’m fairly sure I can figure out and have the willpower to successfully choose when I want to eat and when I don’t, based on actual hunger, rather than arbitrary times set by other people. Yes, I know, I should probably weigh more, but I’ll figure out how to remedy that on my own time…
127. Pointless sequels to movies. It’s our favorite: marketing tactics again! What better way to make more money on a good movie is there than to cash in and make a sequel to it? Quality? Who cares about quality… we get money! Meesa pointless sequel. Meesa only in it for money-dollars.
128. “Baby on Board” signs on cards. I just flat-out have no idea what these even remotely accomplish other than taking up space that you should be looking out of on your back windshield. Your apparent pride for your baby, or perhaps, once again, your mere attempt to assert your fertility, is putting your child at a slight risk… either by obscuring your view or by me ramming into you.
129. Chain letters that “require” you to send some message to x amount of people, or thing y will happen to you if you don’t, and thing z will happen if you do. Really now, people? It baffles me how people buy into this stuff. If it’s something that’s supposed to be funny, then by all means, pass it on to me. But if it’s “the ghost of Roger Maris will hit you with a baseball bat 61 times unless you send this to 61 people” or something, I don’t want to see it.
130. The DMV. Everything about this place pisses me off, really. When it takes 2 hours to get through a line of 6 people for a driver’s test, we have serious issues. Why is there only one person on staff for both check-ups and tests? And why is it that it seems everybody working there waits for me to be at the front of the line until they come out of the woodwork and actually start acting moderately efficient? Bureaucracy… the workers are more concerned with doing everything according to protocol than actually being efficient. It’s stupid.
131. Cashiers who can’t do basic addition and multiplication in their heads. Oftentimes, if the total comes out to $14.77 or something like that, I give the cashier two pennies along with my $15 so I can get a quarter back instead. Too often, having already put in that I paid with $15 exactly, they just stare at me blankly when I offer two more pennies to make it easier for them. No, I don’t want two dimes and five pennies… or even two dimes and a nickel. I want a quarter. Is it really that hard? It doesn’t make any cents. We need change…
132. Overly light throwing around of the term “racist”. This is not a word to be used jokingly. I know you don’t actually believe me to be racist if I say something along the lines of “I prefer blue pens,” but still, it’s quite annoying. The implications of the word are too great for the word to be applied jokingly to things.
133. Accessories for electronics or whatnot that cost more than the thing you’re accessorizing itself. Apparently, they’ve made a titanium iPod case that’s retailing for $800. This just gives way to ostentatious displays of wealth and the true purpose of small-scale customizations of your item is defeated enirely.
134. This fixation people have with Google products. It seems that if you slap a “Google” in front of something, people immediately conceive it as exponentially better. First of all, Google is a search engine. The “new Google web browser”, the “new Google 411 service”, the new Google this, the new Google that… there’s really nothing all that awesome, let alone different from anything it’s “improving upon.” The Google 411 service, for example, is exactly the same thing… yet it’s apparently the greatest thing since sliced bread. Yes, I have tried it. Yes I know it recognizes what you say. So does umm… 411…
135. Similarly, things seem to become more appealing to the populace as a whole when the term “collectible” is stamped upon it. Not only this, it then prompts them to get similar tchotskes for exorbitant amounts of money that cost a fraction of a cent to actually manufacture. Not to mention, it’s always stuff that is prone to become a lot less interesting some four months after you get it. Ooh... it's a piece of cardboard. Nice... it's a special cardboard you say? That's cool that you spent $50 on it... I'll pass, though.
136. Here’s one I’m shocked I haven’t hit yet. People who use numbers as words. I’m alright with acronym use online (so long as you don’t actually SAY them when speaking in person), but numbers as words is where the line is drawn. “4” is a number, not a preposition, although it might double as your IQ. “Gr8” doesn’t mean anything to me. “Br8k” doesn’t even make any sense! (Sidenote: 1337 5p33<, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable.)
137. People who think destruction or removal of property from its proper place in any form is “funny” as a prank. A trained monkey can pick something up and move it or destroy it just as well, if not better, than you can. Here’s a prank for ya: YOU having to pay for the stuff that YOU screwed up. Sounds fun, right?
138. People who just leave their shopping carts in parking places rather than being courteous enough to bring them back to the racks. This doesn’t accomplish anything other than blocking other people from being able to park, which eventually leads to clogging of the driveway, which eventually leads to accidents. While all of our insurances have to pay for your idiocy, you’re off being morons elsewhere.
