Tag Archives: asshat

Two days…

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I’m back at work. Have been since last week. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped paying attention to the grand game of “How Many Asshats can We Fit in One Building?” that our political “leaders” are playing on the Hill. As bad as it is that Republicans and Democrats seem physiological incapable of talking to one another, that’s nothing compared to the truly remarkable feat of House Republicans apparently not even being able to talk amongst themselves. That takes political incompetence to a whole new level. Impressive work, Congressmen.

From my reading of the tea leaves, we’re inside the 48 hour mark now. Either these jackasses will get around to doing the hard work of governing or they’ll crank the throttle wide open and let it all fly off the rails. I’m a reasonable close watcher of politics and a betting man by nature, but even if I wasn’t owed back pay and had a fist full of cash, I wouldn’t lay a bet on which way this shitshow is going to break.

Universal wisdom is that careening headlong into the debt ceiling would be bad. The fun part? Absolutely no one knows how bad it might be. My reading pegs it somewhere along the scale of Accidental Nuclear Detonation in Times Square Bad. Even if it’s less bad than that, it’s going to be bad. Defaulting on the sovereign debt and/or other financial obligations of the United States is simply unimaginable from any sane, reasonable perspective. To do it over an issue of personal pride or to make cheap political points is damned near treasonous.

We have 536 “leaders” in Washington and there’s apparently not one damned statesman in the bunch.

The art and science of the commute…

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I think of myself as a fairly seasoned driver. I cut my commuting teeth on the DC beltway, it’s safe to assume there isn’t much traffic can throw at me that I haven’t experienced before. A 90 minute delay because the drawbridge was open? Check. Snow-induced gridlock on 95? Done it. Five hour office to home drives because a tractor trailer hauling gasoline fell off an overpass? Yep. Run a line of red lights at 5 AM on Pennsylvania Avenue in Southeast because certain unsavory characters got a little too close? Did that too. Snow, sleet, hail, rain, wind, all manner of natural factors have conspired against my daily commute at one point or another and I’ve bested all of them.

It’s been a long time since I’ve run the beltway gauntlet and you’d think that living in the backwoods of Ceciltucky would leave me free of most of the urban and suburban commuting hazards I faced while fighting my way into and away from the District every day. Commuting is an art and a science, but the one thing making the drive down 95 every morning prepared me for was the complete asshattery of the people who stop in the middle of the road during a driving rain storm. I don’t mean that they slow to a crawl. I mean they come to a full and complete stop right there in the travel lane as if nothing could have prepared them for the sight of liquid falling from the sky.

Look, if you need to pull off to the side and wait it out, good on ya. God bless. But for the love of Pete can we at least agree that stopping in the middle of the road, when by your own actions you’re admitting that visibility is less than ideal, is a very bad idea? And if, for some unknown reason, you do feel compelled to stop in the middle of the road, how about cutting the rest of use a break and flipping on your hazard lights so we have a fighting chance of seeing you before your cute little toy car becomes my hood ornament. Yeah. That would be just great.

Oh. And I had to drive over a tree today. A tree. Right there in the middle of the road. That was a first in 19 years of being a licensed driver. Surely that adds something to my cachet as a recognized power commuter… like earning my “Rural Living” merit badge.

Some days leaving the house serves no purpose other than reminding me why I do it as little as possible.

No Filter, or The Vortex of Asshattery…

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One of my first acts upon moving back here to the People’s Democratic Republic of Maryland was make a stop into one of the local wholesale warehouse clubs and lay in essential supplies in bulk. 100 rolls of toilet paper and 20 rolls of paper towels, 10 gallons of dish soap and a 50-pound tub of laundry detergent – you know, the basics of setting up a new household. A few hundred bucks later, I also walked out with a 900-count pack of coffee filters.

I only mention it because I used the last of that 900-pack this morning, which got me thinking not so much about coffee as it did the fact that I’ve been back from Tennessee for a little over two years now. It feels like I got back about a week and a half ago. Apparently time flies regardless of whether you’re having fun or not, although I have to admit the last 784 days have been a hell of a lot more fun than the 784 days that preceded them, so it’s definitely a net win overall. I’m furloughed, making 80% of my advertised salary, have two houses I don’t live in, and I’m still having a better time of things than when I was busy dealing with what I’ve affectionately come to think of as the Vortex of Asshattery.

