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

O the times when someone six years younger than me would be too young to buy smokes.

No kidding, no matter which way my license is interpreted, I'm legal to do whatever.

IL has it on theirs. Mine is 25 pounds off.

It's not on MA. Just height.

Yeah CA has it on theirs, mine's at least 20 pounds shy

I would change it but I'm probably going to end up gaining weight back so maybe it will be correct again.

I'm 31, and I don't drive, and I told her, yeah, I don't drive, I know that's against the law. It's one of those moments where someone just chose to be a jerk about it. Maybe it's common for 15-year-olds to go around using expired licenses to buy $20 worth of carrots, grapes, strawberries, other produce, and cigarettes.

I got refused cigarette papers once. What the hell is wrong with your country

- when people eat bananas on public transportation. The smell of bananas in an enclosed space is so gross.

― carl agatha, Thursday, 23 August 2012 19:58 (Yesterday) Permalink

YES. i once almost puked in a class because someone had eaten a banana and thrown it out. i had to move the trash can out of the room.
the banana ice cream thing disgusts me also. i hate the taste of very ripe bananas and very smooth mushy food textures make me gag.

I had no idea that bananas and their smell were so completely loathed!

Same here!

i sometimes eat on the tube when i'm rushed. now i feel bad about myself.

I like bananas and don't mind very ripe bananas and the other week I took 3 overripe bananas and mashed them and baked banana bread and my whole flat smelt of bananas all day and it brought me JOY

but still, when I eat one and throw out the skin, within 20 minutes I'm reminded to seal or put a lid on whatever container it's in, or it starts to take on a whole new level of smell which is not good at all imo

also I get bothered by long-lasting strong food smells which are not from my own food, e.g. I complained upthread about kebabs on buses and probably also about my officemate eating curry at the desk, but I eat kebabs (occasionally) and curry myself and find curry smell pleasing if it's my own dinner or a quick blast of smell as I walk past a takeaway

ia: the 240 bus goes to devonshire, but the recorded announcement always pronounces it "devonshore." like with an o.

When people refer to their toddlers as going to "school" when they mean "daycare".

^^^THIS

or adults when they mean university

Yeah but that's specifically a UK v US thing. Here school means kindergarten - college for most ppl.

We have school, then college, then university. Then we graduate. I quickly decided to never have a conversation about it with American people as it got too confusing :)

But... what if I'm going to the School of English at University?

Or Harvard College at Harvard University?

Yeah, I know - so confusing! I've sort of got a handle on it now though I'm still a bit iffy on what "college" is tbh.

We have school (elementary and high school) and then college. Colleges and Universities are the same here - they're both what you consider university - the difference between the two terms here is usually just down to the size of the specific school. I think.

lol I should have said size of the specific institution rather than "school" to avoid further confusion.

An answer from the internet:

This explanation is more cut and dry: If you hear a Canadian friend say that he or she is off to university in the fall, it’s not a matter of opting for the bigger word. In Canada, universities are degree-granting institutions, while colleges award only career diplomas and certificates. So while American students group colleges, universities, conservatories, and other degree-granting institutions under the name umbrella term “college,” there is an actual difference in the Great White North.

I'm still SO annoyed about the daycare thing.

My alma mater just recently changed its name from "College" to "University." Don't know that it matters much.

Then there's this Frankenstein's monster, designed to confuse everyone:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/college_guide/images/UMUC.jpg

The point is that in the US we use school or college to describe everything up through post graduate education. You say "so and so is a junior in college" regardless of whether they do to (for example) Bard College or Columbia University and if you ran into said student over the summer you'd say "When do you go back to school (or maybe college)? but never "When do you go back to University?"

Whereas school and college mean very specific parts of school to a person from the UK and most definitely do not mean University.

Fuck yeah, it's just confusing as hell.

My understanding was that colleges (in the US) focused on one particular academic field, and that universities were composed of several colleges.

That's mostly true. Some smaller schools (hah, see what I did there) are colleges but might be a little more multi-disciplinary than they once were. I still am amused that computer science gets grouped with mathematics as a major under the "college of liberal arts & sciences" at my alma mater where computer engineering, the other program it's somewhat close to, was in the engineering school.

I thought schools couldn't call themselves universities unless they get accredited as universities? Until they get that accreditation, they are colleges.

Wait no - that's not quite right but there is a difference: http://www.mercyhurst.edu/university/university-status-faqs/

^ sorry, that whole post referred to secondary education in the USA.

