172. Occasionally, when I’m on the computer, my finger slips somehow or other and causes something to happen that’s really freaking hard to reverse. For example, my finger has slipped numerous times, causing the taskbar at the bottom to suddenly flip to the left side of the screen. Needless to say, this is really annoying… and is made even more annoying when I can’t figure out how to fix it back.
173. DDR. I don’t mind the game all that much in itself, but to call the motions required for that game “dancing” is a huge stretch at best and a blatant misnomer at worst. Seriously… what would you say if you saw somebody dancing like that independent of the game? It would probably prompt me to throw stuff at them… which would FORCE them to move their legs arythmically like an idiot.
174. People who use “rape” as a positive adjective. This started, where I live at least, toward the beginning of 2009, and I find it nothing short of horrid. Rape is not positive, but rather a blatant violation of basic humanity. Beating somebody in a video game is not “rape” and I flat-out don’t want to ever hear it in that context or any other context that suggests a positive word. Capisce?
175. Those signs on freeways that say how long it takes to get to other freeways at the current conditions. These only result in people actually slowing down so they can read the signs. Of course, this makes the signs inaccurate, because people are too stupid to just glance briefly and keep going, thus taking them longer. Not to mention, it makes me feel a little guilty when I make what is suggested to be a 20-minute trek in fourteen…
176. Amusement parks that purposely have deceptively shaped lines, thus duping people into believing a 3-hour line is “not that bad.” Disneyland is a big culprit in this. Magic Mountain, on the other hand, actually has their lines shaped in such a way so that pretty much anybody can tell how long a line is from outside the ride. Not to mention, those rides are often actually worth waiting for…
177. How, more often than not, “haha” and “lol” do not necessarily follow anything funny, but merely acknowledge, “what I just said is rather awkward when said independently, so here’s some space-filling stuff that distracts from it.” Even I am guilty of using them in this manner, and I’m not so much angry with people who do it, but rather into what the terms have evolved.
178. Having to repeat an explanation numerous times to different people. Yes, I know you do indeed want to know why something happened or why I did something, but I really wish I could just wear a sign that says it so I can spare myself the repetitive explanation. Of course, the one time I tried this, I had to explain why I was wearing a sign multiple times…
179. People who, when looking through my iPod, say “Ewww… why do you have
180. Peer pressure of any sort. It’s really just stupid. When somebody comes up to me essentially saying, "here's this liquid that will slowly rot your liver and may make you appear to be a total asshole; you’ll also want to fight everybody, and if you drive, you’ll probably die; DRINK IT!" I look at them like they’re an idiot and refuse. Yet this makes ME the stupid one. Grrr…
181. When, in restaurants, two adults (usually as a couple), actually feed each other food from their respective plates. If it’s a mother and her child, or something like that, I could understand this, but between two grown adults, it’s unnerving to no end. If you want each others’ food so bad, just ask politely and parcel a bit off of their plate and onto yours before I stick that fork in your eye. (Any references to number 54 will be forcefully ignored.)
182. Speaking of which, I’m aware I’m not hungry very often, but when I am… well… I’m freaking hungry. Thus, when you attempt to act all sneaky to take food off of my plate for yourself, I find that rather annoying, even if you’re just trying to be funny. If you truly want a bit of my food, just ask. In all likelihood, I’ll give you a generous portion.
183. When people say “You’ll die!” when referring to showing me something humorous. I know fully well that they’ve merely truncated the idiom “You’ll die laughing”, but to any outsider, “You’ll die!” is hardly incentive to do anything, let alone go out of my way to click on a link or something equally arduous.
184. How pretty much every single double-vinyl album from the 1970s is something like two minutes too long to burn onto a single modern CD. Physical Graffiti (Led Zeppelin, of course), for example, is a freaking kickass album, but I always have to split it into the two disks anyway because the album is collectively 82 minutes, which doesn’t work well on an 80 minute CD. I could take one song off, in theory, but…
185. People who have complete lack of regard for the album structure of music. Most musical artists arrange their songs the way they do on purpose, with the intention for the listener to digest the ENTIRE ALBUM. This is why iTunes kills me… the selling and/or buying of individual tracks goes basically against my religion when it comes to music. If an artist actually only has one or two good tracks on a full album, then they’re quite frankly not worth anybody’s time anyway.
186. People who don’t return e-mails. This one’s rather simple. If I took the time to go out of my way to write something to you, it probably means that I care about you on at least a minimum level that would be necessary to conjure a desire to get in contact with you. For you not to acknowledge this, even if I did something that angered you, is a 200-proof insult. Hell, if your reply e-mail were to only say “Fuck off” I’d still like it a lot better than no answer at all.
187. Having to sneeze or cough while driving. One thing that you learn upon starting to drive pretty early on is that, well, accidents are bad. I’ve had the fortune of avoiding them thus far, but sneezing forces your eyes to close while your body makes a small convulsion. When you’re driving a multi-ton piece of machinery, this isn’t exactly the greatest thing to have your body be doing.
