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

that really gets my goat too

People who reach a four-way stop intersection before me, but then try to wave me through the intersection ahead of them. Just do what the goddamn traffic laws tell you to do, please. (This happened to me three times in a four-block span today.)

― Neil Jung (WmC), Friday, July 6, 2012 1:07 PM (10 hours ago)

yes yes yes this, for god's sake, this. intersections are not a thoughtfulness contest. if you have the right of way, avail yourself! make haste! do not stand there making some odd gesture that you hope i will eventually interpret as "no, really, you first, i insist." while people accumulate behind the both of us. just go! i assure you i will manage.

seattle has to be the world capitol of this. ironically, no one stops for pedestrians in crosswalks.

Ooo, the waver-throughers. It would be quicker if they just kept driving than me trying to figure out why is this person stopped and what are they doing.

I especially love when they do it and there's traffic coming from the opposite direction. Who made you king of the road?

― tokyo rosemary, Saturday, July 7, 2012 1:58 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

know the feeling, have been standing on the side of the road looking at both lanes of traffic watching for a crossable gap and had a driver slow down to wave me across when there was a crossable gap directly behind them if they hadn't done so and breaking up the gap so it wasn't crossable. Also not noticing/caring that there was a vehicle coming in the other direction when they waved me across, that itself had to suddenly slow down when if it'd just been left to me to pick my moment there was a far more natural break.
Or getting to the middle of the road and pausing, timed so that once this car has passed there is a sizable gap only to find that that car has decided that it needs to make a spectacle of slowing down to accommodate you, which it isn't doing. & you've now lost the sizable gap before the next car.

yeah last time the waving across happened the driver had completely ignored what was coming from the other direction. So it wasn't much of a favour being done. & i'd mistakenly assumed the car had seen what was on its far side, which I hadn't and wound up stuck in the middle of the road with a wave of traffic trying to slow down.
Generous drives or sociopaths?

EDF's new billing system. i'm now sent two sheets of paper which effectively tell me to send them a reading and then they'll send me 3 more sheets of paper with an actual demand for money. x2 as i'm with them for gas and electricity and, of course, both bills arrive on the same day...

their new catchphrase, according to the envelope, appears to be "Thank yous". what does that even mean?

Waver-thru'ers:

I don't know too many other places that have these off-ramps from the interstate that lead directly onto municipal streets, forcing the city drivers to yield to the cars barreling down the ramp at 60 mph. The design may be flawed, but I understand why the city drivers are told to yield, to avoid any head-on collisions.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/4102/screenshot20120707at112c.png

But every now and again, you'll get some courteous yahoo stopping at the bottom of the ramp, attempting to wave on city drivers into harm's way. Sitting at the yield sign, you almost feel like an asshole for not going ahead and breaking the law as you watch the cars pile up behind the Samaritan, honking their horns and flashing their brights. But, if you were to drive through the intersection and got hit, guess who would be at fault.

Just follow the signs. And don't follow the signs that aren't there.

that's fucking bizarre (not just the behavior, but also the traffic planning it's attempting to circumvent). just put a stop sign at the bottom of the ramp!

You think that's bizarre? How about this intersection where drivers have to yield to cars coming at them head-on?

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/4302/screenshot20120707at114.png

The cars coming at the camera have the right-of-way and are crossing over the lane to get to the entrance ramp to the freeway. Only intersection that makes me nervous around here.

where's iatee been? I miss him.

i hear it said that he is working and living a man's life

It was Man who built those interstates.

When you ask someone repeatedly not to do something. And they do it, again and again, because they have realised that it is an easy way to annoy and rile you. And it's so hilarious when people are riled!

Wait, that's not irrational at all, is it? That is actually just irritating. And the people who do it are wankers.

you can't really expect people to heed your polite requests when you aren't, you know, polite

Also, the ~politeness stick~ with which men love to admonish women, and to deny their requests.

The first umpteen times you reasonably ask "don't do this" will be utterly invalidated by the umpteenth and one time when you say "DON'T FUCKING DO THIS" which means that you clearly deserve for people to do it to you, as much as possible.

Oh wait, that's not that irrational, either, is it?

hit me with your politeness stick.

