Little things that annoy the hell out of you

[BIL]

Precision bombing operation. Like a parrot on a perch.

[dex]

Or an asshole (both kinds) over a door handle.

[Nana]

I've just been flushing them down VLV and discogs.
The last thing I need right now is someother forum to monitor.

It wouldn't be such a hassle, but I've picked up so much worthless dollar bin emo that no one is interested in and I keep debating whether I need to keep some record I enjoyed 4 years ago. Uhhhgggg

Music interest is dwindling. All I want to hear is fucked up synthesizers or repetitious drumming.

I am broken.

What's your discogs profile?

I myself am upset about my recent disinterest in music, especially since it has nothing to do with the music itself and more with getting ripped off over and over in attempt of purchasing it (thanks, home-run record labels!).

But hey, maybe you have something I'm looking for. You never know!

[njiska]

When you have something at work almost completely wrapped up and then another coworker touches it, ignores your latest work and fucks everything up with misinformation. In the case of today this has set me back a week on something I wanted to go away.

[KAI]

This

[mesh control]

What's your discogs profile?

http://www.discogs.com/user/Polyfreeze

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Getting asked "how are you today?" by customer service people I don't know. Honestly, what other answer than "I'm fine, thanks" do you expect? We know you don't care about my day and there's no way I'm asking a total stranger about theirs when I have no business being nosy and frankly have other things on my mind. Really, do you actually want me to spend several minutes talking your ears off telling you what a fantastic day I'm having or whining about how my day was awful? Do you want me to say "no, my day is going awful"? Because that then puts you in the awkward position of having to feign sympathy to a total stranger desperate for anyone's shoulder to cry on and either ask what's wrong (so I can tell you about in gory detail about whatever fascinatingly disgusting diseases I might have or how my pet cat Fluffy got run over and so on) or give some lame "I'm sorry to hear that" before getting to business. I can only see lonely sociopaths and/or people with no self-awareness doing that to a bank teller/cashier. No, of course not, you have shit to do and other customers in line, you just want to deal with me and get on with life and I want that too. If you are a total stranger to me I do not want to tell you about my day, what I'm up to this weekend, etc, and so I will always make a polite response that's as short and uninformative as possible so you are forced to move on and we can both focus on whatever business transaction I am making. It's not because I want to be a jerk or anything, but I am complete shit at making small talk, so please don't put me in that somewhat awkward position, kthx.

tl;dr, I know you're being polite, but when I am at a fast-food place or a bank or whatever instead of small talk or "how are you" from a complete stranger I'd much rather have you ask me "what can I do for you today?" so I can tell you what I would like to order, what I need, etc, and we can both get on with our day quicker.

[njiska]

Actually Roo, as someone who works in that industry (though it is enterprise-level business support, not common peon work like flipping burgers), it's usually pretty genuine. The question is both a friendly, common, introduction, but also serves to gauge the customer's temperature. And believe me, I'm fine is far from the only answer I get. I've heard everything from, "Annoyed" to "Not great, I'll be fired if I don't fix this" to "How do you think you asshole!?". Often the answer is a "just fine", but whatever, it's a pleasantry.

It will affect how I treat you for the call. If your day is stressed or you're in deep shit, I'm far more likely to act serious and to the point, rather than light hearted and casual.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

If your day is stressed or you're in deep shit, I'm far more likely to act serious and to the point, rather than light hearted and casual.

I think you can usually tell this in person based on body language (smiling/scowling) or via tone of voice over the phone (if you're doing tech support and the person's pissed, you can normally tell pretty quickly). I'm thinking most people could tell without needing to make unrelated chitchat beforehand or worse comes to worse err on the serious side.

which reminds me of the time i had a tech call from a university faculty for network/email help on his cell phone while he was making the call on said phone and driving his car on the highway

did i really just have to tell him that he shouldn't call for tech support when he's driving? fuck my naive misplaced faith in humanity

[xbl0x180]

