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Grumpy Old Barbeloids

Our Lady Has Left the Building

11:35 / 19.12.04

People that take more than twenty-five seconds to buy a tube ticket from those touch-screen machines. IT'S RIDICULOUSLY EASY! I'll give you some leeway if you're in the situation of English being your second language but not if your first language is STUPID! Why do people not spend the time queuing behind other idiots working out what they want? Instead they arrive at the electric interface as though surprised that they are there, maybe they thought they were going to the newsagents or having a shower or something.

And also, people that persist in trying to feed the same note into the machine time after time. If it didn't take it any of the first thirteen times, why do you think it'll be different the fourteenth time?

12:08 / 19.12.04

Promotional ads for TV series that consist of shots taken from the series as if the people in them were responding to the announcer's promo copy.
Example:
Announcer "Would you like to see a whole season of friends?"
Clip from friends "Would I!"
Another clip from friends "I can hardly wait!"
Etc etc.
Why do I hate this? Because it's SHIT AND ANNOYING AND HIDEOUSLY UNCREATIVE. Unless you're an editor in which case you probably love this kind of thing.
That crazed and irrational enough for you?

12:30 / 19.12.04

Ever seen a cattle call line in a fast food place? It's a snaky s-curvy kind of thing that herds people in a circuitous route like cattle so that things don't get out of hand at lunch-time. That alone is bad enough, but what really get's me is that you can walk into one of these places when ABSOLUTELY NOBODY is there, walk AROUND the damn thing instead of through it, and people behind the counter look like you've broken some damn commandment. Then there's always someone behind you who walks ALL ALONE through the WHOLE DAMN THING, comes out beside you and gives you a snide look that says, "See? I OBEYED!"

Less searchable M0rd4nt

15:05 / 19.12.04

People who get to the automatic ticket barrier without having first got their ticket ready and who, when they then can't find said ticket, JAM THEMSELVES IN FRONT OF THE BLOODY FUCKING TICKET BARRIER FOR HALF AN HOUR WHILE THEY GO THROUGH EVERY SINGLE BASTARDING POCKET BAG ECT. looking for it. I mean, don't mind us, we're only trying to get to work.

Bonus points for dumping all your bags in front of the next ticket barrier so nobody can use that one either. Wankers.

15:39 / 19.12.04

People who chew with their mouths open.
People who chew with their mouths open.
People who chew with their mouths open.
People who chew with their mouths open.
People who chew with their mouths open.

PEOPLE WHO CHEW WITH THEIR MOUTHS OPEN!

Soup, tea and coffee slurpers, gum smackers, pasta or noodle suckers and people who squirrel away food in their cheeks to try and carry on a conversation while eating.

Disgusting.

16:08 / 19.12.04

Stupid people who get out of the tube onto the street and then just stand there looking about. You didn't decide where to go beforehand? You've just been teleported to Oxford Street and have no idea how you arrived or what you're doing here? Here's a tip - even if you don't know where you're going, and I frequently can't decide where I'm going to go first, start walking anyway so you don't get in everyone's way you fucking yokel. In case you hadn't noticed, there are one or two other people here on the pavement.

Lot of that about at the moment.

17:46 / 19.12.04

Bungalows. Unless you're elderly and infirm there's no excuse for living in these abominations. The other thing is bungalows are very rarely alone, there's always a patch of them like some rash upon the landscape.
I know that this is (very) irrational, there's just something about them I loathe.

20:49 / 19.12.04

Oi, I live in a bungalow.

And similar to fridgemagent's gripe, people who stop at the top/bottom on an escalator. Never mind the fact that there are seventeen people behind you now desperatly trying trying to get around you or falling over you, no no, you stay there until you're absolutely sure you want to move. You fucking twat.

Double baby strollers in packed shops. Stay the fuck at home or get a baby-sitter. Worse than that, double baby strollers being pushed by Annoyed Dad after Shopping-Mad Mother. Wait outside the fucking shop for her, you git. I know you're having a bad day but don't take it out on the rest of us.

All TV ads. In particular, ones that tell me what I like/want/feel.

