MetaChat - What random things have pissed you off today?

I did that thing where I had to fish a piece of paper out of the trash because I needed it and didn't realize it. And then I realized that I didn't actually need it after all. Huuuurgh.

posted by selfnoise 31 August | 10:56

I got up and out to work so early that the bakery hadn't opened yet and I couldn't have a danish to reward myself for going out early.

I got half way to the shop to get a drink before remembering that they've put a water cooler 5 yards from my office.

posted by biffa 31 August | 11:15

Something in my office keeps phoning me and when i pick up my phone i get a steady beep beep beep. Its very tenacious: this has happened over 20 times now. I'm thinking it might be Joshua, expecting to hear "Do you want to play a game?" before i accidentally unleash a nuclear armageddon on the world.

If that happens, I'm sorry.

posted by urbanwhaleshark 31 August | 11:30

I was going over a bunch of public document request and I found several "buzz off" letters saying the agency would get around to telling me when they were going to reply when they were good and ready. I thought I only had two or three serious violations, but now I see that I have more than half a dozen. Since I'm paying a lawyer to deal with this mess, it just got a lot bigger and potentially more expensive.

On the good side, the amount of damages I can claim just jumped over the $10,000 limit, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

posted by warbaby 31 August | 11:32

I'm thinking it might be Joshua, expecting to hear "Do you want to play a game?"

Just ask it to play a game of tic tac toe. That usually staves off nuclear holocaust.

posted by jrossi4r 31 August | 11:32

Oh, that reminds me. The apartment below me has been beeping constantly for the last week or so. The weird guy who lives down there amongst his fedex furniture is never around, even though he leaves his AC on full blast when he leaves for weeks. So now we've had this mysterious beep I hear every time I'm in the hallway. I seriously want to kick the damn door down and turn whatever it is off.

Urbanwhaleshark - that's probably a fax machine. Don't you just luuuuurve it?

posted by selfnoise 31 August | 11:33

I had to spend an extra hour this morning putting all of my daily work (counterparty account valuations) in a new test format that will be abandoned when my boss returns from vacas Monday. All the while, I was holding back number two. Now it won't budge.

I'm currently drinking coffee in an unwise attempt to get the lead out.

Sorry, you asked.

posted by Hugh Janus 31 August | 12:06

Dog knocked the trash over. Again.

posted by mygothlaundry 31 August | 12:12

Today? Nuthin. But yesterday while I was on the freeway (three lanes each way) a truck in the left lane changed two lanes to the right lane, rather suddenly. I happened to be in the right lane at the time and ended up on the shoulder. Gah! What a jerk.

posted by Doohickie 31 August | 12:18

I kept snoozing my alarm until I was almost horribly late and had to rush like mad to catch the express bus. I left the house without any masacara (I'm not a big makeup kind of girl, but I want my mascara, dammit) and then the express bus had the gall to be late! And it's actually chilly this morning (noooooo I need more summer!) and my ears are very sensitive and they got chilled while I was waiting for the damn bus.

And I forgot my soymilk (breakfast).

posted by Specklet 31 August | 12:25

Amazingly, nothing so far, today. Woke up on time. Got to work on time. Good subway karma. Smooth day at work. And now I'm going to have lunch.

This can't last.

posted by papercake 31 August | 12:26

I threw up when I got up this morning (allergies probably), first thing when I went outside I stumbled in a mole run and stepped on and broke a canna that was in full bloom, a horsefly bit me on the back - twice before I got it to leave me alone. That's about it so far.

posted by weretable and the undead chairs 31 August | 12:26

-replace "unwise"/"effective"

Now I want a nap.

posted by Hugh Janus 31 August | 12:29

My cat settled her furry ass directly on the head of my toothbrush.

posted by agropyron 31 August | 12:37

*laughs out loud so hard at agropyron he starts a coughing fit*
Yup, that's a cat.

My tooth hurts, and I'm out of vodka to mouthwash it away with.

I'm totally sleep deprived.

