As a rule, I slow down until they change lanes. You may have to get down to 45 on the freeway for them to do it–and I have–but trust me, they’ll do it eventually.
Who’s this “we”, white man?*
How about at a stop light? I’ve left a few feet between me and the car in front, because I was taught you should always be able to see their bumper. The car behind me decides to glue himself to my bumper because that will make the light change faster (and this happens to be a slow light because the cross traffic is a main road and we’re on a side street) So I creep up a smidge, still leaving room in front. Now Rear Guy creeps up. So I wait until Rear Guy’s attention is elsewhere and I creep up a teehy bit more. Now Front Guy has to creep up because I seem to be crawling up his ass. And none of this makes the light change any faster.
Also
In rush hour traffic, I leave some space in front of me so I have some breaking room just in case. This space is not for you to slide into because you feel your lane is moving too slowly. Don’t you know you’ve just doomed this lane to slow down?
and oh yeah
If you’re following me (on purpose because I know our destination and you don’t), don’t let someone else slip in between us, because now I have to slow down so he gets out of our lane. Ok, good, now you’re right behind me I can resume the proper driving speed and what’s this? you’re still doing 40 on a 55 road? and now 3 cars are between us? grrrrr
I have yet to find an easy way to get a King size duvet [comforter?] into it’s cover.
fricking things.
Goddamn housemate, I can sympathize with you being sick. I don’t know what disgusting bug you picked up that makes you let out these wet, deep, reverberant coughs, but stop coughing all over the front room and kitchen without at least doing us the idle courtesy of covering your mouth - if not to keep contamination down, at least do it to reduce the odor. Your coughs smell like diarrhea.
Goddamn housemate, don’t tell me how to fix the network. I actually have the experience and knowledge necessary to make a meaningful diagnostic of a problem and take effective steps, whereas you do not; for example, unplugging the modem and router for 10 seconds is not panacea. (Moreover, if you’re going to unplug something for a prescribed amount of time, count off the seconds properly. Couting to 10 in 5 seconds != 10 seconds.)
Goddamn housemate, don’t lecture me on electricity usage. Especially when you’re using halogen lamps and space heaters - and leaving them on all night. It’s winter; expect the prices to jump a little. Now, when you can at least grasp the concept of a kilowatt-hour, then we can start talking - but first you’ll have to shut off whatever electronics you’re running that have the 15-amp breaker doing its dance.
Goddamn housemate, I can sympathize with your unspoken suburban paranoia of home invasion and/or burglary, but it’s a bit insulting to lock your room’s door every single time you leave the house, especially when we’re home. We’re not going to steal your shit, and we’re not going to let someone waltz in and steal your shit either.
I pit the theater who, when they ran out of Kid-Pak boxes, refused to let me purchase it sans box.
The story: I and my sister took my three kids to see Hoodwinked (loved it, too!) Saturday night. I sat the kids down in the theater with DS and went to get the movie goodies (cost–one arm and one leg). Included in my order were two Kid-Paks (with small drink, Air-Heads, and a handful of popcorn). Oops, they only have one box. No problem, I’ll just carry the items separately, I don’t need the box.
Except, apparently, I do. They won’t let me buy the stuff if they don’t have the box to put it in. This is a big 
moment for me. I mean, if Mickey D’s ran out of Happy Meal boxes, I’d wager that they’d just put the crap in a regular bag. But I can’t just get the drink, candy, and popcorn without the special box at the movies (and you can’t just buy that little drink without getting the Kid-Pak. The next smallest drink size=fast food medium). So I had to order my son the “small” drink* and a $3.00 bag of M&M’s (couldn’t leave him out on treat night, could I?).
Why didn’t I call the manager, you ask? Well, for the first time in eons, there weren’t five hundred previews, and the movie had already begun (which didn’t make them fill my order any faster, either. They moved so slowly that they couldn’t have caught a cold). And there were other people in line, too. Not worth a huge fuss, but I did manage one snippish comment before I went in to the movie! 