More to follow.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:24 / 19.12.04

If you're on a bus, and you have a very annoying and very loud ringtone on your mobile, please answer it straight away so it doesn't drive me mad. Oh, and then it'd be nice if you could talk at a reasonable volume rather than shouting everything, because then I don't have to punch you.

Thank you.

22:19 / 19.12.04

Double baby strollers in packed shops. Stay the fuck at home or get a baby-sitter.

Warewulf, you really need to assess your goodwill if you cannot be compassionate enough toward a woman or man who needs to go out and has to take their child(ren). As a single mother who has been in a position where I cannot always afford to get a babysitter, yet still need to go out and do shopping, say uhm...to feed my child and myself. This is especially difficult for a family with two children as it costs more for a sitter and sometimes it just is very hard to get one. Plus, why shouldn't they be able to go out as a family when they want?

I object to this as being simply "grumpiness". I view this as pure insensitivity. Do you have kids Warewulf? It is nearly impossible to get around at times, especially as a single parent. I am thankful for equipment such as strollers that can make my job easier and allow me some mobility as an isolated new parent. As a parent, I shouldn't be faulted because the mall or department store is busy. I have a life and things to buy too. Perhaps you think I should be confined to house arrest when the rest of the populace needs to do their groceries, hmm?

I guess you can tell what makes me really grumpy. Going to the mall and dealing with people who are insensitive and hiss at me because I have a child who needs things like a stroller; which these people seem incapable of going around or waiting for me to pass without rolling their eyeballs or sucking their teeth. Oh, and gawd forbid my child get tired and begin to whine or *gasp* cry! In the store!? Oh no...the horror!

22:26 / 19.12.04

Oh, and then it'd be nice if you could talk at a reasonable volume rather than shouting everything, because then I don't have to punch you.

I am with you on this. I cannot stand it when I have to listen to other peoples' conversations, whether on the phone or at the next table in a restaurant.

I know this guy who talks so loud, when he "whispers" to me in a loud bar, "Hey this is just between you and me, okay?"...It never is.

08:02 / 20.12.04

I'm sorry, I thought this was a thread for "Grumpy" Barbeloids, not "Compassionate and sensible" Barbeloids?

And for fuck's sake, of course I know people have to push kids around in strollers, of course I know not everyone can afford a babysitter.

Understanding it doesn't make it any more fun, though...

08:39 / 20.12.04

I completely appreciate what you're saying about single parents, and they are exempt from _my_ baby-buggy-bugbear, but it's these bloody 'yummy-mummies' with their fuck-off all-weather, all-terrain 4x4 pushchairs that they decide to wander round Spittlefields market with, completely obstructing everything around them and making no attempt at consideration. This is especially bad when there isn't actually a child in the contraption, and it's full of shopping. GAH!

08:56 / 20.12.04

Drivers in Golders Green. For some reason, drivers who go through Golders Green feel that for that stretch of road at least, they are the most important person in the world. So what if it means a long tailback and dozens of cars sounding their horns, because you want to double park and just "quickly" get something from a shop. So what if your parking is so bad that drivers have to swerve to get around you? So what if you want to make your impatience known at the traffic by just sounding your horn needlessly.

Also - men that hog the middle lane on motor ways. (And yes, it's pretty much always men).

pointless and uncalled for

09:12 / 20.12.04

Mother and father, walking around a supermarket. One with the sports utility trolley, the other with an empty pushchair. Both of them calmly trying to reason with their children as to why they shouldn't throw food on the floor, fight, scream at pitches that are endangering the integrity of any glass within a square mile and run headlong at other shoppers and trolleys. Most of all when this little rambling circus decides to set up the same time as fifteen others at a notoriously busy time of day.

I appreciate the need for families to do things together but this really isn't the time or the place and lets be realistic about this, the kids aren't making any valuable input into the shopping requirements. Perhaps one of the parents could do the shopping whilst the other explains how demonstrations of brownian motion in a busy and potentially dangerous environment. Maybe it won't sink in but it has to be better than "Tarquin, perhaps you shouldn't throw tins down the aisle".

