I do understand that it might not directly be the college's fault that class did not take place, the professor is usually the reason a class is canceled, but I didn't lose the end table either. I have no idea what happened to the end table, but I do know that the sliding door in the back of our townhouse did not lock and it took facilities weeks to come fix it after we filed a request. Students are liable for the items in their dorms and the school is liable for providing an education. Canceled class should be reimbursed, there's no way around it.
When I come to think about it, most of the things that annoy me deal with how people act and money, sometimes both fit together nicely for a deluxe annoying package. I was at a bar the other night with some friends when one of the bartenders told us that no one was going to serve us because of the tips we were leaving. Yes, we probably were leaving shitty tips, but what the hell do you want me to do, I'm a recent college graduate that doesn't have much money. She told us that the bartenders only get paid $2 per hour so they need tips. Now there's the problem, the part that annoys me. How is it legal to pay people $2 per hour? To understand my point, I think tips are bullshit. Not because I don't think people who have jobs that are reliant on tips shouldn't get paid, but because I don't think is a fair method of payment. I'm aware that in some places in the world receiving a tip is considered an insult. I think these places have the right idea. Employees' pay should be the responsibility of the employer, not the customers. I think it's bullshit that employers can pay employees ridiculous wages such as $2 per hour. Again, I don't understand how that is legal! They made some bullshit law about how that's ok if the employees are allowed to receive tips. That's just wrong. As I see it, that's just another stupid law that allows the company to make more money at the expense of the people who keep that same company in business. It's bullshit!
Speaking of stupid laws, what about the liquor store industry? I don't understand why some states protect liquor stores. I like the states where you can by alcoholic beverages in the supermarket. The ability to buy alcoholic beverages in the supermarket allows for one hell of a great convenience. But there are still states that prohibit grocers from carrying alcohol. What I don't understand is why liquor stores should get this type of protection. Who cares if they go out of business, that's how business works. I don't see any laws getting instated to protect Blockbuster from Netflix and Redbox, and there shouldn't be. It's bullshit that liquor stores get protection, that takes away competition. And I agree with Steven Wright, it bothers me that there's only one company that makes the game Monopoly.
I guess since I've been using bars and liquor stores for examples, I'll go on to the subject of alcohol straight up. Alcohol bothers me because it's a legal drug you don't need a prescription for, you just have to be a certain age to purchase it. I'm not a huge fan of alcohol because of what it does to people, but I think a legal drinking age is bullshit. I don't think there should even be a drinking age. If alcohol is not deemed illegal, then anyone, regardless of age, should be entitled to consume it. Let's not pretend that people don't drink before the decided upon legal age either. If someone doesn't drink alcohol before the legal age, I think it's very unlikely that they will just pick up the habit when they reach that magical age. Basically, the legal age is stupid because practically everyone is going to drink before it is deemed legal. I don't like those bullshit arguments like "if you can die for your country at 18, then you should be able to drink at 18, too." That's just stupid because they are two completely unrelated things. You can get your drivers license when you turn 16, do you want them to be able to draft you into the army at 16, too? It's the same type of stupid comparison.
When I come to think about it, it's not really alcohol that bothers me. What bothers me is how people use alcohol and that there is an agreed upon age when it is all of a sudden ok to consume alcoholic beverages. I think what the law is going for is to prevent people from drinking until they are mature, which is a great idea in theory, but it doesn't work. Drinking in excess, which is an activity for people above and below the drinking age, is already an act of immaturity in itself and brings a person to do immature things. So anyone should be able to purchase and consume alcohol whenever they like. There are already a bunch of alcohol related deaths, but those people are only doing the world a favor by eliminating themselves from the gene pool. Maybe not as many people believe in the survival of the fittest anymore, but there are way too many dumb people, we could afford to lose a few...million of them.
When I started penning this post, I did not intend for it to go in this direction, but I've found myself on the topic of drugs, so I'm going to go with it because drugs do bother me. So on we go. I've never consumed enough alcohol in one short period to get drunk. I'm not interested in doing this because it doesn't sound appealing to me. Anything that is described as getting shit faced, obliterated, getting f**ked up, plastered, or hammered sounds like something I don't want to do. Sometimes you throw up, don't remember what happened, can't walk straight, can't stand up, and do things you regret, like contracting an STD. Again, more things that don't interest me. I don't understand the fascination with achieving this state. I'm also aware that it's really bad for your liver because you're actually poisoning yourself. Tolerance for alcohol is not a good thing, it means that your body is getting accustomed to getting poisoned. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not against alcohol. I have alcohol on occasion, I just don't understand why people drink in excess. I think it does more hurt to a person than good. Alcohol also tends to lead to things that people regret. Regret sucks and is another reason to take it easy on the drinks. I only have a few regrets in my life, but at least none of them have a thing to do with alcohol.
