From: jlacey@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (james.w.lacey)
Subject: Twenty Peeves
Organization: AT&T
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 17:41:16 GMT




Although I am an infrequent reader and contributor to 
this esteemed group, I have been saving up all year 
and have not forgotten to put together my peeves list....  
sort of like a Santa Claus list in reverse.  

"This is a joy ride Admiral, so sit back and en-joy!"

(1) Drivers that park along the entrance road, and even on the grass
on the side of the road, at the "Park and Ride" lot in my town.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of spaces in the lot itself.
(BTW, a "Park and Ride" lot is a place for car-poolers to
park/meet or take commuter and airporter busses.)

(2) Drivers that park in the "fire lane" in front of supermarkets
and department stores, even though there are plenty of
spaces, often only 5 or 10 cars away.

(3) Bumper stickers that say "Skateboarding is not a crime."
While obviously true, the implication seems to be that
skateboarders should be allowed to play on pedestrian
walkways.   Then say so!  Who needs this guessing game? 
Why not "Let Skateboarders Play on the Sidewalk" bumper 
stickers?

(4) Drivers who spend 10 minutes cruising the mall parking lot
to find the closest space, thereby saving 1 minute walking 
time.

(5) Drivers who drive with their parking lights on and drivers who
drive for blocks with their turn signals blinking without
making a turn.

(6) Drivers of big pick-up trucks who 1) don't know how to park
in a parking space or 2) figure the rules don't apply to them. 
My advise: If you don't know how to park a big truck, don't buy one.
(By-the-way, what are they trying to compensate for with those
big tires?)

(7) People who claim, "We all worship the same God" yet who
are *totally* ignorant of any religion but their own.
In fact, I find most church-going people generally ignorant
of the details of their religion.  For example, people who
believe strongly in the Bible, yet are not aware that the
Protestant and Catholic versions have different contents.
Or my Catholic sister-in-law who said that communion in the
Catholic Church was a "symbol" for the Body of Christ (which
is wrong and technically a heresy... but then again, we wouldnt
expect the spanish inquisition).  I think the cause is that
a lot of "believers" figure all they have to do is accept 
whatever the priest/minister/rabbi tells them without doing
any reading/work/study on their own.

(8) Bow-wow English.  For example, using "amongst" rather than "among"
or "individuals of a suspicious nature" rather than "suspicious
people"  or "the sea was blue in color" rather than "the sea was
blue."  

(9) People who confuse their own personal taste with cosmic reality.
For example, my friend who said that anyone who put ketchup on steak
was just trying to hide the flavor.  Sure, I agreed, just like milk 
in coffee.  "That's totally different!", claimed this milk-in-coffee user.

(10) People who think vegetarians eat fish and/or chicken -- as though 
fish and chickens were not animals.  I think this comes from a
recent trendiness toward vegetarianism, with people from
Madonna to William Shatner announcing that they are vegetarian.
Just like the earlier trends against smoking and drinking,
the trend against eating meat includes some who like the
idea in theory but not in practice.  (As in: I dont smoke (much),
I dont drink (much), I dont eat meat (much), etc.)
So these "trendy" faux-vegetarians give non-vegetarians the impression
that fish and chicken are suitable (real) vegetarian choices. 
(They are sort a like a person who claims to be celibate and only has
sex now and then.)

(11) My newspaper delivery man.  It seems like a simple job.
Pickup papers and deliver them.  Collect money and keep records.
He does everything fine except keep records.  About every
2 or 3 months, I get a note that I owe him 2 weeks.  At first,
I figured I goofed up and forgot to leave his money, but after 
2 or 3 times, I realized that he wasnt keeping good records.
The last time a left him a note saying 1) I paid and 2) if
the money wasnt there, someone was stealing it and I would
pay the newpaper publisher directly.  BTW, what happened to the
12 year old kids who used to do this?  At one time, a paperboy
ready to "retire" (at 15) would *sell* his route to another kid.

(12) People who say Massa-too-setts rather than Massachusetts.
I wonder where they picked up the mispronounciation?  Of course,
Yankees say Ora-gone and Nev-ah-da.  BTW, how about Miam-ee/Miam-a
(Miami) or Missour-ee/Missour-a (Missouri)?  Which is correct?

(13) Stupid, yet sensitive, people.  (Perhaps BDSI -- Brain Dead
Sensitive Idiots.)  They think you are somehow
"out to get them" because they are too dumb to understand what
is going on.  The best example was when I was working for
another company and was assigned to computerize a manual
task that "Danny" (a professional, BTW) was currently doing and 
taking about a week per month to do and involved looking up production 
schedules and doing calculations on how many PROMS to program of each type.
The computerization, via an Apple III running Visicalc (I know
I am dating myself), was to proceed by me figuring it out,
doing it myself for 3 or 4 months, and then instructing Danny and
handing it back him to do thereafter.  After about 2 months of 
doing it mostly by himself with some help from me, Danny requested 
a meeting behind closed doors with me, and asked, "It there something 
that I did to you that made you dislike me?"  When I told him no,
he asked, "Then why are you making me go through this computer stuff?"
He figured that making him do some learning and thinking was some
kind of torture.  (Of course it also allowed him to do a week's
work in one morning and gave him more time to focus on execution 
of his plan.)

