kurthiggins.com

My pet peeves, in no particular order. Certainly NOT a comprehensive list.

In General

• I love subs. And sandwiches. But mostly subs. But when the sandwich artist asks for all your toppings up front then RE-ASKS at EACH freakin’ item while he’s making the sub, that just ticks me off. Dude, why’d you waste my time in the beginning?! (Subway, I’m lookin’ straight at you.) Did I mention I love subs? (My favorite sub… another potential anecdote.)
• When people don’t pull into the intersection while waiting to turn left. George Carlin has a beautiful rant about this, “You can fit three people in that intersection! Pull up so I can go around!”
• Why is it the bigger the car the older the driver? Why is it the older the driver, the less they move over to give me room to run on the side of the road? Bastards.
• Yahoos. This is what I’ve dubbed the assholes who scream out their truck windows at me when I’m cycling. That’s a WHOLE other post all its own percolating in the drafts folder. Just wait for that one.
• Crappy service. You really think you’re getting a good tip after screwing up my order?
• Having to think of every possible question about something before moving forward only to realize you missed one that the salesperson/repairman/whoever should have told you about in the first place. I don’t want to have to think for myself AND the stupid salesperson.
• Buying what supposedly is a superior product only to learn it’s missing even the basic features on the cheaper version! (Example, my fiasco with a new car stereo… an anecdote worthy of its own post.)
• Hyperbole. “The best movie of the year…” “The greatest novel of our time…” “The greatest cyclist of our age…” I. Don’t. Like. Hyperbole. In fact I’m always couching my own statements and find I need to edit those words like, usually, mostly, frequently, etc., when I write. I know people who are prone to hyperbole and unfortunately have to run whatever they say through the Right-Size-O-Matic mental formula. If it’s a statement of how far someplace is to drive, you have to multiply by 50%. If it’s a statement of how long it takes to drive there, again multiply by 50%. If it’s how much rain/snow/leaves/frogs-from-the-tornado fell, divide by 50%. Sigh…
• Going to a store to buy a new condensate pump for the basement, seeing a 12′ section FULL of pumps, and the ONE EMPTY SPACE on the shelf where your pump would be. Oh yeah, and the delivery date for restocking is today. Yeah, I’m gonna hold my breath on that one.
• Ordering a replacement brake part for your car only to find out it doesn’t fit. Ordering ANOTHER one and having that MATCH the first one, so, yes, the part number is right. No, you’re still screwed.
• Telemarketers. No explaining needed.

Technology

• The incessant restarting computers seem to need.
• When software lets you ask it to do incompatible things, then proceeds to fail
• Mac is better than PC. PC is better than Mac. Arguments about this are pointless. They’re both good and they both suck. ’nuff said. (Though in my personal opinion, Macs suck a little less.)
• Duh stuff. “Duh stuff” is the feature that gets added that makes you go “Duh, why didn’t we have that years ago?” Like adding the desktop as an icon in the Alt-Tab window you get when switching between apps. Like having the cursor ALREADY BE IN the login field on a web page when it finishes loading. What else would you want to do on that page? Of course you want to type your username and password.
• Along those lines… What’s with Blogger’s retarded comment form? For God’s sakes, now that Google owns Blogger I’d expect some of that crap to get fixed, but still not yet. I’m talkin’ about when you type a comment then tab key to the next field (username), tab to the next one (password) then tab again to get to the special code thingy to prove you’re a person not a robot only to go somewhere else entirely. I don’t think you can tab to that damn field! Maybe after hitting it 5 times. I have to grab the mouse and scroll down (because that last tab sent me UP instead of down) then click in the code field. I’m a keyboard junkie and only use the mouse when I can’t do something via the keyboard. Serious usability problem there… And Blogger wonders why they’re loosing users in droves to Wordpress and Typepad?
• Home computers. My home computer should just WORK. I fix ‘em during the day ’cause that’s my job, I’m good at it, and well, I guess those two reasons are enough. But when I get home, I just want to work on the front end of one, not on the backend.

Technology… user specific

• Explaining one or two steps to a user only to have them ask you again what that first step was. Hello?! Is your short-term memory THAT short?! Did you use to make subs?
• Users who explain everything but the main problem. Get to the point! I realize you don’t know what’s wrong, leave that to me. Give me the symptoms in order of severity. You can’t get a file off the server? Huh. Did you notice you also can’t get e-mail or browse eBay for that N*Sync bobble-head you’ve had your eye on? ALL your network connex are down! It doesn’t mean the server went down!
• Which leads to my least favorite question: “Are the servers down?”

Cycling

• I can loosen/tighten all routine bolts on my bike with just three allen wrenches. But do you think I could use any of the set of those 20 or so wrenches on my car’s brakes?
• Spending more money on a new part to only learn it’s performing less favorably than the old part.
• 
• Going the WHOLE year with maybe one or two flats on actual rides, then getting TWO on the last day of the year. I still haven’t fixed the rear flat. And in the interim, the front wheel has since gone flat out of sympathy for the rear. Yeah, well you can just hang there on your hooks and think about what you did to me on December 31st! I don’t need you. I’m running now. How you like them apples?

This entry was posted Saturday, February 10th, 2007 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Amusing, Cycling, Random Thoughts, Tech. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.