Category: Annoyances 
Got two slices of pizza tonight. One broccoli and mushroom, and one pepperoni. When I was presented with the box, I was a little surprised.
As I was walking home, I began to think about what the pizza shop gets for using advertising on their boxes...most likely, free boxes. That made me think that the pizza should cost a little less since they don’t have to pay for the boxes anymore, but then I remembered that costs get passed on to the consumer, not savings. I guess it really doesn’t matter that there is advertising on the boxes, other than it’s just another example of us being bombarded by advertising.
And the worst part...Verizon FiOS isn’t even available to me.
Update: Looks like I might be able to get FiOS sooner than I thought.
Related:
Forget the fact that they changed my ZIP code and made life a little more inconvenient for me, or the time they put a Playboy postcard haphazardly in my mailbox, but now they are rearranging the very fabric of New York to mess with me.
In the photo below, you can see that there is a green mailbox right near my building’s entrance (it’s under the snow, behind the little tree). This was a very convenient placement for me, but now the U.S. Postal Service has taken it away and I can only assume it was out of spite.
December 2000
May 2008
The block that I live on has a total of seven very similar buildings, with four of them almost identical. The buildings next door to mine, in both directions, are of the identical variety, and that fact can cause issues when I’m coming home late at night, especially after I’ve had a few drinks that contain alcohol. That mailbox was a landmark that made it possible for me to enter the correct building no matter what state my vision was. Finding the right apartment was a problem a few times, but that’s for another time.
About two weeks ago I was walking home after work, completely sober, and noticed that the green mailbox was gone. There was nothing in it’s place, except for the bolt holes where it used to be. I wondered if it was removed to be painted or maintained in some way, but a few days later, my worst fears were confirmed. It had been moved up the block. Luckily, the USPS did not place it near one of the other identical buildings on my block.
I fully expect them to do that in the future, just to annoy me.
According to CNN, there were two important breaking news stories today. The first was the emergency interest rate cute by the Federal Reserve, and the second was Heath Ledger’s death. I won’t get into why the second one is not important, but I just wanted to point out that CNN did not have a story on it so I went to one of my local TV station’s sites to see if there was an article on it. There was, and I was sort of interested in one particular sentence.
Now I understand that this was a fresh story that was breaking at the moment, but that doesn’t let the writers off the hook for getting some basic facts correct before they publish something. Take the following sentence:
He was pronounced dead at 3:26 p.m. in his downtown Manhattan residence by his housekeeper [...]
His housekeeper pronounced him dead? I’m fairly certain that in NY State only a doctor or someone with official medical training can pronounce someone dead. Perhaps he was “found dead” by his housekeeper?
But that’s not the sentence that bothered me. It was the one right before that:
The Australian-born actor was just 28.
Why was his age reported as “just 28”? Is there a hard-and-fast rule that people under a certain age are reported as being “just” x years old, and if so, what is that age? When does someone’s age stop being a “just” and start being just an age? If he were 34 would he still have been “just 34” or would he be “34”? What’s the cutoff for getting the “just” in the sentence? Does it depend on the age of the author, and anyone younger than he/she is “just” x years old? Does it have to do with the circumstances of the death...for example, if a 68 year old woman was killed by a hit-and-run, would she be “just 68”? Or is it nothing more than just the whim of the writer, and on a different day he would have been “28” instead of “just 28”?
Update: I wrote to one of the authors of the story and asked why the “just”. Never got a response.
Note: The original article has been edited and corrected. A screen shot of the original article can be found here.
When you watch English speaking shows, they have the Spanish audio on a SAP (secondary audio programming) channel. How come the Spanish channels don’t have English audio on a SAP?
Why is it that wrong numbers don’t happen at 2pm? Why do they happen at 4am on a cell phone that you’ve never given the number out to people? And why does it happen on New Year’s Day when you were out quite late the night before? In addition, why can’t you get back to sleep once you get woken up by a wrong number at 4am?
Is it me, or is she the second most annoying* person, ever? Evidence: “Delish”, “EVOO”, the Dunkin’ Donuts commercials, and she’s just so darn cheery all the time. I really dislike people who are cheery all the time.
* there is no “first most annoying”...sorta prevents one person from running away with the title...of course, she pretty much could run away with it if allowed to.
