People who turn off their old crappy cars in drive-thru lines to "save" gas. I was at the bank today and a guy in a 1973 Buick Regal decides to turn off his car since the wait was relatively long. When the line moves, he makes several unsuccessful attempts to turn his car back on. I ended up being boxed in behind this jacka** since there was a line of cars behind me and a curb with bushes on my right side and a building on my left. I reluctantly assisted him in pushing his car out of the way (in the rain!); I kinda didn't have a choice. I'm not sure if he was able to go about on his way later on or not - I was just concerned about getting out of there.

 

Stop turning off your damn cars to save gas, ESPECIALLY if you're driving an old "bucket". :whip:

 

Another funny thing is when someone has car trouble, they pop the hood, get out and look under the hood and NOT touch a thing and hop back in their car like it's going to magically start. It's always comical to me.  :laugh:

I avoid drive-through at all costs.

You know what annoys me? I swear no one knows how to slice onions. What the hell is wrong with people dicing them? You realize how strong a diced onion is going to taste ya dumb@ss!? For God's sake theres rings you can take advantage of to make them thin and stringy. I've been to so many places where they dice them and want to show the cook how to cut them right. Ever seen someone start peeling them without a clue? It's so easy. Cut both ends off first. Make an incision from one end that you chopped off to the other end, cutting through the first 2 layers and with the knife just pry the shell off. Idiots. I am The Onion Guru! I should be a consultant.

If you want to get fancy put garlic sauce in a tupperware container, add onions, put the lid on, shake and then bake them for like 5 minutes. Sauteed onions are reeallly good on steak :p

Cancer. Especially when it affects a loved one.

^ +1

 

Went through this recently with a family member. It's a tough process, but take comfort in the fact you're in a city with not one, but two world class hospitals with excellent cancer treatment centers. Hang in there. The support is as important as the treatment.

Unplanned pregnancies.  Talk about an emotional rollercoaster  :? :-o :-D :cry: :| :clap: :whip: :drunk:

^Congratulations?

 

(been there too)

Congratulations?

 

Exactly....  ummmmmm..... thanks?

^^^Congratulations!

 

Been there done that, too. It all works out, god provides or yoda provides, or something like that?  ;D

 

Edit: Fixed it for ya, AJ

 

 

 

 

^^Congratulations!

 

 

Watch where you're pointing that thing, bub. I just threw out the diaper champ.

Good luck? Congratulations?

 

Ain't it grand to be gay.

^^Congratulations!

 

 

Watch where you're pointing that thing, bub. I just threw out the diaper champ.

 

Yuck, I had stricken those god forsaken things from my memory....

 

@ Nati, yes that is a major advantage of being gay, well that and it doubles your wardrobe if your partner is the same size.

One of my biggest regrets in life was not being there for my best friend when his mom died of cancer. I kinda just kept at a distance. I didn't know how to be supportive. I didn't even know what to say and this was at a time when he and his mom needed the support the most. The really f-ked up part is that I didn't even feel guilty about it until my stepdad died several months later. We were pretty close. I'm staring at the wall for several days, worrying about my mom, word spreads around about my stepdad and all these people came out of the woodwork, showed up to my friggin dorm to offer support. People I thought didn't even give a d@mn about what was going on with me. I realized, I've never really went out of my way like that for anybody. No matter what you're going through, it helps a lot knowing people close to you are there to support you. It still bothers me to think of what a self-serving @sshole I used to be but thankfully my friends and family forgive me for it.   

Unplanned pregnancies.  Talk about an emotional rollercoaster  :? :-o :-D :cry: :| :clap: :whip: :drunk:

 

You're pregnant?  Congratulations!

I believe the present day accepted venacular is "we're pregnant"......  :| :-D :cry:

Mental health issues, and not being able to afford proper treatment for them.

Requirements on insurance companies as far as covering mental health issues were amended with the health care reform act passed last year.  You might want to look into that.  Otherwise, don't underestimate your ability to self-treat certain mental health disorders (especially if it is something like panic disorder or social anxiety disorder which I don't believe involves a chemical imbalance).  Get a good recommendation for a self-help book for your issue and try that.  Just my personal feeling with no professional qualifications, but I sometimes feel that modern society overtreats and overmedicates.  Good luck.

