Things That Annoy Me
Submitted by AJDaGreat on Tue, 08/20/2002 - 08:33
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- When someone, who has probably never seen a Woody Allen movie in his or her life, hears some mention of Woody Allen, and automatically says, "Ew! I don't like him. Doesn't he like to sleep with children?"
- When my fellow high-schoolers take their relationships WAY too seriously. Don't they realize that it really doesn't matter?
- When people are so obsessed with what they do that, if you ask them just some minuscule question about their job, they can't resist talking for half an hour about it.
- How, if you order a glass of water instead of a drink you have to pay for in a restaurant, they usually don't give you a straw. What, only people paying for their drinks get straws?
- People that get so emotional about a cause and like to yell at you for disagreeing with them, when it's clear that they have no clue what they're talking about.
- When books spend way too much time talking about the surroundings, the landscape, the sky, etc. Hey, author, get to the plot. Your book may look longer, but that doesn't mean it's better.
- When my teacher can't accept that I had too much other work to do my homework, but then says he didn't get around to grading our tests because he was too busy.
- Post office hours - why are they so damn short?
- When television stations show edited-for-TV movies and then change the dialogue to something ridiculous or edit out whole scenes because of one brief shot of a topless woman. Why can't they just bleep the cuss words and make the screen fuzzy for nudity or extreme violence?
- When someone says "Goddamn" and it's either bleeped out or has asterisks over it (in writing), and they bleep out the "God" part but not the "damn" (e.g., "G**damn!"). Why the hell do they do that? "God" isn't the bad word.
- When people are conversing with me, and they think it's rude to keep talking without letting me say something, so they stop and try to get me to talk. I think coming up with interesting conversation topics is a burden, so if you wanna talk, talk! It's not rude. If I have something to say, I'll say it. Until then, I'm happy listening to you.
- When people are afraid of the Internet because they hear a story on the news about a girl who gives out her address, home phone number, and social security number over the Internet, and tells everyone she rarely locks her doors, and then gets raped. The news only tells you the bad things. They don't tell you about the other 1 billion people who logged onto the Internet that day and were perfectly fine.
- Chain e-mails, especially ones that tell me that, if I send the email to 57 million people, a window will pop up with a picture of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake kissing! Not only is this impossible, but why the hell would I want to see Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake kissing?
- The extreme feminists. Now, at the risk of sounding misogynistic, I am definitely not talking about the feminists that want women to get paid the same amount of money as men for doing the same work. I have nothing against that idea; in fact, I support it. What annoys me are the feminists who file complaints against a co-worker because he told a dirty joke, or those who get offended if you hold the door for them, or those that burn pictures of women in bikinis because they think that will do something about the women being portrayed as sex objects by the media, or those that think they're making a deep statement by changing their name to "Womyn." Those are the ones that annoy me.
- People who are way too easily offended by some light humor. Come on, it's just a joke. Ligthen up.
- This quest for political correctness all around us. It's just plain ridiculous. What's with all these buzzword names? An African-American? That term gets applied to all black people; not all black people are from Africa, you know. I have a black friend who's originally from Venezuela. And how about white people who come from Africa? They are never called African-Americans. And how about "seeing-impaired" and "hearing-impaired"? Call it what it is, dammit! They're "blind" and "deaf." Since when have the words "blind" and "deaf" become offensive? Yes, some minorities have been overlooked and oppressed by WASPs for years, but it sure as hell won't make up for those years of oppression by calling them a longer name. Affirmative action? Blech. And I really hate when I'm asked to describe what a person looks like, and I mention that the person was, for example, Asian, or black, and someone has to chime in, "You're a racist!" That really pisses me off.
- When people don't wash their hands after going to the bathroom. It's just gross.
- Another bathroom-related one: when people try to have long conversations in the bathroom. Especially while I'm in the middle of urinating.
- How all movies on HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, etc., are pan-n-scan, but most commercials for movies that I see on TV are letterboxed - apparently, when the production companies want you to spend money, that's the only time it's important to preserve the director's vision. Also, I've seen that many other commercials are letterboxed lately. That's just ridiculous.
- When people use the term "gay" to mean "bad" or "stupid."
