Airing of Grievances 2018

Airing of Grievances 2018

It’s Festivus. I reveal now this year’s Airing of Grievances. Taking requests for next year. I’m already planning on a grievance regarding all your spectacularly lame ideas.

Useless Wi-Fi networks-

When I was a young boy I dreamed of a spanning online network enabling me to read moronic social media updates from all parts of the world. Now we have several networks -- most of them offline. If I’m gonna turn on the Wi-Fi of my phone, I’d like to be linked to networks that actually take me to the internet and not, as most do, to nowhere. Okay fine, I’ll call out the big one. Xfinity, your network never works. It’s more like a worldwide jamming frequency than anything. My absolute serious theory is that all the wireless networks block the net on purpose so we’ll all just give up and dip into (our strangely always reliable, yet costly) data plan.

iPhone cursor-

This thing is like a game of keepaway. There’s only one delete button on the phone keyboard and it goes backwards. 99% of the time the cursor wants to go to the beginning of a word, meaning whenever I need to delete something in the middle of my rant, I’m forced to delete at least two words rather than one. Some tech nerd or possibly some sinister AI wants me to have mistakes in the middle of my sentences. And precision cursor-placement is impossible enough when fingertips are nearly the size of the entire phone screen anyway. And forget all about it if I’m trying to adjust something in the bottom right corner. Rather than moving into edit mode, it’s more likely a fat finger on the send text/tweet button sends something like this to the world: “I’m ferlingupsert tod.”

AirPods-

Still haven’t tried them, but what’s up with the people who have? It’s like, “hey look how good my ear muscles can flex!” Yeah, no need to keep them in all day. Don’t freaking wear them into meetings. The things are dorky and make you look like White Shrek.

Additional self-promotion when tweets go viral-

Okay this one popped into my head at the very beginning of the year and it’s practically already to the self-parody stage. That’s progress, I suppose. Anyway, for the Twitterless, here’s what’s going on. Sometimes a tweet comes along that’s totally viral with like over a thousand retweets -- usually a great joke about some current trend or president. Once popularity has been assured with that many retweets, the protocol is now for the author to then attach ANOTHER tweet (thus creating a “thread”) to the original that says something like “Thanks for the support! I have a SoundCloud full of manifestos you should check out!” This little act of self-promotion not only muddies up the original brilliance, but the “Show this thread” messaging that’s automatic with the tweet addition gives the false impression there’s more to the original. We’re now at a point where the true test of the add-on tweet should be just how much the author can troll the retweeting masses by saying something completely off-base in the add-on. “Hey wow this tweet really blew up! Please click on this link to join my personal society of Nazi flat earthers!” Please sign my petition that all Twitter thoughts and all thoughts in general should be self-contained and limited to 140 (yes, 140) characters.

Tweets that think retweets are currency-

Hey have you ever seen something this one? “Hey Michael Jackson! How many retweets would it take for you to rise from the grave and play at my high school prom?” Okay that’s sort of an extreme example, but usually a dream prom or wedding with a celebrity is often involved.  Look man, don’t open that up. There’s democracy and then there’s a bunch of people wishing we could change spacetime. Social media is just a way to talk to each other and we can’t let it get more than that. Think about the world you’ll create where the popular have even more riches and power than they do now.

Presidential tweets-

Adding this one real quick right now. It’s kind of related. Hey we need to not pay so much attention to one person’s social media. I think we like it because it’s a trainwreck, but by paying so much attention, we’re actually giving a runaway trainwreck a lot more power than warranted. His stupidity is actually benefiting him. He’s skirting process by acting like a clown. The rest of the government finds out “policy” before any plans are in place. Disorder is control. CNN, MSNBC, NYT, AP, BBC, WSJ, WP, NBC, ABC, CBC -- all y’all have got to stop reporting on the president’s tweets. AND ALSO the rest of us do too. The emperor’s clothes are meaningless and we shouldn’t have gone to the parade in the first place.

Character take-downs when people die-

Hey everybody’s scum. Let’s just acknowledge that right now. With this in mind, maybe don’t worry about hot or even lukewarm takes regarding the weaknesses of the recently deceased. They can’t respond to you, so give ‘em a couple of months. Give them respect as a human and then Nixonize when the flowers are gone.