Also, I don't have nifty superhero powers, and I'm not on the Gulf Coast using them. That scene is getting unbelievable. :(

posted by loquacious 31 August | 12:42

Ugh, weretable. So far, you have the majority of my pity. I hate throwing up and I hate horseflies.

posted by Specklet 31 August | 12:49

The development server went down, and I decided to port the hard disk over to different hardware. While doing this, the sky decided to darken and start absolutely chucking it down. So, instead of being outside laughing at the rain gods and marvelling at the darkness of the sky, I had to sit inside moving network cards between machines.

posted by seanyboy 31 August | 12:54

Oh and another one: I opened up my salad to eat for lunch, and discovered that somehow I had forgotten to add oil and vinegar. So I ate dry dry spinach (+tomatoes, bacon and goat cheese) for lunch. Blech.

Oh how I love bitching :)

posted by gaspode 31 August | 13:15

You whiny little bitch. :)

alllrighty then...

posted by loquacious 31 August | 13:17

I expect we'll get that next seanyboy. It's been too nice down here for it not to rain at some point. Not that i need to be anymore wetter. I got in to work this morning and had to dry my soaked sweaty shirt under the handdryer. Curse sweat glands!

posted by urbanwhaleshark 31 August | 13:19

It's all been okay, really; but I haven't had to do anything yet that might precipitate such a state of mind (e.g. trying to cut-and-paste a chart from m-f'ing Microsoft Excel to m-f'ing Microsoft Word without it somehow screwing up the whole m-f'ing document, etc.).

Oh, now I think about it, this morning, the damn crappy Sears garage door opener quit working again this morning.

Thanks for asking.

posted by carter 31 August | 13:35

I haven't had any random things peeve me today. It ain't over of course. I do have a sore throat which won't go away and seems to bleed a bit, and that damned Katrina. I can't even talk about it. Loved ones in Gautier, MS and New Orleans (as well as Mobile, AL and Pensacola, FL).

posted by safetyfork 31 August | 13:36

Can I just round up my week so far? Saturday, I didn't have water for most of the day while mr. taz worked on the water heater, which for some unknown reason doesn't appear to have a water shut-off included in it's creative plumbing. Now the water to my washing machine is not running right evidently - though the clothes seem to come out dampish, and today I put a shirt that I had thought was washed (but was evidently only "damped") and went to the supermarket, and kept wondering why there was this funny smell in the supermarket. It wasn't 'til I was in the elevator coming back up with just me, my groceries, and my shirt that I realized the funny smell was coming from me (why didn't I happen to notice it on the ride down? Because I was carrying out the garbage then, silly.)

Sunday, no electricity for most of the day, for reasons still shrouded in mystery. Monday a massive killer hurricane hits my old hometown, and today, when I finally hear from one of my people who is hunkered down in an internet cafe in Baton Rouge, I lose my internet connection.

And my back hurts a lot, which is usually due to stress. It could have something to do with sitting here for like 24 hours straight watching horrifying streaming news about New Orleans and weeping my eyes out. I hate this week.

posted by taz 31 August | 14:37

I've been looking for my had (I must wear a hat while I compute) for three days. When I got up this morning, some groggy instinct told me to check behind the couch -- and it was there! So I hurt my back trying to dig it out from its hiding place and put it on my head, only to find out (too late) that it was covered in cobwebs. While trying to pick the cobwebs out of my mouth and eyebrows, I stubbed my toe.

Also, I have a headache.

posted by mudpuppie 31 August | 14:42

Oh, and all the major web/tv news agencies have for hours been showing a picture of a broken levee in New Orleans and talking about flooding. This is however a broken levee that is letting water *out* of urban areas and into a canal; it's reducing flooding. Grrrr.

posted by carter 31 August | 14:51

You know what, nothing random: My moms called me this morning after I spent all last night planning to get my ass to jackson Ms and rescue her and her car from a super-8 motel, she is pissed instead of depressed, driving to MA to be with family and treated herself to a big mac so I am without question so fucking happy right now that she is ok. Last night I wept for New Orleans though, after watching tv for the first time all week. I'm not a big weeper, so that was rough.

Now I will round this back on topic, something that I am not used to doing:

All things that have pissed me off today have been non-random except this:

My mom mailed me a box of those australian tea tree chewing stick jams, which she thinks will stop me from smoking, last week and I've had them in my pocket and they came loose and all morning I stunk of eucalyptus without knowing why, so now my own shorts are making my eyes water and I lost about half my whole foods in Mid City NOLA chewing sticks which are fucking irreplacable for real. Other than that and the whole apocalypse in the gulf, I am soooo cheery today.