Getting asked "how are you today?" by customer service people I don't know. Honestly, what other answer than "I'm fine, thanks" do you expect? We know you don't care about my day and there's no way I'm asking a total stranger about theirs when I have no business being nosy and frankly have other things on my mind. Really, do you actually want me to spend several minutes talking your ears off telling you what a fantastic day I'm having or whining about how my day was awful? Do you want me to say "no, my day is going awful"? Because that then puts you in the awkward position of having to feign sympathy to a total stranger desperate for anyone's shoulder to cry on and either ask what's wrong (so I can tell you about in gory detail about whatever fascinatingly disgusting diseases I might have or how my pet cat Fluffy got run over and so on) or give some lame "I'm sorry to hear that" before getting to business. I can only see lonely sociopaths and/or people with no self-awareness doing that to a bank teller/cashier. No, of course not, you have shit to do and other customers in line, you just want to deal with me and get on with life and I want that too. If you are a total stranger to me I do not want to tell you about my day, what I'm up to this weekend, etc, and so I will always make a polite response that's as short and uninformative as possible so you are forced to move on and we can both focus on whatever business transaction I am making. It's not because I want to be a jerk or anything, but I am complete shit at making small talk, so please don't put me in that somewhat awkward position, kthx.

tl;dr, I know you're being polite, but when I am at a fast-food place or a bank or whatever instead of small talk or "how are you" from a complete stranger I'd much rather have you ask me "what can I do for you today?" so I can tell you what I would like to order, what I need, etc, and we can both get on with our day quicker.

It's common courtesy and a formality, primarily when dealing with clients and customers, but, when I think about it - we're all customers. Over the telephone and in person, we know that answering with a smile changes the pitch and tone of one's voice and saying the canned phrase really helps in putting on a more genuine smile. People tend to become a bit more disarmed and less defensive when one kills them with kindness, even when the problem isn't solved. I do get people telling me they're stressed, they're in a hurry, etc., so I respond accordingly from there Really, most people don't want someone who is curt and monotone when things are going bad. They tend to become more stressed, combative, and impatient.

[njiska]

If your day is stressed or you're in deep shit, I'm far more likely to act serious and to the point, rather than light hearted and casual.

which reminds me of the time i had a tech call from a university faculty for network/email help on his cell phone while he was making the call on said phone and driving his car on the highway

did i really just have to tell him that he shouldn't call for tech support when he's driving? fuck my naive misplaced faith in humanity

When I used to do XPS support for Dell that shit happened all the time. Oddly often they would want to troubleshoot wifi issues, which is just baffling. Now that I work for RIM supporting their business server software the level of customer has significantly sky rocketed.

[blackoak]

That annoys me too, but its checked when I remember that the person calling me is likely being paid shit wages in a dead-end "career" where one day blurs senselessly into the next. All the moreso if its an outsourced call center...

[xbl0x180]

That annoys me too, but its checked when I remember that the person calling me is likely being paid shit wages in a dead-end "career" where one day blurs senselessly into the next.

I love this description. I'm gonna have to use it sometime

[njiska]

GameTrailers.com Content Delivery Network.

Dear god is it shitty. Even at work, on a 100 Mbps pipe that usually pulls a real-world 80 Mbps, I still can't stream content from there at higher then the lowest quality setting. Only gotten worse since the site redesign.

[BIL]

Bad writeing wot gets posted on major news sites.

South Africans rebelled more the more they found that promises made to them at the ballot box were not kept, it said.

My eyes, my brain.

[trap15]

Who wrote that, a 7 year old?

[Ed Oscuro]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... no#Account

Top things to do:
- Finish a degree
- Get a job
- Worry about pleasing one little shit who is obsessed with getting other people to do random work for them. If this guy (who used to go by various names including "finisher") ever tries to run a site he should be blacklisted just for being an obnoxious fool.

In any case, I'm wondering what special powers I must have that my lack of attention to the Contra series is so noteworthy. He can always bug the guys who actually host the Contra HQ these days, not that they're any better at this than I was (as people have noticed, HG101 articles tend to annoy the hell out of me these days).

