New Year's Resolutions, The Reply All Button, Being Honest, Naked Dogs and Sarkye West
We're doing a little experiment here, how much additional traffic will I get if I change the title from "Things I Hate" to...anything else. Don't get it twisted, this is still a forum for me to rant, but I really would like to generate some ad revenue from this so if a kindler gentler post title gets me there, I'm in. But so anyways....
So yeah....I don't care: Hey abuser of the "reply all" button...STOP IT! Every time somebody gets hired at a company, they send out a mass email and 20 people feel the need to reply all to say "welcome aboard!" First off, I've never worked on a f*cking ship, so there's no reason to welcome anybody aboard. And second off, I personally don't need to know that you want the new person to feel welcome. Just say it to the person you're welcoming, you don't need to include the rest of your respective company. The reply all button should be used for two reasons: to share hilarious links and pictures and to share pertinent information. When you use it for anything else, you absolutely abuse it. The worst is when an email thread begins with pertinent information and then two people decide to have a side conversation but continue to reply all and include everybody else in their side conversation. And then later on in the thread, they start going back to the pertinent info and get pissed off that I'm not responding. You know why I'm not responding? Because I tuned your shit out 13 emails ago when you were talking about God knows what that had nothing to do with me. If your email response only has anything to do with one person on the thread, leave me out of it. I have no time for a cluttered inbox.
Thanks for your honesty: I think I may have hit this topic before but it deserves to be re-hashed...don't start sentences with phrases like "to tell you the truth" or "I'm not going to lie;" just don't do it. You're basically telling me that in any other sentence, I should assume there's a solid chance that you are in fact lying to me. And it's never about anything important, it's always something like "I'm not gonna lie, chicken wings are delightful." I think we all know that chicken wings are delightful, so we don't need you to clarify that this is something you're not lying about. Save the qualifying for things you might otherwise be dishonest with me about that would be a big deal. "To tell you the truth, I cheated on my taxes and claimed you as a dependent and now the IRS is coming after both of us...my bad guy;" that's the kind of thing where I'm fine with you clarifying that you aren't bullshitting me. "I'll be honest with you, I f*cking love ranch dressing" is worthless to me, and now I'm going to discount anything else you say as a result because I take things way too literally. Plus you sound ridiculous. Stop it.
Naked dog: Raise your hand if you have a dog...at least 8 people just raised their hands. Hey Elite 8, don't you think your dog looks creepy as f*ck when he doesn't have a collar on? Maybe it's because he gets a buzz cut, but when Carson doesn't have a collar on, he looks naked and it makes me completely uncomfortable. He also gets a look on his face like he's saying "I'm completely free right now folks, I'm letting it all hang out." The irony of that of course is that he's a dog, his junk is always hanging out and prominently displayed. But for some reason when his collar is on he looks significantly less naked. Now Elite 8, get ready to have your mind flipped upside down on this topic. Pretend your dog was a person. Now pretend that person's only options were to be completely naked or to be completely naked except for a leather collar. Now which do you think would look weirder, the totally naked person or the person rocking nothing but a leather collar? You'd see the naked person and think "why is that person naked," but the person rocking the collar would have you saying "whoa what the f*ck is that guy into!?" So next time your dog looks stoked because his collar is on, instead of judging him for being happy because he's letting it all hang out maybe you should be happy that hates his collar and isn't into some weird sh*t.
This won't last: Hey Elite 8, do any of you actual keep your New Year's Resolutions? Yeah me neither, samesies. But I feel obligated to make them because there's always a handful of people who ask me what my resolutions are. It's complete bullshit too, because why should we need to wait until January 1 every year to try and better ourselves? That's ridiculous, we should be willing to better ourselves all the time. But we don't, so instead we wait till January 1 and set goals that are completely ridiculous to make up for not actually bettering ourselves the previous year, and as a result we don't stick to them. So this year I've decided to wise up and make attainable goals. There are a couple that are sort of personal that I won't get into, but the one I feel comfortable sharing is one that will really have a positive impact on my life and it's totally doable. Yep, every time I notice that a sock I'm wearing has a hole in it, I'm taking it off and throwing it away immediately. I hate when I notice that I just put on a sock with a hole in it, so now I'm doing something about it....I'm throwing that shit away. I live 1.1 miles away from the largest Costco in California, so it's not like it's hard for me to get new socks at an affordable price whenever I need them. Costco provides me with an ocean of affordable Gold Toe and Puma socks, and as a result I'm going to rid myself of all my existing socks with holes in them. F*ck you unattainable New Year's Resolutions, me and my sock game have you beat.
Oh but you're soooooooo torn: I'm saving my USC football rant for last so that you people who are completely disinterested don't have to read through it to get to other shit. Once USC hired Lane Kiffin, the really analytical USC football fans to a man all said that they wanted a coach who would run an uptempo, no-huddle, spread kinda offense. Really "cutting edge" football stuff. My take was that sounds great, but as long as the guy wins they can have players drink 3 year-old expired Four Lokos (don't do this, I did it on NYE and it was a f*cked up way to start my year) on the bench and I'll be fine with it. But these real analytical types all outlined exactly what kind of a coach they wanted, and then SC hired Steve Sarkisian. And to a man, these analytical guys were pissed because they don't love what Sark did at Washington (he took over an 0-12 team, cut the guy some slack) and wanted a splashier hire. But these analytical guys are also really pissed off because Sark runs the exact kind of system they wanted, so any argument they make against him has to include them acknowledging that stylistically he's exactly what they're looking for, so they're just totally torn and pissed off. I laugh at these guys, but I also get it because it's exactly how I feel about Kanye West. I think the guy is a total piece of shit (what he did to Taylor Swift is inexcusable, seriously what the f*ck was he thinking!?!), but I love his music. Seriously my alarm plays "Black Skinhead" when I wake up every morning, the guy is remarkably talented. But damnit if I don't think he's the biggest douchebag this side of Kris Humphries (see what I did there?). My suggestion for you analytical USC football fans out there? Don't worry about the man, just enjoy the music.