*about a third of which he managed to spill on me!
I went to see LTJ Bukem on Friday night. (Yay me!)
Sadly, the show was at one of those giant, horrible, pricey, ridiculous nightclubs. I have never been before, and only went because of the depths of my adoration for Bukem and Conrad.
On the way in they made me leave my water bottle at the door. (!!!)
From the moment I entered I was suffocated with tobacco smoke. This is a rare occurrence in Toronto now that the anti-smoking bylaws are in place. People still sneak smokes once in a while, but this was excessive. Everyone was smoking, everywhere, it felt like there was no anti-smoking bylaw in effect at all. So it smelled nasty and made me feel a bit sick (and made me smell nasty, too).
(And I’m a SMOKER! I just hate smoking inside! Take it outside, assholes!)
Bukem finally came out at 2 am and played for a spectacular 2 hours before we left at 4 (gagged by the smoke).
Here’s the really pit-worthy part:
They were charging $4 for a bottle of water and not providing jugs!!!
I hate that!! That is SO wrong!! I mean, I know this is how they make their money, but to hold the headliner until it’s too late to buy booze - and then charge four bucks a pop for a bottle of water (with the club’s name as the “brand” - strangely, it tasted quite a lot like tapwater) - from people who are no doubt taking dehydrating drugs (it’s a drum and bass concert, come on) - and still letting people smoke all the nasty, grody, stinky cigarettes they want!!
Fuck you, Guvernment! I’m never going back. Never never never.
I’m sure you will feel the economic effects of my boycott. Feel the wrath of my staying home from your stupid Frosh-week techno nights. Suffer under my sanctions.
Do NOT make left turns on red! The last traffic light before work is a good 3 or 4 minutes long with fairly heavy traffic coming at it from all 4 directions. The two directions at right angles to me get their own signals. Every so often, I just miss the light and wind up the first or second car in line at it. From there, I can see what color the traffic signal for traffic to my right is. Traffic to my right is the last group to go before I get to make my left turn. Almost everytime I’m there, I see not one, but two or three cars make their left turn onto the road I’m turning off of after their light has turned red, often while my light has turned green. Here’s what I’d like to say to them: Yes, I know waiting for this light is a pain in the neck. Yes, I know you’d like to get to work on time. So would I. I don’t have to wait through the entire light, either. Nevertheless, if you start your turn into the intersection after the light has turned red, you’re a jerk. If you start your turn into the intersection after my light has turned green, you’re a bigger jerk. Yeah, life stinks. That doesn’t mean you get to delay me while you break the rules.
CJ
DRLs aren’t nearly as bright as fog lights. Also, don’t fog lights include those lights that you sometimes see on top of the rool bars of off-road vehicles?
Those are Asshole Lights. Only huge festering assholes have them.
I hope you mean “only huge festering assholes drive with them turned on when there is other traffic around.” Because they do have legitimate, non-assholish uses.
Okay, how about this: red left-turn arrows.
Few automotive-related things bother me more than sitting in a left-turn-only lane, staring at a huge gap in oncoming traffic that I could make it through if I got out and pushed, forced to wait because some bureaucrat decided I couldn’t decide for myself whether it was safe to go or not.
Also, people on two-lane (in one direction) roads who drive side-by-side at the speed limit, blocking the road for everyone behind them who isn’t an self-absorbed goody-two-shoes.
I think I’ve got this figured out - as the lead car, you are the most likely radar target. So if either of you is going to get pulled over, it’s the one in front.
Of course, there may be no logic to it, but that’s the only reason I can think of.
When people don’t put their location in their location space. I’d like to why you’re spelling “spoiled”, “spoilt”, or why you have people thinking they can make left turns at red lights where you are, or why you’re getting around town in a streetcar. It’s an international, E/N style messageboard - plenty of our musicgs will end up being relevant to our varied locations - just provide that simple bit of info that the durned board asked you for. You’re not so damned important that somebody’s going to track you down and poke you in the eye!
