Things That Piss Me Off, #201-240

201. (Nobody saw this one coming, but…) People who decide that looking for oncoming traffic before taking a left out a parking lot is optional. No… it isn’t optional as a matter of fact. Hope you enjoy your dent in your car and your liability, jackass, ‘cause I’m sure enjoying my totaled car and broken freakin’ wrist and forearm.

202. On that note, not being able to drive when you have a fully effective license. I could probably figure out a way to drive with my cast on, but without a car, things are made… um… harder. At age 18, being often forced to rely on parents again to get you where you need to be is horribly degrading. The settlement money, however…

203. People who say, “No homo” preceding saying something that could possibly be construed as sounding slightly homosexual. If you’re not homosexual, as you at least postulate, then why the hell is it necessary to say this? All “no homo” does for anybody is bring people around them to think quite the opposite. Perhaps it’s insecurity, but it’s annoying to no end.
(Idea borrowed, hopefully with forgiveness, from Jess. xP)

204. Things that seem to deteriorate in quality faster than simple decay logic would project. Sure, I’m willing to accept that my various electronics and (non-totaled) vehicles begin to slowly decline after some amount of time, but certain electronics (*cough* iPods *cough*) seem to deteriorate at a mind-boggling rate. My iPod’s battery life has decreased by about 4 hours in the past year. There’s absolutely no reason for this. I’m fairly certain it’s Apple’s way of ensuring we keep shelling money out to them.

205. People who, on message boards, forums, or whatever, feel a burning need to proclaim that they are “FIRST!” to post rather than say something with substance. Wonderful… you can press a refresh button quickly over the course of a few minutes in anticipation of a post. Do you want a bloody medal?

206. The phrase, “You’re running a temperature” when referring to a fever. No shit… I’d better be running a temperature, otherwise I’d be dead, wouldn’t I, smart one? The only thing running a temperature is your IQ… and that’s at just about room temperature.

207. Graduation “rehearsals.” Please tell me what part of standing in one place for two or three hours and walking across a stage when you hear your name requires rehearsal. We’re high school graduates, people. One would think we’d be able to figure this stuff out without useless preparation. Then again, people continuously prove me wrong in the “figuring stuff out” sector…

208. People who drive faster than me. I (may or may not be…) often pushing the speed limit as it is, so a car’s blowing by me is rather irksome. People around me tend to then attempt to accelerate also, so as to match the Mach 7 the other car is making, and then it’s ME that looks like the moron.

209. People who drive slower than me. Come on. I have places to get to, sights to see, people to meet, and what have you. I’d kind of like to get to my destinations in a timely manner. There’s a long thin thing right by your right foot… let me recommend putting your foot on it. So drive a bit faster, jerk. But it damn well better not be any faster than me.

210. Settlement hearings after car accidents. I’m suddenly in a position to have full control over the amount of money I ask for and I have to balance between being a complete tool and asking for more money than might otherwise be warranted or be a milquetoast and settle for a small sum. This is made even more difficult by the fact that the other guy did, in fact, admit liability to his insurance company. I’ll figure it out… but it’s really freaking annoying.

211. Costco. I seriously can’t think of any other store on the planet that has every single thing imaginable… except for the things you’re looking for. All of their socks are too small for me, while all of their pants are too large, etc, etc. The one closest to my house has responded to an overcrowding situation by removing space from the parking lot and diverting to… a Costco gas station. Really…

212. When basketball players shoot significantly after a whistle is blown. Like most things professional sports players do, this accomplishes absolutely nothing. Either the shot is made and doesn’t count anyway, bringing you to look like an idiot, or you miss it entirely, bringing you to look like an idiot. You’ve got quite a choice there.

213. People who don’t have the forthrightness to say “no” when asked to do something that they find undesirable. If you are so spineless as to be unable to deny, then you’re on a crash course for nothing good. If you accept merely to spare the feelings of said person, you’re violating #76 (which is worse than Fun-Sized Candies, mind you.) If you refuse to deny based on an opportunity to divisively swing it into your favor, then that’s a whole other animal.

214. People who rely only assumptions of intention as their grounds for a given action. Perhaps it’s just me, but I live by analyzing situations based on all of the information I can get, thinking things through, and then evaluating everything to arrive at an optimum course of action. Yes, I can imagine a quick assumption to be necessary in cases of, say, assault… but use your heads, people.

