My Personal Pet Peeves

Check back often, as I am annoyed on a daily basis

Dear Lord Jesus Almighty, I HATE it when bands include a "secret track" at the end of their albums now. Ever since Nirvana did it on "Nevermind", it has been happening waaaaaay too often. Do these bands think they're still surprising us? If the timer keeps going when
the last track of the album ends, it quickly becomes obvious that you're going to get a stupid bonus song. The most annoying thing is, in a lot of cases, the extra song is really cool. So if you ever want to hear it, you have to fast forward through the last track, and then 3-5 minutes of silence. In the case of the new Beck album, the retarded bonus song is one of the few that I really like, so if I want to hear it, I have to go through all that crap. Why not just make it another track division? WHY???? You're not fooling anyone anymore. So, for the love of humanity, stop doing this to me.

This is a pretty specific peeve, and you'll probably only know what I'm talking about if you go to concerts often. Whenever there is a modern piece being performed, there's always at least one person who says "Hmph" when the music stops. Not the kind of "Hmph" that means "How stupid," but the kind that is supposed to imply, "That was a very dissonant and strange piece of music, and it really made me think, because I understand it on a very deep and profound level." In actuality, it usually means "I am a very insecure person, and even though I didn't like this piece, I want everyone sitting around me to think that I understood it, and, therefore, am smart." Naturally, there are people who do that, and really do "get it", if there is anything to "get", but I think they are the minority. Why can't people just listen to the music and not think they're obligated to make some intellectual comment about it? Why do some people think that modern, crazy music always has to be intellectual? Can't it just be crazy, funny, primal, or whatever it's trying to do? And really, do these people think that saying "Hmph" is going to make me think, "Wow, that guy must have a deep spiritual bond with this composer to understand his music so fully and deeply."? For those of you who haven't witnessed this sort of thing, I have created a demonstrative Sound File that will give you a good idea of what it's like. Listen carefully for the tone of the "Hmph" at the end. All the arrogance is in the tone. So go to a Stravinsky concert, and if anyone says "Hmph" at the end of a piece, smack them on the back of the head.

I don't understand how this could possibly happen on such a regular basis, but it has now officially become one of my pet peeves. Sometimes I'll watch some crappy sitcom because I'm bored and there's nothing else on, and I don't want to do any work. After a good 30 minutes of horrible programming, I usually say, "Boy, that really stank." Then, somehow, several months later, I'll find myself in the same position, and I decide to watch the same crappy show again. A show I have only seen once, out of desperation. You know what invariably happens, no matter what show it is? IT WILL BE A RERUN OF THE EXACT EPISODE I SAW. It's uncanny. It's like someone on the FOX network has been monitoring my life and is playing a cruel joke on me. I thought I was alone in this, but other people I have talked to have gone through the same thing. Be afraid, be very afraid.

I have had it up to here (I'm making a hand gesture above my head) with people who write checks for everything. What ever happened to cash? If I'm going to the grocery store, I don't want to wait in line while some lady writes a check. They have to check your I.D., and you've got to write the check out. This is a complete waste of time and paper. CHECKS ARE RETARDED. The only thing they're good for is paying bills in the mail, and now even that is unnecessary with online banking. People who write checks for amounts under $5.00 should be put in a federal penitentiary.

I got a new TV a few months ago, and on the remote control, there is a button entitled, "HELP". When you push this button, a very helpful message appears on the screen. The message reads as follows: "Press 'MENU' to see features you can adjust on your television." That's it. That's all that button does. THEY MADE AN ENTIRE BUTTON TO SAY SOMETHING THEY COULD HAVE WRITTEN ON A LITTLE STICKER ON THE BACK OF THE REMOTE! SCREW YOU RCA!!!

This is so very odd. I'm sure that everyone in the U.S.A. is familiar with the tasty snack cakes by the name of "Ding Dongs." And I'm also sure that many people in Canada are familiar with that name. However, here in Ontario, (and I'm fairly sure it's the same in the rest of Canada) this very same product goes by the name of "King Dons." Before I begin to rant about how incredibly strange that is, let me explain the many planes of stupidity that this name exists on. First of all, the fact that it seems to be trying to imitate the sound of "Ding Dongs." They tried to simulate that "ing, ong" sound, but instead they created a "ing, ons" sound, which makes no sense. The "ing, ong" sound is pleasing to the ear because they both end in "ng." The combination of "ing" and "ons" is not pleasing in any way whatsoever. Secondly, a major feature of the name "Ding Dong" is the alliteration on the D's. They have completely lost this aspect in their weird imitation of the name.

