Things That Annoy Me, But Shouldn't

Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Earp, Jul 7, 2017.

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  1. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    So I'm reading the Inspector Pekkala mysteries by Sam Eastland, on the fourth book and he's still talking about a beloved fiancee he hadn't seen since the Revolution.

    MATH TIME!!!

    So the fourth book is set in 1944, twenty-seven years after the Russian Revolution and the last time he saw his beloved boarding a train out of Russia. Pekkala was arrested and spent nine years at a gulag called Borodok whereupon he was released in 1926. By this point, said beloved is married to another man and has an infant daughter.

    Still with me? Let's subtract 1944-1926.

    Eighteen. The child is now eighteen. The mother (Pekkala's beloved) hadn't seen him for TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS. As far as she knows, he died during the Revolution.

    And he's still going on about wanting to find her, to reconnect. Now, maybe I'm being too hard on the guy but come ON. It's been nearly three decades, my dude. You gotta move on!

    So yeah, a character's inability to move on is getting on my nerves. :p
     
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  2. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    As a bus driver in Nova Scotia remarked to me once: "That driver's not waiting for the light to turn green; he's waiting for it to turn a particular shade of green."

    This was actually the funniest bus driver I've ever encountered. He never shut up the whole way from Halifax to Lunenburg, and he had me in near hysterics with some of his stories and observations.

    I mentioned that earlier that week, I'd had a taxi ride from the Halifax airport in a taxi that was actually an old Lincoln Continental, with a HUGE truck that stuck way out the back, like a lot of those luxury cars had. The taxi driver was really proud of the car, and said he never had any trouble fitting people's luggage into it, and they got a kick out of getting driven around in a Continental.

    Anyway, this set my bus driver off on several stories of his own, about cars. One concerned a lady driving another long car, a 60's-era Cadillac, who backed out of her driveway at a good clip, without looking right or left, straight into the path of the bus he was driving. He wasn't able to stop in time and flattened the back end of the car. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but the driver of the car came running over to his window, screaming, "WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" He said, "Lady, if you can't tell that your car has just been run over by a bus, you got no business being on the road."
     
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2019
  3. Moon

    Moon Contributor Contributor

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    Home. Winters are brutal and summers try and compete with them. Autumn and spring don't hang around for too long ether.

    Still home though. So I shouldn't complain.
     
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  4. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Just had it happen again. Ordered two paperback books (the same book) to give as gifts. Both printed and published by Penguin/Random House. They arrived in more or less unreadable condition. Why? Because they are printed on cream-coloured paper in medium grey text. The print is fairly small, due to the word count of the book (which is a relatively new publication from 2017 by a currently active author) but it's that miserable pale print—not size— that keeps it from being readable.

    I read the book originally on Kindle, and it was fantastic ...hence my plan to give a few copies as gifts. However, my husband who reads lots of print books could not read it, due to this printing style. His 'present' will be going to the charity shop.

    WHY are printing houses doing this? All of a sudden, this is fashion? It's cutting out lots of potential readers whose eyesight might not be quite what it was ...but who have no trouble reading older books that were printed on more or less white paper in black ink.

    I wrote to Penguin/Random House to suggest they take this on board, and got an immediate, but automated response, telling me to contact my seller if I had received a faulty copy. It's not the seller who printed the damn book. And I don't imagine they have better ones hanging around. It's not the copy that's faulty, it's the process.
     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2019
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  5. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    @jannert I can’t say I’ve encountered this, fortunately, but it does sound annoying. I’ve had a couple of books with very jagged print, and too small print, but never this.
     
  6. Moon

    Moon Contributor Contributor

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    Doctors. My doctor to be specific. He means well though, so I shouldn't complain. I mean, I am stupidly stubborn. :p
     
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  7. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I have encountered it on print-on-demand from self-pubbed authors, and assumed it was because they were self-pubbed. But this is the second traditionally-published book I've bought in the past couple of months that has done it as well. The other one was readable because the print was large, but even so, it was not as clear as it could have been. This one is dire. And THIS is the one printed and published by Penguin/Random House.
     
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  8. Earp

    Earp Contributor Contributor

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    You see the same thing on a lot of websites, too, and mass-market magazines are a nightmare of pale or colored text on colored and patterned backgrounds, all in the name of 'cool' graphic design. My theory is that the designers are young, and viewing their masterpieces on huge, high-res monitors, resulting in the 'what do you mean, it looks fine to me' attitude. Text should be black on white, full stop.

    I'd be interested in hearing from anyone here who self-publishes who breaks the black-on-white rule, and why?
     
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  9. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    if you self publish you don't get the choice - both ingram and kdp only give you a choice of paper white or cream... no choice on ink
     
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  10. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Are you able to post pics of it? I’m intrigued now.
     
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  11. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I'll try tomorrow, in daylight. Under artificial light it's hard to tell.
     