139. How virtually every single “horror” film that has been released in the past decade or so has sucked beyond belief. Not only this, but they keep using the same old premises over and over. The common theme is dead people who, mind you, aren’t actually dead and for whatever reason want to take the place of a person who is alive, usually female, aged 16-24, wearing excessive make-up, and skimply clad for at least one scene. I can probably name a dozen films from the 2000s with this exact premise off the top of my head… each of them awful.
140. Teachers who use major tests as “see what you can do with this” opportunities. This defeats the purpose of having a test entirely: to be able to have a measurement of how well you learned the prior material. Using it as an opportunity to say “Gee, they’ve learned a, b, c, and d… let’s see how they deal with a test on d, e, f, g, and h" is quite ridiculous, really. I’m perfectly fine with the idea of such assessments… just not on actual tests, please… especially finals… *shudder*
141. If you want me to sign something, especially if it’s a bill at a restaurant or something that benefits YOU, the least you can do is provide me with a pen that actually functions. A broken writing utensil isn’t going to get either of us anywhere. Besides, why haven’t you already disposed of it before giving it to me? I’ll get rid of it for you alright…
142. If you’re at a grocery market, there’s nothing that annoys me more than people who decide to get a person they’re with to pull their car up to the front door, sparing him/herself from the utter pain and hardship of walking 50 feet. Usually it’s *cough* the rounder ones who do this. Hey! Perhaps that trek might give you a head start in burning those calories…
143. At concerts or other such gatherings, how when the singer/DJ/whatever shouts something along the lines of “How y’all doin?” they are invariably greeted with screams rather than coherency. I know “Quite well, thank you; and yourself?” doesn’t quite flow off the tongue in these instances, but still, if you’re just screaming, it could signify anything from finding a quarter to agonizing pain, for all I know. But of course, saying anything else makes you look like even more of an idiot. . .
144. Drug companies that market medication/pills for made-up “syndromes” and “disorders.” Such false disorders as “Restless Leg Syndrome” not only serve to undermine the medical community as a whole, but also just give people excuses to shove pills down their throats. And don’t even get me started on “A.D.D.”
145. When receipts from stores are a lot bigger than the actual bought items necessitate. When I buy one thing from your store, I don’t need War and Peace in return. Hell, I’m still wondering why they haven’t computerized the whole system yet. Environment. Kind of a nice thing to have around. . .
146. Expiration dates on anything that isn’t food or medication. What exactly is putting an expiration date on some sort of document/license/whatever accomplishing? And how does filling out endless paperwork to renew it have anything to do with keeping the document itself in effect for you?
147. People who talk excessively about a given sport during its off-season. You can talk about baseball all you want while it’s actually happening, but when you’re arguing over which team is the best in the middle of December, or whatever, it’s even more annoying than when you do it during the actual season. I’ll tell you what I’d do with a baseball bat right about now. . .
148. “Everything” Bagels. Don’t get me wrong, I love these things, but the name itself is a little unsavory, don’t you think? Had you never seen one before and you had just heard “Everything” as a Bagel flavor, I’m fairly sure you’d wonder what exactly it would entail. It’s reminiscent of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, which, as I’m sure you know, can be far from appealing.
149. How is it that I can have a device that can check e-mail, surf the internet, play music, hold countless pictures, play games, keep track of time, and act as a movie player simultaneously and still fit in my palm while we still haven’t figured out a fuel source other than gasoline/oil? I think these luxury items, of sorts, are awesome and I’m certainly not denouncing them, but if half of the marketing tactics and thought that go into these went into alternative fuels, we’d have long since ditched the gas pump.
150. People who tell me I’m bitter… no shit, Sherlock.
122. People who write “thousands” as “1000s.” The “1” at the front is superfluous, as this would cause it to be read “one thousands”… and nobody says that (unless perhaps if they’re referring to the 11th century.) Does a little bit of extra effort really turn these people off from coherency?
123. Apple in general. Whenever they come out with their new “generation” of iPod, the cheapest ones available still have such gobsmackingly useless amounts of capacity that can hardly be dented by my hardly modest music collection. Will I ever hit 20,000 songs? Maybe… I don’t know. Would I, along with a great many others, have gotten an iPod with 1/3 the capacity for even ½ the price were it available? Absolutely.