In case you’re trying to do the math, that’s an average of 1.15 twelve-cup pots of coffee brewed every day of the year – or more likely a pot and a half every day once you account for vacations, trips to Western Maryland, and sundry other reasons why I wasn’t home brewing coffee on any given day. Whoever said you can have too much of a good thing clearly didn’t have the proper appreciation for regular infusions of hot caffeine.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Paid subscription to online “newspapers”. Um. No. I’m not paying for content that’s free elsewhere. If I were to pay for access, I would expect the content to be advertisement free, but since you’re not going to do that, I’ll keep my cash right where it is. I don’t mind paying for pay-wallservices and I don’t mind targeted advertising, but I’m not generally going to be willing to pay for the privilege. There’s nothing in the Cumberland Times-News, Baltimore Sun, or Washington Post that I really need to read, so instead of paying them for the service, I end up using news aggregator sites, blogs, and alternative media, which further reduces ad revenue for the newspapers, which further harms their business model. It’s some death spiral they’ve tucked themselves into.

2. Small talk. Not surprising for a guy who writes as a hobby/inspirational career, I don’t consider myself much of a talker. Most things I have to say tend to come across better in writing anyway, although that’s not really the point. Maybe it’s a social failing on my part, but I don’t like small talk. I don’t want to engage in it. If I’m not showing the least interest in your monolog about the week you’ve had, please take the hint that I legitimately don’t have any interest in the conversation. That should be your cue to back away slowly and let me get back to doing something that’s nominally productive. I’m happy to talk when something needs to be said, but idle chatter just for the purpose of having something to say isn’t my style. It’s never going to be my style. And if you force it on me repeatedly, I’ll consider you an irredeemable asshat and proceed to ignore you as much as possible, while seething silently inside because it’s considered bad form to punch you in the throat.

3. The New Friday. It’s finally New Friday here, which roughly translated means on this first week of furlough, it’s officially furlough eve. While I usually await time off with great anticipation, I’ve been sitting here ticking off the list of things I wouldn’t mind getting done around here. That’s good. I like having lists and like checking things off of them even more. Then, of course, the practical implication of why I have this abundant free time occurred to me and made most of the checklist a moot point. Since getting productive things done generally seems to cost money, well, let’s just say I’m sitting here looking at the first of what will probably be eleven remarkably unproductive weekends. Maybe it’s time to sit down and start the editorial and design work on the 2013 edition of the What Annoys Jeff this Week eBook. At least that’s more or less free entertainment.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Rednecks with explosives. There’s something about Independence Day that makes the rednecks in Ceciltucky especially susceptible to doing stupid shit. Maybe it’s just the long day of drinking cheap domestic beer combined with too many hours in the sun, but I have no idea what makes them think setting off mortar-style fireworks in a relatively dense subdivision makes any sense at all. Trust me, your half-acre yard isn’t nearly as big as you think it is. Then again they’re still better than the asshats up the hill who will undoubtedly commemorate the nation’s independence with “celebratory gunfire.”

2. Egypt. Surprise! The revolution that knocked off the long-time president-for-life of Egypt is in the process of imploding. One only needs to look to the history or revolutionary uprisings to find that they have a nasty tendency to devour their own young. Our own revolution of 1776 is perhaps an outlier because we broke ties with the colonial past, but opted to replace the royal government of George III with a republican government that operated with similar institutions and powers rather than attempting something more like a wholesale change of society. I’d go so far as to speculate that for the average citizen, living under as a citizen under President Washington instead of a subject under King George didn’t change their day to day lives all that much at the micro level. How’s that for sacrilege on Independence Day? Now our associates who are trying to completely remake Egypt? Yeah. That’s a whole different ball of wax. I’m only surprised that it took a year to really get sideways.

3. Buttons. I learned something new yesterday. Apparently the buttons, zippers, and other fasteners on men’s and women’s clothing are on opposite sides. I had spent the last 35 years blissfully unaware of this fact… and now that I know about it, it bothers me. It’s not the button location that bothers me so much as the idea that something so simple in daily life has eluded my notice for so long. It’s left me pondering what other little details on everyday life I’ve managed to avoid noticing.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Filling up the quiet time. Some people assume that because I’m not talking they need to find a way to fill in all the quiet time. Rest assured, if something needs said I’ll say it in front of princes, profits, potentates, or presidents without regard to their rank, race, or religion. I’m quiet, not shy. There is a difference. On the other hand, when I don’t have anything of substance to add, I’m happy sitting quietly. I don’t need an endless nattering buzz of small talk in my ear to make me feel connected. Most days I desperately wish some people didn’t have a pathological need to fill in the quiet times with pointless chatter.