(14)  Route 128.  The highway that encircles Boston and 
is known as one of the the centers of US high-tech industry.
This generates a few sub-peeves:
A)  To save money, much of Rt128 has been renamed Interstate 95.
(Rather than builing a separate highway, State Rt 128 became I-95).
Most people still call it Rt 128. If you are *luckly*, the
signs on the highway will say "Interstate 95" and in small text, Rt. 128.
If you are not lucky, you will look for Rt 128 in vain.
B)  Dukakis (remember him?) decided to put up a bunch of signs
along Rt 128 saying "Rt 128: America's Technology Highway."
(To go along with his Massachusetts Miracle pitch.)  Unfortunately,
Rt 128 was already the "Yankee Division Highway", which the
veterans' groups were quick to point out.  The signs had to be
corrected to say "Rt 128: America's Technology Region."
(BTW, the Yankee Division was the 26th army division and the
was first complete US division to get to Europe in WWI.)  
C)  Rt 128 is four lanes in most places.  Even in Massachusetts,
there is a tendency for slower traffic to stay in the right
lanes -- but not on 128.  Starting from the right, we have
-accord going decent speed (55-60) -  saab trying to gain
ground (75-85) - ten year old escort just making it (45-50) -
another accord going decent speed (55-60), if it had been in
any lane other than the left lane.  Add a mix of plodding tractor-trailers
to make weaving in and out of traffic interesting.
D)  Speaking of trucks, Rt 128 has several hills that tractor
trailers must plod up going 30 or 40 mph -- unless they get
a flying start.  The peeve is:  who designs the engines/transmissions
in these trucks?  Someone from Iowa where hills do not exist?

(15)  Truck drivers.  Picture this:  Three lane interstate, cars
going 55mph in the slow lane, me in the middle going 65mph.
A tractor-trailer comes behind me, about a foot away from
my bumper, flashing his high beams, obviously wanting me
to pull over to let him pass.  The reason the tractor-trailer
wont pass me by going in the third lane is because of
signs saying "Trucks Prohibited From Third Lane".  
But it is just as illegal to speed and tailgate (and perhaps
driving to endanger) as to pass in the third lane.
In other words, if you are going to speed and tailgate, 
why worry about a third lane restriction? 

(16)  Women's rules.  I have been married over a dozen years,
and still dont understand.  Here is the latest puzzle:  

     She:  We have never been to the opera or ballet.
     Me:   I dont know anything *at all* about either one,
           but I am willing to go.  See what you can find
           out about it, and get some tickets if it sounds
           like something you would like to do.
     She:  But I want *you* to take *me*.

My wife is no shrinking violet, but a professional who has
given presentations at international conferences, published in
professional journals, etc.  She is probably much more capable
than me about finding out about opera and ballet (has some musical
backround) and works in the city.  The cost of tickets would
be paid out of our common income.  I dont understand the 
hidden agenda stuff about *me* taking *her*.

(17)  NIMBYism.  NIMBY stands for Not In My Back Yard.  Case in
point:  My city was planning to put in a sewer sludge treatment plant
that would use starved-air combustion.  Not only did the state
and feds approve the project, but we had a $4M grant to build it.
After a 5-year approval process, opponents of the plant pressured
the city council to kill the deal.  Not only did we lose the $4M
grant, but we are still required by the state to come up with
a long-term sludge management plan.  Which we will have to
pay for ourselves!  My peeves are 1) the opponents framed the
choice between building this plant and no plant.  "No plant" is
not an option because the state will not accept our current
practice of trucking sludge 200 miles away as a long term 
solution.  2)  Misleading people on the technical details
of the process.  For example, calling the plant an incinerator
(which volatilizes pollutants such as metals) when it was
a starved-air combustion process (which does not volatilize metals).
3)  Giving local yokels the authority to decide issues
which are *way* over their heads.  (I see why the founding fathers
set up the Electoral College to choose the president.)

(18)  Skateboarders and Rollerskaters/bladers.  Most of these
folks seem a little old to be playing with skateboards, etc.  
I would argue that if one is old enough to have a 5 o'clock
shadow, then one is too old to play with skateboards.

(19)  Fashions.  The peeve is not that they exist, but that
I am too old or out of touch to understand what is going on
or even what the name of the style might be.  For example,
in Seattle on Broadway, there are a lot of people with
dyed-black hair, nose rings, Converse All Stars or Doc Martens,
dark nylons with holes/tears in them, etc.  Is there a 
name for this style?

!Peeve:  At least this style allows women a chance to be
part of a fashion rebellion.  In the hippie days, the style
revolution was mostly in men's fashions.

(20)  Good Guys vs. Bad Guys.  I think the Bad Guys are getting
ripped off.  For example, visit a Disney store and see what is
offered in the way of stuffed animals, figurines, etc. 
It's all Mickey, Minney, Little Mermaid, etc.  The coolest Disney
character, IMHO, is the "demon" from Fantasia.  You know, the
big guy with horns.  Peeve:  you never see stuffed animal versions
of this character.  While I'm at it, how about "Love" stamps --
why no "Hate" stamps?  Perhaps a special set could be created
based on Meatloaf's hand tatoos (?), with "Love" on one half of
the set, and "Hate" on the other.  Or how about anti-drug
programs?  In my area, there is a program called "DARE to
keep kids off drugs" in which a cop visits schools and tells
kids not to take drugs.  Why not give the heads equal time? 
"Look kids, your life isnt going to amount to much anyway,
so why not go through it stoned?" 






-- 
     Jim Lacey  --  my own opinions    
     email:  att!cbnewsl!jlacey  or  jlacey@cbnewsl.cb.att.com
     D'ou venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Ou allons-nous?