Ah, good luck, we used to have car vandals at my folks place. But they were just kids, they'd swipe stupid stuff, like all the change out of my dad's car. They stole some of my HS books from my bag that I left in my car, but they gave up because them buggers are heavy and left them at the local park. (This was in the 90s, I'm not sure what they were expecting to find in a backpack in a Chevy Celebrity)
Today my nerd rage was aimed thusly: Everyone with a cellphone. Cellphone user 1: stops to text immediately after exiting train, blocking my way off. Cellphone user 2: stops to text at the top of an escalator. Same result as #1. This is rather more bothersome as the escalator keeps moving regardless of any social faux pas taking place. Cellphone user 3: walks very slowly ahead of me on narrow sidewalk while looking down and texting. When I attempt to pass, the person subtly shifts the same way I do in order to block my effort to get around. In s lounge area at the college I notice four students gathered on a pair of sofas that face each other. They are being quite chatty....with the people they are texting, as all four are sitting silently, heads tilted down to their phones. Perhaps I am just jealous. If I try tapping out a text message while walking I will either smash into the nearest immovable object or spend so much time correcting gibberish that it would be quicker to just sit down and write a nice letter to the person.
It should totally be okay to slap a phone out of someone's hands if their use of it is causing them to be oblivious to their surroundings.
Fucking bikers. I was talking on my cell (I swear this isn't related to Creole Ned's post) as I went to cross a street in the crosswalk. I look left, since it's a one way street, no cars coming, just a biker that's far enough away I don't think anything of it. I go to cross the street and the fucking biker speeds up to buzz right behind me as he yells, "Watch where you're fucking walking!" I was, asshole! Pedestrians have the fucking right of way and you need to obey the fucking traffic laws!
I'm raging at Namco Bandai today. I ordered Ni No Kuni; Wizard Edition back in August for my husband's birthday. It came out yesterday, no game but hey, sometimes it takes a bit to mail things. No problem. I looked at my email this morning and there was an email posted at 12:10 AM telling me that there was a problem processing my order so it was canceled. It went on to say since it was a limited edition item it is no longer available for purchase. I have spent the entire day trying to speak to an actual person to get this straitened out but no luck. "Press 0 to speak to an operator" just sends me back to the menu. When I do get a person they forward me to customer service that gets me another automated message and then booted to voice mail. I'm starting to get VERY frustrated. I'm about to become a very squeaky wheel and plan to be very firm, polite, but firm the next time I call (I will use the Mom voice).
People who are terrible at geography. Now, I don't mean people who are merely bad at geography or unstudied at geography. Not being able to find Kyrgystan or Tajikistan on a map doesn't apply. Not knowing off the top of your head what's between Ukraine and Romania doesn't bug me. But my boss just asked me if I'd ever heard of honeybell oranges. She figured I'd know because I'm 'from the south'. I'm from Kansas, goddammit! I swear to god, Bostonians are utterly oblivious about anything south of New York and anything west of Pennsylvania until you get to California. If you're from the US and you can't get at least, oh, a 100 on this test, you are triggering my nerd rage for today.
Challenge accepted. ETA: I got 146 out of 150. Woohoo! (Have I ever told you guys about the girl I dated a couple years ago who was from Ohio? She thought you had to "go around the lakes" to get from Ohio to Michigan.)
If you have a question about your bill, CALL BILLING. The phone tree lists an extension for it, geez.
I've escaped nerd rage by 7 points! sheesh all those funny shaped states in the middle are hard. Plus apparently your Ohio gf and I would get along great.
148, fool! And that's mostly cos I refused to click on the circles so I twice misclicked Delaware and Maryland came up. So. I'm dumb. BUT I KNOW WHERE WISCONSIN IS, GODDAMMIT! This one is way easier. 1:22 for me, and I took a call while doing it. Yeah. This one, on the other hand, is way harder. Not having a map makes shit crazy tough. And just to be honest with myself, I did this Europe quiz. Guys, I didn't do great. Not only could I not manage to spell Bosnia and Herzegovina correctly, I forgot that the Vatican existed. I think we can all agree that in my universe the fact that there are sad people forced to live in Bosnia and Hertzagowhatthefuckgoddammitthisisastupidname is balanced out by the fact that there is no Vatican.
