Friday, May 23, 2014

Stephen's Rant [Complete] -- Smooth 16 Submission -- 2014 May Mayhem Tournament of Champions

 
As promised, Good People, below is Stephen's complete rant from his submission to the Smooth 16 round of the 2014 May Mayhem Tournament of Champions.  It was much more extensive than what you saw on his match-up day, and there are some instances of profanity that you should be advised about (if you are one who needs that advisement cue).  

Anyway, for everyone else, enjoy his complete submission now.

-Ryan.
Commissioner
May Mayhem Tournament of Champions

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                So, the question here is essentially what is/are the most annoying thing(s) in the world?  I am not a huge fan of this question, personally, not because it’s not a great question, but because it would literally take me between a week (or entire month) to accurately respond. But, since I don’t have that kind of time, I’ll see what I can do.  This is a very subjective question, and some people’s annoyances are simply not all that annoying, but living in the West(ern Hemishere) makes many people believe that mudane things are annoying. I am annoyed by the mundane constantly, so I am no exception; however, we should really be looking at the bigger picture here.


                I will start with the mundane and seemingly inane, nonetheless. Right now, something that I find extremely annoying is/are political mailings. I don’t find one or two annoying, but when the same person or measure or committee, sends me one every week, or every day, I find that very annoying.  Something that I deal with daily that I find many annoyances with is driving.  Probably way more than I will list here, but here are some of them. Slow ass pedestrians are very annoying.  Not necessarily those in crosswalks, more typically, those that are crossing in the middle of the damn street and feel that if they are partially across it’s alright, because my car has brakes.  I don’t know if that is really what they are thinking, but they must be thinking something like that, because a car could easily kill them, yet they don’t seem to mind or be worried in the slightest.  Also, side-by-side bicyclists are annoying, because they take up the whole damn road (often when there is a lane specifically for them), while going significantly slower than I can, or would like to, go.  What really gets me going when I am driving, is platoon drivers.  These are the assholes that feel it is okay to drive exactly the same speed as the person next to them, no matter how slow that may be. In Oregon, you see a whole lot of drivers that use the left lane as a driving lane (on highways and freeways), this is frustrating, but made all the more so by having someone next to them, so that you can’t circumvent their buttholeness, regardless of how much you would like to.  Frickin’ frustrating.   

One of my biggest annoyances while driving, is people who drive in merge lanes to pass traffic.  My main problem with this is that they are essentially telling everyone else, “I’m kind of a big deal, so my time is more valuable than yours is.” Which is horseshit, first of all, and really, just plain mean-spirited.  Now some people are really confused by this (Zubin, and other Californians most likely) because they think that any extra lane should be used, regardless of the ridiculous bottleneck it creates.  I’m not saying people should never drive in merge lanes (even to the end), I’m saying, in Oregon (probably more accurately, the Portland area) most of these “extra lanes,” are either on-ramps, or occasionally off-ramps.  This comes down to simple math really.  A prime example is at the Rose Quarter. There are two lanes entering I-5 south there, one from 405 north, another from Greeley (although not in that order).  Many people feel that they should move over into those lanes, one of which is exclusively an exit (for the Rose Quarter itself) the other, which is technically just an extended on-ramp for the two mentioned roads. The real problem, is the people who are already on I-5 south and think that it would be best to move over to pass 40 cars (or however many, it doesn’t matter).  The problem with this is, essentially, they are unzipping and then rezipping, which is fucking retarded (rezipping probably isn’t a word, but I liked it).  There is literally no fucking way in the world that this would EVER make traffic flow better.  Engineers could reduce this to a simple water flow problem to understand this, but that would require thinking, which is difficult.  I may not be explaining this one right, but that is probably the biggest pet peeve that I have when driving.  And I’m not trying to say I never drive to the end of a merge lane, but you can be pretty damn sure that I was entering the roadway in said lane (or using it to pass someone who was slow and leaving multiple car lengths of space, or something of that nature).  As I said, I’m sure there are many more, but these are some of the bigger driving ones that I can think of.

                 
Something that is somewhat related to traffic flow and driving that really annoys me is escalator standers.  Is their leg injured?  Are they disabled?  Did they already walk ten miles today?  I don’t know, but it’s annoying.  This goes for the moving walkways in the airport as well.  It’s not an issue if they move completely over to the side for people to pass them, but they never fucking do.  Especially in an airport, because some people actually do need to move quickly to get to a connecting flight or things of that nature, so get the hell out of the way.  The airport thing leads me into airplanes.  There are too many things to even think of here, so I’ll give you one or two.  My first is people who are allowed to bring on what amounts to a full-size suitcase as a carry-on.  Why do the airlines have those little “your bag must be no bigger than this” if they don’t give a fuck about them?  I don’t know.  I get why people do it, to save money, but now you’re making it inconvenient for every other person on the plane around you, because you’re taking up a third of the overhead bin, when there are like six other people around you that would like to have used it as well.  “Oh, I guess I’ll just put my shit under the seat so that I have no leg room, thanks a lot jackass.”  I should really start putting my stuff under the seat in front of them, so they get the point that the airplane doesn’t belong to them, and they should be more considerate of others, in general.  The second thing (that I find annoying, although it doesn’t really affect me too much) is people jumping up into the aisle immediately after parking at the gate.  You still have to wait for everyone else in front of you to get off, so what’s the damn hurry all about?  I have no idea, I just sit there and smirk, and look at them all like the dumbasses they are.  “Oh sweet, now you get to stand in the aisle (or better, with their necks cocked sideways to avoid the bins above them) for 5 minutes while everyone in front of you disembarks.”  Such a waste of energy, but apparently they are going to save that energy on the next moving walkway they find. Ugh.