- The recent decline in the quality of the show "Friends." Did anyone see last Thursday's episode? Rachel hooks up with Gavin at the end - Gavin, who was just introduced the previous episode; Gavin, who shares a mutual hatred with Rachel up until he kisses her. I hate contrived stuff like that. I think it hit a low point when Joey had that crush on Rachel - that was just too ridiculous. I saw the "Jump the Shark" guy said that "Friends" jumped in the 3rd season, but I think it was even later than that.
- When we get to do something fun in school, like a trip to a museum, or watching a movie, but then the teacher gives us some busywork to do, like doing a worthless question sheet on the movie, or on various paintings. We took a trip to the National Gallery in D.C. last year, and my teacher didn't give us any work to do. And it was amazing; unhindered by the burden of having to do a stupid sheet, I was really able to appreciate the art. I would've enjoyed it much less if I got a worthless sheet.
- Barnes and Noble. Their stores always have the best selection of merchandise, but why do they have to charge so damn much? Their prices are ludicrously high.
- How prices always end in .99 or .95. Okay, retailers, you fooled some people for a while, but now, everyone gets that $5.99 is virtually the same as $6.00. You can drop this charade now. The gasoline prices are even more annoying, what with their 9/10 of a cent.
- The fact that, if you wanna play a CD in most cars, you have to load it in the back and it takes a while. I miss the good old days when you could just pop in a CD on the dashboard, right nearby the slot where you popped in the casette.
- The comic strip "Zippy." I don't get it.
- My house's thermostat. It seems to have only two settings: very hot or very cold. There is never any middle ground.
- Some of the stuff at www.ebaumsworld.com is, I admit, funny. But some is not. They have some videos of car crashes on that site. And people actually laugh at them. I think it's sick. In the computer lab at my school, everyone always watches these dumb movies. I saw one kid today watch one and say, through hysterical laughter, "He broke his neck! He broke his neck! Hahahaha!" Is this really the progression we want our society to take?
- Foreign languages that have genders for their nouns. Who just decided one day to assign arbitrary genders to random objects? This book is female. This chair is male. I'm glad English doesn't do that. But one aspect that I think English should have taken from foreign languages is placing the adjective after the noun. Not because I prefer it one way or the other, but because, hey, everyone's doing that, why should English be the language nonconformist? I know, this sounds like a manner silly of speaking, but if we had always spoken this way, we would be used to it by now.
- Daylight savings time. Why do we do it? I think it's another one of those stupid traditions done to satisfy the stupid Americans who wouldn't be able to understand why, at 6:00, it's darker on one day of the year than on another day. I think we do too many things to make stupid people more comfortable.
- People who have nothing better to do than complain about what annoys them all the time.
Author Comments:
Because there are many, many things annoy me, this is a work in progress. I was going to call this "Pet Peeves", but I think there are too many here, or at least, there will be. I may on occasion be guilty of some of these, but I think it's pretty rare; call me a hypocrite if you want.
Well, it felt good to rant. I'll be adding more as I think of them.
i'm all for protecting your right to rant--way to go on this list! i laughed a lot, especially about the $ .99 thing and gas prices... i freaking hate that too.
one thing i did want to clarify, though. first i wholeheartedly agree with you on the people who asterisk out or edit their swearing--we know what you're saying so just say it--but according to the 10 Commandments, and therefore Judaism, Catholicism and Protestantism, taking the Lord's name in vain *is* the bad part. (i'm speaking from my experience as a former baptist here.)
some churches take this more seriously than others and won't allow you to say "Good Lord" as an exclamation. the other "bad words" just fall under keeping your mind on things that are pure and encouraging others rather than tearing them down... doesn't make it any less annoying, but i thought it might help a little to understand where it could be coming from! ;)
Many interesting points.
One interests me very much: the languages.
Genders: Actually, wouldn't English here be the nonconformist language?
Adjectives: I have to disagree here, because in French and German (and even in Letzebuergesch) you pust the adjective before the noun, and not after it. (OK, in French there a few exceptions...)
What is, on the other hand, very annoying about certain languages like German is that you have to care about the different cases for a noun (like in Latin --> 1922's traumatism).
Your point about the genders is true, but I don't want English to conform when nonconformity is so much easier. If it doesn't really make any difference one way or the other, then I think English should conform. I took French for six years, and there are many, MANY more adjectives that come after the noun than before. Since England is a Germanic language, I guess I should be complaining about German's nonconformity rather than English's. Can't the Germanic language and the Romance languages all just get along?
