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

Our (plasma) TV changes its aspect ratio automatically depending on if the digital channel/DVDs signal says its widescreen or not. Well, usually. Sometimes I have to prod it manually.

Cant say Ive noticed the harsh HD interpolation but our TV signals are diff here anyway being PAL. US TV always looked weird in Aus, really fuzzy and strange and blurred (lower res/FPS?). But I dont really know the technical reasons and I'm waiting for sic or someone in the biz to tell me I'm talking out of my bum :)

Yeah, US's NTSC was lower quality than PAL by quite a way, with many fewer lines/screen (we benefited from being behind the times and introing TV later)--not sure how this works these HDTV days, though.

I do notice a few annoying things w/the plasma. The contrast is a little washy on ours - no true black - and in very dark scenes, theres this weird movement-blur effect you see on the screen. Like, a smearing effect?

wait, sic's a proctologist?

that is but one of his many talents

tbf i asked specifically for the professional title, proctology is one field where you don't want to find yrself at the mercy of a talented amateur

genuine lol

Trayce are you talking abt digital compression (like the way blacks appear in a divx file)?

Also is it "trace" or "tray-see"?

Hah thats a funny thing to ask after all these yrs! (its "trace").

Its not artefacting really - though that also becomes VERY obvious on a 50in TV, I tell you (ugh why do the media just get lazy and blow up youtube clips on the damn news now?). Its this strange motion-blur smearing effeect but it is really only visible/annoying im a really dark scene.

I thought it was "trace" but someone told me they always thought it to be like "Tracy" and that kinda blew my mind (like finding out "Louis" is pronounced like "Louie")

old people who mention in general conversation how they're probably going to die soon. not like your grandpa in a serious convo, but this patron at work telling me she's not going to bother learning some new skill because she's 76 and she's probably only got 10 years left. quit feeling sorry for yourself, you already made it further than most people.

my step-grandmother does this all the time and i get annoyed at her too.

a) ppl who try to organise, say, a camping trip by sending out a group email with no joke, at least 10 date ranges to choose from. none of which fall anywhere near public holidays FOR WHICH CAMPING WAS DESIGNED. but it's more the vast number of dates to sift through that annoys me

b) ppl in the email group, notorious slackers/non decision-makers who respond to said email saying either "any time is good for me just let me know" or "I can go on these 4 dates let me know what you decide"

sometimes I hate my friends.

needless to say we should get this trip nailed down by...oooh December

ppl who step into the elevator, press the button for their floor, and then stand there as if guarding the buttons from any further use

this has surely been mentioned already, but searching 10k posts for it would make me ia

elevator use is almost 100% ia start to finish

pretty much anything that involves people lately just makes me reach for my flamethrower

The other day I had a long elevator IA post planned but I forgot it by the time I got to my office. It was about people who get on the elevator and say "Going up?" when there is an indicator light showing which way the elevator is headed.

Wait did I post this already? I can't even remember anymore.

This actually happened to me while reading your post while riding the elevator back from lunch a minute ago.

I said that this morning to someone in the elevator with me at my kids' daycare. We were in the lobby and there are only two floors. I thought I was hilar.

I have one coworker who is not able to ever ride an elevator in silence. She's lovely, quite pleasant to talk to normally but it's like the confined space makes her nervous so she will gab away about her lunch or her shoes or her hair or her jacket or whatever for the entire elevator ride (thankfully only 2 floors). I always want to hug her and say 'shhh it's okay, it's okay"

Stop. Sharing. George Takei. Posts.

old people who mention in general conversation how they're probably going to die soon.

My dad's side of the family is notorious for this, but not in a self-pitying way. My dad and his sisters were all late-80s to mid-90s when we last spent holidays together and their small talk was, "Yah, 88's old enough."

"Yah, that's for sure. I don't want to live as long as Papa or Ma. Even Uncle Ludwig lived too long."

Putting zombies in everything. Over-saturation of zombies has really grated on me.

Stop. Sharing. George Takei. Posts.

OMG yessss. He's just like everyones weird old uncle who just discovred the internet. THATS NOT FUNNY.

