End of the Line

This is it. We've had a good run here on Petty Annoyances, but I'm bringing this journal to a close. Not permanently, maybe, but for the forseeable future. When I started this thing I had a huge, out of control list of things that irritated me, annoyed me and just generally pissed me off. Thanks to the magic of the internet though, I've been able to faithfully report all these things, and have even thrown in a few new ones as they came up.

But now the well is dry, so to speak. It's time to go live life a little more and find brand new things to complain about. Perhaps in time, I'll be overflowing with rage again and will return to this trusted forum to spew the bile. One can only hope.

Some things I was planning to write about but could never really work up the umph for: the mighty badness of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the profound ugliness of a car door opening at a red light, a head emerging, and a thick loogie slowly descending - and the fact that although the movie Psycho featured arguably the greatest single performance of any movie, the finest direction of any movie, the best score and one of the best scripts, it was denied nominations for any of those things at the 1960 Oscars. But hey, The Apartment. We watch that Jack Lemmon classic allllll the time, right?

So I say thank you to anyone out there who's enjoyed these whiny essays, and, like the majestic hawk, must now fly away deep into the high, high mountains, where, being a hawk, I dwell exclusively. On the bright side, I've always wanted to be able to say I was putting something "on hiatus" for "retooling" and now I can.

I leave you with a look at the brighter side of life, because one can't be negative all the time.


20 Things I Like

1. When the dryer lint comes cleanly off the screen with a single snap of the wrist

2. Boolean modifiers

3. Removing your feet from ski boots.

4. Any commercial with William Shatner

5. Toilet paper with some bite

6. Porn DVD commentary

7. The names Launchpad McQuack and Judge Learned Hand

8. Pulling up to the parking space exactly as the song is ending

9. The funky, staccato, syncopated vocal cadences of CNN's Richard Quest. When the guy speaks it's like jazz improv.

10. Using the rare but grammatically correct "Sons of a bitch." when insulting brothers.

11. Dreaming about what you'd have done to the thief if you'd have caught him red handed.

12. The terms fracas, melee, brouhaha, hubbub, foofaraw, hullabaloo, and kerfuffle.

13. Rolling a hard eight

14. Barbershop chairs that face away from the mirror. This is genius! I never realized how relaxing a haircut can be when you're not staring into your own eyes for 20 straight minutes. Plus, no mirror, I can completely ignore the barber's craft. I go from unkempt to well groomed with absolutely no information about the transition. This is really how it should be.

15. Ben Stein

16. When you and another guy at the urinal start peeing at pretty much the same time. And you keep going, and he keeps going, and you keep going, and it's looking to be a real marathon, and you make an effort to pace yourself, and it gets to the point where you have serious doubts if you're going to win this one - but wait! He's wavering... he tinkles to a stop! You're still in the zone! Victory!

17. The laughable No U-Turn sign. Ha! No one enforces you!

18. Need a penny, take a penny. Have a penny, leave a penny.

19. Happy old toothless guys. Generally I don't like old people, but the happy old toothless guys who you find at the poker table are your instant best friends. They were crane operators for 50 years, or sanitation workers, or whatever, and they'll be glad to tell you how much fun it was. They have an endless supply of great dirty jokes, they'll drink all night, they bathe with surprising regularity, and they have that great smile that just makes you think "Yeah, I could pick up that spare." Happy old toothless guys, I salute you.

20. “He peppered in God’s lo mein.”