It's always fucking Tarquin as well. I swear that as soon as that fucker turns 18 I'm going to hunt him down like a dog in the street.

wembley can change in 28 days

11:04 / 20.12.04

a la fridgemagnet: I think that's a London thing. Some barbeloids have their own way of adapting to this. If you've never seen Rothkoid navigating pedestrian traffic on Oxford street, you've never seen a crazed bull who's been up all night with nightmares about being chased by a pendolino.

My gripe: short people with umbrellas. Your circumference is astonishing. Your ability to poke me in the eye uncanny. I will hunt you down.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

11:12 / 20.12.04

Jub: I would just take out the 'drivers in' and say that Golders Green itself is a disater area. Having gone through the area several times I think the road system is designed to drive people into psychosis, and the people at the library there don't seem to have much fun either.

11:28 / 20.12.04

Ha! Loving the parent and non-Londoner hate here, folks!

11:37 / 20.12.04

My gripes:

Asian women: Why are you hiding your face? Are you a terrorist? Or A BANK ROBBER!?!

Gay men: Stop pawing each other! You're TWO BLOKES!

Pensioners: Get outta my way, granmaw! Just go and DIE!

Children: Stop looking in WIDE EYED ASTONISHMENT at all the pretty lights! There is no SANTA CLAUS and GOD IS DEAD!

Disabled people: Can't you bring that wheelchair out at a more suitable time? Like FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING?

Poor people: Just get a CREDIT CARD, ferchrissakes!

The homeless: You'd just better draw your scabby legs in when I'm in a hurry, is all I can say. Or I might stand on you as I rush past. And your dog.

Single people: Can't you get a shag, then? Maybe if you CHANGE YOUR COLOGNE. Loser.

The Irish. Would you like A POTATO? Haw-haw.

Public transport users: Why not just STAY AT HOME so people in cars can get where they're going?

etc

pointless and uncalled for

11:46 / 20.12.04

2nding People who chew with their mouths open. Were you fucking raised in a barn for fucksake. Mastication is a mouth closed, one person task. It is not improved by mimicing an aircraft hanger or external observation. This is not a best practice exercise. As for those who chew gum with their mouths open on buses, that squelch, squelch, squelch sound is going to meet an untimely demise.

Also 2nding the short scum with umbrellas objection. There's a sub-group of humanity that isn't going to fare well under Darwinism if I get my way. And when was the last time they played golf on the high street? Not recently, then perhaps you could ditch the fucking silly, supersized umbrella until you do. Short people with golf umbrella's, I'm dedicating this click-clunk to you baby.

11:56 / 20.12.04

Tall people with big bags, who turn round and biff short-arse little me on the head. No wonder I carry this sharpened-spoke umbrella all the time.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

14:02 / 20.12.04

I have a Tivo, and it is the joy of my life. The best thing that isn't the fact that I don't have to give a damn when things are on anymore is that I can speed through commercials.

Commercials kill my soul. I am STILL shaking from a Girls Gone Wild commercial that I watched when I was watching some late night show in real time. There are the required drunk college girls who have more money than brains, showing their breasts when they cut to a doofy looking guy and three women in bikinis....and he yells "SHOW ME WHERE BABIES FEED!"

I'm sorry, but at that point I lost all interest in sex.

And then I got mad about that.

Psi-L is working in hell

14:15 / 20.12.04

1. People who start getting onto a tube carriage before everyone else has got off, or stand in front of the open doors on the platform so that it is almost impossible to get off the damn thing.....particularly in rush hour.

2. Cyclists who ride through red lights, over pedestrian crossings and/or on the pavement, as if somehow this is acceptable, particularly those who then looked shocked when you as a pedestrian dare to show your displeasure at their actions.

3. Arsey black cab drivers - I recently saw one shout out of his window at the people on the pedestrian crossing he'd stopped at 'a thank you would be nice'. I almost shouted back 'a thank you for what? you obeying the highway code?!'

And I live in London why again...?

14:22 / 20.12.04

Sax, very funny. Although I once made the mistake of presuming that a stranger that was with a friend of mine would get that I wasn't serious, and made a comment along the lines of 'why are disabled parking bays in the best spots, it's not like they have to walk, and they probably need the exercise more than us' as we looked to park...it didn't go down well, and no manner of 'I wasn't serious' lines helped.

