Hateables

For your pleasure, here is a list of little things that bother me a lot.

Leaf blowers.

There used to be implements called rakes designed to move leaves around. They required a modest amount of effort, but they were nearly silent. Now people use air blowers powered by internal combustion engines. Just as we are learning about how our use of fossil fuels is damaging the environment, we have to invent another unnecessary way to use gasoline when an earlier method existed already. And it's so freakin' loud! You can tell it's autumn from the deafening cacophony of little gasoline engines blowing leaves around. And frankly, rakes work better; you can't make piles with blowers.

Gratuitous accents in voice-overs.

Have you ever seen a documentary with foreign-speakers? The standard procedure is to get a voiceover person to read the translation of what they are staying. Often they will do this in a foreign accent, even though you know they are not the original speaker. Why?

Movie re-makes.

The Producers. Planet of the Apes. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. What do all these movies have in common? They were excellent the first time, mediocre the second time. Okay, you say, just don't go see it. No need to get all upset, right? Wrong! Because every movie they remake means someone with a novel script is still having to wait tables while risk-averse movie producers get marginally richer. And the same thing goes for unnecessary and poorly-made sequels (or prequels). Wakowski Brothers and George Lucas, are you listening? If you're going to extend the story to milk it for more money, make sure it doesn't suck!

Commercials in movie theaters.

In the current phase of this long-running experiment to see how much people are willing to pay to watch a movie in a dark room, after paying 4x the normal price of food and $10 per seat, now we also have to sit through 15 minutes of commercials.

People who are absolutely certain about everything they say.

They are right, you are wrong, and they will not hesitate to explain that to you in exquisite detail. They are not "cautiously optimistic" or "very positive" or even "reasonably sure." They are right. And furthermore, you are wrong. Always have been, always will be. Did I mention that they are right?

Beings from other planets who speak english.

People on our own planet speak different languages, and even dialects of english can be hard to understand. So why is it people living on a planet on the other side of the galaxy happen to perfectly understandable? (See any episode of "Startgate SG-1" for an example.)

Shows about people in non-english-speaking countries who speak english with an accent.

When I was a kid, there was a show called "Hogan's Heroes" which was supposed to be about a WWII prisoner of war camp. These crafty POW's were running a resistance and espionage operation from underneath their bunker. Okay, fair enough. But the really stupid thing about this show was the fact that all Germans spoke english (with an accent), even to each other.

Complaining about gas prices.

OMG, there is a conspiracty to bilk Americans with high gasoline prices! We should investigate station proprietors for price gouging! Hey, we are getting bilked on a lot of things, like bottled water that comes from a tap, or houses or diet food. Why not complain about those? And it isn't the station owner's fault; they are just getting by on a few cents per gallon margin while oil companies have record revenues.

Rich kids.

I don't resent rich people who started off not-rich, because chances are they had to work hard to get that wealth and (usually) had to do things that benefit society. But kids who are born rich and automatically inherit a ton of money probably are talentless, unappreciative, useless wastes of space. They will have an edge over talented kids who don't have the money and support to get into good schools. All forms of inheritance should be banned.

Hollywood's understanding of physics.

You see spaceships happily blasting away with lovely booms and crashes, but... THERE IS NO SOUND IN A VACUUM. Some guy enters an airlock and as it pressurizes, he hits the floor, but... AIR PRESSURE DOES NOT CREATE GRAVITY. People suit up to go out on the moon. There are virtually no science fiction shows that get right.