Yippee-IA, Motherf***ers! IRRATIONALLY ANGRY PT. 2: Irrationally Angrier

occasionally I print to a huge plotter at work. *using photoshop*

so later or the next day or whenever, I open EXCEL. when you print: the motherfucker defaults to the goddamn plotter & not the last printer i used in excel!! whyyy

i've only accidentally printed a spreadsheet on the plotter once but it's goddamn infuriating

fuuuck all machines

- trying to navigate an endless stream of people walking in the opposite direction staring down at their phones

I've come to the conclusion that 5% of the driving population think that the sequence of who proceeds next at a four-way stop is based on waiting time instead of position. Each afternoon, I run a gauntlet of two or three of these intersections located in our touristy district and yeah, out of a hundred drivers, I'd say I've got to put up with five drivers a month who think that since they were third in their line and I was second, they get to go first since there were there longer.

Unless we both pull up at the same time and they're on the right. Of course that means then that they try to wave me on out of turn.

I get a lot of really annoying sales calls at work because I work for a big law firm with a published phone directory and everything thinks I've got millions of sweet big firm dollars to invest in their mutual funds (or that I have anything to do with deposition or translation services, or that I can make purchasing decisions about large office equipment for my firm). So anyway ING Direct called and left a voicemail and I deleted it because I don't have time for that shit, but then someone saying he was the supervisor of the person who left me the voicemail sent me an email (actually sent it to the other c. agatha at my firm who was here before me and so got caga✧✧✧@big✧✧✧.c✧✧ as his email address whereas I got cfagatha@biglaw ("f" for "fuck your sales calls")) saying to please call this dude back because it was important and I was like, oh, well, okay maybe this is something that I forgot about? So I called and this is not a sales call but they are making appointments with people at my company to review our 401Ks blah blah blah this is totally a sales call.

The irrational anger here is at myself for not trusting my instincts. I'm debating whether to return that dude's email and tell him he sucks, but that's probably a bad idea from my work email. He totally sucks, though.

the same washington post guy calls my direct line at work every so often. last time i picked up because it was 6:30 and i thought no one would call that number unless it was important at that time. at first i was telling him i don't read newspapers but now i've resigned to say we already get it and he says thank you. so maybe he won't call anymore.

getting tricked into listening to a long diatribe about how Kubrick's Shining was nothing like the book and how terrible of a movie it is. it's a guy I generally like, but he sets up these bear trap conversations that start out innocently enough but he's just setting you up to talk about whatever crazy hobbyhorse he has today and then you're like nooooooooo and everyone leaves and you're stuck listening to him just u_u

and he demands eye contact and responses, so I can't look at my shoes before he's ducking his head looking at you all RIGHT? RIGHT?

but if you argue with him you'll be there all day

ugh it's the worst

this is the same guy who calls 2001 the 'worst adaptation ever' and rants on and on about The Sentinel being required reading when he was in school and I'm like, dude, Arthur C Clark COWROTE THE SCRIPT wtf and he's all 'I don't care who wrote it' and I'm like, 'Even if it's the AUTHOR of your beloved Sentinel?' SHUT UP JUST SHUT UP YOU ARE CRAZY AND EXHAUSTING WHYYYYYYYYYYYY

He sounds very annoying.

Quite.

there's this silly joke in the theatre community where the owners of the theatre/etc say "if you liked the show, tell your friends! if you didn't, shut up, we got your money!". real 'hah hah', y'know, but innocuous.

However, there's this local playwright who, for somewhat reason, has a following and still gets her scripts/works produced despite them being horrible dreck. and she ends her productions by saying 'if you liked it, tell your friends. if you didn't, tell your enemies.'

WTF SENSE DOES THAT MAKE? "Oh man totally shined my archnemesis from childhood, told them to go see this play that wasn't actually any good."

VG are you hanging out with Stephen King?

ughh i wish

he's a really nice guy but when he's on a tear he's just...idk...agressively stupid?

Hah, not sure why I should continue the discussion that I started and apparently never came back to, but I was mostly intending it to be other indoors, "quiet" spaces where others might be trying to do things that require concentration. Very specifically, it was reacting to two aggravating co-workers:

One likes to eat potato chips on and off throughout the day and I swear to god he must practice the forms to put his mouth in to maximize echo and volume as he chomps. It's vastly irritating when I'm trying to concentrate on a conference call during which I can barely hear one of the other parties (fuck you very much open plan offices!).