Now, the actual content of the words "King Dons" makes ZERO sense. You could interpret it two ways. First of all, you could assume they wanted to put an apostrophe in the word "Don's", which would mean that these snack cake belong to King Don. That MIGHT make sense if there was a King Don, or if they created a little cartoon King character that was supposed to be King Don. However, neither of these things are true. Secondly, you could interpret the name to mean that the cakes themselves are "Dons," and that one cake would be a "Don." Putting the word "King" in front of "Dons" would then describe the quality of the Dons. In that case, they would be saying that their "Dons" are the best, and therefore "King." Unfortunately for Hostess, there is no such thing as a "Don."

So, in closing, let me just say that THIS IS TOTALLY INSANE AND WHOEVER NAMED THIS PRODUCT IN CANADA SHOULD RECONSIDER THE VALUE OF THEIR OWN LIFE.

OH MY GOD! I can't take this anymore. I live right next to the university stadium, and these football games are driving me completely insane. It's SO loud. I put a microphone in the middle of my living room and recorded a minute of what I have to endure every weekend. Click Here to hear a Real Audio sample of the sound. The worst part is when the games start at 9:00 am, and I'm trying to sleep in. The announcer is SO loud, and every time Jimmy the Jock scores a touchdown the crowd goes absolutely crazy. They have those noisemaker things that sound like foghorns too. It's so frustrating to live with this and know there's nothing I can do to fix it. I hate the mass hysteria surrounding sports, but I can deal with it when it doesn't affect me. This, however, affects me directly and I wish I could bomb that stadium. Actually, I guess calling in a bomb threat would be effective, and no harm done.

I was just flipping through a magazine today at a bookstore, and remembered a peeve that has plagued me since I began to read. When you look something up in the table of contents, and try to find the right page, many times you will find that most pages in the magazine aren't numbered. This is especially true of fashion magazines, as I'm sure most women have noticed. Why is this? It's not just the ads that aren't numbered, sometimes its pages of feature articles. There will be sparse, seemingly random numbering, making it nearly impossible to find your page. Sometimes, the destination page that is listed in the contents isn't even numbered itself! Get your act together magazine people.

    I tend to fly around a lot, so I have spent my fair share of time in airplanes. I'm not going to talk about the standard airport/plane complaints, because I think we're all very familiar with them. This is something that many of you might not have noticed. It has bothered me for years. For some reason, the windows in planes NEVER line up correctly with the seat rows. I'll provide a crude graphical representation of what I mean here:
                        0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
                        | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Obviously, the 0's represent windows, and the space between the lines represent seat rows. Notice how in most cases, the standard seat row only gets HALF a window, or a slightly off-center window. Why is it like this? I can't figure out any good reason. Here's an idea: plan the seat row dimensions, then put a window in the CENTER of each row's wall. It's almost as if they have not attempted ANY coordination between seat rows and windows! You would think with the prices you pay for airline tickets, they could make that work. It's most annoying when you're stuck at a window seat and you try to lean on the window to sleep. If you've only got half a window, you have to deal with a somewhat painful window well edge. I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

If one more company or movie decides to use the choral finale of Beethoven's 9th Symphony for a commercial or background music, I'm really going to pull my hair out. That must be the #1 most abused piece of music of all time. It has been in a million movies and countless commercials. Currently in Canada, you'll see commercials for milk which feature the lyrics "Drink milk, love life" set to the tune of the choral finale about 9283 times a day. And to top it all off, now they have baseball players singing it. It's a good thing Beethoven is dead and deaf, otherwise I'm sure he would shoot himself in the ears.

For some reason, certain fast food places in Canada don't have ice for their fountain drinks. The older Subways are especially bad in my town. You ask them for ice, and they say, "The pop is ice-cold." Well, unless there's ice in it, its not ice-cold. It's cold, but not ICE-cold, and it doesn't stay cold. What's so hard about ice? What's worse is, a lot of places that don't have self-serve drinks don't put enough ice in your drink. When I have a drink, I want it to be really really cold.

Cigars. Why is it suddenly soooo cool to smoke cigars? It's not better than smoking. All these celebrities are posing on the cover of that god damned "Cigar Aficionado" magazine with cigars hanging out of their mouths. It's not cool to promote cigarettes, but cigars for some reason are OK, even though they can still give you cancer.

