Free air at the Gas Stations, gas prices.
coat hangers. You know the great “do - all” wire type. The old ones were made of much heavier gage wire and could be used for all sorts of practial household chores and backyard repairs. The new ones I occasionally get from the dry cleaner are so thin that the main horizontal part deflects under the weight of a pair of dress pants. God forbid if you should actually hang a heavy jacket from one of these pathetic pieces of crap.
I have several of the old heavy gage wire hangers that I keep around “just in case” but when I comes time to un-ravel, un-bend and perform a quick repair i cant bring myself to actually do it.
What, I must ask, is irritating about free air at gas stations?? :dubious:
And in regards to gas prices, we should just consider ourselves lucky that we don’t live in Europe, gas prices are nutso there. Of course, if I was in Europe, I might have a halfway decent public transportation system…
Fisher-Price little people toys. When I was growing up, they were way cool. My “Little People” village had a TON of people and accessories and vehicles and stores. And everything came assembled in the box, no pain-in-the-neck stickers for my parents to have to apply. And there were so many different cool toys of that type…the A-Frame House, the Hospital (with that X-Ray machine that you pressed down and it showed a skeleton!), the houseboat…those toys ROCKED.
Now, I’m in the situation of buying Fisher-Price little people toys for my kids. The cute, minimalist little people have been replaced with shrunken Cabbage Patch dolls. The “Main Street” has four stores, three people, three vehicles…eh. They do still have a Farm and Airport, and I have to say, I like the Amusement park with an actual working loop-de-loop roller coaster, but it feels like the attention to detail isn’t there.
And I HATE having to apply the darned stickers. An eighth of an inch off and the whole toy looks wrong.
For what it’s worth, my kids do seem to like the toys. But I think the old ones were more bang for your toy buck, even adjusted for inflation.
A zillion and one trailers before the movie you rented or bought starts! I know there have always been trailers, but has anyone else noticed that there seems to be quite a few of them, and they are longer than ever? There are at least ten in front of Monsters, Inc.
Things that suck nowadays but didn’t in the good old days:
Television, especially Fox. If the makers of The Simpsons or The X Files were proposing their shows to the current crop of Fox executives for the first time, they would be rejected, and Fox would instead choose “reality-TV” special called When Ordinary Women Act like Total Bitches in Hopes of Getting a Million Dollars, Part 6.
Toothbrushes. It used to be that stores offered one kind of toothbrush and it worked just find. Now you get thirty billion brands that are all twisted at really weird angles that all make it harder to reach your back teeth.
Presidents named George Bush. Back in my day, when you had a President named George Bush he was at least thrifty enough to keep the deficit under 400 billion dollars per year, and smart enough to know that bombing a country wouldn’t automatically convert it into a democracy.
Movie theatres. It used to be that there were no commercials before movies. Then there were one or two. Now there are about twenty minutes worth before you even get to the coming attractions. I’ve basically stopped going to theatres now, since I’ve never understood why I should pay to see advertising.
The high prices of Gibson and Fender guitars…DANG!
Well, here’s my list-
Cell Phones- Yeah, they were mentioned before, but I think they suck for LOTS of reasons: Cell phone always seems to have a dead battery/out of service when I need it, people who are inconsiderate and have cell phones going off in movie theaters or college lectures.
Cars/Computers- Every car/computer I had always had something wrong with it at any given time. Something was either broken or malfunctioning (often MANY things weren’t working properly). Everytime one thing would get fixed something else would go wrong.
(Note to myself: no fellatio from Floater. Unclear on technique.)
Umm… you’re supposed to rub your hands, you know. Try it next time.
I agree. Just because most of us have cell phones (‘mobiles’ over here 
) doesn’t mean they can’t run out of batteries/ get lost/ left at home by accident. But most annoying of all - if you don’t have one when abroad on holidays or the network isn’t compatible then you can be really screwed.
What I really hate though about nowadays is those ‘proud parents’. Thery’re so over-anxious and over-protective. You can’t cough near their kids, drink or smoke within sight of their kids, look at their kids funny, express anything other than pure enthusuaism for their noise, hi-jinks, mischief and general ‘charm’.
As a result there are a LOT of obnoxious kids out there - God only knows what the world will be like when all these little darlings grow up and we’re the senior citizens relying on their support…
In my day parents and kids had a bit of humility and we were perfectly happy. If the adults were socialising in one room, you and any other kids went into the other room/ garden to play. Now parents won’t let kids out of their sight so the rest of us not only have to put up with them but have to focus the entire bloody conversation around them too. Arrgghh! I’ll stop now before I get really mad :mad:
Concerning commercials before movies…I’ve started making
raspberry noises during these commercials. No one seems to
mind. Usually some people laugh. I’m hoping it will catch on.
When I was young, it seemed like there were lots of teenage
boys eager to mow your lawn for 10 bucks. Now I can’t find
one who will actually show up to mow the lawn for $50.
Even the poor kids seem to have a lot of disposable income
and don’t feel the need to earn more. Or if they do, they
go to work for McD.
I think that the Internet and computers in general suck. I know… they pay my salary and allow me to spend lots of time surfing, but it seems that I didn’t really feel the lack of these things in the past.
Clearly, there are lots of good things to be said about the extreme connectivity we now have. I don’t see this making life easier; on the contrary, it has simply gotten us into more of a frenzy and cranked up the clock speed of life to an unnecessary level.
An aside: I often wonder what ham radio operators do these days. It was so cool to talk to some fellow on the other side of the world, even if it was in Morse code. I often imagine present-day hams simply exchanging e-mail addresses.
There’s a kid who lives a few houses down who came over whenever it snowed last winter, offering to do the walk and driveway. It seemed so Norman Rockwell-esque that I couldn’t possibly send him away empty handed.
- On-ramp panhandlers (and the jerk that stops traffic because he wants to lean out his window with a five)
- urban bicyclists. They slow down traffic, break the rules, and make drivers nervous
- candy bars, getting smaller and smaller
- protesters that block traffic on the freeway by marching onto it
- those “truth” commercials: you’re not schooling anyone, guys. we know cigarettes are bad. Stop delaying the working world with your bodybags/mecha-babies in the streets
- non-innovative music, such as the majority of rock (who the hell thinks 4/4 timing with a snare on 3 is a good idea?) It gets old. It takes no talent. It makes me want to cuss, and it ruins my day.
- the dumbing down of computers in order to make them accessible to everyone. People who don’t understand the basics of hardware and the basics of an operating system, like how to use DOS, should not be allowed to use computers. I don’t want everything to be controlled by two big ass Fisher-Price buttons that say “yes” and “no”, or “stop” and “start”.
- mouse users. The keyboard is so much faster (shortcuts).
- TV
- people that speak in cliches, or proverbs, or buzzwords… because they either aren’t aware of their problem or they believe they sound clever.
T.V. Repairs. Used to be able to pop out the little tube, take it down to the grocery store, and pop it in the machine doohicky (very technical term). If it was bad, buy a new tube and your set. Now, it’s cheaper to buy a whole new tv than get one fixed.
A concerned Cable Guy…
Oh ya, and cell phones too. When was the last time you over heard an important conversation taking place on one of those??? You never hear " prep the OR, I’ll be at the hospital in 5 min". Nooooooo, all you hear is “no way” “she didn’t” “like…I know” absolute crap. And parents, don’t buy your kids theses evil f*cking devices. I saw a 12yo with a cell phone today.