I do dislike non-indicator using drivers though. I mean, the fucking things are right by the steering wheel, it's not like they are difficult to use, is it!

pointless and uncalled for

14:41 / 20.12.04

Pedestrians who blithely cross the road without looking and then get ticked because you cut remarkably close to them. Or even worse, those that use the cycle lane as an extension of the pavement and bitch at you for bearing down on them. You think that because I'm not a car I;m not as dangerous. You'll change your mind pretty sharpish once you end up wrapped around my handlebars.

14:56 / 20.12.04

I first noticed this one at University although I think as one gets older more people do it, because a fair few number of people do this now. To be honest, this is very grumpy and I only noticed it really because I have to spend so much time with these guys.

Essentially, people eliciting responses annoy me. For example someone will be sitting at their desk when all of a sudden they say "nooo!" or "I don't believe it?!" in repsonse to something they've read on the net or an email. It annoys me because the people who do do it, do it to elicit responses. Lazy shmoes.

15:13 / 20.12.04

Fellow shoppers who position themselves squarely in front of the section of magazine/CD/comic rack I'm trying to access, leafing through whatever they're (not even remotely) buying and ignoring every non-verbal prompt to move along a little, so I don't have to reach past their genitals for my wares. Double-points for wearing a Walkman/iPod so verbal cues are similarly useless. Triple points for being in Comic Showcase, where the socially-deskilled gather in silent, trenchcoated rows, the better to obscure entire shelves.

The woman who says 'mmm, denon' at the end of the anti-fart yoghurt ad.

Middle-class children, particularly middle-class children on the radio (Radio 4, inevitably), especially middle-class children overacting in radio plays. Actually, middle-class women in Radio 4 plays aren't much better; they seem to possess only two modes: Drippy and Histrionic.

Stargate. Every generation of Star Trek has been unfailingly shittier than the one before, and the Stargate franchise is a pale imitation of a carbon-copy - except with added US-centric 'America Is The World' imperialism. Fuck the Prime Directive.

Wasps. Obviously.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

15:22 / 20.12.04

Thanks for reminding me...

I am SICK TO DEATH of movies and TV making it seem like America is the only civilizaed country in the world, and other countries are all one-note stereotypes.

The French = villains
Germans = Tenchoclubs
British = Full of goofy, clumsy, but in the end, charming men
All former Eastern Block countries = Grey dismal factories, gaunt men and fat women
Central America = drug lords
South America = women without clothes and monsters
Africa = everyone is starving
Korea = kicks our ass at the World Cyber Games

And so on.

And all of them want to be Americans. ALL OF THEM.

It's no wonder Americans are utterly clueless about foreign countries.

16:02 / 20.12.04

Germans = Tenchoclubs We're not complaining. A decade ago it was still Germans = Nazis.

My gripe is groups who walk slowly. Groups who walk slowly and fan out so they block the entire pavement or corridor, and then proceed to advance at a pace that would put a glacier to shame. They are oblivious to your presence behind them, no matter how many time (or how loud) you say 'excuse me'. Your only recourse is to eventually elbow your way through them.

20:10 / 20.12.04

The woman who says 'mmm, denon' at the end of the anti-fart yoghurt ad

That would be "mmm, Danone". Denon make slightly rubbishy audio equipment...
However, must grumble:

The Tube is a veritable hotbed of irritating behaviour as has been noted, but to which I must add: People who stand on the left on escalators; People who insist on jumping into your already overcrowded carriage just as the doors are about to close, squashing you further; "Passenger action"; Persons under trains...

Next up, public mobile phone abusers: Those who insist on going through every ringtone on their phone; People who play games or do a lot of texting/button pressing with the keypad tones still on. I mean, I like a bit of minimal electronica but all that bleeping's just fucking annoying (and I once had to sit next to a man on the nightbus who was playing with his ringtone composer and had no evidence of musical talent or understanding); Anyone who still has Nokia Tune as their ringtone.