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  12. OmniTense

    OmniTense Active Member

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    The transition from Halloween to Christmas seems too sudden. I wish Halloween had a more lingering presence, but I'm biased. Also I think Thanksgiving gets lost in the mix. Then again, I suppose it is considered a rather racist holiday by many, that only America celebrates. But it's hard to hate a holiday based on over-eating.


    -SIN
     
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  13. EFMingo

    EFMingo A Modern Dinosaur Supporter Contributor

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    I studied this a bit in college in a colonial American history course and I found the primary documents to it not very conclusive. In all likelihood, it was just a simple harvest festival, and any native americans present, if any at all, were likely drawn in by the fact there was a large get-together of all the settlers in the area, and that it would be a good time and place to trade. Both arguments, praising and demonizing, seem basely erroneous. I'm not really getting a racist vibe from it because harvest is harvest in the North. Crops aren't going to grow much in the snow, and the large collection of food and product would certainly be cause for some celebration through the year's work. Not really worthy of a federal holiday nowadays, sure, but I'll take my day off and excuse to be fat and happy and fall asleep at 6pm with a food coma.
     
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  14. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    It's one of the only American holidays that I actually miss. Mainly because it was always a family/friends gathering occasion, and one that has more or less resisted commercialisation. However, the fact that it's supposed to kick off the Christmas season kinda annoyed me a bit. I would have preferred the Canadian Thanksgiving, which happens on or around the 15th of October. Seems a more sensible time—halfway between summer and Christmas—and closer to the end of harvest. Plus better weather. I have sometimes hosted a 'thanksgiving' dinner here in Scotland, but I always pick the middle of October for it.
     
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  15. OmniTense

    OmniTense Active Member

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    I certainly don't see it as a racist holiday, but that is my subjective view. Politics being what they are, Thanksgiving definitely presents an opportunity, I'm sure. Disapprobation is the rule of the decade, in many cases. Aside from it being a reservoir of my favorite all-time recipes and the source of a lot of fantastic old memories, I have no dog in that fight. But I do think that being sandwiched in-between Halloween and Christmas had done the poor-ole holiday no favors.

    -SIN
     
  16. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    @OmniTense - may I ask why you always sign your posts with ‘SIN’ ?
     
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  17. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Thanks Giving this month is all about gorging on food too, and
    it has kinda been absorbed into Christmas with Black Friday
    shopping musceling into the evening of Thursday. So no more
    Thanks Giving decor, just acute jump from Halloween to X-mas
    junk.
    Then there is Cyber Monday after Black Friday, which is just another
    shopping day dedicated to buying electronics. So ready for New Years,
    where all you need is to Stay up till 12:01 am, and get hammered. :p
    I don't need to get fat and/or random shit I don't want/need. That is
    what birthdays are for, and mine is in January, so I really could skip
    Christmas entirely, since I am just going to get a year older and a bit
    more bitter right after binging on food and unwrapping boxes with
    misc. junk in them.
    Also the Christians stole the idea from the Pagans, like they do for a
    few holidays, since they don't have any original ideas of their own. o_O.
    I am an Atheist that wants less stuff, and too not get fat, Thank you much. :)
     
  18. OmniTense

    OmniTense Active Member

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    Fair enough, lol. The very first forum I was ever a contributing member to(EAGB), my UserName was Sinister. That UN was taken here, but I was always in the habit of signing posts in that way. In short, I always have done it and habits are hard things for me to shed. It's true, though, doesn't make much sense with my current UN, but habits are habits. ^^;

    See:

    -SIN
     
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  19. OmniTense

    OmniTense Active Member

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    I couldn't agree with you more. I'm a bit over the holidays. They've been spoiled by a much ado about nothing. And despite being a Christian/Taoist myself, though back-slidden and joyfully hypocritical, I feel no special attachment to either Christmas nor Easter. I also have fair few family members to celebrate with, these days. But I won't lie...something stupid stirs in my heart when there's snow on the ground, its warm inside and a carol happens to play somehow. These things have to line up, but I don't deny that it sometimes puts a smile on my face.


    -SIN
     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2019
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  20. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    I enjoy the parody carols. :D
     
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  21. OmniTense

    OmniTense Active Member

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    -SIN
     
  22. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    People who know they are in the wrong, but will try to complement you so that they can continue doing the wrong thing.
    example:
    me: you're playing your music too loud, you ned to put in headphones or turn it off
    person: you know i really like your hair. It is EVERYthing, girl.
    Me:.........:nosleep:
    person: are those gloves? very nice!
    Me:.............:nosleep:
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2019
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  23. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    But you see now I'm wondering why people on a forum need to sign their posts at all, when their username automatically displays anyway.

    -JUD
     
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  24. Hammer

    Hammer Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor

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    I suppose it's just friendly, especially using the abbreviated form like "SIN" or "JUD"


    - Ham
     
  25. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    Zactly.

    Tho’ - obviously - if this were the school playground - we might launch a mission/assault & tease.

    Btw - I was never a bully, only bully assistant.

    Mut
     
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