215. All of the AIM bots that randomly add themselves to my friends list. I don’t care about any of this celebrity garbage that has been floating around as these bots’ “status messages”. I know I can just delete them, but that would entail acknowledgement that it doesn’t warrant.

216. Speaking of which, people who post random song lyrics that have nothing to do with their mood whatsoever. A status message is *generally* for notifying people of… um… your status. That’s nice that you can copy and paste, but try saying something meaningful. Yes, I know I’m guilty of posting lyrics as my status message, but those lyrics match my thoughts damn well when I do it.

217. When words are pluralized with apostrophes. No! Bad! Who taught you this? Apostrophes are used for possession or to form contractions. There’s already something that pluralizes most words rather nicely. Now introducing… the letter ‘s’! If you’re feeling particularly smug, use an ‘i’ with –us words, but you’d better do that correctly too.

218. Douchebags who arrive ridiculously late to designated meeting places for large groups, thus holding everybody else up. Fifteen, twenty minutes tops, can somewhat permissible, but only given good reason. I can see it now… somebody is going to arrive 45 minutes late to the airport for the Hawaii trip, we’ll all be waiting for them, and it’s somehow going to be taken out on all of us.

219. On that note, people who, when going through airport security, decide it would be just hilarious if they make some joke incriminating themselves or somebody in their group as an intended bomber or hijacker. This brings in two areas of idiocy: the first being the person who made the joke him/herself and then getting all indignant when the personnel do their job and detain them and the personnel themselves who just go even more overboard with their needlessly convoluted security measures.

220. People who take “which *blah* are you?” or “what does your *blah* say about you?” quizzes seriously. It’s not so much the quizzes that annoy me (they’re great time killers) as when people actually take heed of the result itself. No, it’s not “zOMG so scaryyyy!” when it apparently matches some aspect of your character. It’s spewing out general statements that can be applied to anything.

221. Getting “stuck” in a webpage and having to repeatedly click the back button. I don’t have the foggiest notion of why this happens when it does, but it really does give off the impression that the page is actively imprisoning you. Of course, when eventually you do mash the button 15 times in a row, it works, but then it rockets you way back in your browser. I already have stupid people holding me at bay. I don’t need stupid web pages doing it too.

222. “No offense.” Yes, I’m aware that it’s the way to say “I’m going to offer some criticism, but I’m trying not to make it too mean-spirited,” but just saying “no offense” does absolutely nothing in the long run. Think about it. You’re requesting somebody to not take offense at a statement. Even if they didn’t want to take offense at it, they can’t freakin’ control it. No offense, English; I think you need better idioms.

223. The fact that m4p files (purchased iTunes files) are nearly impossible to negotiate and use for data purposes once you’ve bought them. Backing up the files is one big annoyance. More annoying is attempting to put the songs through an audio editor to merge songs that are to be treated as one composition. Of course, there is no easy way to just convert the files. That would be convenient.

224. When gum starts to dissolve in your mouth. I personally enjoy chewing gum even long after the initial flavor disappears, if only for giving my jaws something to do. Of course though, many gums crack down on these “freeloaders” by only giving them a life of about 2 hours or so before they just start disintegrating entirely. Marketing tactics. I know. Let’s move on now.

225. Ask Jeeves. Quite possibly the most stupidly formatted search engine on the face of the internet. All it does it encourage you to unnecessarily flesh out your search terms into full questions. When you do actually do this, it proceeds to throw out all the unnecessary conjunctions and such anyway. Oftentimes, it begins excising important words too. Congratulations. Your search returned useless results.

226. People who use positions of perceived power to be condescending assholes. This happens all the time. Somebody, say, a YMCA staff member for instance, takes it upon themselves to, because a large group of, say, high school seniors, want to make the best of their last week together, put as much of a damper on them as they can with needless rules and ridiculous regulations. “Adults only”? We’re 18. Kindly take a long walk off a short pier.

227. People who, rather than saying “um…” or whatever when stopping mid-sentence, drop the f-bomb multiple times as their “thinking” word. This, as well as most other things you do probably, just gives off the impression that you’re an idiot. Ooh! Look at me! I can say societally unacceptable words off the cuff! Good for you. Doesn’t make you sound any like any less of an imbecile.

