Innocuous things that make you irrationally angry (a list thread)

savages

NEVER LET A PAPERBACK GO THROUGH THE WASHING MACHINE

But mark s, how do you get the grass stains out of your football kit without using Sylvia Plath's Ariel?

use George Non-bio obv

Oh, paperbacks should be a bit battered, but principles of rockism should be applied to comics.

I dunno, I'm with Lester Bangs on this specific one: "My (mono) copy of "White Light White Heat" is well worn because I HAVE PLAYED IT SOOO MUCH!!!! (oh, Ok, it's second-hand really)...."

i wipe my ass with the mona lisa. on the bus, too.

Performance art?

more like self-publishing.

Here's something: That thing waiters are trained to do in restaurants where about 2 mins into your meal, no matter what, they interrupt the flow of any conversation to ask if everything's alright with your meal. Generally they won't leave until they've received a satisfactory answer. Very annoying, because much of the time you've barely tasted it yet.

ppl who own or deploy or otherwise approve and encourage UMBRELLAS it is the wheelie-suitcase of the sky plus WITH SPIKED BARBS TO TAKE YOUR EYE OUT -- it is only water, you won't dissolve you nesh feebs

Yeah, I'm always amazed at how many people seem to have the foresight to bring these out with them as well. I just wear a mac. How come I never notice people carrying the umbrellas when it's not raining - where do they produce these bastarding things from?

aha the actual incident that brought on that IA-spasm was dodging past the vicious hedgehog umbrella spines of THREE PEOPLE walking with open umbrellas when it hadn't even really started spitting, it was just threatening to maybe

i: YOU WILL NOT DISSOLVE, this isn't actually even water yet
ii: you in fact caused it to rain later by putting the umbrellas up now, this is obvious

If you were a sandstone statue, you may dissolve in the rain, just saying...

We're all water from diff'rent rivers,
That's why it's so easy to meet.
We're all water in this vast, vast ocean,
Some day we'll evaporate together.

nah, pristine paperbacks are pretty suspicious imo. obviously take better care of beautiful hardbacks but even there there's degrees.

― Frogbs (Pray Like Aretha Franklin (in Whiteface)) (Noodle Vague), Monday, 5 September 2011 13:11 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

I went out with a girl who I swear never even touched any books she owned. They went right up on the shelf and stayed there. I vaguely remember her going apeshit when I, I dunno, had a quick flick through one of them or something...

Here's something: That thing waiters are trained to do in restaurants where about 2 mins into your meal, no matter what, they interrupt the flow of any conversation to ask if everything's alright with your meal. Generally they won't leave until they've received a satisfactory answer. Very annoying, because much of the time you've barely tasted it yet.

If they are observant enough to do this after you've tasted your meal, I like it, it's a nice little stage in the dining-out ritual. If they do it too quickly, it's irritating. Sometimes when a server approaches too soon and says "how is everthing?" I give them the Full Attention Stare and say "I have no idea."

Everything...IN THE WORLD?

I have comics with coffee rings on them! I'm oddly careful with paperbacks, though.

xpost I just hate it - the conversation's just getting going and then it gets interrupted on a formality. If there was anythign wrong or if I needed anything I'd ask. However the worst offenders of these restaurants tend to be the type where getting hold of a waiter when you need one is nigh impossible.

Saturday night I actually brought my check up to the waitress as she was chatting with her friends because I was tired of waiting.

Was she appropriately abashed?

it was only the second time I'd been there and I wasn't sure if that's what you're supposed to do anyway (hipsterish diner-type place) and she was like "sorry, I'm kinda spacing out tonight" ¬_¬

i would empathetically accept that as an explanation tbh

I hate whe I order an entree that includes a side, then say that I would also like a side of Mac and cheese and immediately be told I can't substitute. No fucking shit, I didn't say anything about substituting, I want them both.

idgi

Oh yeah, "I'll have a Chicken burger with latte, a chicken salad with latte"

and I got the salad, so I "Where's the Chicken burger?", and she's "oh, you want both? I thought you'd changed your mind!"

