The Official Rants and Trolls Thread

I’m also irritated with chronic spelling errors and the usage of wrong words. I have a hard time taking those people seriously enough to finish reading their posts.

Something else that has seriously degraded is handwriting. I did a lot of genealogy research a few years back and visited a LOT of court houses in 7 states reviewing hand written records ranging from the current to a hundred years old. It was very interesting to see how beautiful the handwriting was in the past right up to about ~1970. Around 1970 and after the handwriting was terrible to almost illegible. You could see it change in the ledgers. This was not just one set of records in one courthouse, but was similar in most of the records I saw in many states.

My mom had extensive handwriting classes in grade school and won several awards for her penmanship way back when. I was graduated from high school in 1975. I was taught to write in cursive in grade school and was required to hand write everything until late high school. Only a few teachers allowed you to print. Cursive was required and if it was not legible your grade suffered. It didn't matter how smart you were. If you could not adequately express yourself and be understood, if didn't matter much.

I want to be taken seriously in the business and technical world and if you can’t express yourself properly for the required situation, whether it’s IM speak, a handwritten note, a typed sentence or properly designed paragraph, a conversation or in a presentation, then what’s the point?

Many don’t seem to care about how they express themselves anymore and I don’t understand that thinking.

Sure, everyone bangs out an odd sentence from time to time in haste but there are some that have made an art form of it. I'm just glad Internet forums are not hand written.

 

I'm far from perfect myself, so I try to let stuff like this just go. BUT I'm with you on "lose" and "loose".

I visit a few sport team forums. The amount of discussion where people complain about the team loosing or being a bunch of "loosers" is amazing. It would be funny if it wasn't so common.

If you lose, you've lost...if your heads in a noose, then you want to get loose.

 

I know of several posters on PC that loose their minds regularly. I wish they would loose them less often and keep their crazy thoughts to themselves.



Tom

 

The price of tea in China:

Taiwan to be more exact. I have recently fallen head over heels in love with Pu-erh tea. A tea that typically becomes better ( and more expensive) as it ages, provided it was born of quality leaves and process to begin with.

Within 50 miles of where I live, an interesting fellow owns a nice little tea shop. He is a student of quality tea and travels back to Taiwan twice yearly to hand select teas for his shop. With some prompting from his customers he agreed to bring back some exceptional Pu'erh tea's for his customers to try. We were warned that the price might be high, but he agreed to provide an opportunity to taste the teas for much less expense, thereby making it accessible to the average joe ( this would be me) and so forth.

The first "Pu-erh Party" he schedules happens to fall on a day I have to be in school. I email to say, "Bummer!" and he replies with "Too bad. Maybe I'll schedule another if there is enough interest."

Hmmpf.

Next, he does schedule a second tasting but does it on the day of my big expo. I, again, have no way of attending.

I think to myself. Screw it, I'll just buy some of the damn tea. I deserve to celebrate, I got a job after all.

Today I found out the price of these two amazing teas he has brought back. The first, a lesser tea, is only 90.00 an ounce. The second, a bit more expensive is 190.00 an ounce.

&*@#*!

Do they even have an illegal drug that cost that much?

*end rant

 

Absolutely. And don't you dare make tea out of it.

 

I'm guessing it's cut with high grade heroin. :madgrin:

 

And here I thought that my "Immortality Tea" that I pay $30 a pound for was a bit pricey. Wow.

I used to date a "wine connoisseur" that thought nothing of buying $$$ bottles of wine. I've been really happy drinking wine in the $3 - $40 range, mostly the lower end, and can't see how something that is over $100 is gonna be THAT much better.

Same for tea.

 

I keep telling the GF that she should get Two Buck Chuck (Charles Krug, sold for $1.99 at Trader Joe's) but she insists that she can tell the difference. :madgrin:

 

bad drivers and parking structures

Ok.. here goes again about the bad WA state drivers.

The other day when I headed out to grab a bite, within the first 10 mins of my drive, I saw an Impala suddenly change into a left lane, narrowing missing hitting a curb in the middle of the road (to prevent people from changing lanes at a certain point) then blowing thru a left turn red light. He didn't even slow down for the red. A few minutes later, after starting from a stoplight, the Camry to my left starts coming into my lane w/o signal or anything. He crossed over into my lane by a bit then went back. I had to back off and gave him my brights.