I personally believe, that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps.
149. I clicked Delaware when looking for Connecticut. Oops. Didn't get Vermont and New Hampshire confused though! I always had trouble with those two in grade school.
150/150, but since I've been to nearly all of them (except for Hawaii and Alaska), I basically cheated. I lucked out though, I was able to differentiate Hawaii and Alaska by utilizing both the process of elimination and a coin toss.
That was totally one of my errors. And I love Vermont but I legit could not remember which was which. The coasts, the south, the upper midwest, the southwest were all pretty easy. The mid-midwest was where shit got real. Kansas is just a square!
The only squares are Colorado and Wyoming. Kansas's northeast corner is shaped by the Missouri River. Also, Kansas City is in both Kansas and Missouri, so one can infer that one of the states bordering Missouri is Kansas. Now you'll never forget!
118. I have no idea what's going on with all that stuff in the middle. Who knew Utah was so far north? It's all just stuff you fly over on the way to the good stuff. Chicago is right dead center in the country, right? Because that's where you always stop if you're too cheap to get a direct flight.
Thanks guys. Now I have spent a precious hour learning USELESS INFORMATION like the location of Nebraska. 150 bitches. (We'll see how I do tomorrow....)
Somebody doesn't know the song. Only reason I can't do that one in under a minute is because I can't type that fast.
Nine times out of ten, when people talk about some cool new indie video game with innovative mechanics, one that's proving video games are an effective story-telling mechanism, with a haunting story, great graphics and music and theme... they're talking about a dog-damn platformer. Which I will never be able to get through more than the tutorial stage of, because I am TERRIBLE at platformers. Argh!
Wait, we have a state named California? Ha ha, right. And New York? What, we hated England enough to fight a war against them and then named a state after their terrible frozen peppermint thing? Whatever.
146 - I am wretched at US geography. Mostly because for that section of grade school I was out sick with giardia and up until I was 18 thought Missouri was one of the states bordering the Great Lakes. So when I schlepped off that summer to Basic Training at Fort Lost-In-The-Woods, I was expecting a nice lake-breeze summer camp environment. What I got was air with the viscosity of maple syrup and a heat index somewhere close to the surface of Venus. Goddamn geography.
150 on the first test, 1:22 on the second, 41 on the typing test (I went alphabetically), and 42/47 on the Europe test before I had to go look up the remainder. To be fair on the last one, I did study the EU quite a bit in college. And who remembers where San Marino is, anyway? :P
Bahimiron You mean to tell me you didn't learn Fifty Nifty United States in the KS public school system? I'm disappointed. :)
I assumed you meant the song Elyscape linked! Of COURSE I learned Fifty Nifty United States. Which, lemme say, this is freakin' bizarre because Quackers is pretty sure I made it up, despite the fact that I've sung the beginning of it to her before. FIFTY NIFTY UNITED STATES FROM THIRTEEN ORIGINAL COLONIES! Unfortunately I clearly stopped paying attention after that, cos it just didn't stick with me.
The only party that stuck with me, beyond those opening two lines, is the middle part with all the states in alphabetical order. Good to know I retained the really important stuff from 6th grade.
It's not just a Kansas thing, either; that chorus is one of the few things I remember from fifth grade in Maryland. :)
Portions of Fifty Nifty are seared into my brain simply because remembering things when they have a particular carved cadence to them come like breathing to me. The fault of this is due to language. *grim gimlet stare at* 128 after I blew off the dust of my USA USA! knowledge. I did better at the Asia one then European but that's kinter expected.
This is mild rage, but I ordered a fancy messenger bag for my daily bike commute and the bag manufacturer says on their website that only the large size bag will fit my 15" Macbook. I got the bag yesterday and I could fit 3 laptops in I think. The tag on the bag says it fits 17" laptops and I'm pretty sure I could get two of those in there too.