Forget the fact that they’re changing my zip code. Ignore the fact that they keep changing the stamp costs while I still have a boatload of the $0.39 stamps. Now they’re invading my private life.
I got home tonight and picked up the mail. As is my normal practice, I had my briefcase in my hand and put the mail in the same hand without looking at it. I do the briefcase and the mail in one hand, the left, because it allows me to use the keys in my right hand to open the vestibule door and, once I get to my apartment, my apartment door. It’s worked very well for me for years. Never had a problem until today.
When I hit the third floor landing, I bumped into the cute girl that seems to live on that floor. We exchange pleasantries, and I noticed her eyes darted downward, toward my left hand. I tried to make a little bit of small talk, and I noticed that her eyes kept darting between me and my left hand.
After saying our goodbyes, I finished the climb to my apartment. As I was opening the door, I noticed what she might have kept glancing at in my left hand. There, at the top of the bills and a promotion for Best Buy, was a postcard from Playboy. It didn’t just say “PLAYBOY” on it. No, this postcard had a naked woman on it, covered barely in appropriate places, and large letters that proclaimed that I, JOSHUA MADISON, have been “selected to enjoy PLAYBOY for just $1 an issue”. In addition, I could also get a free DVD.
The only positive thing that can come out of a cute girl in my building seeing that postcard is that it lets her know that I don’t already subscribe to Playboy.
Playboy postcard (sorta NSFW)
I seem to have done a number on the middle-finger of my right hand. It’s swelled up about as much as it can, and it’s quite painful if any real pressure is applied to it. I can’t clench my fist because of it.
This happened Friday, and since then, I’ve found out how much I depend on it to do basic things in my life, and I’ve had to make adjustments…
- Let’s get the most important one out of the way first. Wiping. I’ve had to make adjustments to my normal wiping technique. This is by far the most disturbing change I’ve had to make due to this injury, especially considering that I’ve used the same wiping technique for as long as I can remember.
- I normally keep my apartment keys in my right-hand pocket. I can’t get anything out of my right-hand pocket easily now, so I’ve had to shift them to my left-hand pocket.
- I can’t play with my Wii (sounds strange, don’t it?).
- It hurts to write. Not impossible, but it’s not comfortable. The interesting thing is that the only writing with a pen I do, in general, is to sign credit card receipts. Typing is fine because there is no real pressure applied to the finger.
- Operating my light switches. Most of my light switches are dimmers and are the circular type, and it hurts every time I turn on a light or turn if off. I never realized that I used my middle-finger that much when using the switches.
- Smoking a cigar. What good is having a 2005 Limited Edition Cohiba if it hurts to hold it?
- Forget about opening a bottle. Even using my left hand to open it leads to the middle-finger hurting while holding it in my right.
Perhaps I should get it checked out?
I went to Chicago on Tuesday, and as I was sitting at the gate waiting for my plane to board, I noticed something that is just plain annoying. I looked out the window and couldn’t help noticing that the jetway was positioned almost right up against the window. On it, in large letters, was the logo for HSBC (sorry for the crappy cell phone photo, but I didn’t have a real camera on me at the time).
Where does the line get drawn on advertising? Are we going to have street lamps festooned with advertisements? What about mailboxes? Maybe crosswalks should have some sort of advertising on them instead of just silly white lines?
What I find interesting is that HSBC would choose that place to advertise. Obviously, it’s a good place because people are stuck sitting in the gate area and will look out the window and see their name, but it really doesn’t make sense to advertise a banking company at that point because people are about to go into a closed environment for hours and I don’t think that banking will be on most people’s minds during that time. I would think something more travel related would be appropriate, but then again, I’m not in advertising so I may not understand the subtle intricacies of how this is a brilliant place for HSBC to advertise.
Eggs come with advertising etched on them, why shouldn’t everything? (in case you couldn’t tell, I’m being sarcastic)
That’s especially true for banks and credit card companies that I’m a customer of.
In today’s mail, I found not one, but two offers from a credit card company and a bank that I’m already a customer of. These offers were not for additional services from the same institution, but for the very services that I already have with them. Even more disturbing is that both of tonight’s offers were addressed to me using my formal name, the same name that I use with their institutions.