Cancer. Especially when it affects a loved one.

 

Word.  My grandmother just died yesterday of cancer.  No idea she had it until a checkup a couple weeks ago.  During then she was going about life healthy and normal.

So sorry to hear that, NorthAndre.  A friend of mine just lost her mother.

Cancer. Especially when it affects a loved one.

 

Word.  My grandmother just died yesterday of cancer.  No idea she had it until a checkup a couple weeks ago.  During then she was going about life healthy and normal.

 

I'm sorry to hear that as well. My father in law was diagnosed with bone cancer in July last year. He passed away in November. The truly shocking part was that cancer doesn't originate in the bone...it comes from somewhere else and usually carries through the blood. He had regular checkups/ blood tests and never once had any indication that there was a problem until his back started hurting. Docs never did figure out where it originated from.

 

It's frustrating that, aside from a PSA test indicating a possible prostate problem, I don't think there are any generally-recognized tests short of a biopsy of suspect tissue to specifically indicate cancer. I read in someone's news letter, maybe Sloan-Kettering's with their fundraising materials, that a couple of tests are being evaluated and show some promise. In 1996 local doctors wrote me off as being too far advanced for any known effective treatment, and through some on-line research and an assist from an oncologist I obtained a referral to the Center for Advanced Medicine at University of Chicago Hospitals as a clinical trial candidate. There, among the extensive tests I needed were a brain scan and a bone scan. If either one had shown cancer, it would have been "game over." Because those scans came back negative they accepted me for a trial and said they would consider their procedure a success if I survived two years. They placed my chances of that at <5%.

 

Six hours in the operating room, lots of radiation, and literally gallons of chemo left me with a bothersome speech impairment and some other inconveniences, but I was able to go back to full-time work for four years until I could retire normally and I'm still alive and able to spend a day walking around with a camera or a couple of hours wielding a snow shovel. I try to not get too cocky, because that's how one sets himself up for a big fall, but I do make it a point every year to send a nice Christmas card to the local otolaryngologist (that word's a lot to swallow :wink:) who gave me the very short doomsday prognosis fifteen years ago. Oh. Did I mention that I'm also very good at passive-aggressive? :-D

^Wow. That's amazing, I knew that you had a battle with cancer in the past but I never knew that it had been that bad. Good to see that you decided you weren't going out without a fight. Glad that you are still here.

 

It's frustrating that, aside from a PSA test indicating a possible prostate problem, I don't think there are any generally-recognized tests short of a biopsy of suspect tissue to specifically indicate cancer. I read in someone's news letter, maybe Sloan-Kettering's with their fundraising materials, that a couple of tests are being evaluated and show some promise. In 1996 local doctors wrote me off as being too far advanced for any known effective treatment, and through some on-line research and an assist from an oncologist I obtained a referral to the Center for Advanced Medicine at University of Chicago Hospitals as a clinical trial candidate. There, among the extensive tests I needed were a brain scan and a bone scan. If either one had shown cancer, it would have been "game over." Because those scans came back negative they accepted me for a trial and said they would consider their procedure a success if I survived two years. They placed my chances of that at <5%.

 

Six hours in the operating room, lots of radiation, and literally gallons of chemo left me with a bothersome speech impairment and some other inconveniences, but I was able to go back to full-time work for four years until I could retire normally and I'm still alive and able to spend a day walking around with a camera or a couple of hours wielding a snow shovel. I try to not get too cocky, because that's how one sets himself up for a big fall, but I do make it a point every year to send a nice Christmas card to the local otolaryngologist (that word's a lot to swallow :wink:) who gave me the very short doomsday prognosis fifteen years ago. Oh. Did I mention that I'm also very good at passive-aggressive? :-D

 

Wow rob, happy to hear you made it.  What a scary thing it would be to know your options are limited.  But here you are back at it in life. 