Love you all.

posted by Divine_Wino 31 August | 15:37

I like bitching too. I know I already went, but I want to go again.

Just now, after I finished typing that, I took a sip of my peppermint tea and the teabag lurched and splashed peppermint tea on my white shirt.

But what I was gonna say was (and this is probably TMI) I'm ovulating in two days and my hormones are on overdrive and I'm horny as hell and am still lusting after my ex-boyfriend which makes me sad as hell so I'm currently sexually frustrated and weepy.

And the hurricane aftermath doesn't help with the weepy.

posted by Specklet 31 August | 15:52

Well, this is not random, but I just read it and nearly threw my computer across the room.

From salon.com

The real cause of Hurricane Katrina?

Sometimes, it's hard to keep up.

We reported last night on the cause of Hurricane Katrina -- at least in the eyes of an antiabortion group called Columbia Christians for Life. The storm, the group says, is God's way of punishing Louisiana for having 10 abortion clinics.

Well, at least that's what the Columbia Christians for Life were saying yesterday. We've just received another e-mail from the group, and now it seems to be saying that God sent Katrina after Louisiana to prevent Southern Decadence, an annual gay-themed bash that was scheduled for Labor Day weekend in New Orleans.

The Columbia Christians for Life forwarded to us a press release from a Philadelphia-based outfit called Repent America. In it, Repent America director Michael Marcavage explains: "Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city. From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same."

posted by gaspode 31 August | 17:00

The day the person who wrote that press release gets crushed under a barn like the Wicked Witch of the East, then I'll believe there is an angry and vengful god. Until then, I think not.

posted by dodgygeezer 31 August | 17:11

(noooooo I need more summer!)

Specklet: Here ya go. You can have some of my summer. I've had enough anyway.

posted by Doohickie 31 August | 17:48

At work today, I spent 2 hours trying to fix erroneous and missing data in a database, only to find out at the end of my shift that the database is buggy and is regularly eating the data. I was pumping water back into a leaking dam.

posted by muddgirl 31 August | 19:36

At the subway stop where I catch the train in the morning, there are steps that go down, and an escalator that goes up. The escalator is wide enough for one person to stand and one person to pass. The stairs are wide enough for one-1/2 people.

People often walk up the stairs, even though there is plenty of room for them on the escalator (even if they want to walk!) and there isn't room for them on the stairs. Sometimes I would dearly love to deck them, but I'm too polite.

posted by kirkaracha 31 August | 21:08

This morning: Just before stepping on the escalator up to the train platform, the woman directly in front of me got a call on her cell phone, causing her to stop suddenly to fish it out of her purse and check who it was. I walk briskly (while always carefully observing and calculating the speeds, vectors, and likely courses of people around me, but am never sure how to factor in the random actions of people who don't know how to walk where other people are walking; I guess it's a good thing I don't drive). I almost crashed into her, and would doubtless have been blamed if I had.

This person-in-front-of-me-stopping-suddenly-to-answer-the-cell-phone thing happens a lot, in doorways, narrow staircases, crowded sidewalks . . . Several times a day. I used to think that mobile phones immobilize the stupid, but now I think it's intentional, and is specifically for the purpose of making me seethe. I can't prove it, but I know it to be true.

posted by Absit Invidia 31 August | 21:54

The big raise my boss has been promising me for six months turned out to be an insulting sixteen cents an hour.

I am now looking for a new job.

posted by kellydamnit 31 August | 22:34

well...i work too much...live too hard and drink too much to care that i'm not getting any like specklett, though i suspect that if i gave myself half a second, i'd want to rut with most anything that moves...it wont/cant last...eventually i'lll shack up with someone and stop drinking too much.

i've hung out with nola refugees (mostly kids i knew from this mid-MO college town that moved there that ecavuated...)

I'm glad i wasnt a tourist whilst a tourist in NYC...at least gaspode cant blame me for stopping in her way.

best wishes for all

now you see me now you dont!

posted by Schyler523 31 August | 23:55

Absit Invidia:

Put a knee in her tailbone. She'll never do it again. If she blames you, say, "Don't stop short and you won't be in the way."

I hate short-stoppers.

posted by Hugh Janus 01 September | 08:53

31 August 2005