Thursday, May 24, 2007

List Day: Top Five Pet Peeves of the Moment

  1. Lane Floaters: There's nothing wrong with rapidly changing lanes to get around the slow driver in the left lane (slow, both in the mental and automotive senses). I do it all the time. However, some people take this to the extreme -- bouncing back and forth between lanes without pause, and spending more time between lanes than within them. You see these clowns most often on two lane roads where both lanes are travelling at roughly the same speed. Generally, neither lane change will help the clown go any faster, but he persists in changing lanes to let everyone know that he needs to go faster than you. Floaters are never cool, even in the toilet.

  2. Speakerphone: I've heard of this tech company, which is definitely not the one I work for, where you can gauge the relative importance of an employee by how often he or she uses speakerphone for all calls. This habit is used to impress upon the underlings that managers are either far too busy to actually pick up the phone and hold it near their diamond faces, or are talking with very important people. Some common habits include: leaving the office door open, checking voicemail on speakerphone, having a conference call, letting it ring on speakerphone, and letting it ring then continuing to talk on speakerphone after the other person has picked up.

  3. Diddle-oo: This is the default sound that AOL Instant Messenger makes when you send or receive messages , and could be more irritating than a Nickelback / Mannheim Steamroller compilation CD. In college, one of my next-door dorm neighbours would chat with his secret online girlfriend all night long with the volume turned up. He died two months later in an apparent suicide, having inexplicably swallowed six gallons of trumpet valve oil and slide grease.

  4. Loud Commercials: I only watch one hour of television per week, but in that one hour, the volume of the show rapidly approaches zero as the entertainment value goes to infinity. As soon as the show pauses for a commercial break, the ads are suddenly inescapable, several thousand decibels louder than a lawn mower driving a jet airplane. You either have to listen to these annoying ear-shattering commercials, or turn the volume up and down between each segment.

  5. Brangelina: Whenever two celebrities momentarily hook up (humorously called "finding true love" in celebrity circles), the press will take a few letters from each name and merge them into a new Decepticon name so they can save all that ink from not printing the word, "and". Should I ever become a celebrity Br-, I resolve only to date girls whose names end in "east", "assiere", or "achiosaurus".

You can also see what my pet peeves were two years ago here.

An FBI target puts his whole life online
Dave McKee Bobble Head Doll
Train kills man trying to kill woman

tagged as lists | permalink | 2 comments
day in history


Previous Post: Memory Day: Pickett Woods


Next Post: Friday Fragments Retrospective

 

You are currently viewing a single post from the annals of URI! Zone history. The entire URI! Zone is © 1996 - 2024 by Brian Uri!. Please see the About page for further information.

Jump to Top
Jump to the Front Page


May 2007
SMTWHFS
12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031
OLD POSTS
Old News Years J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
J F M A M J
J A S O N D
visitors since November 2003