 

Thanks for the responses guys.  It hasn't quite set in yet.  I never got to see my grandmother much.  I was lucky if maybe twice a year.  She lived up in Calumet, MI, and moved to Minneapolis only a year ago.  The time it took to get to Calumet from Ann Arbor, MI was far longer than driving to New York City.  So the gaps in geography made it very hard to visit.  It's difficult to think, "wow, she's gone."  I've been going to work, and going out after if nothing's even happened.  When we have a family reunion this summer, I'm sure that's moment it will all sink in. 

 

Anyway, sorry to dim the tone a bit in this thread.

Ian, sorry to hear about your loss :( Rob, you never retired! Seems like you always have some project going on. That's probably why you're so healthy after all you've been through!

Fat-free foods!

 

When you buy a box of fat-free cookies, you might as well throw away the cookies and eat the box; at least it's supposed to taste like cardboard.

 

Fat-free chicken broth! Yuck! When I was a kid, we used to cull out the old hens that weren't productive layers, and butcher them and freeze them for winter meals. This usually was done in a sort of assembly line where we'd put up as many as a couple dozen chickens in an afternoon. My job was plunging the dead chickens into a kettle of scalding water to make the feathers come off easily, and then plucking the feathers. Fat-free chicken broth always smells like that kettle and those wet chicken feathers. The fat is what gives broth its flavor, and it's damned difficult to find any broth in a grocery store that hasn't had the fat removed.

I'm tired of peoples obsession with obstaining from fat. It lubricates joints and helps manufacture hormones. Not that people should eat bacon grease all day but I'll put it this way: it's almost impossible to eat protein without taking in a decent amount of fat and you definitely need protein, the more the better because if you're not eating enough carbs, protein in your bloodstream gets used for energy and runs low easily because it doesn't get stored. It's all about the ratio of fat, protein and carbs-probably 15/30/55% is ideal. If people want to diet they need to just stop eating so d@mn much and stop buying things simply because they're low in calories. They end up just binging on tons of low-calorie foods without looking at overall intake.

You know what annoys me? Double standards in the work place. My manager is all touchy feely with me and so is this other woman. Whenever they try to get my attention, grab me by my bicep and one time manager even said I have really nice arms. I'm not in THAT great of shape so I just feel flattered by it but I thought about it and realized if I got all touchy feely with one of the women at work I'd probably get sued, fired, or become a known creeper. Women definitely get away with flirting much more than men do, at work.

I guess that they're not good-looking or else you wouldn't care.

You know what annoys me? Double standards in the work place. My manager is all touchy feely with me and so is this other woman. Whenever they try to get my attention, grab me by my bicep and one time manager even said I have really nice arms. I'm not in THAT great of shape so I just feel flattered by it but I thought about it and realized if I got all touchy feely with one of the women at work I'd probably get sued, fired, or become a known creeper. Women definitely get away with flirting much more than men do, at work.

 

Second that one. I used to have a co-worker who sometimes felt me up/gave massages at work. I can put money down if I went up to people and started doing this, I would be fired.

 

The thing is, I liked to be felt up at work. It helped cut tension and take the edge off. I would never get this girl in trouble. I thought it was great to see a girl be so forward and fearless. The double standards in dating are endless. It's why so many guys our age are pissed off. Check this article out:

 

Why Are Men So Angry?

Men in their twenties and thirties are fed up with women, but author Kay Hymowitz says you can’t blame them when women are demanding equality except when it comes to romance.

Kay Hymowitz – Mon Feb 28, 12:26 am ET

 

During the last few years researching this age group, I’ve stumbled onto a powerful underground current of male bitterness that has nothing to do with outsourcing, the Mancession, or any of the other issues we usually associate with contemporary male discontent. No, this is bitterness from guys who find the young women they might have hoped to hang out with entitled, dishonest, self-involved, slutty, manipulative, shallow, controlling—and did I mention gold-digging?

 

...Women may want equality at the conference table and treadmill. But when it comes to sex and dating, they aren’t so sure.