About a couple of months ago I began a post titled "The Implications of Being Me," where I was going to touch on the subject of alcohol and other thoughts I have about life and how I lead mine. I'm not sure if I'll ever actually post that, but the previous passages are a little insight into what that post would have been like, but I'll continue now with one of the topics that bothers me most: social networking. I've decided that I will include some social networking annoyances here. Technology is great and I think it really has advanced the world for the better, but there is one part I strongly dislike, social media's presence on smart phones. Of course it's a great idea to allow people to access social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter from their phone, but holy shit is it annoying. Social media annoyed me when Myspace was popular which is why I terminated my account after about two years, and that was before you could access social networks from the phone.
I've had a Twitter account since sophomore year of college. Initially I created one as a joke during the summer after freshman year just to see what Twitter was. I found that it was actually a really great source of information so I made one under my actual name for myself. I still have this account, but continue to use it mainly as a source of information. I do follow some friends and some friends follow me, but I don't really use it as a communication tool. I use it to get updated information on things I'm interested in. I barely ever tweet on my personal account. I tweet much more often on the account I've setup for this blog because the blog is a place for my thoughts and whatever I feel like doing with it. I still have a Facebook account somehow, too. I rarely ever access it from my computer anymore because honestly I don't care. I do have the app for Facebook on my phone which I check every once in a while to see if anyone has summoned me to communicate with them, which is very infrequently due to my lack of use of Facebook. So there you have it, I have just laid out for you how I use social networks. I'm not a very active participant and will very likely deactivate my Facebook sometime in the future as it serves almost no purpose. The only reason I keep my Facebook around is for the off chance that someone I have known in some capacity needs to get in touch with me. That's about it.
With the introduction of smartphones and apps, people have access to their social networks everywhere. This is a nightmare. I get annoyed with the constant updates about where people are, what they're doing, and the general need for attention. I'm going to keep it that plain and simple... for now at least. I could go off on a huge tangent, but I have kind of already done that in this post, which is about how status updates are dumb, but that's mainly what smartphones are used for, so I think it's about the same thing. Another thing that annoys me about social networking that I think (to the best of my knowledge)is specific to Facebook is how people are starting to change their names. Sometimes when I'm actually logged into Facebook I'll see someone in my friends list and I'll think "who the hell is that?" Then I click on their profile and realize who they are, noticing that they just changed their name. Usually it's their last name, they'll change it to their middle name or something. I just look at it and think, really? What is on there that you have to change your name? And I'm sure that there are people clever enough to figure out that the profile still belongs to you if they really need to know.
I don't want to spend too much time complaining about social networks, that's old material for me. To put it simply, I think social networks are overused. I want to discuss speech now. Language is an absolutely wonderful tool, but there are a few things that rustle my jimmies when people speak. I'll begin with the use of the word "mad." I don't like when "mad" is used in this sense: "that food was mad good." The word mad means mentally disturbed; deranged; insane; demented. The secondary meanings of mad mean enraged or greatly provoked or irritated; abnormally furious or affected with rabies; extremely foolish or unwise; or wildly excited or confused. So saying "I'm mad bored" or "the food was mad good" or "I'm mad tired" makes no sense. I also don't like the overuse of possessiveness. For example if someone says "I'm going to take my shower" or "you can watch your movie." I think it should be "I'm going to take a shower" and "you can watch the movie." I think I still do this when I speak, but believe me I beat myself each time I do, but not really. For some reason it just mildly bothers me. It's one of those things where if I'm in a lousy mood it will really bother me for some unknown reason.
Using a foreign language for isolated words is at the top of my list of annoying speech. It drives me crazy, at least most of the time it does, when people say something like "I'm going to the bano." Just say "I'm going to the bathroom." Then they'll come back from the bano (I don't know how to make the accent marks, but there is supposed to be one over the "n" in both banos) and say "where's my lapiz?" You mean your pencil? I took it and I'm going to shove it up your culo (vulgar way of saying ass in Spanish) if you don't stop saying sentences all in English with one Spanish word!
Actually, I've been contemplating for a little while to start responding to any text-based message in Elcor speak. Basically Elcor's cannot express emotion through speech so they begin every sentence by clarifying if it should be received as excitement, anger, sarcasm, etc. I think that would be a nice way to avoid the annoying "lol" and "haha" in text driven conversations. So if someone makes a funny comment on my wall or photo, I would respond with something like "laughing: yeah man, that's pretty funny." Or if someone invites me to an event or something I would respond "sarcastic: yeah, sign me up."
So I might do that, but who knows. I thought I just lost this whole post for a split second, so I had mini aneurysm, but not really. But I really did think that I lost the post momentarily. Well, this has been fun and all, and sometimes boring, but it's been real and maybe you agree with me on some of these thoughts, but if not, then... I don't really know what, but at the least hopefully you found some marginal entertainment. I'm still waiting for some random person (can't start with unrealistic goals) to stumble on this blog and maybe even read a word or two. But it's been over a year and to the best of my knowledge that has not happened. You also have a small guide on how to mildly annoy me, so go ahead and have fun with that. I'll definitely think of more things that annoy me and add to this very limited list. Good thing these things bother me or else I wouldn't have anything to say. Thanks for reading, and make Jose "The Special One" Mourinho proud and be champions.
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