[BIL]

Contra Database is quite cool I think. It'll teach you the Battlantis -> Super Contra connection!

Contra HQ on the other hand...

From the get-go, Shattered Soldier grabs you by the throat, shoves its tongue down your throat, and makes love to you in the roughest, sweetest way imaginable.

TELL ME YOU DIDNT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT SENTENCE ED :[ I can deal with reviewers likening an encounter with a somewhat challenging videogame to a remorseless anal fisting. It's just what they do! But a guy raving about how Contra ate his pussy like chicken chow mein? :/

[Ed Oscuro]

Believe it or not, I've been sitting on the entire PS2 backlog for some years, including SS. Nope, haven't played it

...much less written purple prose as flowery as that.

My CHQ involvement was basically writing back and forth with one of the Konami USA staffers about the DS release. The guy was all like "also, check out our cool cellphone port!" I think he assumed I had a good cellphone, because I shelled out a few bucks for one of the worst phone games I've ever seen on the BREW platform (itself not very capable, but the Castlevania: Order of Shadows title was actually halfway decent). I'm not about to forgive Konami for that one; they're lucky I didn't write about it. Maybe one of these days.

I had a lot of random ideas for the CHQ but ultimately laziness prevented me from going very far. Kurt K. was kind enough to update the site in my stead for the months I left off an important update.

One of these days I should give the idea a strong second look, but honestly, amongst the classic series worship sites, Shinobi is in more need of a look. Actually, most of the classic console shrine pages (Ninja Gaiden, even the Castlevania Dungeon to some extent) were not too interested in the arcade titles, which were often very interesting (especially in the Contra series) and didn't give much coverage from the PS2 onwards. If I do revisit the idea of a Contra homepage, I'll make sure to style it after the "classic" Castlevania Dungeon with its visual mishmash, rather than the much slicker early '00s update (the "modern" look). I haven't really followed these kinds of sites for some years, but my impression is that the best-updated one (outside of Japanese sites) is Dire51's Splatterhouse shrine, West Mansion, or the RF Emporium (obviously).

One thing that bugs me about a lot of these sites is the rather context-free bitching you get. A lot of people would take something like Brutal DOOM and overly focus on complaints about slowdown, or for a CV page might allege that the N64 outings were terrible, etc. That's all very well and good opinionating but not really useful for a shrine-type page, which is supposed to be about giving the classics their due and giving people who like the games as much useful information as possible. Any criticisms should be backed up with some kind of hard evidence but should not be presented as a reason to ignore the game, because hey you made a page about it after all.

[njiska]

Downloading a foreign film to watch and then discovering it lacks subs and isn't HD despite being labelled as such. Thus my viewing of The Killer has been delayed slightly. Thank god for news groups and 3.4 MB/s download speeds. Honestly I'd just go buy the Blu-Ray if it weren't for the fact the transfer is complete crap and isn't worth the money.

[BIL]

The IMDB boards' censorship policies. Granted the place is generally a dump but I do enjoy skimming over a movie's board after watching it. There are worthwhile observations buried amongst the "Movie A > Movie B" and "OMG WURST EVAR" shite. What's the point of aggressively censoring the board of a movie as adult and searingly profane as Glengarry Glen Ross?

[MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMINISTRATOR]

"great post; you articulated that so well, N_R."

[MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMINISTRATOR]

"WOW, what a post. guess there`s nothing left to be said about the ending of this marvelous film."

"That´s a perfect note for the film to depart on. One guy´s more or less f-cked for good and others barely notice. Life goes on the way it always does." (ohoho, this one's okay because he removed the "u" from the word "fucked")

"I love Nemesis_Rogue's writeup above. Almost makes me ashamed to add this bit..."

etc etc

[drauch]

Downloading a foreign film to watch and then discovering it lacks subs and isn't HD despite being labelled as such. Thus my viewing of The Killer has been delayed slightly. Thank god for news groups and 3.4 MB/s download speeds. Honestly I'd just go buy the Blu-Ray if it weren't for the fact the transfer is complete crap and isn't worth the money.