 

So, is this what Susan Faludi famously called the backlash? Is it immaturity, as my own book seems to suggest? Is it the Internet as an escape valve for decades of pent-up rebellion against political correctness? Or, is it just good, old-fashioned misogyny?

 

A bit of all of the above, probably. But there’s another reason for these rants, one that is far less understood. Let’s call it gender bait and switch. Never before in history have men been matched up with women who are so much their equal—socially, professionally, and sexually. By the time they reach their twenties, they have years of experience with women as equal competitors—in school, on soccer fields, and even in bed. They very reasonably assume that the women they are meeting at a bar or café or gym are after the same things they are: financial independence, career success, toned triceps, and sex.

 

That’s the bait; here comes the switch. Women may want equality at the conference table and treadmill. But when it comes to sex and dating, they aren’t so sure. The might hook up as freely as a Duke athlete. Or, they might want men to play Greatest Generation gentleman. Yes, they want men to pay for dinner, call for dates—a writer at the popular dating website The Frisky titled a recent piece “Call me and ask me out for a damn date!”—and open doors for them. A lot of men wonder: “WTF??!” Why should they do the asking? Why should they pay for dinner? After all, they are equals and in any case, the woman a guy is asking out probably has more cash in her pocket than he does; recent female graduates are making more than males in most large cities.

 

Sure, girls can—and do—ask guys out for dinner and pick up the check without missing a beat. Women can make that choice. Men say they have no choice. If they want a life, they have to ask women out on dates; they have to initiate conversations at bars and parties, they have to take the lead on sex. Women can take a Chinese menu approach to gender roles. They can be all “Let me pay for the movie tickets” on Friday nights, and “A single rose? That’s it?” on Valentine’s Day.

 

FULL ARTICLE ON YAHOO

http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/12649_whyaremenangrymanningupauthorkayhymowitzexplains

GCrites, theyre not ugly. one of the girls that does that is smoking hot. I enjoy it, I'm single, hell, bring it on but the fact is they're manipulative. I started noticing Alanna does it when she wants me to do something for her that she's too lazy to do. I'm attracted to her but I'm sick of her thinking that being cute is an occupation. I'm sure it's nothing new. Women using their sexuality to get what they want. I finally stopped feeding into it and enjoy the fact that its driving her crazy. hah!

... they're manipulative ... thinking that being cute is an occupation ... using their sexuality to get what they want ...

 

... not exclusively the province of females, or of gay males, for that matter.

I'm so late to this thread, but Hts, congratulations! and NorthAndre, so sorry to hear of your loss. I completely agree about the ridiculous and wrong obession about removing fat from the diet (and "fat free" anything, unless it's naturally fat free like a piece of fruit) and that there should be more tests avail for cancer.

You know what annoys me? Double standards in the work place. My manager is all touchy feely with me and so is this other woman. Whenever they try to get my attention, grab me by my bicep and one time manager even said I have really nice arms. I'm not in THAT great of shape so I just feel flattered by it but I thought about it and realized if I got all touchy feely with one of the women at work I'd probably get sued, fired, or become a known creeper. Women definitely get away with flirting much more than men do, at work.

 

Nice problem to have...

 

 

Rob how do guys use their sexuality in manipulative ways? I really don't see how it's across the board.

Rob how do guys use their sexuality in manipulative ways? I really don't see how it's across the board.

 

I like to drop my pencil in front of the ladies at work and then bend over to pick it up. Usually I end up throwing out my back, though.

@David, good looking men do this all the time! They flirt to get something or get out of doing something that they don't want to do, they make little off-color jokes, etc. They "charm."

Ugh. People who don't scoot over in the elevator after people get off. Do you think I like standing with my back flat against the sidewall???

LOL! AJ, you're a nut.