As for Latin, I can understand all the different endings because theoretically you can write the Latin words in a sentence in any order you want. To me it seems like understanding Latin would be like cracking a code, but apparently those Romans got by okay. It's a whole different way of thinking about words.
"Daylight savings time. Why do we do it? I think it's another one of those stupid traditions done to satisfy the stupid Americans who wouldn't be able to understand why, at 6:00, it's darker on one day of the year than on another day. I think we do too many things to make stupid people more comfortable."
I think this was to help farmers economically. Not entirely sure of the details but I know there was a good reason for it. I'm not entirely sure but I think there is a discussion happening to change it so it's just always daylight savings time.
"When my fellow high-schoolers take their relationships WAY too seriously. Don't they realize that it really doesn't matter?"
Some people fall in love when they're a teenager. I didn't until a few months ago, but I must say, until you have fallen in love, the whole concept seems really ridiculous. You have to experience it for yourself.
Okay, and the ebaumsworld thing - I once saw this short film that began with a lot of the more 'typical' ebaums clips. People falling off things, getting hit in the balls, etc. Everyone was laughing at it. As it went on, the injuries got more serious. People breaking things and suffering concussions and all that. People hit by cars. Soon the footage turns into clips of people who (most likely) suffered fatal accidents, and you realize you've been laughing at the suffering and misfortune of people the whole time. A real eye-opener.
By the way, ebaums steals stuff from other people and makes money hand over fist because of it, so that's a better reason to hate them.
I actually have since heard that daylight savings time is actually an attempt to reduce energy usage - when it's lighter later, fewer people need to use lights in their houses. That actually sounds like a good cause, but this list was written when I was younger and angrier (and before I knew about the energy thing).
I can assure you that the high-schoolers I was referring to were not genuinely in love.
I do (now) hate ebaumsworld for what you mention, but when I wrote this list my rage was directed at a society that considers videos like that to be entertainment, not at the site itself.
Hmmm, that's probably right then. For the high school thing...you know, teenage years are a confusing time. I just turned 21 and it seems so long ago! I see what you're saying though. I remember how all the girls I liked were dating people that were real assholes, which is obnoxious. For some reason girls find that attractive? I don't think it's impossible to be in love by the age of 16 or 17, but these people have only been on "the dating scene" for a few years, so they're probably more confused than anything. I think if you have to ask yourself, "Am I in love?", then you probably aren't.
Although, if you really are confused, I guess you can look at is this way - if you get her something, but NOT as a way to get into her pants, then it's probably genuine! :)
Things that annoy me are
1. Dating teachers because they always complain about how little money they make and yet they don't do a damn thing about it and just let the bureaucracy and the government controls them. Teachers need to quit bitching and moaning and do something to get better pay before our kids just get crap teachers. Also it annoys the hell out of me when teachers always say oh it's never the money it's the satisfaction of teaching the children but yet then the teachers come home after their work and moan, complain and bitch about the money issue, needing more raises, saying oh I wish I could have a raise and having to use their own money to buy supplies etc.
2. Women that are so shallow that refuse and will only date super tall men even though the women are like 5'0", 5'1", 5'2", 5'3" and 5'4". But yet a lot of these women want the super tall 6' ++++ men that when they are together looks so F****** stupid. Yeah like 3 inches taller is cool but not like a whole foot taller than her it's just so pathetic and idiotic. Also women that only like and date the duschbag/asshole men. I mean it must get so damn old going for these losers knowing that it will never be a "real relationship" it's just like a 1 to 3 month fling if it lasts that long. What's so exciting about the asshole duschbag that is a loser, has criminal record, uneducated, family problems, degrades you and beats up on you? It's like for example on the show "Harper's Island" toward the end of the series Madison Allen the daughter in the show of Shea Allen and Madison Allen in this series starts to think that John Wakefield who is killing everyone and she wants to think that he is a good person. First of all he is a killer and second of all he is not a good person. But see I think this translates to reality for a lot of women so many women fall into this idiotic trap and think like these bad ass killers and not necessarily killers themselves but the asshole/duschbags are these cool men. No they are not cool they are worthless/scumbags that no men wants to hang with or be around even though they might project like they have a few friends but they don't cause no guy wants to hang be friends with such a loser.