BrockLi Soup

(It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, at least in part because I don’t bother getting pissed at much these days. But, every now and then, someone will do something that really irritates me, like:)

People who say they like all music - “except country”

Now, there have been times when I’ve listened almost exclusively to country - in particular, 2003 through 2004, but that was a dark time for all of us. I don’t really listen to country at all anymore; I can appreciate a handful of artists for their own reasons, but that’s not my point here.

In my experience, people that say “I like everything but country” mean “I like whatever crap is looped on the corporate-owned top 40 station in my town.” They listen to the musical range that falls between Soulja Boy and Fallout Boy, but that’s like visiting every town between Boise, Idaho, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama: there’s a little variety, but it’s all pretty boring and you still won’t come across any oceans, let alone Paris, London, or even New York.

Seriously, just be honest with yourself and just admit that you own every Nickelback album - because hey, they’re not country, right?

Dave Matthews

Can we all PLEASE just agree that we’re over him and get on with our lives? I can remember being in middle school, when Crash and Under the Table and Dreaming came out, when everyone was swooning over him and his posters went up in countless college dorm rooms across the country. It’s been a decade since Crash came out, yet we’re still swooning and the posters still hang. There’s a time and a place for Dave, and that’s the scene in the movie when the sensitive-guy protagonist walks dejectedly through the night streets after being informed by the true love of his life (who, incidentally, is engaged to an asshole) that she will go through with the wedding the next day, and then there’s a shot of her looking absentmindedly in the mirror as her wedding gown is given a final touch-up and you know that he’ll crash the wedding or she’ll run from the altar and they’ll leave town together in the back of a Greyhound bus that was just about to leave anyway.

The worst part is that I still like him so much. I was just checking the years on those two albums and saw a half-dozen tracks that bring back fond memories of my childhood. And maybe that’s why I’m pissed: just the thought of his songs brings the same feeling as that cliche scene in the movie - it’s going to turn out all right - but it took me ten years to understand why everyone likes him so much.

Dear Boing Boing and everyone else:

For the love of Bob, no one cares anymore. Calling it a “transmit mashup” doesn’t make it any more interesting. The horse has been killed, kicked, buried, excavated, buried again, and raped enough for the week, don’t you think?

Poorly Written Web Forms

I’m going through and updating my address on all sorts of accounts. I’ve received errors like this more than once:

Please re-enter your address without using characters such as the forward-slash /, back-slash \, &, etc.

Any programmer that would irritate the user rather than stripping punctuation should be locked in Rosie O’Donnell’s house on grocery day. The worst is requiring a specific phone number format. Any half-decent BASIC coder should be able to re-format a string of numbers however he pleases.

Sewn-up pockets

Am I the only one that actually puts stuff in my pockets? Honestly, is there any reasonable explanation for pockets to come sewn shut on suit coats and other nice clothes?

iEverything

Why the hell do companies think that adding a lower-case ‘i’ at the beginning of every product they offer will make it better? I can’t blame Apple, because that’s kind of their “thing”: iBook, iPod, iTunes, iMac, etc. But iGuitar? Or iRiver? That one doesn’t even make sense. It’s so ridiculous that companies are trying to make themselves seem innovative by cashing in on Apple’s success.

When Pepsi switches from an iTunes promotion to a sports gear promotion

This wouldn’t bug me if they didn’t use similar ten-character codes for both promotions. I didn’t realize the iTunes promo had ended until two of my codes were refused and I took a closer look at the bottle. Bastards.

I expect this to become a regular feature here, because, hey, it’s my blog and I’ll write whatever I want. And really, isn’t the Internet just one big inter-continental forum for bitching?

Plus, a lot of things piss me off and I’m not shy about expressing this sentiment. Just ask Goffin.

So, without further ado (I just love clichés):

Anime girls that try to act cute all the time and say things like, “I’m small and helpless!”

Most of the ones I’ve met are not cute. Most of them are also pretty hefty, and several have caused me bodily harm. You are not helpless, and you are anything but small. Stop using smilies like ^_^. And for the love of gob, quit giggling incessantly. You are not six any more. Get over it.

Anime guys that act like anime girls into their early 20’s.

Seriously, where did these guys come from? I don’t know how they got away with pulling that crap this far into their lives. Where I come from, the other kids beat that kind of thing out of you around the age of…your mother’s second trimester.