124. “Beep if you…” or “Honk if you…” signs on vehicles or other external things. These are just obnoxious and defeat the purpose of having a horn in the first place: to possibly prevent an accident. With horns gong off all around me without warning on the road, I get a little skittish…
125. People who use their texting devices at absolutely any time, without regard for their surroundings. If we’re in a study session or a meal or something, and you get a completely unrelated text from somebody not with us, IT CAN WAIT. I promise it’s not going anywhere and there are people right in front of you that you are already conversing with. If you’re the girl from #52 and I'm tutoring you, then don’t go #70 on me when I pull #77 on you.
126. When it is suggested that I eat when I’m not hungry. Given I’m almost eighteen years old, I’m fairly sure I can figure out and have the willpower to successfully choose when I want to eat and when I don’t, based on actual hunger, rather than arbitrary times set by other people. Yes, I know, I should probably weigh more, but I’ll figure out how to remedy that on my own time…
127. Pointless sequels to movies. It’s our favorite: marketing tactics again! What better way to make more money on a good movie is there than to cash in and make a sequel to it? Quality? Who cares about quality… we get money! Meesa pointless sequel. Meesa only in it for money-dollars.
128. “Baby on Board” signs on cards. I just flat-out have no idea what these even remotely accomplish other than taking up space that you should be looking out of on your back windshield. Your apparent pride for your baby, or perhaps, once again, your mere attempt to assert your fertility, is putting your child at a slight risk… either by obscuring your view or by me ramming into you.
129. Chain letters that “require” you to send some message to x amount of people, or thing y will happen to you if you don’t, and thing z will happen if you do. Really now, people? It baffles me how people buy into this stuff. If it’s something that’s supposed to be funny, then by all means, pass it on to me. But if it’s “the ghost of Roger Maris will hit you with a baseball bat 61 times unless you send this to 61 people” or something, I don’t want to see it.
130. The DMV. Everything about this place pisses me off, really. When it takes 2 hours to get through a line of 6 people for a driver’s test, we have serious issues. Why is there only one person on staff for both check-ups and tests? And why is it that it seems everybody working there waits for me to be at the front of the line until they come out of the woodwork and actually start acting moderately efficient? Bureaucracy… the workers are more concerned with doing everything according to protocol than actually being efficient. It’s stupid.
131. Cashiers who can’t do basic addition and multiplication in their heads. Oftentimes, if the total comes out to $14.77 or something like that, I give the cashier two pennies along with my $15 so I can get a quarter back instead. Too often, having already put in that I paid with $15 exactly, they just stare at me blankly when I offer two more pennies to make it easier for them. No, I don’t want two dimes and five pennies… or even two dimes and a nickel. I want a quarter. Is it really that hard? It doesn’t make any cents. We need change…
132. Overly light throwing around of the term “racist”. This is not a word to be used jokingly. I know you don’t actually believe me to be racist if I say something along the lines of “I prefer blue pens,” but still, it’s quite annoying. The implications of the word are too great for the word to be applied jokingly to things.
133. Accessories for electronics or whatnot that cost more than the thing you’re accessorizing itself. Apparently, they’ve made a titanium iPod case that’s retailing for $800. This just gives way to ostentatious displays of wealth and the true purpose of small-scale customizations of your item is defeated enirely.
134. This fixation people have with Google products. It seems that if you slap a “Google” in front of something, people immediately conceive it as exponentially better. First of all, Google is a search engine. The “new Google web browser”, the “new Google 411 service”, the new Google this, the new Google that… there’s really nothing all that awesome, let alone different from anything it’s “improving upon.” The Google 411 service, for example, is exactly the same thing… yet it’s apparently the greatest thing since sliced bread. Yes, I have tried it. Yes I know it recognizes what you say. So does umm… 411…
135. Similarly, things seem to become more appealing to the populace as a whole when the term “collectible” is stamped upon it. Not only this, it then prompts them to get similar tchotskes for exorbitant amounts of money that cost a fraction of a cent to actually manufacture. Not to mention, it’s always stuff that is prone to become a lot less interesting some four months after you get it. Ooh... it's a piece of cardboard. Nice... it's a special cardboard you say? That's cool that you spent $50 on it... I'll pass, though.
136. Here’s one I’m shocked I haven’t hit yet. People who use numbers as words. I’m alright with acronym use online (so long as you don’t actually SAY them when speaking in person), but numbers as words is where the line is drawn. “4” is a number, not a preposition, although it might double as your IQ. “Gr8” doesn’t mean anything to me. “Br8k” doesn’t even make any sense! (Sidenote: 1337 5p33<, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable.)