Last two times I drove around the U district in Seattle (earlier today being one of them) I had some asshole just cross the street in front of me without looking in the middle of the street. Legal or not the laws of physics governing vehicles moving at 30mph cannot be ignored and fuck you for making me almost kill you.

― joygoat, Saturday, July 7, 2012 12:58 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's a big problem with these people in downtown Cleveland crossing back and forth in front of the federal office building, without crosswalks or the right of way. A couple weeks ago the police stood there in the morning and at lunchtime handing out jaywalking tickets that were well over $100, and people had the bad taste to be indignant about it.

All the assholes who tailgate me along the extended highway offramp only to realise "oh hey this ain't another lane it's an offramp" & quickly merge back onto the freeway.
Dickwagons.

The first umpteen times you reasonably ask "don't do this" will be utterly invalidated by the umpteenth and one time when you say "DON'T FUCKING DO THIS" which means that you clearly deserve for people to do it to you, as much as possible.

nah, it's simpler than that. be they men or women, those with whom you skirmish will seldom concern themselves much with your feelings, even if you ask nicely. rule of thumb.

fwiw, i get irrationally angry about people who run power tools before noon. the antemeridian hours are to be kindly reserved for sleep and the silence in which fortifying tonics may be achingly imbibed.

speaking of which, there's a bindle containing three found cigarettes, a rag of sterno and half a can of leftover cat food out there somewhere with my name on it

fwiw, i get irrationally angry about people who run power tools before noon. the antemeridian hours are to be kindly reserved for sleep and the silence in which fortifying tonics may be achingly imbibed.

8 a.m. to 10 p.m. is fair game for lawn care, power tools and phone calls imo. In the hottest summer months, 7 a.m. is a reasonable start time. And when I was having my house reroofed in 2009, I had no objection to a 6:30-2:00 workday.

make it a 10 a.m. start time and i agree with you.

In my city, ordinances restrict the use of lawn mowers and power tools within 300 feet of a residential dwelling to 7am-9pm.

ia: i want to start a "every challop ever" thread but i know it'll just turn into a lot of butthurtedness and shitslinging.

dude in coffee shop wearing a "My indian name is runs with beer" shirt.
Currently plotting his demise.

also this coffee shop is always lovely and slow & friendly. Today: too goddamn slow.

- went to gym today
- thought about Bill McGill's fan man
- LOLed

at some point i was gonna poll the regulars at my gym, but never did. ppl do some bizarre shit, although i've never seen anyone with a fan (tbh i could use one).

there was one dude who used to do his stuff and then shadowbox between sets, which would normally make me rmgde, but a) he was obviously serious, not just showing off b) he was courteous and friendly with ppl around him and c) he looked like john derek as joshua in the ten commandments, only in better shape. i'm as straight as the day is long, but good lord

O_O

oh i didn't want to consort with him, but i *was* a little in awe /frankocean

http://www.briansdriveintheater.com/beefcake/johnderek/johnderek20.jpg

"Mmmmmmmmmmmookieproof!"

wd consort

Jeff, Jesse, and I took a spin class once during which a dude spread his towel across the handlebars of his spin bike, making a towel hammock that he proceeded to hock loogies into for the duration of the class.

whaaaat

omg you took a spin class with ben gibbard?

Does Ben Gibbard spit a lot?

based on my limited experience yes and for no good reason (although i am not a singer)

- You might imagine the spin horker as a grotesque meathead or crusty oldster, but he was a fit, young, vivacious, upbeat latino-American, who frequently hooted with enthusiasm and encouragement. So weird.

- there is a guy who has been going to my gym for years who does intense sessions on the elliptical while chomping like crazy on a big wad of his sweat towel. I gag when I see it, and even just thinking about it.

- I read Wm's post re intersection violations about 10 minutes before driving into a T intersection where I was on the street that ended (the only one part with a stop sign) taking a left. A driver coming from the left stopped and waited. I verified she had no stop sign, so I waited and stared at her, and she waited and stared at me, and we waited until the soupy Carolina dusk descended on us and I honked, turned left, and gave her the finger.

