Pet peeves and irritants

On Friday we’re subjected to that upbeat Canuck and his optimism and those posts that cheer everyone up so I figured, being the grouchy bastard that I am I’d subject everyone to a bit of a downer so you don’t get to upbeat tomorrow morning upon reading him. It’s Lent you know and time for some sackcloth and ashes, especially on Fridays

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Is it just me or is anyone else out there disgusted by some of commercials out there for munchables and potables? Those yogurt commercials where the woman sticks her snout in the container like a frikkin pig? Or the candy where everyone is snapping and chomping? Sounds of people munching or slurping their food or drink in commercials has always been a pet peeve of mine but the noise in that one is particularly foul. Or even those stupid rum commercials with the idiots doing stupid things to pick up chicks? Only good one in that series is the one where every one turns in their keys before partying. Ready to go back to drinking Myers full time again.

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Politician hollering that there is a budget shortfall so they need to raise taxes to make it up. Excuse me but are they even thinking? There are two problems with this. The first and more obvious one, I first thought about a few recessions back. The second never really dawned on me until the one ten years ago and many may not think it obvious but a little thought can bring it to light. The first problem is the timing of the tax increase. Yes they are proposed at a time it is necessary but the reason it is necessary is because the people that most of these taxes fall heaviest upon are also in the same straits as the government, they don’t have enough money either. So how is taking more from them at this time supposed to help? The second part of the equation isn’t as apparent but one just need dwell on it and the light should shine. The main question is how come government didn’t need all these increases and extra taxes years ago and got along just fine. True, there have been additional mandates that require some additional monies but there is another bug in the system. In depressed times taxes are raised to meet shortfalls but what happens when the economy swings upwards again? Are these taxes lowered as good times start to bring in revenue windfalls? In some cases certain percentages may be lowered but never back to their original levels. And a lot of other nuisance type taxes such as the one proposed on sugar added drinks in Philly these days usually stay there. Hell, there is still a tax on booze in PA for Johnstown flood relief. No, not that Johnstown flood, but one almost as bad and still quite awhile ago, 1936 to be exact. So these taxes help governments get over shortfalls but create windfalls when the economy booms again and instead of repealing the new taxes or at least setting aside extra funds for the next recession that everyone knows is inevitable, they go and spend the money by setting up additional services. What the hell, we got the money, we can do it. So now what happens when that inevitable recession hits again? N Now you not only have all the old programs that were out there but you have all these nice shiny new ones too. And you just know that the beneficiaries of all these programs that didn’t exist all that long ago are going to bitch as loud and long as those of programs started decades earlier about not getting anything cut. So now you have even bigger budget shortfalls. And the solution? Yup, you guessed it, new taxes. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum. New programs, new taxes, new programs, etc., the serpent eats his own tail until he destroys the world. Doesn’t anyone ever remember the old adage that it is easier to refuse in the first place than it is to take back later?

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From something that affects us all to the insignificant but still a peeve. People who have to be the friend of everyone by getting them into events that are restricted to certain people or groups. In college it was the guy trying to get everyone past the door men in to the floor parties in the dorms. As you grow older you found them in other situations. The reason I bring this up is because a poker forum I belong to has been having a problem with gatecrashers in its freeroll league. Now I may go into more about the forum and its purpose and leagues in a later post but suffice to say they have a freeroll league in which the games are restricted to members who meet certain qualifications. For the most part the qualifications aren’t that tough and were put in place to make the games someplace where those wishing to could work upon their game without having to put up with the several thousand man donkfests full of people who just jump from freeroll to freeroll shoving everything hoping to get lucky and make a few dollars. It was formed back when the sites were looking for players and were more generous with their funds. In any case you were talking about somewhere between 50 to 100 runners instead of the giant minefields in the daily open freebies the sites put on. Now for various reasons both the prizes and fields have dropped but you can still get a few bucks to try and start bankroll building on sites you might not ordinarily deposit on. However it seems a person or two has decided that once he qualified for the passwords to the games he just had to inform some friends and occasionally someone would even post the password somewhere. Never seemed to occur to them that the prize in a freeroll is fixed and that unlike a buy in, where more players only increase the pot, here they only make it harder to cash, especially the run of the mill freeroll donk. Not to mention it screws it up for those new players that are hoping to learn something about the game, besides how to get sucked out on that is. Personally it doesn’t affect me much as I still play these games more to be sociable than anything but the fact that people do what needs to be done to qualify and maintain their right to play these games and some peckerwood is screwing things up pisses me off.

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Road crews n Pa and NJ. Why do the crews in these states need to block off miles of road while only working on a section of a few yards? Once in NJ I was tuck in a 2 ½ hour, 17 mile bottleneck while 3 guys patched potholes in the last 50 yards of the work area. WTF? A trip to North Carolina a couple years ago proved that that entire blockage isn’t necessary. There the road crews seemed to operate just find by starting the cones about a hundred yards or maybe two in front of their work area and opening them up about the same distance past. Keeps traffic flowing a lot faster.

Also the communication between some road crews and the traveling public. They have been doing work on a major highway in this area, one originally designed as a bypass to the former route that ran through the towns. This means that although the highway is faster there still a major road that can get you where you need to go without too much trouble. It seems the road crews working on this highway don’t really give a damn about relieving traffic however as, instead of posting the work ahead notices in front of the exits the wait until you drive by them to see they are working in the area. Even worse they don’t even post signs at the top of the on ramps so that people that can take another route would do so instead of adding to already backed up traffic. You might think they like having a bunch of pissed off drivers and giant traffic jams.

Now the biggee though I can’t include NJ in this one. Don’t know if it’s the road crews or the higher ups in the DOT who is responsible either but I would love to know what genius is responsible for deciding that while they are working on one major route and have it half, or even totally, shut down it would be a good time to start construction on the major alternate route or one of the feeders to it. That one is a sign of total genius and I have seen it happen 3 years running during the construction season in this area alone not to mention having run across it in other parts of the state at other times. May have to put the blame here on those intellectual giants in Harrisburg for these situations.

OK, enough of the irritants of life. Thanks for the listen.