Just your general assortment of peeves of a wide range of things. Basically stuff that didn't fit elsewhere or for which I didn't have enough of similar types to make up a new category for.
Clinton. He's taken credit for everything others have done, but done nothing
himself. NAFTA, started by the previous administration. The best economy in 40
years- it's also the first time in 40 years we've had a republican congress, and
Congress really controls the economy. Of course, he'll never take credit for the
things he's REALLY done (drug running when he was Govorner, money laundering, muder,
interns, etc.), but then who would.
Remember when Thanksgiving used to be the start of the
Holiday Season instead of Labor Day? Why, I even saw a store taking down
Halloween decorations to put up Christmas decorations a full WEEK before
Halloween. This is just getting ridiculous. How special can a holiday be if
you're constantly exposed to it for 4 or more months?
Automated tech support lines. Seven
button presses and sub-menus later you finally get an actual living person. Of
course, then you find out the answer you want isn't their department.
Y2K. The controversy over this computer
bug has just gone too far. Now they're saying that the Y2K bug will cause
planes to "fall out of the sky by the hundreds", "cars to stop dead", and
"missiles will launch themselves". Come on folks- planes operate completely
differently (manual control anyone?), cars don't HAVE any computers driving
them, and the only way a missile will launch itself is if they're programmed to
automatically launch at the year 1900!. Get a life folks; the worst that can
happen is a few people's bills might get the wrong date on them.
OJ Madness. OJ simpson was found innocent
of the murder, and yet still responsible for the murder? Something's wrong
here. And then we have hate groups springing up around the auction of his stuff
who buy his awards just so they can burn them? They're the one's that have a
problem. OJ was found innocent because the evidence wasn't there, the
investigation was a joke, and it's my own opinion that it was TWO people that
did it and the dead boyfriend was the target NOT his ex-wiife (just from the
way the bodies were laid out when they found them)... a little fact that changes
the motive completely. Get off it people, we don't need another reason to hate.
He was found innocent, so just leave it at that.
What PC really stands for. Last I checked
PC stands for Personal Computer, not IBM, clone, or Wintel. ANY home
computer is a PC, be it clone, MAC, Amiga, or even an old Kaypro. I hate the
way the Wintel world has coopted the term for such a specific cross-section of
computers. Just shows the ignorance and gullability of the general public.
Civil Service Job Guarantees. With no
threat of being fired or held accountable, civil service pencil purshers have no
qualms about making you responsible for their mistakes. After
all, it's not like they'll loose their jobs or anything.
The AMA. The American Medical Association
is the last bastion of legalized drug pushing. All their doctors can do is
prescribe drugs or cut into people, and all the AMA does is whatever it takes to
keep their pockets lined, even if it means stepping on alternative treatments
that could actually cure people, or the ocassional bribe to the FDA. The
AMA is the biggest road block to the advancement of medicine that we in the US
have.
The Ozone is falling. Scientific fact:
Ozone is created when ultraviolet rays hit raw oxygen in the upper atmosphere.
Even if you somehow removed all the Ozone in a single five-minute disaster, what
do you have left? Raw oxygen. And what happens when that nasty UV rays hits
it? yep, you guessed it, instant Ozone. It's a problem that fixes itrself.
Unnecessary Java Script use. It seems that
some people will use Java Script just because it's the newest thing, not because
they actually need it. No web site needs to use Java Script just for a
enter-name-and-press-submit log-in button- those things have been around long
before Java Script- and yet I have found sites that use it for even such simple
things as that. Come on people, stop confusing technological need with
buzz-words.
Espresso nooks that pretend to be high-class
by having over-priced desserts that are actually just whipped cream in a
pastry shell; cheap and tasting like spoiled milk compared to the real thing,
but there are people that actually pretend to like them in an attempt to feel
upper-class too. Stuff them all into their own pastry shells.
Drout. I'll say this once; there ain't no
such a thing as a drout during the Summer. By definition Summer is hot
and dry; a drout is the unseasonal incidence of hot dry weather.
Smoothies without frozen yogurt. Smoothies
started out as these great fruit-shakes, thick enough so a straw would be almost
useless, but now they use ice, fruit juice, and if you're lucky a soft tofu mix.
Ice and fruit is not a smoothy but a light drink. I want my
yogurt!
Links-Only Web Sites. You've seen them; web
sites that say they have these large archives of files (say, sound files), but
only end up having masses of links to other sites where the files are to
be actually found. They have no actual content of their own and waste my time
trying to search before I find this out.
Overly-Rampant Sexual-Harrassment Cases.
Prime example is the case of the four year-old boy who, after stealing his
first kiss from a like-aged girl like is natural for every kid that age, got
sued by the girl's mother for sexual harrassment. Last I checked, intent
has to be a part of things (and I don't mean the intent of greed on
behalf of the girl's parents). This whole thing has my vote for biggest legal
waste of time.
Mixing Bits And Bytes. Ever notice that in
desparate efforts to make USB seem fast, they'll quote the speed in Mbs, which
is Megabits, whereas standard peripherals like SCSI or IDE are quoted in
MBs, or Megabytes (note the capital B). So the next time all those zeros on a USB statistic
seem so much faster than SCSI, just divide it by 8 first, and you'll see why I
laugh at USB scanners and hard drives.
I'll Say This Once. It's the year 2000- the
world is NOT going to end. Y2K was never a problem, Nostradomous didn't predict
a nuclear war just the invention and initial use of the nuclear bomb, and since
our Gregorian Calendar system was not even invented at the time of the
Book of Revelations then I wouldn't trust any extrapolations from that sacred
work into our own present time-frame. So get off the whole thing and just learn
to enjoy life; you'll like it a whole lot better.
Silly Law Enforcements. A 4 year old kid
sneaks a kiss on a girl and gets sued for sexual harrassment, while rapists get
off on technicalities. A kid drops a nail-clipper at school and gets kicked out
on a zero-tolerance weapons program, while two kids sneak in pipe bombs and
automatic guns and shoot down half a school. Am I the only one to see how
silly some things are getting?
Foriegn Language Signs. I don't mind
bilingual signs for businesses in a bilingual commnity, but signs printed only in
one non-english language (say, Chinese), in a country like the U.S. where
English is the assumed language, it's like they don't want anyone else's
business. I've seen bakeries with lots of goodies but not so much as a lebel in
English and walked right on by, feeling very much insulted.
Free Web Space. Do these sites
all have to be built with error-ridden overdone Java scripts?!?