Aaarrggggh!! I hate the mta. Something was wrong with their credit card connection this morning and so you couldn't buy any cards using a credit or debit card from the vending machines. Because I tried my transit benefits card more than five times (trying several different machines), wage works put an effing lock on my card and now I have to wait for two days for the lock to be released to be able to buy this card that I've already paid for via my paycheck. And this stupid company has no way of releasing the lock and I spent nearly 40 min on the phone with them to find this out. Ugh. I tried to convince them to reimburse me for these 2 days out of pocket but they would not budge.

Jesse and I can both empathize with navigating the labyrinthine horrors of transit benefit. That's crazy frustrating.

the drivers in portland seem to do the "no no you go ahead" thing a lot, which makes me so angry.

that said, i accidentally put one foot into an intersection before realizing i didn't have a walk sign, and this car just sat there, the occupants staring at me. i waved them by and said, "sorry!" and as they passed, they said, "next time you die, faggot!" i was like, "wow, what a nice first interaction in portland."

- I read Wm's post re intersection violations about 10 minutes before driving into a T intersection where I was on the street that ended (the only one part with a stop sign) taking a left. A driver coming from the left stopped and waited. I verified she had no stop sign, so I waited and stared at her, and she waited and stared at me, and we waited until the soupy Carolina dusk descended on us and I honked, turned left, and gave her the finger.

― Je55e, Monday, July 9, 2012 2:59 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just wanted to repost this because that last bit is beautiful. Also I've thought about this post and laughed a few times since yesterday.

xpost yikes

on the busy street near our house, between two sets of stop lights there is a crosswalk that is basically the "gauntlet of death" - it comes right after a bend in the road so you really can't the see full length of the street, and it's two lanes in both directions, so people go a little faster than a surface street. The crosswalk had got to the point where it even had those little flashy lights embedded into the asphalt, ...but the thing was, there was no real other signage aside from lines painted on the road...so since it's not an actually traffic light everyone mostly goes, meh whatever fuck you I ain't stopping. Half the cars doing a decent clip down the street just blow right through the crosswalk whether someone's crossing or not. As a pedestrian, you could have one car stopped for you and never know for sure if the other 3 were going to slow down. Slowing down to let them cross, I've seen people almost hit by the car in the next lane who decided to pass on the whole stopping thing. Scary.

So they just repaved this section of street, and now the lines, and the lights from the crosswalk are totally gone. There's no crosswalk, for all intents and purposes. I dunno if they're going to replace them, or if they just abandoned it as a failed experiment. Like 'Clearly that section of street is uncrossable." There's technically no crosswalk except for the sloped indents in the curb on either side of the street. But the hospital staff there still stand there like they're going to try and cross the street! I've seen people try to do it! I don't understand why you would. And I want to pull over and say, 'Look, I'll DRIVE you to the nearest set of traffic lights so you can cross the street. Please for the love of god don't cross there until they repaint it."

Jesse and I can both empathize with navigating the labyrinthine horrors of transit benefit. That's crazy frustrating.

Yes. I am the administrator of transit benefits at my work and it's ridiculous. As I've posted before, the REGIONAL Transit Authority and the CHICAGO Transit Authority have completely redundant programs for the CTA, but the new news is that on the RTA's program, neither the passenger nor the administrator have any means of finding out ANY info whatsoever about renewal dates, expiration dates, lost cards, etc. When I call the RTA, they say, "You need to talk to your plan administrator." I tell them that I am the admin, and they say, "You should already have that information." [I] SHOULD ALREADY HAVE THAT INFORMATION! Information that no one has ever provided or told me where to find (except referring me back to myself for it.)

I switched us to the CTA plan, but it takes 2 months to start the program.

haha. just tell yourself the information you need to know. it's that simple.

"I told myself that my card never expired, and that if I lose my card, I can just ride for free forever."

VG your crosswalk post reminds me of what happened to Raquel Nelson in Georgia (warning: it is shitty beyond belief and infuriating and involves the death of a small child): http://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/07/22/the-streets-and-the-courts-failed-raquel-nelson-can-advocacy-save-her/

That also reminds me to call my alderman again about repainting the cross walk lines at the corner where I cross the street to catch the bus every day.

They (who??) have been putting up highly visible signs in the middle of streets in some crosswalks, including the one in front of my apartment building. This is a really good thing. Motorists have very noticeably started slowing down and stopping far more since they put that one in.