188. How, all too often, when there are long stretches of nothing going on (i.e. during breaks), people usually take the initiative to all plan separate events for the exact same time. This Friday for example, I have to be in five places at once (not an exaggeration) and it’s really freaking annoying.
189. Speaking of exaggerations, people who say “overexaggerating.” There’s already a word for saying something to be greater than it is. The word is… “exaggerating.” No “over” about it. People who say “underexaggerating” are slightly more excusable, considering there’s no word that I know of that describes saying something to be less than it is, except perhaps “minimizing,” but that isn’t a precise way to say it.
190. Indecipherable symbols or indicators on technology. On the top of the screen of my cell phone, what should randomly appear but a little (unselectable) icon of… a cup of coffee? Coffee? What the crap is that supposed to mean? Does my phone need caffeine? Or is it going to make me some? Yes, I know I can probably figure out what it means were I to refer to a manual, but they should make it obvious in the first place.
191. When Word assumes you’re typing in a language other than the one that you actually are, prompting lots of red squiggly lines. I swear… just because I typed something once in Spanish, the computer occasionally decides that the English essay that I’m writing is… in Spanish! Then I have to go all the way over and change it back, cause I damn well can’t ignore all that red.
192. People who try to whistle to songs they don’t know. I don’t know if this is a common occurrence in
193. When a city claims to be “synching” the traffic lights, so that one can apparently get a greater amount of them green. I don’t care what anybody says, if by Murphy’s Law alone, this is nigh well impossible. The sales tax rate has just been raised to an atrocious 9.25% over here. Fairly inexcusable, if you ask me. Oh? What’s your excuse? Something about synching traffic lights? Well…
194. So many shows along the lines of Oprah and Dr. Phil tend to use fear tactics that exploit common misconceptions among those who are less knowledgeable and it is not only horrid, but pathetic. Dr. Phil, for example, on numerous occasions, has an astoundingly one-sided view on EVERYTHING and any fact or evidence that would suggest otherwise is suddenly unsubstantiated just because he says so. I mean… it’s Dr. Phil… he can’t be wrong… can he? Use your head for something other than a hat rack.
195. Without fail, it seems iPods seem to run out of batteries with something like two minutes to go in an album. Is it not enough that iPods have a battery life of about two minutes as it is? I’m not sure if this is a common occurrence with any of you, but it happens more often than even the Law of Large Numbers would suggest. And it’s quite obnoxious, mind you.
196. The various supposed “leagues” and “societies” for merit in high school students. I probably got e-mails from a half-dozen of these “societies” last year and this year, and I joined a grand total of zero of them when I saw I had to pay to have my name buried in some registry. Oftentimes, these can even be scams! Oh no! I didn’t join any Honors Societies. Guess that means I’m screwed for college. Oh. Wait…
197. How the “automatic word-completer” thing for texting on most cell phones has absolutely no logic of context or even basic syntax. Context I could see being a bit burdensome to program, but I could fairly easy program a device that would at least be able to suggest words based on placement and position in the sentence, rather than pulling them out of the proverbial gludeus maximus. For example, when I input “to”, for the next word, it’s beyond me when it suggests anything other than a verb. Then again, based on the way most people text, anything goes, I suppose…
198. That goddamn ‘StickyKeys’ message that comes up when you hold the “Shift” button for too long or press it 5 times. I can’t even see how it could possibly be useful… at all. It probably wouldn’t annoy me nearly as much were it not for the fact that, despite my speakers being broken, the accompanying squeak still manages to make itself heard. (If you use Windows and tried pressing shift 5 times for yourself, raise your hand. Don’t lie…)
199. How many news shows on major television stations play a shockingly high amount of material that just flat-out ISN’T NEWS. Such things as human-interest stories (which are about as aptly named as Fun-Sized Candies) have no place in news shows, but rather should be parceled out for some other trash. I turned the TV on so I could hear what’s happening in the world… not for a kid who, despite ‘adversity,’ managed to learn how to play the guitar, say the alphabet backwards, and play tennis simultaneously, or whatever.
200. In recent months, I’ve become increasingly aware of an unnamed social networking tool that is nothing but bad news. It is extremely volatile to people’s lives, often consuming what would have otherwise been up to a third (and occasionally more) of that of any given person. More and more lately, in its notorious “news feeds” personalized for the hapless user, stalking is inherently brought upon, and even encouraged, forcing people’s entire conversations onto his/her eyes, each having absolutely nothing to do with the user in question. It furthers this stalker-training agenda by not only facilitating peeking on the private words of others, but inhibiting the user’s own conversations with its chat application, which fails fundamentally in maintaining conversations, luring the person away once again from his/her own business. I’m not entirely sure why the proper authorities have continued to maintain a blind eye toward this monster, but it needs to be stopped. Fast.