    Oooooh, now these have been festering for a loooong time. I'm glad I finally remembered them. I now present, all my musical peeves...
    When a musical group begins to become popular, and everyone is buying the latest album, there's always someone who has to say, "Well, I've been listening to them since they started." So what? SO WHAT??? This makes you better than everyone else? This means you have some sort of foresight into what will be elected "cool" by the idiots who control the business of pop music?
    Along the same lines, you have the people who introduce you to a certain kind of music, and then forever hold it over your head. When you go back to them next year and ask, "Have you gotten the new album?" they say, "Hey!!! I'm the one that INTRODUCED you to them!" SO WHAT??? SO WHAT??
I don't care who introduced who to what. It doesn't mean you are above me in any way. Someone introduced you to them before you introduced them to me. All it means is that you randomly stumbled upon something I like before I did. GOD DAMN I HATE THAT SO MUCH! People are so stupid about taking credit. The way they talk in these situations, it seems like they think they're responsible for the music themselves.
    Ok, one more thing about music and then I'm done. I really hate it when I tell someone that I'm going to a concert, and they say, "Oh yeah? What band are you going to see?" I'm sorry, does all music have to come from the greasy teenage rock stereotype unit? Two poorly played guitars, an ATROCIOUSLY played bass, and drums emitting that standard rock beat that constitutes 85% of pop music....bass, snare, bass, snare, bass, snare.   Has it ever occurred to these people that perhaps I meant I was going to a jazz show, or a "classical" (I'll have to get into how the misuse of that word bugs me later) show? God forbid that I would go to LISTEN to music instead of hop around in a mosh pit with a bunch of sweaty people while a band plays music that doesn't even have to be interesting as long as it has that beat so I can jump up and down and experience major hearing damage. Music is not about bands all the time. I enjoy all sorts of music, including the category that I'm currently making unfair generalizations about, but I just have to express how frustrating it is when people assume that music must come from a band. And another thing: Why does music always have to involve singing? It's so mind boggling to me when someone says that a band "isn't so good musically, but lyrically they're great," therefore they're good. Let's just back that truck up for a second. Music is about communicating ideas and feelings WITHOUT words. That has always been the point for me. To some people, the lyrics are the most important part of "music". *see editorial*
    I find that most people aren't even aware that new "classical" music is being composed right now. I guess I should point out that "classical" is really the wrong term for it now. The classical period of music existed when Mozart and Haydn were alive. Bach did not write classical music. Chopin did not write classical music. Stravinsky did not write classical music. The music that is being written by composers today sometimes involves oboes, violins, and other classical instruments, but the music itself is COMPLETELY unlike anything out of the classical era. The problem is, what else can you call it? Composed music? I'm not sure, and generally when people call modern composed music "classical", it doesn't bother me because I know what they mean. The problem I have is when somebody thinks that classical music is just a bunch of stuff that all sounds the same. People seem to have this notion (and one can't really blame them because all musical media focus is on pop music) that Bach, Beethoven, and all the other famous composers were geniuses that lived long ago, and no one will ever write music that fine ever again. It's over. Well, it's not like that at all. There are literally hundreds of talented composers living RIGHT NOW and making really interesting music RIGHT NOW. Ok...I think I'm done. I'm glad I got that off my chest.

I really, really hate casual, meaningless greetings. When you're walking along and see someone you know, I guess you have to say something, but today it has degenerated to a pathetic state. Back in the day when it was most common for someone to say "Hi, how are you?", it didn't really bother me that much. I knew the person didn't care about my life, but at least they took the trouble to construct a complete sentence. Now, the standard greeting among people my age (born in 1977), seems to be "What's up?" One would think this was the lowest form of human communication, but it goes farther. This greeting has been further abbreviated to "S'up?" S'UP????? What the HELL is S'UP??? If you're going to ask me an empty question, at least have the courtesy to use more than 3 letters. What's worse is, the proper response to such an inquiry is "S'up?" You don't actually tell the person what's up, you ask them the same thing, hence no information or even simple feigned interest in another's life has been exchanged. I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

Starbucks

I have noticed that when cashiers give you change, most do it in the same way. First they lay the bill(s) in your hand, then put the coins on top. This makes no sense. It is much more convenient to put the coins in the palm of the hand first, then lay the bill(s) on top. This way, one can grasp the coins in the palm of the hand, and grab the bill(s) with the fingertips. I like to put my bills in my wallet, and the change in my pocket. This arrangement makes it possible without dealing with the coins slipping off the top of the bills. The current standard leads to nothing but problems. So why don't we switch?

This didn't bother me until I thought about it. Why do some female mannequins have nipples? Obviously, they have to have breasts to show how the clothing fits around a bust-line, but are nipples really necessary? You don't see any male mannequins with nipples. I think it's just because it's somewhat sexually arousing, and that probably sells more clothing. But when I walk past a mannequin and see it practically pointing at me, I don't get aroused.

