Random Gripe Session #1

Blog, let’s turn the Randometer’s dial to “GRIPES” and see what we can generate today.

It’s not that I’m a negative person or in any kind of bad mood. It’s March and there’s no snow on the ground, who can feel bad? It’s just that as a wise man once said, “It’s only by having the bad around that you can recognize the good.” Hey, it’s Today’s Pithy (see lower left column), it must be true!

So let’s recognize the good by considering some random gripes:

1. The fact that biological science is able to clone sheep but not find a way to grow tasty tomatoes year round. Bitter irony: tomatoes are the tastiest vegetable in all the world--for one month out of the year!!! Every other food that I love, I can eat anytime I want because I’m a rich American. C’mon, scientists, I’ll bet Bath and Body Works makes a shower gel that smells like seasonal tomatoes. I guess I should be appealing to the chemists for help here.

2. The fact that you can’t get a keyboard with the number pad on the left. Or you can, but your place of employment is not going to offer you one. It’s not that I’m lefthanded--it’s just that it’s so much more comfortable having the mouse right next to the alphabet keys so you don’t have to reach over the number keys. Think about it, you know it is! If I were lefthanded I would WANT a righthanded keyboard. (I actually moved my mouse to the left and learned to mouse lefthanded. It’s surprisingly easy, Blog.)

3. This is not really random because I know everyone in the Western World agrees with me: Why can’t we go back to having New TV from September till May, and Reruns and Summer Replacement Series from June through August? It’s a good thing they invented Facebook so I can be an FB fan of my shows and thereby find out when the hell they are on. Geez Louise, Blog.

4. Also not random because again, the feeling is universal: If there is bad weather coming (“OMG!!! IT MAY RAIN HARD!”), why can’t the local TV stations just put a little logo in one corner of the screen instead of squishing the show down to half size and overriding the soundtrack with squawks and mechanical voices? You know why they use a robot voice for those “The National Weather Service has declared a Mildly Unpleasant Weather Watch for the following counties” messages, Blog? Because no real human is willing to be the a-hole who interrupts everyone’s show!

5. Okay, Blog, after 3 and 4, we better come up with something truly random this time. Like Yahoo headlines that when you mouse over them, all you see is the first line teaser instead of a summary of the story. Like the headline says, “Wisconsin town deals with bizarre disaster,” and when you mouse over it, you get, “March 12 seemed like just another day in Oconomowoc.” And that’s ALL you get, unless you click on the story. And of course, I would have to, and at that point, there’s enough of a time investment that I’m actually wishing ill on Oconomowoc. So terrible.

6. The fact that you take your 40% off coupon to Michaels or Joann, which of course you can’t use on sale items, and everything in the store you could possibly want to buy is on sale for 25% off except the $1.79 roll of Scotch tape. (Are you with me on this, crafters?)

7. People who say, “I hate musicals. No one ever suddenly bursts into song in real life.” To that I say, “Maybe the problem there is with real life, bucko.”

8. Printers like mine that seem to think you want to print your one page on the entire group of sheets in the feed tray. I think my PC, Gaiman, needs to have a talk with my printer, who will not get a name until he learns how to behave. It’s as if on the rare occasion when I send a print job, my printer gets so excited he says, “Oh boy, oh boy, a print job, HERE HERE HERE’S ALL THE PAPER!” Not the sharpest printer in the computer peripherals drawer, that’s for sure.

Well, that’s enough random griping for one day, Blog. Turn the Randometer off “GRIPES” and over to, say, “LOOPY MASCOTS”...ooh, look what came up!

I’d punch that weird movie ticket mascot named Stubby right in the face myself, Blog.

Enjoy your day!