228. On the other hand, people who take the f-bomb too seriously. When it comes down to it, it really is just a word, people. Oftentimes it is the best and most efficient way to express deep consternation. Sure, it shouldn’t be thrown around among small children, but many people really do need to relax about this word. That’s all it is. A word. Words are scary, aren’t they…

229. When an error page is generated not for the website you’re actually trying to access itself, but for an error caused by an ad embedded in the page. It’s almost understandable when, for whatever reason, a server actually integral to the webpage fails, but when you are redirected due to an error in an ad that you don’t want there as it is, well, it pisses me off.

230. Long-winded people in general. I’m a very big proponent of saying things concisely and getting the point across. However, there are people who go on and on about pure crap that doesn’t have any bearing to the point or instruction they are trying to give. I don’t give a hoot what the wind speed is in Los Angeles, Mr. Pilot guy. I want you to shut up so the TV in front of me unfreezes.

231. Buses. They’re way bigger than they need to be, go 15 miles per hour under the speed limit and seem to manage to take out multiple lanes when they’re loading passengers. I’m fine with public transportation, but these things are just freakin’ annoying. Plus, it ends in “us”, so I think the plural shouldn’t be “buses”. It should be “bi,” dammit.

232. When something vaguely tragic occurs and every single news media imaginable dedicates 385 years to it. The Air France thing is awful, that’s a given, but it’s time to move on. Enough is enough. I’m sure there are more important things to be airing. Perhaps swine flu. Oh… wait…

233. Plugs that go into wall sockets that have “frames” that obscure the other “port” of the socket. I’m fairly sure that no matter what sort of circuitry we’re dealing with, it can be reasonably fit into a space that only takes an amount of room that doesn’t require me to start unplugging all the stuff I actually need. I shouldn’t have to unplug my bloody alarm clock to get my cell phone charged.

234. When entire albums that I really want to get are leaked on the internet before their release date. I’ve been trying to be better about buying my music lately and this really doesn’t help matters. I could always just download the album early and resolve to actually buy it upon the release date, but I know I probably won’t eventually want to use the energy to go out and buy music I already have.

235. The fact that I tend to lose a crapload of weight when I get sick. I’ve been trying to gain weight for awhile now, but it seems whenever I cross 130 (pounds, not kilograms…), I get sick and wind up back under 120 within a matter of days. This just results in my not having had any net weight gain for all of high school, which is rather pathetic, considering I’ve grown 6 inches in that time period.

236. People who complain of having a fever when their temperature is below 100 degrees (once again, Fahrenheit, not Celcius, metric people). I don’t care what you say; you could say you’re sick on account of coughing, nausea, or whatever, but a temperature of 99.4 or something does not constitute a fever or even remote sickness for that matter. You’re 0.8 degrees warmer than normal. Oooooh! Get the death bed ready! Seriously, people…

237. People who have their phone conversations really loudly in public to try to sound interesting. I have absolutely no interest in what you’re blabbing about to whoever the hell is on the other end, but I’m fairly sure it’s a lot less important than you’re trying to make it. Kindly shut up. If you’ve already sunk to this level, people certainly aren’t going to find you interesting when you do ANYTHING, let alone this.

238. “Pop” music. This is probably the most meaningless genre of music on the planet (even more so than ‘alternative’ rock, see #82). Apparently it’s supposed to indicate “popular music that isn’t quite hip-hop (as if that wasn’t awful enough).” Popular by what standard? Who’s deciding these things? And why is the music still absolute garbage with overly simplistic, obnoxious, and downright stupid motifs that make me want to throw stuff? I have a better name for it: Crap.

239. Movie theaters (not “theatres”... see #34) that find it necessary to blast the sound to levels much louder than necessary to experience the movies. There are parts that are clearly supposed to be quiet in many movies, yet the speakers are still spitting out seepage at 110 decibels. We’re not deaf. If we were, we’d be at a theater that gave us freaking subtitles.

240. The fact that at age 18 in the United States, one can be arrested for a whole world of ‘adult’ things, but still not have control over what substances one puts into his/her body under the eyes of the law. I’m certainly not a big alcohol-type person (see #180), but still, this is ridiculous. I know plenty of 18-year-olds (and even younger) who are significantly more responsible in this regard than many “full adults.” The inconsistencies and irreconcilabilities within the legal system are quite shocking at times when taken from the perspective of somebody moderately sane.