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.