A month ago, near the Microsoft campus, at night, I saw a guy clip the corner on a right turn and end up on the sidewalk and then back off it. Can't people turn right properly? Also, near the campus, there's a traffic light coming off the 520 onto NE 40th St. w/multiple signs that clearly disallow right turns on red, yet people frequently go on red anyway.

Today, there was a dude in a minivan just CRAWWWLLLING onto the freeway, holding up the SUV behind him and me.

Also, today, I was stuck in a parking structure part of the "Lodge" at Bellevue Square where I think some morons decided to stop and wait for parking spaces causing a huge backup. There were at least 6 cars in front of me and another 6+ piling up behind me. There was no other way up to more spaces.

I'm thinking... uhh.. just keep going, there should be plenty of spaces further up in the structure. Of course, I found TONS of free spaces on level 5. I was tempted to start a honking and thus a chain of honking (people will do that in CA.. and wouldn't think twice about that in NYC).

I was running late to an appointment as it is...

 

I'm SO looking forward to the new law, in effect as of tomorrow (June 1st), making talking on a cell phone without hands free and texting while driving both primary offenses!

:thumb:

I'm really tired of watching people try to kill themselves/others/me because they are too damned busy on their phones/blackberries to watch what the hell they are doing.

 

Sorry to dash your excitement, but the law doesn't take effect until June 10.

 

My rant is about childless neighbors who have no idea how children work!! I am a parent not a miracle worker or the sand man. I deal with your single and/or young married life style when I don’t want to. Trust me; you do plenty that pisses me off.

The complex I live in has very thin walls, so I deal with the loud sex at 3 in the morn and the parties on the weekends that last until 5 in the morn, with the drunk laughing like a jackal on crack. Even the loud sex at noon to the point I can hear it in my living room, with my kids in the frigging room!! Also the side walk is not a place to park your SUV, I don’t care how drunk you were. And if one of my kids rides into said sidewalked SUV with a tricycle, your fault!! But I keep silent, being the better person, even talking to your insurance agent bout your scratches. No the trike is not insured!

YET they cannot understand that my three year old will not sleep more than eight hours a night. No daytime naps either. I put my son to bed at 11:00 but that is not early enough for the chicka that shares a wall with me. She pounds on the walls, calls the cops (Who laughs at her) and threatens me!

So I put little man to bed at 8, and what does he do? Wakes up at 4 in the freaking morning. On the third day she starts with the pounding and calling the cops, this time in the morning.

Like, OMG, what am I to do? In case you are wondering what is my son doing that is pissing her off? WALKING!! You got that right, he walks too loud. o.0

((On a side note why the hell are you living in a three bedroom if you have no kids and don't work at home? Don't want to hear kids? Move into a one bed!! They are all on the other side of the bloody complex away from my kids, and the lady that lives below you with the baby that cries at night who also pisses you off.))

Now go ahead, I know I am going to get a million flames from people that hates kids and forgot that they were once three.

 

Simple solution: Next time she has loud sex, just record it. Then when she calls the cops, if they come over, say, "Well, this is what *I* have to listen to!" and play said recording.

Bet she never calls the cops again.

 

I'm sorry, I lost the thread of this discussion. I got distracted by the first mention of loud sex.

Tom

 

Yeah, DH let me in on that. *sigh*

Well, just another 9 days then, huh...

 

This was discussed in the NYT and was the suggestion of just jacking up the premiums of dialing drivers.

If an effective way of IDing them is found, then it would probably be a more effective deterant.

 

I'll probably regret it...

Here's my antiquated rant for today.
Use of the term "probably".

I've noticed it more and more in internet conversation.

I'm not against using abreviations. I use imo for In My Opinion, but I use it because it saves a lot of typing. Why use "probably"? Replacement for using the term probably? You're saving two keystrokes? Is it really worth it?

I looked it up and some people suggest that it's slang and is born out of verbal accent from New Orleans.

Alright, but if it's tone? Most applications I read and people throw it in, they are just throwing it in alone...

It also just sounds bad. Like you are Goober in an episode of "The Andy Griffith Show". As in, " I probably shouldn't say it, but you all should stop usin' probably."

Whenever I see it, I just get the feeling the person just isn't sure how to spell probably and defaults to probably. But it's becoming too common for that to be the only reason.

 

There are probably a lot of peeps using cell phones to surf the net and probably like the fact that they can save a couple of key strokes.