And it's got dubtitles. Best to just find the old Criterion or the Fox Lorber, although the transfers are shit on those, too.

[njiska]

And it's got dubtitles. Best to just find the old Criterion or the Fox Lorber, although the transfers are shit on those, too.

God I hate dubtitles. I've love to track down the criterion releases if I could. Reminds me I need to start collecting their LD stuff.

[drauch]

Yeah, you can still find the Criterion releases of The Killer and Hard-Boiled every once and awhile for a decent price. They used to be ridiculously priced, but ever since the Dragon Dynasty releases it seems like people have sold their old copies, which as we know was a fool's move. Gotta watch for the bootlegs, though. There are about a thousand almost exact, perfect copies of the Criterion releases out there. Some of them are pretty hard to tell, but if you want the movie correctly subtitled without some tripe American script, then it may be your best bet, regardless.

[njiska]

This is pretty much the main reason why I download all of my foreign film. That way I'm guaranteed to have the correct, authentic subtitles. Or at least, be able to obtain them. Shaolin Soccer and Fung Fu Hustle are two of the reasons why I started doing this. Their american subs are just god awful compared to the original script. So many jokes removed.

I usually only buy a physical copy of the film so that I can have something nice for my shelf. Though with recent movies it's getting easier to get authentic subs on disc. There have been a couple of films that I've watched where the English subs are authentic and the hearing impaired subs are the dub.

And now all this talking has reminded me I need to order some Criterion Kurosawa Blu-Rays.

[Ed Oscuro]

If your day is stressed or you're in deep shit, I'm far more likely to act serious and to the point, rather than light hearted and casual.

which reminds me of the time i had a tech call from a university faculty for network/email help on his cell phone while he was making the call on said phone and driving his car on the highway

did i really just have to tell him that he shouldn't call for tech support when he's driving? fuck my naive misplaced faith in humanity

When I used to do XPS support for Dell that shit happened all the time. Oddly often they would want to troubleshoot wifi issues, which is just baffling. Now that I work for RIM supporting their business server software the level of customer has significantly sky rocketed.

njiska has a RIM job?

Sorry, couldn't help it. I hope that RIM sticks around for a while

also, the uni guy calling from his cell while driving...doesn't surprise me at all, actually.

[njiska]

njiska has a RIM job?

Sorry, couldn't help it. I hope that RIM sticks around for a while

also, the uni guy calling from his cell while driving...doesn't surprise me at all, actually.

Heh, that's nothing. The company actually owned http://rim.jobs for a while. Presumably before someone maned up an told an old executive about analingus.

And I only have the job for now. There's been a lot of cut's lately. Fingers crossed I might get packaged out at some point.

[emphatic]

The company actually owned http://rim.jobs for a while. Presumably before someone maned up an told an old executive about analingus.

[Marc]

Jesus Christing fuck. Freddie Mercury in Angry Birds? Just. Fuck. Off.

[Ed Oscuro]

Jesus Christing fuck. Freddie Mercury in Angry Birds? Just. Fuck. Off.

Funny you should mention this!

I had installed Angry Birds for Chrome (the browser) maybe a year ago or more. It was pretty simple and there was "more coming soon!" Soon after (with all the levels three-starred) I was sick to hear of "more content." My understanding had been that Chrome "apps" were similar to bookmarks. Well, that understanding was wrong. Today I clicked around a bit and discovered that there is now, since that very early release of an Angry Birds app, a much bigger and feature-laden version of the app. I downloaded it, and now I can't restart a level without a huge fucking loading bar that either goes by in a second (but nowhere near as quick as the instant retry button of the old version), or ten seconds.

But look! There's all kinds of new Angry Birds dimensions, based on obscure brands like a Spanish pizza delivery service! REJOICEMENT TIMES!

They do have a login feature though - I might go ahead and get it going because I always wanted to save my best scores. (If you can't one shot a level you're doing it wrong.)