Stop. Sharing. Andy Borowitz. Posts.

fixed

the elevator at work has front and back doors, leading to even more awkwardness

tbh nearly everything in this thread involves rational anger -- my biggest truely irrational anger is when ppl try to talk to me (in person) when i am on the phone. that is also rational, but it enrages me way out of proportion to its objective offensiveness. fortunately this doesn't happen much since i stopped working in bookstores

and/or truly

Oh gosh yes I am like that about phonecalls too. I'm like "ffs I cant listen to two people at once". Esp hard thanks to hearing loss in one ear.

ppl who leave radio/music playing while they are watching tv.

On the flip, I'm not crazy when people on the phone are all "So yeah we're going to meet -- oh shit. What's going on? There's .. like.. some blue lights up here. Everyone's slowing... Huh. Just a guy pulled over speeding... I wonder how fast he was going?"

SO WHEN ARE WE GOING TO MEET, YOU WERE SAYING?

I used to have a friend who'd call me at random when he was bored at work (worked nights often) and, every time without fail, while talking to me something to do with his job would cause him to say "hang on gotta take this" and put me on hold/put the phone down while he did work things. Frequently, the call would be 90% me sitting there waiting for him to finish work shit. I got fed up with it eventually and told him to stop calling me WHEN HE CANT TALK BECAUSE HE IS BUSY AT WORK.

haha my ex had a friend who would basically only call her when she was in cabs or something because she was bored

you guys have cool friends

the opposite is just as bad. I used to sit next to a friend of mine at work and he'd start telling me something and I'd reply and as I was about to start replying he'd say 'Hold on I'm on a call'...and I'd be like RRAAAGGGH DON'T START A CONVERSATION WHILE YOU'RE ON THE PHONE YOU JERK

the best was when I first moved here, I had to call my mother in law about something, who was a teacher at the time. I call her cell phone and she answers it and I start talking and she says "Um I can't talk right now I'm TEACHING A CLASS". I was mortified. Like holy shit dude let it go to voicemail then! The thing I found out later was she didn't know how to retrieve voicemail so she habitually answered ALL incoming calls, no matter where she was.

!!!!!!!!!

I don't mind taking phone calls at work, I find it snaps me out of autopilot, sometimes you get lonely sitting in a cubicle.

Jesse calls me at work and puts me on hold bc he's busy and I just hang up. He always calls back.

People who can't be bothered to review the material before coming to an important meeting...when they have been specifically assigned to a committee and asked to review the material.

Jesse calls me at work and puts me on hold bc he's busy and I just hang up. He always calls back.

Read that as "Jesus" first. Didn't know carl was a Nashville songwriter.

"Jesus, Hold My Calls"

ppl who leave radio/music playing while they are watching tv.

This. I don't know what it is, but I get this massive surge of contempt for people who leave multiple sources of noise going? I want to shake them until their heads snap and then turn everything off and start over.

But I'm also the fuckin killjoy who says you can either listen to music in the car, or talk. Not both.

ha, i recently spent time in the company of someone who listening to music while playing online games with the sound effects on, i was all set for strangling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS_OVZtVa4E

Didn't know carl was a Nashville songwriter.

― pplains, Wednesday, June 6, 2012 1:33 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I once had a dream I won an award for a country sing called "You Changed Your Heart (Why Won't You Change Your Mind)." I'm going to write that sng one day.

bosses/managers/higher-ups who fuck something up for you and instead of saying 'whoops, nevermind', they just stay the course, attempt to justify it, and make everything worse for everyone

Failure and Rescue, by Atul Gawande

But I'm also the fuckin killjoy who says you can either listen to music in the car, or talk. Not both.

Argh! Why? Music can play in the background. Are you also against music in bars? My boss does this. She, a co-worker, and I had to take two two-hour rides to and from a meeting and she would turn off the radio at the slightest conversation, so we wound up sitting in silence for long stretches.

Strange, I was on the phone at the bus stop and some guy started conversing at me about somebody walking by barefoot. He just kept on chatting while I was talking.

I can't hear when there are more than two things going on at once.