Recently in 2006 - Annoyance of the Week Category

Telephone Jack, originally uploaded by Michael Rolig.

What's more annoying; waiting in vain for hours for the cable guy to come and fix your phone ... or figuring out that your kids have jammed so much crap into the phone jack that no one can make phone calls.

at some point in life you wake up and realize that you may have crossed the line from cliche into parody -- then what -- where is the bridge to ironic

Today's annoyance of the week is the price of gas. I don't want to talk about peak oil, supply & demand, historical prices adjusted for inflation or any other sensible thing. Blah, blah, blah -- I don't like the idea of dropping a $65 to fill up my tank.

This weeks annoyance has been brewing for some time.

When I go out shopping I've been noticing this trend towards casual clothing that resembles the clothing that working men and women wear. The finish on the jeans look like the finish you could only get when you actually were working in a greasy envoronment. The rips, no doubt hand ripped by kids with real jobs in Indonesia, look like the kind of rips you get while working as a lumberjack, at a junkyard, in a railroad or in a mine. The trucker hats now even come pre-stained and frayed.

So who is wearing this stuff? Kids who never worked an honest day in their lives. (At least I know what honest work is, even if I type for a living now.)

So here's to all of you kids from an old fart, "You can wear the beer logo trucker hat with pride when you've changed a tire at least once, wondered where your next meal was coming from and had a job where you were actually exhausted and dirty at the end of a day. Until then you are a poseur."

Reuters reported that hometown airlines, NWA will begin charging for the right to sit in an aisle seat or an exit row. The program is called Coach Choice.

What are the airlines going to think of next? Personally, I'm expecting pay toilets to be available sometime in the spring of 2007. Maybe in 2008 you can bid for the right to be seated next to people with good hygiene.

[Link courtesy of boing^2]

This week's annoyance is actually an "Outrage of the Week". This week's outrage is the radical American cleric, Fred Phelps. Fred has already earned his scarlet A by protesting at the funerals of gay people for years. He is usually spewing something hateful along the lines of "aids is God's punishment for blah, blah, blah." Now he and his followers have switched to protesting at the funerals of U.S. servicemen. The theory appears to be something like the following. God doesn't like gay sex, the U.S. likes gay sex, God wants to get us now, God convinces us to go to Iraq where service people are killed by IEDs -- the IEDs doing God's will. There is no point in trying to dissect the twisted logic behind this kind of hate mongering. It's sad to me what people do in the name of God or in the name of any faith.

He even showed up in Minnesota this week, "Anti-gay fury mars funeral of a soldier in Anoka".

The bright spot in the story is that motorcyclists from around the country are provided a counter-protest by showing respect to the slain.

If there comes a day when I have to choose between outlaw bikers and Fred Phelps' ilk my answer will be found in the squealing tires, the smell of exhaust, a bandana and a lone headlight streaking down the highway.

This week's theme for the annoyance of the week is things that leave a bad taste in the mouth.

Annoyance Number 1 - Bad Coffee

I love coffee and prefer it strong and black. Since I've been out of tea for the last couple of months I've drank a bit too much crap coffee. The coffee I was drinking was dreadful, but I didn't realize it until I had cleansed my palate with a few days of tea drinking last week. After a few days of tea I went to a local coffee shop and came to the conclusion that not only was the crap coffee bitter and nearly tasteless -- it was slowly robbing me of my ability to taste. Once I had weaned myself off of the crap coffee for a few days everything tasted better including decent, but not amazing, coffee from the local coffee shop. Crap coffee will deface your taste buds, coat your tongue in tar, make you think Lindsay Lohan is important and eventually turn you to the dark side of the force -- avoid it at all costs.

Annoyance Number 2 - The Senate and Judge Alito

I captured some of the proceedings from the confirmation hearings for Judge Alito and played it backwards to determine the true content. Here is an exceprts from the transcribed results.

The hearings are a farce. The process seems to exist to give us candidates who are adept at not saying much. It's a "no show trial" meant only as entertainment -- no actual judges will be harmed during the filming. Seriously, can't we have a process that even pretends to be enlightening?

My favorite commentary came from Adam Felber in his blog post titled "Politicians are from Mars, Judges are from Jersey" who pointed out sagely that judicial activism generally means judges doing what you don't like.

After consultation with my editorial board and the inspiration of the "THE 100 MOST ANNOYING THINGS OF 2005", I've decided to add a new category to the blog called, "Annoyance of the Week." I plan to chronicle all the things that I find especially annoying throughout the year. If you want to nominate someone or something as a candidate for annoyance of the week drop me a line.

My nominee for Annoyance of the Week is the radical American cleric Pat Roberts.

In week one of 2006, Pat Robertson distanced himself from the pack by stating that God had caused Ariel Sharon's stroke. Never mind the fact that Mr. Sharon is in his late seventies is overweight and has a stressful job. I'm speculating now, but it also looks like Sharon probably doesn't get enough exercise -- although he does look significantly more lifelike than the other radical cleric Jerry "Looks So Lifelike" Falwell". If all that weren't enough reason to have a stroke, MSNBC reports the stroke may have been caused by a medicine combined with a pre-existing condition. Pat has been outdoing himself lately calling for the assassination of foreign government officials and suggesting the reasonable voters in Dover, PA shouldn't ask God for help in the future. What an embarrassment.

If we all ignore him will he go away?

Seriously which job would you rather have -- Pat Robertson's PR guy explaining to the press what your boss meant to say or would you rather teach angry ferrets how to program with templates in C++? I say bring on the ferrets.