Man, I was kinda p!ssed at The Arnold Fitness Expo yesterday. I took my stepbrother there, he's really into sports. At the Convention Center, they use literally every Hall for the events and the main floor has like 1000 booths set up with all this free stuff including samples of protein bars, shakes and all these drinks that they put in shot glasses for you. So we're just going on down the line, sampling everything and I didn't even bother asking the reps what's in the sh't. We went to one booth for a sample and I asked what was in it and the woman starts naming all these stimulants. Come to find out a lot of that stuff I took was that thermogenic stuff that makes you sweat (and makes my face burn). They should warn people about that stuff. We went upstairs (Remember, this is The Arnold Classic! Where people compete for gymnastics, Karate, Boxing, Weightlifting, etc...) We went upstairs and there was a...Ping Pong...urr I'm sorry, "Table Tennis" tournament!  I had to laugh. They were all wearing Spandex!

Rob how do guys use their sexuality in manipulative ways? I really don't see how it's across the board.

@David, good looking men do this all the time! They flirt to get something or get out of doing something that they don't want to do, they make little off-color jokes, etc. They "charm."

 

So there you have it, David. Maybe you've been overlooking the opportunity for some counter-manipulation at work.  :-D

 

Some good-looking straight men are charmers/manipulators when they work with or for someone they know to be gay, too. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I figured out that with some of them I could turn it around; they're used to the attention and count on it, and it messes with them when sometimes they get it and sometimes they don't. :evil:

OK, some more pet peeves of mine that have been brought to mind lately are admittedly a little more mundane and shallow than some of the big ones mentioned in the past couple of pages.  No one ever said that pet peeves had to be life-and-death (literally ... pregnancy and cancer ...) issues.

 

(1) Forgetting to set up a voicemail greeting.  If I'm calling you for the first time and your voicemail says "You have reached four-four-zero-five-five-five-blah-blah-blah-blah ...," I have to take it on faith that I've called the right number.

 

(2) Ambiguous pronouns.  This applies to oral communication, too.  People act like every grammar rule goes out the window when you're talking instead of writing, including the rules that actually help make clear what you're saying.  What you're saying and what I'm hearing might well be two very different things (unless I care enough to actually slow you up and make you clarify, rather than just tuning you out).

 

(3) Garish fonts in e-mails.  Yes, I can receive HTML mail.  No, the purpose of that is not so that you can send me e-mails, especially from an ostensibly professional office, in 16-point bold italic red Comic Sans.

 

(4) Businesses that hide their contact information.  If you are running a business, I expect to be able to find your Web site.  That Web site should have a phone number and an e-mail address on it, at most one link removed from the homepage.  That e-mail address should go to an inbox that is regularly checked and not a spam dump.  Yes, e-mail miners will find that e-mail and send you spam.  Get a spam filter.  Filter the spam.  Then answer my e-mail.  (I recently heard a quick back-and-forth--paraphrased: Q: How much of the economy is in the service sector?  A: Around 70% ...  Q response: No! 100% of the economy is the service sector! Some people may build things or grow things as part of that service, but *everyone* out there is providing a service of some kind.)  I will forgive your lack of a telephone number only if your business is run entirely by orthodox monks who have taken a vow of silence.  I will forgive your lack of an e-mail address only if your business is run entirely by paraplegics and amputees.  Even then, I suggest investigating modern voice recognition software, which is getting better all the time.

 

I would also highly suggest having a physical address.  I may never come and see you, especially if you're in North Dakota or something, but much as I appreciate some of America's historic post offices architecturally, their banks of P.O. boxes are generally not the aesthetic highlights of such buildings, and suggesting to me that that is where your business is located gives me an uneasy (read: wallet-sealing) feeling in my marrow.

 

(5) Natural gas telemarketers that call me at work.  I have an all-electric apartment.  Stop calling.

... That Web site should have a phone number and an e-mail address on it, at most one link removed from the homepage.  That e-mail address should go to an inbox that is regularly checked and not a spam dump.  Yes, e-mail miners will find that e-mail and send you spam.  Get a spam filter.  Filter the spam.  Then answer my e-mail.  (I recently heard a quick back-and-forth--paraphrased: Q: How much of the economy is in the service sector?  A: Around 70% ...  Q response: No! 100% of the economy is the service sector! Some people may build things or grow things as part of that service, but *everyone* out there is providing a service of some kind.)  I will forgive your lack of a telephone number only if your business is run entirely by orthodox monks who have taken a vow of silence.  I will forgive your lack of an e-mail address only if your business is run entirely by paraplegics and amputees.  Even then, I suggest investigating modern voice recognition software, which is getting better all the time.