The second is a guy who likes to reheat leftoves and they are almost uniformly noxious smelling things.

"The book is better than the movie" is usually just a lame stealthbrag for "I read a book"

solidly I in my IA i am sure but i just received an auto-generated confirmation from a hotel 'signed' "with warmth" from the hotel manager. why would you claim something so patently false? did you really expect to project warmth? how can anyone believe any expression of sincerity or emotion from you as an individual if you are willing to put your name next to that?

"The book is better than the movie" is usually just a lame stealthbrag for "I read a book"

― Hier Komme Die Warum Jetzt (Hurting 2), Wednesday, June 11, 2014 3:15 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as a subset of this, I grow impatient with people who smugly ask me "uh, did you read the book?" when I say I like a movie adaptation of a book. Whether I did or I didn't, the film stands on its own merits. And the kicker, when I say I did and they act dumbfounded like nobody else could have read the book, seen the movie, and came up with a different conclusion than them. I had a friend arguing with me about how terrible the Catching Fire adaptation was for its 'ham-fisted' performances by the characters, nevermind the fact that it was written fairly histrionically, almost as if it was an action film on paper, to begin with!

Half the people I talk to who trot this out generally are the types who don't account for the difference in medium. Any change in content is deemed unacceptable, and edits for time are viewed with derision as if they would have preferred a 9-hour movie. Then I find out what movie adaptations they do like and they're these horrible, rote renditions of books that follow them closely but don't adapt the style to something better suited for the screen.

Alternatively, it's sometimes code for "I think books are a superior artform to film but I won't openly admit this." If you really love both mediums and have spent time with them, you realize it's impossible to expect a film to be "faithful" to a book.

oh yeah, it's almost always code. these are the same people who seem to want to ignore that visual elements are an integral component of filmmaking as opposed to focusing so much on the damn narrative.

Eh, I don't entirely disagree with you guys, but I'm going to disagree with you anyway. I frequently find films can't live up to books I've already read, precisely because the media are so different. In literature, there is often space for wide-ranging imaginings, even when something is described precisely. In film, this imagining is more usually circumscribed, purely by dint of the visual elements being directly presented to you. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but will jar with one's experience of a book. Also, literature can more accurately describe the inner workings of human experience, whereas even a film with an overtly personal POV struggles to achieve this. Not saying film *can't* manage it, but it has to use pretty different tricks to do so, and most mainstream film doesn't.

On the other hand, I can't imagine a book ever managing to create beauty like the set designs of 2001 (to use an example from this thread). Nor can many books express emotion in stillness like a film can, the words must continue running, whereas a film can use the tricks of visual art and music to conjure things without continuous exposition.

I might be drunk, btw.

i just watched blu-ray of 2001! frank's parents are such squares! can't imagine arthur c. clarke being able to convey that other than something like, "Frank thought to himself, 'Gosh, my parents are such squares!'"

I frequently find films can't live up to books I've already read, precisely because the media are so different.

well I will agree that are many books that shouldn't be filmed. The problem I had with the film version of We Need to Talk About Kevin is that the best parts of the book were largely unfilmable interior rambling monologue, and the film, for whatever reason, tried to cram this part in where they should have just stuck to the forward-moving narrative piece.

but I do think there are plenty of books that lend themselves to solid adaptations - thing is now, they get made into television series instead of movies.

is the book version feel-good? the movie was oddly uplifting.

Films that are better than the books would be a good thread. I think Dr. Zhivago is probably my favorite example -- meh book turned into a film masterwork. I never read The Shining but I just can't imagine it's as good as the film.

The Godfather is a classic case of this. And most Hitchcock adaptions, too (except Strangers on a Train which is an awesome book, too).

When musicians don't feel like rehearsing something and say "We'll just improv it, like jazz". Cos those jazz guys never rehearsed, right?

I loved Kubrick's version of the The Shining *because* it wasn't faithful to the book. I got burned early on by 'faithful' adaptations of his books and god how they sucked (hi Pet Semetary), so I was doing fucking cartwheels over Kubrick's version when I finally was able to see it.

Better than the book: Kurosawa's High and Low. But I'll save any others for that future thread.

