Things That Suck

Com­mer­cials before the movie: as a kid, I would always arrive early in the movie the­ater because I loved to watch a long string of pre­views. They would make me dream, they would leave me yearn­ing for more, they would enter­tain me. But now, I always try to be 15 min­utes late because I just can’t stand the never-ending com­mer­cials. The one for cell phone with the lit­tle fish, the one for a Hum­mer with the lit­tle calf (?!), the one for the credit card with the lit­tle kid… I pay for a movie. I want my movie. NOW! I’m sick of swal­low­ing bullshit.

Mon­day morn­ing: because after rest­ing a whole week end, enjoy­ing free time, catch­ing up with some sleep and hav­ing fun, noth­ing is harder than get­ting up way too early to go to work. Espe­cially it’s not like any­thing gets done on Mon­day am any­way.

Gas price: on my way to work, it’s 102.6$. On my way back to work, it’s 103.7$. On week-ends, it’s 105.8$. When it’s snow­ing, it’s 106.3$. Now, let me know: is a two years old pick­ing up ran­dom num­ber every­day? That sounds like the most likely option, because I just can’t believe some­thing hap­pens on the oil mar­ket just about every hours.

Tele­mar­ket­ing: has any­one ever bought some­thing from a tele­mar­keter? Enlighten me! If some­one calls to ask if you need to replace your win­dows, what are the chances that are gonna go: “absolutely sir, that’s exactly what I was my wife and I were talk­ing about over diner when you called! Tell me, which num­bers do you need on my credit card?”

Peo­ple who go door-to-door: if call­ing peo­ple dur­ing meal­time to sell them shitty prod­ucts doesn’t work, going door to door won’t either. You calls bother me. And I can’t put up with unex­pected vis­its of peo­ple who want me to: 1) join their sect 2) buy their insur­ance pol­icy 3) donate to their fake charity.

Spam: I do not need Via­gra. How many times do I have to tell you? And I’m still won­der­ing what does the daily gib­ber­ish I get in my com­ments (thanks Akismet) mean: “vyfos kore­hete gyhma” accord­ing to my lat­est com­ment. Should I delete it or should I attempt to reply “hggsty yywb bsy” to my fans in Ukraine/ Kazakhstan/ Mars?

The new French Pres­i­dent: do you know who I hate more than the Amer­i­can Pres­i­dent? The new French Pres­i­dent! I stopped read­ing French news­pa­pers because the guy is every­where: “me and my first wife, me and my sec­ond wife, me and the top model I cur­rently sleep with, me call­ing French peo­ple morons, me play­ing with the gov­ern­ment, me, me, me”. The over­am­bi­tious arriv­iste Sun King is a right-wing zealot, who go on lux­ury hol­i­days paid by his friends and mean­while encour­age peo­ple to “work more to make more money” (hint: extremely high unem­ploy­ment rate??). Worse pres­i­dent for France e-v-e-r. I almost regret Chirac.

The hype about mak­ing money online: some peo­ple are good at mar­ket­ing, some have inno­v­a­tive ideas, some are nat­u­rally good lead­ers, some write great tuto­ri­als but let’s face it — the rest of them just sucks. Please, don’t think I’m talk­ing about you. No, I’m talk­ing about peo­ple who think they can make mil­lions out of a blog with no con­tent, just by installing Adsense and spam­ming peo­ple. I’m think­ing of the peo­ple who scrap your blog con­tent and respite it at theirs. Mak­ing money online is pos­si­ble, I don’t doubt it. But it takes some work, as every­thing else in life. Duh.

The fine print: why is life so tricky? I squint on the restau­rant coupons I receive to make sure they’re still valid. They are, but only for “lunch” on Tues­day between 2:30 and 4:15. I think my bank over­charged me and call them to rec­tify the mis­take — just that they were no mis­take, these are the “new rates. as spec­i­fied in you last bank state­ment”. Oh yeah, the Arial size 4 line at the bot­tom right cor­ner of my bill. Right. I don’t mind you scam­ming me but please, could you avoid strain­ing my eyes while doing it?

You call: what is you pet peeve?

Related arti­cles:

1. Ottawa Does Not Suck
2. Things I Learned In 2007
3. Things That Freak Me Out
4. Morn­ings
5. Ten Things I Can’t Do (and really, does that matter ?)