What Are Your Pet Peeves?

[aquadump]

The model people littered in corporate media. They are way too happy to be learning about medical insurance changes and corporate policies.

[chilly]

-Property taxes.
-Do gooders with "Buy Local" bumper stickers on foreign cars.
-Rich, Nantucket, anti-windfarm, not in my backyard Democrats.
-Blaming teachers or insufficient funding for the sub-par scholastic performance of our youth. Have you met these kids and their parents?
-Companies that take a bigger premium off of fair-trade coffee sales than the growers get.
-PBS's dumbing down and pandering to the lowest common denominator in recent years (excluding the news hour)
-People's inability to view complex systems as a whole. "Industrial farming = bad." "Organic fuels = good"
-Hipsters that pay more for their clothes and have to search harder for them to tell us how little the 'care' about such pretenses.
-+1 to rePete's! The media has taught us how to dislike ourselves by skewing our perception of 'normal' so we buy more garbage to try to meet those expectations.
-Highly abstract astro/particle physics theories being presented as a fully resolved and documented fabric of cold hard facts that just happens to be beyond your capacity to understand (typically media again).

[lschwalger]

I remember back in the day with the old school crt tv's with the flap that covers the control buttons. If someone forgot to close it I would have to get up and close it myself otherwise Id be distracted through any movie i'd watch.
Oh and another one is when someone changes the volume of the radio and stops on an uneven number I have to change it. My partners just the same on this one.

[Freedom_2018]

From my TV watching days in the past:
When the sound volume abruptly goes up when an advertisement is injected in the middle of programming.
Why couldn't there be a "sound equalization mode" built in so that the decibel level is constant irrespective of what is on TV.

[captious]

+1 for noisy motorcycles.

[Arrrrrgh]

--People who chew with their mouths open.

--Cars: their existence and ownership are the hemophiliac of my cash. All I see when they're being used is burning $100 bills. Especially when I drive my own.

--Lazy ineptitude at work.

--Flaky people (i.e. I'll call you back in a bit/day/week/whatever and it never happens).

--Chronically tardy people when meeting.

--Sarah Palin

--Michele Bachmann
I'm sure there are others, but this will get me started!

[JohnnyH]

"What are you reading?"

This one really irritates me. Usually from non-readers who are growing increasingly desperate for stimulation because no telescreen is present. Anyone have any tips to quickly dispatch it?

[jacob]

@JohnnyH - I just hold the book up and show them the spine/title for a few seconds.

[Spartan_Warrior]

- Driving, anywhere, any time.
- Partisan politics and the corresponding politicization of any and every topic.
- Text messages and phone calls.
- Neighbors.

[7Wannabe5]

People who do not hold their young children by the hand while crossing parking lots.
Musical selections that include the sound of siren or alarm being played on the radio.
Anything else that unnecessarily evokes a danger/startle response from me.

[JohnnyH]

@Jacob: Works well for physical books. On ebooks I can show the cover image, but that usually leads to more questions and explanations... Perhaps an ebook dust cover that looks like a real book. Book of Mormon, that should scare everyone off.

@Spartan_Warrior: Rural back road drives with friends and road soda are great though!

[Spartan_Warrior]

@JohnnyH: Maybe if I'm a passenger. Alternately, maybe if I didn't live in Maryland, bad driver capital of the USA. Otherwise, when the idiots in front of me start going ten miles under the speed limit, and the idiot behind me rides an inch from my ass or passes illegally through a double yellow or in the shoulder (seems to be a Baltimore specialty), simply because I'm not riding the next guy's ass closely enough or racing to the red light fast enough--yeah, the fun ends quickly.

There are few aspects of driving I find enjoyable. I'd rather sit and converse, listen to music, or take a walk. Actually, listening to music WHILE taking a walk and conversing would literally cover the bases of everything I find enjoyable about driving.

RE: Books; if they can't see what you're reading, seems to me this opens up all kinds of room for smart ass troll responses. I like Book of Mormon. Would also recommend "How to Cook Humans", "Dealing with Rage in the Office", various biographies of serial killers, etc. If you really feel like trolling, pick two biographies of opposing politicians (e.g. Obama and Sarah Palin) and enthuse about whichever is most likely opposite of the asker's politics. Actually, I could have a lot of fun with this... more than with driving!

[Tyler9000]

A few of my conversational ones:

The non-word "Veg" as a substitute for "vegetables".

When someone makes a statement, rhetorically asks "why?", and then answers his own question. Example: "I hate curry. Why? Because one time..."

When someone intentionally makes an audible sigh or explanation in order to elicit a conversation with you without overtly "interrupting". Like while reading an article within earshot - "well that's interesting!"

[jacob]

- Walking cell phone zombies
- People standing on escalators going all the way up/down (hint: take the elevator!)
- People taking up >1 seat on public transport (being too fat to fit, bringing multiple bags, sprawling legs)

[Ego]

- People taking up >1 seat on public transport (being too fat to fit, bringing multiple bags, sprawling legs)

This.

Reminds me of my favorite Bizarro comic.

http://bizarrocomics.com/files/2013/08/ ... irline.jpg

[theanimal]

-Driving
-Calls/texts
-The concept and words- "Networking and building your brand"
-When you're hanging out with friends or family but they decide to be cell phone zombies. Just smartphones and cellphone zombies in general.
-People who complain about their life but are unwilling to change

[stoneage]

- People (especially young adults) not able to handle their own travel bag on the train because it is either too heavy or too big. I'm usually one of the big guys who get asked for help. I usually answer that I have a back injury.
- People who are not mindful enough about their gestures and say they are clumsy.
- People having such political bias that they can't handle facts that are not telling their side of the story.
- People and companies not understanding "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Especially tech companies and already overworked people misallocating their energy.
- People who unconsciously do the exact opposite of how they pretend to behave.

[GandK]

-Hypocrisy
-Small talk
-Feeling like I have to apologize for not taking calls when I put my phone on Do Not Disturb for a while
-People who don't cover their mouth when they cough/sneeze/yawn
-Having to force/coerce/bribe my teenage son into doing his homework
-People who ask about my kids just so they have an excuse to talk about theirs when I'm done answering the question
-Trendy sermon series at church
-Speakerphone abuse
-Blamestorming sessions
-Compulsive pen clicking, foot tapping, gum popping, whistling, or any other sort of nervous fidgeting
-Intentional misspellings e.g. Kwik Stop
-People who love to poke holes in others' suggestions but offer none of their own

I could go on and on, I have a ton. There's probably something wrong with me.

[George the original one]

> -Compulsive pen clicking, foot tapping, gum popping, whistling, or any other sort of nervous fidgeting

LOL, you never would have survived my high school. We all did the foot tap, enough so that we called it the Benson twitch.

[jacob]

@GandK - My apologies, being w/o I must have yawned at least once during our meetup and as a rule, I never cover my mouth while yawning. What's the point?