Little things that you are irrationally picky about

My e-mail program at work (Lotus) defaults to the “Courier New” font. Grrr. I hate, hate, hate Courier New. It is the ugliest font ever created! I will not use it for any message, no matter how short or trivial. I always go thru the effort to change the font, and unfortunately I have not figured out a way to inform freakin’ Lotus that I do not want it to auto-select Courier New, ever. (My standard font is “Default Sans Serif,” or sometimes “Arial” which is very similar.)

Is it totally irrational? Yes. Picky? Yep. But it is what it is.

So, what subjects do you get worked up about, beyond any rational reason for it?

Depending on what version of Notes you have, you can control this…sort of. Go to File->Preferences->Basic Notes Client Configuration->Default Fonts. This allows you to change any sans serif, serif, or monospace font to whatever you want.

You can’t control the size though and it affects ALL sans serif fonts (not just those for out-going emails). Those things are handled through your company’s mail file template.

Do potato chips count? No BBQ, no cheddar, no sour cream and chives, no vinegar, no nothing. Potato, oil, salt. MAYBE black pepper if I’m feeling crazy. If you need anything you’re covering up bad potato chips.

Same thing with French fries.

Ambiguous date formats.
“PIN number”.
“$1000 dollars”.
People using wind chill or humidex as if it were the real temperature.

I, for one, cannot do word processing in anything other than 12-point Times New Roman.

If we’re allowed to extend “irrationally picky” to tastes in food, I can’t eat cheeseburgers. For some reason, the texture of melted cheese on a hamburger patty makes me gag, regardless of what kind of cheese it is. (Bleu cheese burgers I can handle because bleu cheese crumbles don’t really melt.) I don’t mind melted cheese on pizza, or on a Philly, or on a sub sandwich, but put it on a burger and I can’t do it.

Extraneous garbage in PowerPoint presentations. If it’s an IT course, I really do not need little clip-art pics of computers to let me know that computers will be involved.

Og yes. PIN number, VIN number and MLB baseball. Drives me nuts!

Thick doughy pizzas. I grew up with the really thin cracker type pizzas, a wad of dough is just nasty. I want a nice thin crisp crust with the right amount of sauce and a good quality mozzarella or blend with the right amount of stretch and a few other toppings [maybe pepperoni and veggies like sliced red onion and artichoke heart quarters.] If I want a casserole, I will eat a casserole.

And screw cigars. Nasty ass smell. I can deal with cigarettes, or even many pipe tobaccos, but cigars are just nauseating.

PowerPoint slides where one or two words goes on the next line and they don’t know to extend the text box to make it fit all on one line.
Wings served with ranch dressing (being from Buffalo, I know that it’s only blue cheese).

Designers that hate white space. Use it! Love it! Like jazz, often the note not played is the key.

Uneven grind lines on cutlery. Even cheap cutlery.

Tails left on shrimp in pasta or rice based dishes. It’s a mess to get them off. Just peel the whole shrimp, dammit!

The breed/type of horses in movies/tv. Sometimes they’re ridiculous (Frisian used as a rodeo horse)
Saddles&other tack that are the wrong date…

Sodas. If I can’t have RC, give me Coke, Pepsi, gingerale, or frikking Grape Nehi. Or better yet just water.

Any representation of a snowflake that has eight points. People, it’s not that hard to fold a paper in thirds instead of fourths. You may think your sparkly eight-sided doodad looks like a snowflake, but if it has eight points, it’s not snowflake.

Submitted for your approval:

You’re probably another one that can’t stand all the nickering and whickering in films and TV, like the horses are “talking”. Makes me crazy.

(Horses don’t do that. They’re usually pretty quiet unless it’s time to eat or they’re upset about something.)

And IvoryTowerDenizen’s link reminded me of one of mine: minor errors in usage and punctuation. “The reason is because”. Goes along with “banana’s $.59 cents” and “I like it alot”. Why yes, I used to teach Freshman Composition; why do you ask?

Did I make an error in my post? I don’t see one, but tell me if I did!

No no, it was in your link. One of the scientists talking about snowflakes said “the reason is because”.