I’m under the weather with a bit of a cold and too lazy to form a lengthy, sustained argument on one topic, so here’s a smattering of tidbits on things I hate but couldn’t make a full post out of. Continue reading ‘miscellany’
Monthly Archive for December, 2009
I’m sure many of y’all got CDs and DVDs for Christmas. Unfortunately, before you could enjoy your new stuff, you had to get the packaging open. Most any media sold these days comes shrink-wrapped, and I don’t mind that. It’s fairly easy to get that stuff off with your fingers, or maybe a pair of scissors if absolutely necessary. But the vast majority of CDs and DVDs (though not all of them) have a strip of tape across the top. This strip can be damn near impossible to remove. Continue reading ‘cds and dvds that are impossible to open’
Chances are you’ve probably been involved in at least one secret santa exchange. In case you haven’t heard of it, the way it works is this: you get a group of people, and each person writes his or her name on a slip of paper. Then you take turns drawing names. You give a gift to the person whose name you pick. There are a number of variations on this theme, but they all go something like that. It’s a great idea—until it goes horribly wrong and, due to poor planning or whatever, one person gets completely screwed over. And the sole time in my entire life I’ve participated in a secret santa, I was the person who got screwed and ended up with nothing. I’m not really opposed to the concept in general, but I am still a little bit bitter. Click here for my heartwrenching tale of the great personal tragedy I suffered by being deprived of trinkets of almost nonexistent monetary value.
If you’re like me, you probably get a lot of facebook event invitations. And you probably send out a decent few as well. For a lot of them, RSVPing doesn’t really matter. If someone’s promoting their play, or drink specials at the bar they work at, or something like that, then fine, ignore it, or just put maybe, or put yes and don’t show up. Or put yes and do show up. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. But if you’re actually going to attend a social event, please give a truthful answer. Go back and change it later if you have to. But please take five seconds of the hours you spend procrastinating on facebook each day when you should be doing something productive, and give a truthful response to meaningful event invitations. Continue reading ‘“maybe attending” a facebook event’
I hate smoking with a passion. It disgusts me tremendously. I don’t like the smell, I don’t like seeing other people harm their own health, I don’t like anything about it. If you smoke, you should quit right now. I especially hate it when I meet an attractive young woman and then see her light up a cigarette. So unappealing.
That being said, I’m also not a fan of the smoking bans that have been sweeping the country. Sure, smoking should be outlawed in government buildings, schools, and the like.* But restaurants, bars, casinos, or any other type of business? No way. Continue reading ‘smoking—and smoking bans’
A reader commenting under the pseudonym of “Smarter than Kevin” has decided to take issue with a few of my posts. In one comment on the post I wrote about “The Christmas Shoes”, this reader (whose anonymity I will preserve), mocks me for claiming to be a New Orleanian when I am, in fact, from Metairie. (He actually thought I was from Kenner, but I guess all these suburbs look alike to the hoity-toity residents of the city proper.) This comment is some great fodder for a post I had already been thinking about writing: a post on how much I hate suburb-bashing.
Now, the “suburb-bashing” I’m speaking of here is the cultural kind, and the kind which says “If you’re from the suburbs, you can’t claim to be from that city.” There are a host of architectural, urban-planning-related, environmental criticisms of American suburbia, and many of these points are valid. One could certainly debate the virtues of city life versus the suburbs, point out the problems caused by urban sprawl, lack of mass transit, an overreliance on cars, etc. That’s not my concern here. What I’m interested in is the cultural arrogance and the “us vs. them” mentality of those denizens of cities (or, in some cases, neighborhoods) over those who live elsewhere. Continue reading ‘suburb bashing’
If you’re second-guessing anything from the Saints’ 26-23 win over the Falcons, it’s probably that fake field goal late in the 4th quarter. I’ll get back to that later, but the real mistakes were a few clock management errors that made the result far closer than it should have been. First, the Saints didn’t run enough time off the clock at the end of the 1st half, enabling the Falcons to mount a scoring drive of their own; second, the pass-happy playcalling on the drive leading up to that fake field goal let the Falcons save their timeouts and gave them more time to drive down the field for a tie or win. Continue reading ‘bad clock management #4′
I want to know what the hell the person who invented fitted sheets was thinking. I’m guessing it was something along the lines of “Let me make a sheet that never stays on a mattress, but let me advertise it as something that will stay on a mattress extremely well.” Fitted sheets are the scourge of my existence. They were specifically designed to do one thing: stay on mattresses. They are spectacularly unsuccessful at this one task. Therefore, they are completely and utterly worthless. Continue reading ‘fitted sheets’
I’m pretty grossed out by piercings and tattoos. It’s a free country, so if people want to do that to themselves, I totally understand. But ew. Personally I wouldn’t want piercings or tattoos just because of the pain involved. I’m not a fan of being poked with extremely sharp objects. But a lot of times, I just don’t understand the aesthetics of it.
Most piercings I don’t really mind too much, but I don’t ever think I’ve said to myself, “Gee, that piercing makes that girl more attractive.” But so many of them are disgusting in ways which make me completely unable to fathom any possible appeal they could have. Those big giant holes in earlobes—gross. Or tongue piercings. Those just seem horrific. And with certain other body parts—ew, ew, ew. I mean, if you find that sort of thing appealing, whatever floats your boat, but I don’t get it.
At least if you grow tired of a piercing, it may heal after a while, or you can at least take the metal out. Get a tattoo and you’re pretty much stuck with it, even fifty years later when your skin is saggy and gross. I’m guessing all those women with tramp stamps will regret it 50 years from now when they’re in the nursing home. A small tattoo here or there doesn’t bother me. But I don’t understand those huge sleeve tattoos covering an entire arm. So unattractive, in my opinion.
This is a bit of a happy entry, because it’s something I’m through with. But at the time, boy, did it suck. I’m talking about exam weeks in college. The bane of the past six years of my life, and I’m so glad I don’t have to put up with them anymore. Now I’m the one giving the exams, and that feeling is so much nicer than having to take them, and having to write all the papers, and finish all the projects, etc. But I do remember the misery of exam week, and I figured I’d commiserate with those of you who are suffering through it right now. I’m sure you’re looking for ways to procrastinate as you finish off those papers, so I consider this a public service. Continue reading ‘exam week’