21 June 2007

Annoying Things

Annoying things:

* Low flow toilets.
* Using phone cards from non-pay phones.
* Hearing advertisements prior to making phone card calls.
* Shampoos for men that smell like turpentine.
* The blogger autosave function.
* Parking meters that don't accept nickles and dimes.
* Advertisements before movies you paid to see.
* Political candidates without websites.
* Removable stereo controls.
* Books on CD with fifteen minute tracks.
* Voice mail.
* Multiple co-pays for a single doctor's office visit.
* Voice activated phone bank menus.
* Advertisements for car models that don't exist (Go Toyota did it for two days running).
* French cuffs.
* Robocalls.
* Flickering flourescent lights.
* Hand grenade car stickers.
* Hotmail's delete function (it shrinks the number of messages you can consider each time).
* Artificially low speed limits on arterial streets (especially Alameda Avenue from University to South Cherry Steet in Denver).
* Discontinuous streets that share the same name.
* Drive time radio talk between songs.
* Store discount cards.
* Department store credit cards.
* T-Mobile Hot Spot Wi-Fi.
* Sarbanes-Oxley motivated impossible to memorize password requirements.
* Privacy notices with no obvious customer choice options.
* "I am who I say I am" affidavits in real estate closings.
* Plate sharing charges at restaurants.
* Merchant imposed minimum credit card charge requirements.
* Denver's 20th Street post office's policy of not collecting mail from the mail boxes in front of the post office after 5 p.m. when the post office closes at 8 p.m.
* Pennies.
* Computer systems that don't accept hyphens in names.
* Computer systems that don't parse two letter surnames.
* Customer service workers who don't know what the word "hyphen" means.
* People who don't pronounce the "h" in words like "human" and "Harvard".
* Stores that issue coupons with expiration dates and requirements posted that aren't actually enforced.
* Pens that stop working when you can see they still have ink left.
* Camera phones.
* High calorie foods advertised at "fat free" or "carb free".
* Hillary Clinton's campaign theme song.
* The telephone excise tax refund form (never before has some much documentation been required for so small a refund).
* The 9/10th of a cent a gallon added to gas prices.
* Collectible coin advertisements.
* Door to door solicitations.
* Car alarms
* Laptops that go into sleep mode just before shutting down.
* Plastic packaging that can only be opened with scissors.
* DVDs that skip or freeze up.
* Error messages when the only apparent problem is that you have to click O.K. to make the error message go away.

2 comments:

fish said...

i'm with you on much of this, Andrew!! except i do like my camera phone...

kate said...

How long did it take you to come up with this list. (And what do I win if I guess correctly.)

What about stickers for car windows that resemble bullet holes? On just about every truck in Florida. One of many things *not* to miss about the Sunshine State.

And what's wrong with leaving out the "h"? It's an Irish thing - you wouldn't understand. I say "yooge" instead of "huge" - and I bet in the right context, you wouldn't mind that at all. Would you?

Wink Wink.