Yeah. I was oversimplifying when I said it was down to size but I meant insofar as that Unis are usually offer many things and are comprised of multiple colleges so are therefore almost always going to be a lot bigger.

I think of "school" as the most general term for any established (or unestablished) place for learning.

"I'm going to school in the fall." - could be college
"I graduated from school. SENIORS RULE!" - high school
"Today at school, I pasted macaroni" - elementary

Hell, there's even a School of Hard Knocks, that from what I can tell, has many who falsely claim alumnus.

With our children, we refer to their daily trips to the Child Development Center as "school". They learn. They have schedules. They don't just sit there and eat graham crackers while shitting their pants. It's a word we use with them to make them think of learning. Even if we were independently wealthy, I could see them still attending "school". Maybe they'd go to the fancy Episcopalian one down the way where Beethoven himself teaches piano lessons, but they'd still get their learning on somewhere.

I honestly don't think of that place as "daycare". I went to daycare as a kid. Lots of time in the backyard. Lots of kool-aid. Lots of TV. Lots of naptime. Lots of boredom.

office construction sucks

They don't just sit there and eat graham crackers while shitting their pants.

lol

You know what sucks? The last week in August when everyone is on vacation except me and I have nothing to do. BORED.

They don't just sit there and eat graham crackers while shitting their pants.

Unlike college students. </rimshot>

having just found out taht I do have access to Sky Arts and already caught a couple of great music programmes on it, I'm just wondering if I had it without knowing it for all this time.
So been going through the UPC tv listings looking at things that were on a channel that I didn't have and reconciling myself to not seeing them when I could have been watching them. Or has UPC only just added the channels?

Anyway got to see the '86 Iggy Pop bio, made for I think German tv, again just now. The one where they revisit the Stooge house and first showed a lot of the really early band footage. If I've been missing that kind of stuff on tv for a while when i had access to it I wish I'd known.

Not knowing how ribbon band cables are supposed to reconnect on the camera I just finally took apart a couple of weeks after finally getting a new screen since the old one shattered in a wind storm in 2009. Hoping to fuck that I haven't completely wrecked a camera that still took pretty good photos without a screen.

Think I may need to buy a magnifying glass and get back to this, just hope it is fixable. Like having a camera and I can't afford a new one.

Could also do with growing a 2nd set of arms/hands that I could coordinate and hide for the rest of the time. Anybody know any good radioactive siders anywhere around the west coast of ireland?

- Some people's reflexive need to respond to any good news with reasons why it's actually not that great. Fuck you! Be happy for other people! It's nicer that way, you miserable prat!

equally annoying is people who always try put a positive spin on any kind of bad news.

Specifically, I tell a colleague I've put in my notice here. He acts shocked and wants to know why, which is weird because he used to work here and quit. I tell him it's boring, the pay sucks, there are no opportunities for advancement, and there's no job security. He says all condescendingly, "And you think you're going to find those things where you're going?" Um... yes? That's why I accepted the other offer?

I'm so crabby today anyway. I think this thread is going to see a lot of me.

xp AGREED. Trying to put a positive spin on somebody else's bad news is just condescending.

he's only jealous.

"Oh yeah? How are you going to cope with being away from ALL THIS?" *motions toward file cabinets.*

That's totally it. He hates hates hates his job now and so assumes that all jobs are just as bad. Which is another IA thing - universalizing your experience all over me.

There was a smidgen of "silly girl, you don't know how the world works" in his comments, too, which UNSURPRISINGLY sent the Carl Agatha Rage Alert Level to Orange.

Some people always react that way, even denouncing what you've said, because it cuts too close. A few weeks later they're vocalizing the same thing or they magically switch jobs and act like they were in agreement with you the whole time.

some people are just miserable and don't know how to be any other way

- homemade greeting cards because I feel compelled to keep them when I would throw away store bought cards without a second thought.

ribbon cables in cameras that keep undoing when I'm trying to reassemble the thing.
Not having realised that I might need to solder a part of the camera, not that that might be the best way of attaching that bit.
& feeling lousy & fluey but thinking if I got into fixing the thing I might have a working camera. Now just have a disassembled thing that can't take pictures and a fear that screws may disappear.

& hoping that the supplies of the new Nick Cave covered Uncut with the Zappa reissue reviews in haven't all sold out around town cos the students are back. Couldn't see any left in the main newsagents in town yesterday & they had stacks on Tuesday. Normally still have it at the end of the month too. Is Cave that popular?