2. iPhone. I love my iPhone 5. It’s been a workhorse since the day UPS handed it to me. Since then, we’ve gone everywhere together. We’ve been inseparable. Sure, the UI could use an update and I wouldn’t mind a bigger screen sometimes, but those aren’t the issues that make up the hate end of my love-hate relationship with this phone. It’s the battery life. It wasn’t great right out of the box, but over the last few months it’s gotten progressively worse. Through resets, wipes, switching off functions known to draw lots of power, and aggressively managing what apps are open, I can sort of slow the battery drain a bit, but that’s not exactly a substitute for a battery that doesn’t suck. I’m trying to think of a good reason why after three hours of pretty limited use, my battery is drawing down towards 50% and none really come to me. I’ll limp along with a handful of cables and a external battery pack until the 5S comes along… but if that battery doesn’t show some significant performance enhancements, it might be time to reevaluate iPhone’s place as my daily carry.

3. Turning left. When you’re the first vehicle in the left turn lane, you should go ahead and pull all the way forward to the stop line. That way the invisible traffic gnome knows that you’re trying to turn left at the intersection and can wave his green light wand to change the signal. When there’s a line of traffic 40 cars deep sitting behind you in the left turn lane, it’s sort of a bad time to be confused by basic effing driving skills, you useless excuse for a meat sack. I have no idea why it’s socially unacceptable to drag people from their cars and beat them with a Stick of Shame for such mindless asshattery.

The great leveler…

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Email, like death, is one of life’s great levelers. From the high and the mighty down to the lowest of the low, we all get entirely too much email. Shoving electrons through the network make it so easy to moving information from here to there that most of us never stop to ask if the people on the receiving end actually need the information we’re pushing at them. Because the most important thing the average bureaucrat does on a daily basis is cover his or her ass, we end up in a seemingly endless do-loop of email and instant messages.

The ability to generate an instant distribution list is possibly the worst thing to ever happen to the average office drone… because let’s face it, if the email is addressed “To” more than one or two people, no one is going to take on the individual responsibility of answering it. If you address it to 20 people, no one is even going to bother reading it at all. The only thing four pages of addressees gets you is the merciless ridicule of your colleagues and the tears of a God disappointed that you’ve used your free will for such douchebaggery.

I wish I was making this up, but four pages of recipients for a message that needs to go to three people is, politely put, a bit much. I’m the first to say that if something’s worth killing, it’s probably worth overkilling, but sheesh, even I have limits. I’m not saying an email addressed to +/-700 people makes you look like an asshat; I’m saying that by actually sending that email out into the world you are, in fact, an asshat. It’s a fine distinction, but an important one… kind of like the distinction between covering your ass and becoming an object of loathsome contempt.

Attention citizens…

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Attention Citizens of Maryland,

We live slightly to the south of the 39°43′ N parallel marked by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in 1767. Due to our geographic position in the northern hemisphere, we can, from time to time, expect that frozen precipitation will fall out of the sky and in accordance with the basic laws of physics, come to rest upon the ground. When it occurs in quantity, this natural phenomenon is colloquially know as a “snow storm.” Like its warmer, wetter cousin the “rain storm,” this is a perfectly natural event and tends to occur regularly during the months of December, January, February, and even March.

These storms, particularly the ones that take place late in the season tend largely to be quick hitters – lasting for a day or two at most before melting off because the ambient air temperature is well above freezing. Now I’m not a fancy, big city weather forecaster, but it strikes me that calling for wall-to-wall news coverage of a rainy day seems silly. I’m not sure why doing the same thing for snow is really any different… and yet, somehow, it is obviously considered a completely different animal.

So, my fellow citizens, here’s the thing: If you’re panicking right now, running to the supermarket to stock up on six metric tons of toilet paper, or driving across the state for a snow blower, you’re a moron. Every time there’s snow in the offing, the news gins up video of people lined up buying shovels, ice scrapers, and salt from their local big box store. In my mind, that only begs the question: Who are all these people who up until now have had no need for a shovel or a scraper? I’ve had the same “snow preparedness kit” since I moved into my first “grown up” apartment. Same shovel. Same scraper. No salt (because it’s mostly just a pain in the ass that ends up with more in the house than on the driveway). Is it really possible that so many people have never before had the need for a snow shovel or the means of clearing ice off their windshields. I’m just saying. It’s not like these are items that are consumed in use or their technology is getting better every year, so the one you bought for the last storm will work just fine for this one.

Maybe I’ve missed the point. I suppose if one shovel is good, having three or four must be better. And certainly every vehicle on the road needs half a dozen ice scrapers. I guess I’ve just never caught the bug for panic buying. You’ll eventually use all 300 rolls of Charmin, but running out and picking them up because it’s going to snow is an activity that’s simply lost on me. Still, we’re a mostly free people, so go forth and hoard if that’s what you think needs done in the face of nature’s “wrath.” I’ll be here with my feet up judging you and mocking your all too predictable asshattery.

Kind regards,

Jeff