Because it's confusing when there's less people at the till than are actually eating.

it was only the second time I'd been there and I wasn't sure if that's what you're supposed to do anyway (hipsterish diner-type place) and she was like "sorry, I'm kinda spacing out tonight" ¬_¬

Where were you?

Bite on Western

nb I was not *that* annoyed, but the restaurant is not that big and she wasn't helping anyone else

haha was recently talking to friends about the current trend of one short banal word for a restaurant or store. more fake IA than real though. "Bite" "Fork" "Counter" "Couch" (actual furniture store I saw somewhere in CA) "Flavor" "Sweet" "Basil" argh think I'm working myself up to real deal IA now...

Jeff are you referring to your dinner last night?

No

The 'how is everything' seems REALLY needy in semi-fast food places like Chili. Because it's usually nano seconds after the food has been set down, and it is usually the whole point of them stopping by, is to ask that question. It's sort of shorthand like "PLEASE GOD TELL US THERE WASN'T ANY HAIR IN YOUR FOOD".
I like at a good restaurant with good service that they'll tie the question into refilling your water glasses, or somehow know to wait til there's a lull in conversation as they're passing by.

Ha, there's a "Fork" I'm Chicago, too.

The 'how is everything' can be annoying but it's ok if it's just once. I was at this place the other day with a table of about 8 people and they kept asking us! 'how is everything.... everything still ok? how's everything...?' til we began to suspect they'd put something gross in the food and wanted to see if we'd noticed.

Jeff and I once ate at a regional chain in NC where every ten minutes the waiter would stop and ask "Is everything DELICIOUS???" and I wanted to strangle him.

(flicks spoonful of mashed potato at face)

The third time I cut him off. "Is everything -" "DELICIOUS??? YES IT IS!" And then the next time he came, he said, "Is everything d -- wonderful?"

On investigation, it was not a regional chain. It was a Carrabbas, which had trees growing on the roof and which I had never heard of until it opened. For the first six months there was a consistent two hour wait for dinner there because I guess people were all tired of Olive Garden.

I suspect managers lean on servers to constantly check on customers. Servers probably get demerits or whatever if they don't ask enough times. I'd be willing to bet that the servers hate asking repeatedly as much as the customers hate being asked repeatedly.

I know that to be true, but this fellow was definitely wearing 37 pieces of flair.

Got 98% in a test that's worth 2.5% of the total mark. The points they took off were because of mistakes THEY had made in the questions, not my answers. I just.

Oh and I'm sure it's been mentioned but web site polls that ask a very simple y/n answer but provide FOUR options, all of which are a freaking essay e.g. http://www.tuaw.com/2011/09/05/youre-the-pundit-will-ios-and-os-x-merge/#poll68668

It was a Carrabbas, which had trees growing on the roof and which I had never heard of until it opened.

i think i've seen these in some deep-suburbia malls. definitely for affluent/aspirational ppl who don't want the olive garden stink on 'em.

what's the deal with macaroni grill btw? never been to any of these places.

I can't go there, it just makes me think of grilled macaroni, and flee.

exactly, if you tried to grill macaroni, it'd get stuck and fall apart.

Notable former employees

Eva Angelina - Adult film star
Tal Berkowitz - Vaccine advocate
Ragan Fox - Big Brother 12 (U.S.) houseguest

Macaroni Grill is okay, I think? It's one of those "paper on the tables, server kneels down and writes his/her name on your table paper" kind of places, plus they put jugs of wine on the table and then charge you for whatever you drank, and the portions are LOLhuge.

I mean, it's gimicky strip mall Italian but it's better than Olive Garden. So if you are very tired and hungry after a long day at the outlet malls, you could do worse.

writes his/her name upside-down on your table paper

I had one co-worker treat me to a birthday lunch who wrote his name back upside-down *plus* with a little caricature of himself ala John Lennon.

Getting sung "Marcella Bella" to was only the third-most embarrassing moment of that trip.

Macaroni Grill is orders of magnitude better than Olive Garden. They have actually somewhat decent Italian food and the whole character of the place is nicer. And I think the owner is known for being a big do-gooder w/r/t to feeding starving people. (insert obvious but potentially hilarious joke here)

But yes, the name always makes me think of macaroni noodles on a grill.