It's not completely clear from this image, but the bottom of this Taco Bell cup bears the warning: "CAUTION HOT". I could easily complain about the stupidity of such a warning, but that's not the issue at hand. The issue is an increasing trend in the misuse of quotation marks. I am seeing it more and more, and it frightens me. Here, there is absolutely NO reason for there to be quotes around this warning. The only proper use of quotation marks is for direct QUOTATIONS, as the name would imply. It has also become fashionable to use them to convey sarcasm, as in: Taco Bell food is "delicious". But here, we find neither of these cases. Furthermore, if we're going to be picky about punctuation, there should be either a comma or a colon after the word CAUTION. Otherwise, it would be read without any pause, which, as this Sound File proves, sounds most awkward. Since this is Canada, there is french on the other side of the cup. This is where things start getting really strange. In french, the warning reads: "ATTENTION" BOISSON CHAUDE, which directly translates to: "WARNING" HOT DRINK. WHY ARE THERE ONLY QUOTES AROUND THE WORD "WARNING" NOW???????? FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST THEY COULD AT LEAST BE CONSISTENT! THIS MAKES NO SENSE!!!! AAAAGGGHH!!!!!! If anyone can give me a good reason why this is happening, I will remove this from my list of peeves. But I really doubt anyone can.

Why, oh why lord, is the default snooze button time limit 9 minutes on alarm clocks? I realize this is a very minute detail that doesn't really have much impact on real life, but it bothers me. It's not because I'm getting cheated out of 60 more seconds of sleep, I know that won't make a difference. It bothers me because it's SO close to a nice, normal round number: 10. WHY? Why not just make the default 10 minutes so that the world makes a little more sense? It's not going to bother anyone. Would it bother you? I have investigated this, and apparently the default amount is indeed international. Granted, alarm clocks do exist that have different default times, but the undeniable majority of clocks have the 9 minute default. That's the weird thing. It's like there was some big meeting about this meaningless detail of life, and a panel of napping experts decided on a universal default together. I don't understand it. I want to know the whole story. If there's a good reason for it, I'll relax.

At the Toronto international airport, there is a large digital board which displays the status and arrival time of all incoming flights. It's a wonderful board. It's large, easy to read, and well organized. Sounds like a dream come true, doesn't it? Well it would be, if it weren't for one minor oversight: the current time is NOT DISPLAYED on the board! This would be fine if there was a clock within view, but you have to walk down the length of the building for a while before you see one. It's such a great piece of technology...information being fed to it and dispersed from it at astonishing speeds. Yet they decide to leave the most basic item off of it. Great, flight 474 gets in at 2 pm, but what FREAKING TIME IS IT?? I guess most people have watches. Well I'll tell you something, I don't like watches. I don't like having anything on my wrists. So what the hell am I supposed to do?

I went to the bank today, (which is a bit of an undertaking for me because I have no car) and was reminded of one of my favorite peeves. It mostly happens to me at the bank, but you see examples of it everywhere. I went to the bank to try to talk to someone about closing an account, and was left to wait for 20 minutes while the secretary attended to 7 or 8 callers on the phone. Is this fair really? I drag my ass all the way over there, and I am treated worse because of it. The same principle is in action with actual banking transactions. To use any one of the hundreds of ATM machines around town costs one dollar. If you actually go to the bank and withdraw money with the aid of a real-live teller, it costs two dollars! I realize there are economical reasons for this. The ATM's don't require a salary, so their services are cheaper. It's the principle of it, though. Laziness is constantly rewarded. *see editorial*

This is a little thing, and you'll probably think I'm crazy for being annoyed by it, but it bugs me. I'm sure most of you have been to Subway before for one of their delicious sandwiches. I like Subway a lot, there are just two things that bother me. You know how the cheese is triangle-shaped? Well, there are two ways you could lay out the triangles (excuse the pathetic graphical illustration): /\ \/ /\ \/ or /\/\/\/\ .
I don't understand why anyone would do it the latter way. Why not just have the triangles fit snugly together and create a nice layer of cheese? Despite the fact that the latter layout is illogical, it happens more than I would like it to. Also, sometimes when you get a 6" sub, they don't match up the shape of the meat slices with the shape of the bun. With both the meat slices and the bun, one end is curved, and the other is straight, as it has been cut. (___| <---like that. So, why not have them match up? You would be surprised how many times I have gotten the straight end of the meat matched up with the curved end of the bun. It's a small thing, but it would contribute to the sanity of the world if Subway workers would just make the simple, logical choice.