And finally, drivers: Box junctions are clearly marked in big yellow paint so that they be kept clear so that the bus that I'm on can continue with it's short journey to take me to the tube station. So why does every driver seem to deem themselves more important than everyone else and move out onto it causing a jam? See also: drivers who try to jump the queue and end up stuck in the furthest lane from their turning, which was suffering a jam, therefore once more blocking my bus (for 15 minutes).

I'm sure I have more...

20:19 / 20.12.04

That would be "mmm, Danone".

Yeah, what-the-fuck-ever.

20:31 / 20.12.04

Talking of adverts:

I love to Dance!

AND I LOVE TO PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE.

00:41 / 21.12.04

At the moment, I hate weekends. And Bank Holidays, Christmas, periods of National mourning and, potentially, sporting events of such cultural importance that employers en masse shrug and give everyone the day off to save us the hassle of lying badly. But mostly weekends.

Nine-to-five, Monday to Friday, I may be chilly, I may be eating rice and chickpeas for dinner again, I may be reduced to trawling the internet for the one remaining fanfic I haven't read yet to stave off the crushing boredom: but I'm not in an office. This sustains me (and might explain my long-term unemployment) and all is well. Then the weekend rolls around and, although my life is objectively no different, the fact that everyone else is having a much better time than they normally do is enough to trigger my misanthropic tendancies.

Shiny, happy people
they must die...

Oh, and the fact that when you open tins of soup there's a layer of tasty, meaty goodness stuck to the underside of the lid just teasing you with the potential waste of soup you've paid cold, hard cash for. I can't bring myself to ignore it, but always end up cutting my tongue or lip on the sharp end of the lid and it bleeds a ridiculous amount for such a tiny injury.

Finally, I must just add my resentment of bastard, so-called friends who get drunk and then shave off my lovely, warm, sheltering scarf/beard in the middle of freezing winter. What the hell am I supposed to hide behind now? Fucktards.

15:29 / 21.12.04

Currently I am gritting my teeth about a billboard that's been popping up around town, proclaiming:

1 IN 5 CHILDREN IS SEXUALLY SOLICITED ONLINE.

In the first place, I can't tell who placed the ad, and in the second, what the hell does that mean? Do they mean that one in five children who go online get sexually solicited, or that for one in five children who are sexually solicited, it happens online, or that one out of every five children you see on the schoolground has been sexually solicited online, regardless of whether they even have computers? Well? You can't bloody tell. Misleading scaremongering, it is. Even if the purpose is to make parents pay more attention to whether their kids are hanging out in the NAMBLA forum or something, it just seems bloody irresponsible to throw a statement like that out there with no explanation.

And I hate people who can't figure out traffic lights. We have a lot of lights around here where a green right-turn arrow comes on while the main lights are still red, and people in the right turn lane will just sit there, until the arrow turns yellow, then goes away, and wait till all the lights turn green - and all this, not only in spite of the green arrow, but also in spite of the fact that turning right at a red light is legal here. You don't even need that arrow! It's just there to let you know the turn is protected at that moment and you don't have to wait for cross traffic! Move, you idiots!

16:07 / 21.12.04

I completely appreciate what you're saying about single parents, and they are exempt from _my_ baby-buggy-bugbear, but it's these bloody 'yummy-mummies' with their fuck-off all-weather, all-terrain 4x4 pushchairs that they decide to wander round Spittlefields market with, completely obstructing everything around them and making no attempt at consideration. This is especially bad when there isn't actually a child in the contraption, and it's full of shopping. GAH!

What really gets me about this is that I fail to see how it's any easier than just carrying your kid when you've got this enormous fifty pound Sport Utility Carriage that you have to jam through the aisles and hoist up over thresholds, while your child wails because he's at a 45 degree angle upside down. Baby carriages are perfectly sensible, but when and why did they get so HUGE? I work in a little store and it baffles me to see the way shopping mothers ram those things through each and every square foot of the store. And it's true, fully half the time the occupant is a giant backpack! Huh?

wembley... I had to laugh at the short people umbrella thing. I am short, and at my old job had to bus to the office and back. The company had a bunch of giant corporate-logo golf umbrellas, so anytime I was going to have to bus home in the rain they'd try to force a golf umbrella on me... I had to refuse, the things were at least as wide as I am tall!