People tend to check their phones if their left on, and most phones these days light up like the mothership from close encounters. Even on vibrate, a phone still makes that"zzz, zzz, zzz" noise, which is annoying if the guy next to you keeps getting calls.
Also, in the cinema, if you sit near a low speaker, such as the arrangement in my local multi, an incoming call can have that “bittib-bit-biitp” effect on the speaker.
Cinema notices actually do state to turn off the phone completley, but most just put it on silent, checking every now and then to see if they missed a call. Thus causing serious distraction to those around them.
hey pal, is your wife pregnant? Due soon?
Or a parent on their deathbed?
Or you expecting a call from the president?
Then you can turn you fucking phone off for two hours, FUCKSTICK!!!
A couple of minor online poker gripes:
If you sit down at a table and happen to be at the button or similar away from the blinds, just pay your blind and sit in. Waiting a full rotation of the table just to pay one blind is highly annoying, leaving a chair dead for that whole time. Is one measly blind going to ruin your session? I strongly suspect not. Waiting one or two hands, sure I can live with that. Anything more is being obnoxious.
Also, and this mostly applies in tournaments, don’t bluff at the side pots! If you’ve got a made hand (and I mean a made hand) then yeah, bet at the side pot. If you’ve got nothing, just check it down. We’re trying to eliminate the small stacks here, and if you bluff someone off the pot, you’re more than likely going to let that player back into the game. Now’s not the time to be a hero.
Someone did that to the women’s bathroom at my firehouse. She took it upon herself to ‘decorate’ the bathroom. It started with doilies and bouquets in vases and fugly gold-framed prints.
Then she brought in a teddy bear in a frilly white dress sitting in one of those wicker chairs with the big round back. The damn thing was top-heavy and kept falling over into the sink. I hated it, but she thought it was just the cutest thing ever.
Anyway, one day the bear met with an unfortunate accident and disappeared forever - not that I had anything to do with it.
:::walks away whistling innocently:::
This is a failure of the grocery store’s set up for the self-scanners (which are evil and invidious in the first place.) Good luck on your noble quest to get this situation remedied.
Unfortunately, this might well apply to me. I used to drive standard VW Jettas for years, and was able to have total control over acceleration and deceleration. Fed up with VW’s seeming indifference to quality control, I eventually traded my last one in for a 2002 Altima. It has a lot of power for a 4 cylinder, and it all seems to be in the first inch of the accelerator pedal. Seriously, just tapping the pedal makes the car shoot ahead. Not a problem in typical long distance highway driving, but when in stop and go, it can give the same results you refer to. I have to be absolutely feather-light to avoid jamming on the brakes.
How about a rant to all those who experience driving comas? Like the ones at left turn arrows. Fella, you pulled up to the left turn lane, and have been waiting for the arrow while others stacked up behind you. You finally got your wish, and the light ain’t gettin’ any greener, but maybe this is the multi-media highway and you’re waiting for the musical accompaniment of a horn to complete your experience. Glad to oblige. Or how about the people behind you in the same coma, who let the car ahead of them move ahead a few car lengths before reacting? It’s like a train, people; think of the cars as linked together like train cars. When you see the turn arrow, take your foot off the brake. As the car ahead of you moves ahead, slowly accelerate to let the distance increase so that by the time you are going 10 mph, there is a car length between. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Or how about the coma at the toll booth, where the outstretched hand suddenly reminds you that legal tender changes hands, and you start searching your wallet/purse/seat cushions while the radiators of summer vacationers overheat behind you?
One thing that’s come up a lot this past week…
I’m driving along, and the car in front of me slows down, and down, and down. Then they put their blinkers on. But don’t stop. If you’re going to be a douche and hold up the lane, at least fucking stop so the rest of us can get the fuck around you. If you keep moving, I don’t know what the fuck you’re up to, and don’t dare try to pass you. Blinkers=stop, you fucking cheesedick.