 

My web sites aren't primarily for the purpose of marketing, so I claim an exemption for not posting a phone number. Ninety percent of my land-line phone calls are solicitations for money or people I don't want to talk to. I still put my email on my web sites, but to thwart data miners I did this:

 

I created a new document in Photoshop and used the Text tool to type my full email address. I saved the document as a JPG, and then displayed it on my web site with an "img" tag. In the HTML code it's an image, not text, and it can't be read by bots. People can contact me with it; they just have to type it into their email instead of clicking on it. Sometimes I go weeks without any spam at that address, but real people who have feedback or requests still can and do contact me.

Coming back from a nice vacation and logging on to UO to find that Cleveland lost 17% of its population in the past decade and that the parking lot vultures are circling a bunch of nice old buildings in my neighborhood.  I need to become less emotionally invested in this city.

I love gmail, but it has the WORST spell check.  I don't know about you guys, but I type away and go back to correct misspellings later (not from a lack of knowing how to spell, but from typing too fast).

 

It does not suggest "commercial" when I type this: "commerical"

I was wondering where the hell my money goes because I seem to go through it a lot. I went through a bunch of receipts: Sunoco-Redbull 4.49, Speedway-Redbull 3.99, blah blah blah, etc. Why does Redbull, the most delicious energy drink on the market have such ridiculous price points? Am I really just paying for marketing or does Redbull really give me wings? I'm starting to think it's all a con job. Hood corner stores sell that "Relax Drank" to slow your roll. You know what I found out? It used to be for old women to burn belly fat. They took the same formula and repackaged it, re-branded it to another demographic of dumb@ss consumers. I wonder if Redbull really uses better quality ingredients or if it costs more because it's imported from Sweden. That would make me feel better than knowing they cost over 4 bucks simply because they can make more money by charging more.

I love gmail, but it has the WORST spell check.  I don't know about you guys, but I type away and go back to correct misspellings later (not from a lack of knowing how to spell, but from typing too fast).

 

It does not suggest "commercial" when I type this: "commerical"

 

When I type "commerical" in Gmail, "commercial" is the only spell-check suggestion.

 

EDIT: If I type "comerical" though, "commercial" is not a suggestion.

OMG, this is the worst. At work, you ever come up with some fantastical idea that you know will make or save the company a bunch of money, then you explain it to your boss and he gives you this look like you're a complete idiot but then 3 days later you come in to find that the idea was implemented and your boss is strutting around like he came up with it? Uggghh, I hate that!

I love gmail, but it has the WORST spell check.  I don't know about you guys, but I type away and go back to correct misspellings later (not from a lack of knowing how to spell, but from typing too fast).

 

It does not suggest "commercial" when I type this: "commerical"

 

When I type "commerical" in Gmail, "commercial" is the only spell-check suggestion.

 

EDIT: If I type "comerical" though, "commercial" is not a suggestion.

 

Very strange that we would get different suggestions. 

OMG, this is the worst. At work, you ever come up with some fantastical idea that you know will make or save the company a bunch of money, then you explain it to your boss and he gives you this look like you're a complete idiot but then 3 days later you come in to find that the idea was implemented and your boss is strutting around like he came up with it? Uggghh, I hate that!

 

That was a regular occurrence in a sweat shop where I worked when I was a young whippersnapper. The foreman was the only person in the shop less competent than his best pal, the lead operator, and they used to do that to me on a regular basis. They came to regard me as a threat and started setting me up to take the fall whenever they screwed up. One day they pulled something that was about to get a written reprimand put in my file, and the union steward stepped in and brought everything to a screeching halt. I hadn't yet joined the union, and the only thing that stopped me from signing up that day was that I knew I was short-term because the draft board was breathing down my neck.