137. People who think destruction or removal of property from its proper place in any form is “funny” as a prank. A trained monkey can pick something up and move it or destroy it just as well, if not better, than you can. Here’s a prank for ya: YOU having to pay for the stuff that YOU screwed up. Sounds fun, right?
138. People who just leave their shopping carts in parking places rather than being courteous enough to bring them back to the racks. This doesn’t accomplish anything other than blocking other people from being able to park, which eventually leads to clogging of the driveway, which eventually leads to accidents. While all of our insurances have to pay for your idiocy, you’re off being morons elsewhere.
139. How virtually every single “horror” film that has been released in the past decade or so has sucked beyond belief. Not only this, but they keep using the same old premises over and over. The common theme is dead people who, mind you, aren’t actually dead and for whatever reason want to take the place of a person who is alive, usually female, aged 16-24, wearing excessive make-up, and skimply clad for at least one scene. I can probably name a dozen films from the 2000s with this exact premise off the top of my head… each of them awful.
140. Teachers who use major tests as “see what you can do with this” opportunities. This defeats the purpose of having a test entirely: to be able to have a measurement of how well you learned the prior material. Using it as an opportunity to say “Gee, they’ve learned a, b, c, and d… let’s see how they deal with a test on d, e, f, g, and h" is quite ridiculous, really. I’m perfectly fine with the idea of such assessments… just not on actual tests, please… especially finals… *shudder*
141. If you want me to sign something, especially if it’s a bill at a restaurant or something that benefits YOU, the least you can do is provide me with a pen that actually functions. A broken writing utensil isn’t going to get either of us anywhere. Besides, why haven’t you already disposed of it before giving it to me? I’ll get rid of it for you alright…
142. If you’re at a grocery market, there’s nothing that annoys me more than people who decide to get a person they’re with to pull their car up to the front door, sparing him/herself from the utter pain and hardship of walking 50 feet. Usually it’s *cough* the rounder ones who do this. Hey! Perhaps that trek might give you a head start in burning those calories…
143. At concerts or other such gatherings, how when the singer/DJ/whatever shouts something along the lines of “How y’all doin?” they are invariably greeted with screams rather than coherency. I know “Quite well, thank you; and yourself?” doesn’t quite flow off the tongue in these instances, but still, if you’re just screaming, it could signify anything from finding a quarter to agonizing pain, for all I know. But of course, saying anything else makes you look like even more of an idiot. . .
144. Drug companies that market medication/pills for made-up “syndromes” and “disorders.” Such false disorders as “Restless Leg Syndrome” not only serve to undermine the medical community as a whole, but also just give people excuses to shove pills down their throats. And don’t even get me started on “A.D.D.”
145. When receipts from stores are a lot bigger than the actual bought items necessitate. When I buy one thing from your store, I don’t need War and Peace in return. Hell, I’m still wondering why they haven’t computerized the whole system yet. Environment. Kind of a nice thing to have around. . .
146. Expiration dates on anything that isn’t food or medication. What exactly is putting an expiration date on some sort of document/license/whatever accomplishing? And how does filling out endless paperwork to renew it have anything to do with keeping the document itself in effect for you?
147. People who talk excessively about a given sport during its off-season. You can talk about baseball all you want while it’s actually happening, but when you’re arguing over which team is the best in the middle of December, or whatever, it’s even more annoying than when you do it during the actual season. I’ll tell you what I’d do with a baseball bat right about now. . .
148. “Everything” Bagels. Don’t get me wrong, I love these things, but the name itself is a little unsavory, don’t you think? Had you never seen one before and you had just heard “Everything” as a Bagel flavor, I’m fairly sure you’d wonder what exactly it would entail. It’s reminiscent of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, which, as I’m sure you know, can be far from appealing.
149. How is it that I can have a device that can check e-mail, surf the internet, play music, hold countless pictures, play games, keep track of time, and act as a movie player simultaneously and still fit in my palm while we still haven’t figured out a fuel source other than gasoline/oil? I think these luxury items, of sorts, are awesome and I’m certainly not denouncing them, but if half of the marketing tactics and thought that go into these went into alternative fuels, we’d have long since ditched the gas pump.
150. People who tell me I’m bitter… no shit, Sherlock.
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