                Another thing that annoys me is Aneel always saying that the Blazers suck.  It shouldn’t because I know he’s either a moron (which I doubt, because he is one of your friends) or just trying to get the goat of 90% of your Facebook friends.  It still annoys me.  Mainly because his hatred is so misplaced.  Hate on a team and fanbase that actually suck, not one that is rocking.  But, I forgive him, mainly because I think I saw you reference him as a Canadian, so he probably has no basketball knowledge at all, or is a Raptor fan, either way is about the same (ooooooooooooo, take that Raptors).  I think the national sport of Canadia (yep) is probably curling, so I could care less about his sporting opinion, I just wish he would keep it to himself, so that I didn’t occasionally waste a few precious milliseconds by reading it.  You could argue their national sport is hockey, but Eastern Europe has been nearly on par with them for years with much shittier facilities and equipment, so I just don’t buy that.  Curling it is.


                Another quite large annoyance of mine is people who bring children into completely inappropriate situations.  I don’t find this too often, but when I do, it seems rather egregious.  Some examples are [name omitted], bringing his girlfriends’ kids to the [family] beach house, when he knows damn well there are going to be way too many sketchy things going on.  Another would be, kids at R-rated movies.  This isn’t as big a deal to me, because I started watching them way too young as well, but c’mon people, an infant in a ten o’clock showing of Inglorious Bastards?  Shouldn’t you have thought this through a little better (I made that up, but you get the point, I’ve seen tiny children at some very late, arguably inappropriate, movies in the past)?


                All of these are super annoying, but really pale in comparison to my biggest annoyances (what I would consider to be the most annoying things in the world).  I’ll start with people who overvalue themselves in the workplace (usually in general, but this is where it comes out seemingly).  This seems to be something much more prevalent in our generation (and possibly later ones, I’m not sure yet) than those of past.  I’m speaking of the people who have great jobs/situations that feel like they just are worth more.  Why the fuck would you think that?  You’ve been a professional for less than ten years (for the most part), why would your company, or any other business/company put you in a better situation if you’re already in a great one?  Oh yeah, because people have been telling you how fucking great you are your whole damn life, so at some point, you start to buy into that crap.  Some people really are great, most are just okay, deal with it.  If you haven’t been progressing in your field it’s probably because you don’t go above and beyond to show you deserve it (maybe not, but probably).  Or, you’re part of a society that values the bottom line (read: capitalism) more than you getting paid what you feel like you deserve.  Most people deserve a swift kick in the ass, they just don’t know it (I know I do, oftentimes).  I could go on about this too, but I have to move on eventually.

                My second biggie, is people who are seeming very intelligent that do outrageously stupid things.  This is often more forgivable, because some of this frequently comes from how they were raised.  I can’t give many examples, but you know them when you see them, or hear them.  Which leads me to another big one, modern day intolerance.  The big ones for me in this regard are prejudice and racism (although racism is a form of prejudice, I felt it needed its own category, because it’s the 21st century dammit!).  I don’t care if people are ignorant enough to feel that way, but keep it to yourself, and don’t teach that shit to future generations.  There are way bigger things in the world that you should be worried about.


                Which brings me to my biggest one of all.  The actual most annoying thing in the world.  The denial (or blatant disregard) of environmental ills.  There are only two that I will touch on here (because I have to turn this in), but they are huge in my mind, due to the state of our planet as a whole.  The first is overpopulation.  This nearly brings me to tears to even write this, because I really like kids, but people need to stop having 12 kids.  I don’t care if you have one or two, you’re basically just replacing yourself at that point, but seriously, fucking stop.  Catholics and Mormons are some of the worst offenders (and I’m Catholic, so I can say this).  Catholics, for instance, enter into marriage with the expectation that kids will be a part of the equation.  Shut the fuck up.  That’s ridiculous.  So, you’re telling me, it’s God’s plan to overpopulate the planet, should I choose to get married in a Catholic church? Retarded.  Mormons can be even worse.  When I was growing up, we used to joke with some of my good friends that they were shitty Mormons because they only had three kids in the family, that’s fucked up.  The really fucked up part is, that it was partially true.  Fucking stop producing more humans, the planet can’t fucking take it.   

The second environmental ill that I’ll touch on, is people hating on nuclear power.  This is mainly frustrating to me because I am a chemist and know that every argument against (that I’ve ever heard) is completely false and often baseless.  What people could potentially argue is that with our current system (government officials and power companies running oversight) humans can’t handle nuclear power, but that even is a bit silly.  Nuclear power is (currently) by far the most efficient form of energy in the world.  And that is not an overstatement.  With modern techniques, it should and can be almost completely harmless to everything (other than the poor uranium or thorium that is often used to power the reactors).  Events like Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl and even Fukushima have less to do with failures in the technology, much more to do with failures in implementation.  In the US, we haven’t even built any new reactors in damn near 20 years.  Of course those are going to be shitty.  Then you’re arguing infrastructure, not facts about nuclear energy.  This is all I can really say for now, because I have to send this right now.
 

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