Author: wrekehavoc

pet peeve: people with no follow-through

pet peeve: people with no follow-through

Posted on by wrekehavoc

why don’t they do what they say? say what they mean?

years and years ago, my sister in law inadvertently came up with a nickname for the kind of people my parents, my brothers, and i are. she called us boomerang people. what she meant: when we say we are going to do something, we come right back at you with whatever we said we were going to get or do.  it’s ingrained into our psyches. and it’s just how i thought all people operated. i’m fortunate i’m married to BS, who also always keeps his promises.

unfortunately, as i got older,  i learned that not everyone in the world was trained by my mom and dad.

i’m sure you have experienced that disappointment at work, at school, or with friends: people who just don’t do what they say they will. you were depending on john or jane to deliver, and he or she doesn’t. and you’re screwed. or disappointed. or both. sure, everyone has an off-day of course– sometimes, competing priorities win out.

but particularly if you are a parent, you simply must follow through. if you promise your child you’re going to the park, you go to the park. if you promise your child you’ll help with homework, you help with homework. and if you know you can’t or don’t want to do those things, very simply put:  don’t make those promises.

otherwise, you end up with one messed-up kid. and the consequences will boomerang back onto you and society, and probably not in a pleasant sort of way.

pet peeve: people who think DC has a low cost of living

pet peeve: people who think DC has a low cost of living

Posted on by wrekehavoc

well, relative to san francisco it does, i suppose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYLiDn69DeI

i belong to a few email lists where occasionally, you get a post along the lines of this:

hi! i’m moving to DC from (NY/SF/LA/pondunk) and i need to find a place to live. i’m hoping to find an apartment for under $700/month, utilities included, that is on the metro line and is also near a park.  i’d prefer not to share.

yeah, and i’m looking for my fairy godmother.

seriously, people. if you move to a major city, not to mention the CAPITOL OF THE FREE WORLD for christsakes, you can expect that the costs here aren’t exactly cheap. and depending on certain criteria, it is just as expensive as the cities that generally top the lists of most expensive places to live in the US of A.  it has hit the point here in the Commonwealth that you really need to go faaaaaaaaar out to find reasonably inexpensive digs — and we’re talking Front Royal near Skyline Drive. (yes, virginia: people actually commute to DC from there each day. they also commute from West Virginia. as in the state.)

i’m frankly a bit ashamed that developers have essentially priced most non-upper middle class folks out of the people’s republic without a lot of shrieking from the populace. that’s simply not the arlington way.

but arlington isn’t alone here. look around the beltway and you’ll find a lot of pretty damn costly places to live. even the places you really would prefer to avoid aren’t cheap.

so set your expectations appropriately before you start asking me to find you a place for so little money; that is, unless you help me build a time machine which can transport you back in time to, say, 1940 or so.

pet peeve: american actors attempting british accents

pet peeve: american actors attempting british accents

Posted on by wrekehavoc

yes, virginia. there are american actors who succeed at using the queen’s english. but for every one, there are oodles of others…

UK actors, like EastEnders’ Michelle Ryan, have a tough time getting the american accent to work. apparently, though, plenty of US actors are pretty pathetic at verbally crossing the pond. my beloved dick dan dyke’s accent is so awful in mary poppins that the term van dyke accent has actually emerged as an insult to those attempting an east end accent.  demi moore’s accent in flawless simply isn’t. and i’m not sure what sort of accent misha barton is channelling in st. trinians.

empire magazine did an article on the worst british accents in film. see if you agree.

pet peeve: people who say “whatever”

pet peeve: people who say “whatever”

Posted on by wrekehavoc

yeah, you heard me.

i will be the first person to tell you that i hate arguments. some people adore conflict and can’t wait to jump in, fangs bared, to tear into a topic. that person would not be me.  as tori amos once sang,  i believe in peace, (bitch). i never think of the truly clever thing to say in such situations until hours or days afterwards. i fumble. in short, i need time to think before i speak. i know that once the words are out of the mouth, it is nearly impossible to take them back.

but i also realize that there are times when one must  put her big girl panties on and deal with uncomfortable situations. and when i have taken the trouble to talk to someone, calmly, about something that really disturbs me, one of the worst things you can say to me back is whatever. it’s as if my very existence  is being discounted, tossed away like a used kleenex.  and then, watch out. i won’t be as careful with my words since you apparently didn’t appreciate what i said. you don’t have to agree with me, but you do have to respect me. and since i have been disrespected, well, hell hath no fury like a woman whatevered.

i often hear plenty of people do this, particularly younger folks. when did it become okay to be fresh in conversation? it’s as if they’re done, and they don’t care about resolution — their ideas are the only important ones. a big thank you goes out to the mostly baby boomers who have somehow allowed their kids to shut down others in a thoughtless way.

maybe i ought to burst out into song the next time someone says the W word to me. my singing is punishment enough, i suspect, especially when attempting to sing along with aretha.

pet peeve: abuse of the word “unique”

pet peeve: abuse of the word “unique”

Posted on by wrekehavoc

you are one-of-a-kind. unless, of course, you are schizophrenic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scHNkspg8Ao

to me, unique is an absolute term, meaning unparalleled or without an equivalent. it is nonpareil (and not to be confused with the yummy chocolate candy that features such little white beads.) and when people state that something is VERY unique, it makes me CRA-ZY! and no, i am not some pedantic asshole who looks down from on high; i’m just a person who appreciates proper word usage.