The needless addition of digital elements to everything. The oven in our new place doesn't look more than a few years old, but it's already going haywire because of problems in the electronics. Why do I need a digital device merely to set the temperature of an oven?

people wearing merchandise from the chive

drivers, you are in a dark space behind shiny glass that's angled upwards. i look at you and all i can see is the sky reflected off the windscreen, i cannot see you waving me across by moving one finger an inch off the steering wheel.

why are you waving me across anyway? i stopped to wait for you. it's a road, i'm crossing it, it's the rules. and i'd rather cross behind you anyway. if you then stop to wait for me then you're wasting both our time.

(but nice to know you're paying attention, especially near a school)

Pedestrians can read turn signals too!

Wait, are you using a crosswalk? Or just cross the road at a random spot?

if you are a pedestrian, then you have the right of way by law. SO FUCKING TAKE IT. do not gesticulate lamely like a halfwit. FUCKING GO! if you do not, you are fucking things up for everybody. but mostly me.

if you are a driver, and you have the right of way, then TAKE IT. do not wave meekly or do some kind of psychic brain check to see whether i would rather have the right of way. FUCKING GO!

Fortune favors the bold.

Or you get hit by a car and die.

point is, when you are on the road, no kind of human interaction is EVER necessary in order to settle questions of coming and going. the law either gives you the right of way or it doesn't. if it does, then TAKE IT. NOW. WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT. if it doesn't, then please wait your turn. i promise it won't be long coming.

yes, and that means you do have to risk getting hit by cars. we live in the future, people! cars are the least of your worries.

i'm sure ppl getting hit by cars are v happy they didn't witness the stock market crash?

contenderizer OTM OTM OTM.

If you're standing on the corner with a finger hooked into your bottom lip, trying to ascertain whether or not you should proceed across the intersection even though traffic has stopped in all four directions waiting for your next move, then perhaps you should consider either never leaving your apartment again or moving way the fuck out to the country where there are no confusing crosswalks.

LIKEWISE, if you are driving an automobile, every rule of the road that you bend so that you can be some sort of four-wheeled Good Samaritan is inconveniencing other drivers and pedestrians who are playing by the rules behind you. Good Lord, yes, stop for the pedestrians who have the right-of-way, but don't sit there on your microfibered throne and try to wave or motion or point at anyone to move when they're not really supposed to.

> if you are a pedestrian, then you have the right of way by law. SO FUCKING TAKE IT.

not just randomly crossing the road you don't. it wasn't a pedestrian crossing or anything. i'm not going to step into the road in front of a moving car. are you trying to get me killed?

Someone I know was waved across the road by a driver a couple of months ago and got hit by a car coming along the other lane. Knocked 30ft through the air and broke a bunch of bones. Woulda been killed if his rucksack hadn't somehow cushioned his head from the road. Kind of his fault for not looking but drivers do this ALL THE TIME.

The whole waving someone out of turn is horrible. Even when there aren't pedestrians involved.

There's a grocery store on my way home with an access 50 feet from a stoplight on a five-lane road. People are always trying to edge out of there to turn left. When the light turns red, you'll get people who'll stop a car length behind the next one, opening up a spot for the grocery store people. But those GSP have to somehow wait for the PERFECT COMBINATION SWISS CHEESE EFFECT to take place in which ALL FIVE LANES MIRACULOUSLY FREEZE and open up a spot. It's not going to happen and more often than not, one of the outer lane cars will wave a grocery store person out who will then get hit by someone traveling in the inside lane.

I realize having to wait an extra 30 seconds is horribly inconvenient for drivers but yeah as a pedestrian weighing that vs., I dunno, paralysis or death, and you can wait your 30 seconds guys. Jeez.

I'll wait for a pedestrian to cross the street. I'm not going to park in the middle of the road and spend 30 seconds waving someone out to come join me from the sidewalk.

Yeah, I have seen drivers waving people (pedestrians and turning drivers) across traffic when they were in one of two lanes, and there was no one waving in the second lane. wtf, are they waving you past their car into certain doom?

Trickery

(i'm not that fussed about the waiting tbh, it happens in doorways too, it's people wanting to be the most polite. it's more the invisible finger waving that annoys me, irrationally)

(wasn't there something about the POTUS(?) and someone else not wanting to be the first through a door?)

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/11/21/bush2_wideweb__470x358,0.jpg

-things that are slightly difficult to open (medicine bottles, kids toy packaging, battery covers with tiny screws, etc.)

(xp & presidential exits, etc)