How difficult is it for them to do a simple database query that compares whatever list they use for unsolicited offers to their existing customer list? If the names match, and the addresses match, don’t send it. I’m sure it would save them money. I wonder why they don’t do it?
When did they start putting ads on eggs?
What’s next, ads on blueberries?
Peas?
Corn?
This is what happens when your stomach ignores what your brain can clearly see.
I bought this piece of carrot cake from my company’s cafeteria because it looked so good.
The problem is that it didn’t look that great after opening the container…
Well, not really, but you get the idea. Let’s start at the beginning:
7:00am - E-mails from work wake me up.
7:30am - Log into work and see there is a problem with a NIC card on a server.
8:00am - Problem at work solved. I’m wide awake.
8:05am - Decide to actually get out of bed and start the day (way too early for that normally).
8:15am - While enjoying first cup of coffee, decide to order a waffle from the diner since I had a craving for it.
8:35am - Waffle arrives. I place tin with waffle in it on kitchen table. Pour second cup of coffee. Put second cup of coffee on top of fridge (normal spot where I pour the milk into it).
8:36am - Open tin with waffle in it. Take waffle out and place on plate. Open fridge to get syrup (real maple syrup from Vermont—the best!). Grab syrup, open it, pour some into coffee. Close syrup. Place back in fridge. Grab milk. Open milk. Start to pour milk onto waffle, but catch myself just before it comes out. Wonder why I’m doing that.
8:37am - Open fridge, and remember that I was holding the syrup bottle a moment ago. Look back at waffle and find there is no syrup on it. Wonder where syrup went. Look at coffee cup. Say, “No way,” to myself. Look in coffee cup. See weird slick on top of coffee. Sigh loudly.
See, the butterfly effect in it’s full glory. A server NIC dies, and because of that, I put syrup in my coffee. At least it sort of makes sense.
Now if I could only figure out why I keep putting shaving cream on my toothbrush in the morning…
This week I noticed that the UNICEF snowflake was put up at 57th and 5th. While that was going on, the Bloomberg Tower also erected their Christmas holiday tree. There oughta be a law that holiday decorations can’t go up until after Thanksgiving.
I’m not trying to be bitter or anything, I just think that if we don’t reign it in, we’ll start seeing holiday decorations in August.
I should have just stayed in bed today.
First off, I didn’t get a good night’s sleep. Was tossing and turning all night, and worse, was wide awake at 8am! Tried to go back to bed but finally gave up at about 9am.
Got the coffee made without issue, and decided to have breakfast consisting of oatmeal with a cut-up banana. Nuked the oatmeal and peeled the banana to start cutting. That’s when it happened.
“It” being 60% of the banana breaking off and falling to the floor, with an audible “splotch”. The five-second rule does not apply to wet, fleshy, peeled fruit, so I had to settle for 40% of a banana and a handful of blueberries.
Sigh.
There is a rumor out there that sexual activity slows hair growth. If there is any truth to that then the people in the apartment next to mine won’t need haircuts for quite a while.
At least take a break so you can eat.
Well, for now. Even though the union voted to end the strike and go back to work while negotiations continued, there is no guarantee that they won’t strike again at the next negotiation impasse. In fact, whatever happened yesterday did not address the main sticking point that is being reported as the main cause of the strike.
My commute was not really affected on the strike days. But there was definitely more people traffic and it was clearly evident on the walk home when I would hit 3rd, 2nd and 1st Avenue. In fact, I tried to stay on Park Avenue as long as possible because not a lot of people were walking there, and they have nice wide sidewalks with no stores that have sidewalk sections (Lexington is a bitch!).
The biggest advantage of the end of the strike for me will be not having to listen to co-workers complain about their commute.
So I made it through day #1 of the NYC transit strike. Since I don’t take mass transit to or from work, it didn’t really affect me that much. There was definitely more people traffic on the streets, and a lot of them don’t really know how to walk to work. I mean is it too much to ask for people to walk in straight lines?
Well, I fought through the laziness and went to change the clock on the coffee maker. It took about 10 minutes but I got it done. The only problem is that I’m not sure that I didn’t eff up some of the other settings while trying to figure out how to change it.
The hardest clock to change now is the automatic on/off timer for the fish tank light. It’s an analog circular device that is not very accurate. Usually the lights go on and off within 30 minutes of the preset time, so it always takes a few days of trial and error to get it right.