advertisers have trumpeted the word unique, making it mean extraordinary. and yes, something can be extraordinary if it is unique. but being extraordinary doesn’t necessarily mean something is unique — two different concepts. i mean, i think plenty of things are out-of-this-world, but they are also reproducible.

but unique? ah. there’s the difference. the only one.

like this guy:

and, since it’s november 18, there’s another special guy who completely fits the bill:

happy birthday, BS!

pet peeve: people who talk through the movie in a theater

pet peeve: people who talk through the movie in a theater

Posted on by wrekehavoc

four words: wait for the DVD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gudEttJlw3s

when i was a child, i learned that going to the movies was a fun-filled privilege, one in which i was to stay quiet and…wait for it… watch the film. one of my favorite pastimes is going to movies in a theater; there’s something different about the whole visualization that you just don’t experience at home (unless you have a theater-sized screen, which sadly, we will likely not achieve in our house in our lifetime.)

but over the course of my life, i have noticed a few phenomena.

1) when i lived in south florida, i learned that to hit a film during certain hours of the day would guarantee that i would be joined mostly by hard-of-hearing elders. these elders spent half their time half-whispering what did he say? until i nearly lost my mind.

2) now that i’m a parent, i spend plenty of time at kid movies, some of which aren’t half bad. (and some of which i might prefer to have my fingernails pulled out, one at a time.) i have instructed my children that they aren’t to talk during a film unless they need to go to the bathroom, in which case they must q u i e t l y let me know their status and we will then quickly and q u i e t l y run to the loo. pity that many kids aren’t raised by me, model movie mom. kids talk throughout the movies, and in VERY LOUD VOICES, TOO.  (just because you can screetch through a video at home doesn’t mean you can do it in public, dearheart.) you’d think their mom or dad would tell them to pipe down — that other people paid to hear the movie and not them asking 50 times whether buzz lightyear is really gone. but somehow, the parents were MIA on the day they taught about theater behavior.

3) things have gotten a bit better since theaters started airing those silence is golden PSAs. some people now turn off their cellphones. but hey, you in front of me, texting away. the light from your phone is distracting — and if you wanted to text, why did you pay $10 for a movie ticket?

gah.

pet peeve: people who don’t know the difference between there, their, they’re

pet peeve: people who don’t know the difference between there, their, they’re

Posted on by wrekehavoc

vive la différence.

i cannot possibly imagine what some people were doing during their school years, but they’re butchering the english language here, there, and everywhere. and one of the top grammatical offenders appears to be the usage of there, their, and they’re. it’s not difficult, people, like it’s and its is.

there usually involves a place. and when it doesn’t involve a place, it is introducing a clause or a sentence (i.e., there is an awesome place where people actually know how to speak using grammatically-correct terms.) and of course, there is sometimes used by the folksy or southern people out there: them there eyes comes to mind.

their is the possessive form of they. and that’s IT. their house, their lawn, their dog who bites you when you visit. it all belongs to them. get used to it, get over it, and you’ll be ok.

they’re is a contraction — see the little line thing between the y and the r? it means there’s at least one letter missing. and that letter, in this case, is an a. breaking it all down — it means they are. so every time you are tempted to use that one, break it up in the sentence and see whether it works. they are is a place that i can go when i feel low? (nope. use there.) they are house, they are lawn, they are dog who bites you when you visit… (nope. now, how stupid does that sound? think about it.)

so get it straight, or the people with poetic license(s) will gang together and they’ll come to take you away to a dictionaryfest, where you’ll be force-fed contractions and grammar until your prepositions start contracting.

you’re welcome.

pet peeve: people who won’t pay their taxes on principle

pet peeve: people who won’t pay their taxes on principle

Posted on by wrekehavoc

somebody’s got to pay for all of this.

let me preface this by saying that this is not a debate as to whether or not you feel your taxes are too high. i, for one, have a few ideas as to how we could cut government spending, but that is another thread for another day.

this is, in fact, about those ignorant morons who try to completely get out of paying any federal taxes, whether G-d told them not to, whether they feel it’s unconstitutional (which says to me that they haven’t read the 16th amendment lately), or whether they’re just too fucking selfish to pay. i’m sorry, but if you live here, you have to do what the rest of us do. (well, most of us. big corporations manage to weasel out of paying taxes in myriad ways, which makes me also insane. but you, john q. public, don’t have an army of litigators at the ready to protect your supposed right to hide any earnings you’ve made.)

i know people think they have the right to not pay taxes, but i respectfully disagree. you like roads? you like clean water? you like junior getting an education? you like granny getting her social security check? you need to pony up, sir. otherwise, you can move. you can move to the UAE, but you might have to give up some of those rights you’ve learned to love.

in the meantime, i leave you with some creative ways of alleviating your tax burden.

1) don’t smoke cigarettes.

2) don’t drink alcohol (or conversely, start up a new hobby: home brew.)

3) don’t drive your car. bike, walk, or take public transport.

if i think up more, i’ll let you know. i’m open to your ideas, of course.

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Cape Town, South Africa