Pet Peeve #9: Songs That Contain Traffic Noises
One of the great things about taking a solo road trip, as I discovered this past weekend, is that you can do whatever you want in the car. You can: wipe your sticky hands on your jeans undo your belt. And your jeans. And your zipper fart at will sing at the top of your [...]
Two Businesses I Don’t Understand
Airlines. Is there any other business that can charge you drastically different rates depending on when you buy their product, be consistently late, and sometimes even cancel your service altogether, often without any refund? Imagine if, say, the deli down the street operated like an airline. If you buy a sandwich at 10:30 in the [...]
Pet Peeve #6: Women Breaking Into Song
Women do this thing. I’m sure you’ve witnessed it. You’ll be at a gathering and someone will mention a song, and suddenly three or four girls are singing the first few lines or the refrain in “perfect” harmony. This is the best thing ever for these women. For the rest of us, not so much. [...]
Pet Peeve #10: Parking Space Stalking
I’ll come out and say it: I think there are a lot of lazy people in America. We are a culture of TV remotes and drive-thrus, microwaves and lottery tickets, elevators and magical ab machines. We want things, and we want them now. One place that this laziness manifests itself is in the parking lot. [...]
Pet Peeve #15: Unnecessarily Using Foreign Words
When I was growing up studying awesome languages like Japanese and Latin, my brother and sister were studying French. To make matters worse, they did this annoying little thing where they’d be talking to each other in English, and all of a sudden one of them would use a heavily accented French word in the [...]
Pet Peeve #8
Over the years, I’ve noticed a phenomenon related to how people deal with dirty glasses when they are visiting someone else’s house. Some people–myself included–put glasses in the dishwasher (if it’s clearly dirty) or on the counter. Others put their glass in the sink. Those people are crazy. Here’s why: You can stack dirty plates on [...]
Pet Peeve #24: The Pronunciation of "Thames"
I’m not one to pronounce words correctly. The classic example of this is “vehemently,” which I pronounced–with full vigor–”vah-hem-en-ent-ly” (yes, I added several new letters to the word). So River Thames, help a brother out. Is it really necessary that you’re pronounced “Tims”? One, it’s clearly “Thames,” as in “James” with a lisp. Two, it [...]
Pet Peeve #7: Online News Videos Without Transcripts
I get the vast majority of my news from the daily show, but occasionally I’ll hop on over to CNN.com to see what’s going on in the world. Often I’ll see articles with the little video camera icon next to their titles…at least, I’ll think they’re articles. But when I click on the link, all [...]
Pet Peeve #3: Not Capitalizing "Is" in Main-Words-Up Heads
Wow. It feels great to finally get this off my chest. As someone who worked for a publishing company for 4 years, this is one of my biggest pet peeves of all time. I’ll preface this with the disclaimer that I am far from perfect when it comes to grammar and spelling. I know the [...]
Boycotting Chi-Town
Nope, I’m not boycotting the city of Chicago. I’m boycotting the expression “Chi-Town,” as I think it’s misleading. As it stands, it’s pronounced “chai-town,”* but Chicago isn’t pronounced “chai-cago.” Chi-Town could thus be pronounced “shi-town,” but that sounds too much like a curse word, so I’m offering an alternative based on the mathematical symbol “chi,” [...]
Pet Peeve #34: Obnoxiously Loud Bar Bands
When I go to a bar–not a club, a bar–I’m there to talk with friends. Emphasis on the word talk. Not scream, not yell, but talk. Granted, it’s going to be fairly loud at any crowded bar, but there’s one factor that can really hurt your chances of hearing what other people are saying: The [...]
They're Not Holiday Trees, They're Christmas Trees!
Merry Christmas! There it is, I went and said the unthinkable. The Holiday-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. Run for the hills! Why has it become PC to wish people “Happy Holidays” instead of the specific holiday that you celebrate? Is that so wrong? Am I really offending a Jewish person, a Muslim person, a Hindu person, or a Kwanza [...]
My Gripe with Bathroom Grips
Okay, that headline is a bit of a stretch, but bear with me. I have a longstanding gripe about public restroom door handles (the doors used to enter the restrooms, not the stall doors). I’m talking about rest-stop bathrooms, gas station bathrooms, restaurant bathrooms, places the general public uses. Here are the facts: 62% of [...]
Milking the Opera Scene
Today my girlfriend and I went to see the movie Milk. It’s about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in America. It’s a fascinating movie, well plotted, written, and acted, and as is always the case, I was moved to tears by all scenes involving crowds of people [...]
Top Festivus Grievances of 2007
The Travelocity Roaming Gnome—his antics are giving other garden porcelain a bad name Dane Cook—for telling us over and over that there is only one Actober! [It took about a year, but finally everyone realizes that Dane Cook sucks.] Hips that lie Delilah After Dark—for many reasons, including her poor taste in music when people [...]
The U.S. Makes-No-Census Bureau
Last week, a few days before Thanksgiving, I got a letter at work from the U.S. Census Bureau. It was a notification that I would soon be receiving an American Community Survey questionnaire regarding the residents in my building (there is a house attached to the church where I work). I promptly recycled the notice–I’d [...]
Pet Peeve of the Hour
The Pet Peeve: When you call ahead to order a pick-up lunch from a nearby restaurant, wait the alloted time before arriving, and the order isn’t ready when you get there. Call me picky, but that’s the kind of thing that makes me not want to patronize that restaurant in the future. Thanks for ruining [...]
Bicyclists: Share the Road!
When the gas prices skyrocketed this past summer, it seemed like there was a sudden proliferation of bicyclists on the road. I don’t know the rules in other cities, but in St. Louis, you can’t bike on the sidewalk, so the bicyclists were literally on the road. Problem is, American streets aren’t made for bicyclists. In [...]
How to Use My Bathroom
I have a fairly small office with the added bonus of an attached bathroom. It’s straight ahead as you walk into the office–toilet, sink, trashcan, cabinet with odd reading materials on top. The bare essentials. (I want it put on the record that I never read anything while on the toilet, particularly a toilet used [...]
An Open Letter to Anonymous Commenters
Anonymous Commentors, I want to preface this letter with a note: I’m honored whenever someone takes the time to post a comment on this blog. I check every day to see how many people visit this website, but I never know if people have any sort of reaction or enjoyment from what I write unless [...]
YouSlideshow?
I have a bone to pick with some people who post videos on YouTube. Sometimes I go on YouTube to look at sports highlight videos of my favorite athletes or teams. I’ll search for “Beckham free kicks” or “Ozzie Smith defensive plays” or “Lucy Liu saucy sassy.” But I don’t always get what I’m looking [...]
Pet Peeves and Bad Ideas
Yesterday I discussed some really good ideas. Today I venture onto the other side of the tracks. The side where bad ideas are manufactured like Ugg boots in a Chinese factory. Facial Tattoos There are a select few times in my life that I have thought tattoos were a good idea. One of them was [...]
Truthbits
Okay, so today I’m not going to redefine electronic communication. I will, I promise, in the near future–probably tomorrow. I just have to work out a kink or two. For today, I have a bunch of little things I’ve been saving up that I want to say. So here goes: “Speakeasy” is an awesome name [...]
Bonus Post
A little tip for the people of the world: If you leave a message on someone’s voice mail, say your phone number slowly. Way more slowly than you would normally speak. So slowly that you think you sound like an idiot speaking that slowly. Too many people rush through that part of the message as [...]
