Things That Annoy Me, But Shouldn't

Power tool companaies no longer supply a battery with every device. The new gimmick is one battery for all tools and job. So when you buy the tool minus the battery it ends up being more expensive than the old models which came with the battery as standard.

Another con dressed up in the racey knickers of convenience.

 

That’s because they do two editions, one with and one without, so if you already have the batteries you don’t have to pay for more. The con is actually getting you to buy more of their products.

 

Veterans for whom veterancy is all they have left. I belong to a Facebook group for members of my old unit. Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that we weren't exactly a front-line, machine-gun nest charging, grenade eating, hand-to-hand combat type of outfit.

YMMV, I've seen notes of KIAs and medals associated with us in recent decades.

But there is this one member who is constantly posting demands that we respect the fallen, that we show our pride and patriotism, that we wear certain colors or pins or badges or hats every day to show what we are and what we stand for.

I dunno, I signed the blank check and in return I got a good linguistic education, made some friends whom I'm still in touch with, got some benefits, and got some reflected valor shining on me when people see that line in my resume. I don't hide my status, but I don't feel the need to buy red, white, and blue Truck Nutz with the POW/MIA flag on them either.

That's all I guess.

 

Really the thing that bugs me is that he's pushing these demands on a veterans' group. If I see someone who is a) a vet and b) has joined a non-agenda* veterans' group, even if it's just a Facebook page, my default assumption is that there's a certain amount of patriotism and respect.

*non-agenda in that this particular group is just a unit homepage. It's not a "Veterans for [insert social, political, or economic cause here] sort of place. Nothing at all wrong with those groups, but this lies firmly in the non-Debate Room part of the Lounge, if that makes sense.

 

Oh, yeah. I call them 'professional veterans, and am really tired of seeing a bunch of old fat guys on TV every Memorial Day and Veterans Day wearing hats and vests covered with pins, hugging each other and crying.

 

The 'i' in iPhone doesn't stand for 'id10t'?

 

Bought a gallon jug of lemonade at Walmart for $1.79. Undrinkable. Should have known.

 

Too pulpy? Too sour? If it hasn't gone bad, maybe you can use it for cooking instead?

 

Tastes like it has some kind of chemical in it. Probably no good for cooking, either.

 

Parts cleaner?

 

Delicer?

 

The way Europeans refer to soccer shoes as "football boots."

And no, it's not the issue of "soccer vs. football," I'm okay with that one (although it should be called something like "sosher" based on its root). It's the "boots" issue. The Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary (the one I use most often by virtue of my employment) defines "boot" as (emphasis added):

The number one Google image result for "football boots" was this:


A shoe, not a boot. Doesn't even cover the ankle bones. "Football shoes."

 

When rice is overcooked and becomes sticky.

 

^ This is what they wore when they coined them football boots.

Random fact, Stirling is home to the oldest football in the world.

 

Fair enough!

 

I'd call them slippers myself. The number of foot injuries a player suffers during a season is stupid. Yet nobody wants to talk about how the injuries get worse as the " boots" are made with lighter materials each year. Maybe something to do with not criticising the sponsors.

#BringbacktheCLOUDSTRIFEboots

 

I miss my soft Greazies Monkey (Nana) Boots.

 

Following the theme - Football (soccer) players. The way some of them carry on its pathetic. When they get tackled they roll on the floor grabbing their knee, calf, shin whatever, and 'cry out' in agony. So the stretcher bearers cart them off to the side of the field so that the doctor / physio can attend to them. THEN, miracle of miracles! They are miraculously back on their feet raring to get on the field of play.

Bah; give me good old rugby any day!

 

Known here as 'flopping' and it is annoying. We see it in pro basketball (I have to admit, my all-time favorite player, Bill Laimbeer, was a master flopper and may have introduced the practice to the NBA), but soccer players have elevated it to an art form.

 

I was watching Man United play yesterday (not by choice but I was in the house of a football fan) and the way they fall to gain a free-kick is, as you so rightly put it, pathetic. After one free kick was given, with the player falling to the ground with pain and anguish on his face as though he'd been shot, the slow-motion replay revealed there was no contact whatsoever made by the 'offending' player. I think what annoys me more than this behaviour, is the way the commentators tolerate it, and just accept it's become part and parcel of the modern game. There's a word for what these players do, and that word is 'cheating'.

 

That thing in Hollywood battle scenes - especially those involving swords and bows and arrows - where the person getting whacked by a sword etc does a very fast 180 spin so they're facing the camera, before falling to the ground. It's cliched and has no bases in fact or reality.