Buffering issues-

This is like totally a 20th century grievance. Somehow sometimes some days I’m playing some video through this thing called the internet and the nerds or the robots in charge only give me audio without the video -- as if I wouldn’t notice. Look, I know there’s only so much internet to go around, so don’t play the video until the whole thing is ready to play. And also get the whole thing ready to play like right now! I pay taxes!

Girls who can’t figure out their age-

Okay so all you married people, there are a lot of new society-ending dating apps that the rest of us (and many of you!) are using. Usually these apps link directly to social media profiles (probably so users can’t create a million fake identities). Very very very VERY often, somehow many of these girls (and I assume this goes the other way too) say something like “i’m not really 35 haha i’m really 42 i don’t know why it says the wrong age!” Yeah, it says the wrong age because you’re lying about your age somewhere. Hey, just look to Aaliyah and treat age as just a number. Not that I’ll reveal mine.

Stacks of paper towels in fancy restaurant bathrooms-

Terrible bathrooms have paper towel dispensers, but really posh bathrooms apparently find the bulky beasts incredibly gauche. Rather, we’re treated to a stack of paper towels meticulously folded into each other like an accordion art exhibit. After proper post-waste disposal sink procedure, our sopping wet hands attempt to gather one or two towels, but the entire stack is affected with the damp of a thousand diluted pee-riddled bathroom occupants. That’s if we’re lucky. Usually the whole accordion of towels sticks together long enough to spread out, landing in the massive liquid pools that have now collected on the counter. This is luxury? What do the peasants use?

Opening new box for used item-

Sometimes you return things and then I buy them again unawares. I can tell by the shoddy inner packaging. Hey it sure looked new on the outside. What did you do to it? What could you have done to it that would make me comfortable? Anything at all? Where did you stick this thing you bought and returned?

Misplaced faith in aggressive driving-

Okay look, driving fast and swerving through cars and cutting people off is a grievance in itself, but what really irks me is when people say “well where I come from everybody drives like a dick and we’re better drivers so we should all be dicks because that’s the way to drive because medick.” AGAIN, please think about the world you’re trying to create. Why is being a jackhole considered the correct action? Be patient and realize if you’re disrupting the system, you’re a jerk and not in a noble revolutionary way in this case.

Empty space between sitting cars-

Okay perhaps you need some kind of carburetor breathing room or something, but when you’re stopped at a light (most likely in the left turn lane), for cars’ sake pull as forward as you can. You’re ignorant to those around you, but there’s an entire blocked intersection behind you because you want 50 feet of extra space to accelerate into. WE NEED YOUR SPACE. And don’t think that just because I said “your space” that it belongs to you. It’s ours. The ones forced to stick our butts out for other cars to clip.

Self-titled album ridiculousness-

Hey Weezer, you went through the effort of composing music and lyrics for 12 entire albums, can’t you at least think of five more words and slap them on as album names? There is no need for a band to have five self-titled albums. Or four. Or three. Or two. Or even one isn’t necessary. It’s a nightmare of organization. Hey, if everybody calls it “The Green Album” then officially call it “The Green Album.” This is why the music industry failed. Also, if you have it, your self-titled album can ONLY be your first album. Who is The Cure fooling when they release an album called “The Cure” in 2004 (their 12th). Are we really expected to believe that THIS work is the over-arching piece that sums up exactly who you are? Hey if you self-title your albums AT LEAST number them (I, II, III, IV, and so on). But also don’t do that. Queen started this and then abandoned it by the third album. I mean think of SOMETHING to call your piece. Just a random lyric from the work. YOU WORKED HARD ON IT (maybe), so throw your words around a little bit more. The time this most makes sense is when Van Halen III came out to coincide with their third lead singer taking the job. I think it’s also considered their least-successful album by far, so again, don’t do it. We must all blame Zeppelin for this. Led Zeppelin rules, of course, but they’re fiends when it comes to album naming. Here are the first four: “Led Zeppelin,” “Led Zeppelin II,” “Led Zeppelin III,” and then the one with the guy on the cover with sticks that’s technically called “Led Zeppelin” (again), but is usually called “IV” even though it doesn’t say it anywhere. So yeah pretty much Zep broke decent album-naming conventions FOUR times in TWO different ways. Jimmy, John, John Paul, and Robert, you’re gods of rock, which is why you need to set a better example to your worshippers. This grievance may have been more relevant 45 years ago.

Dumb slowed down cover songs-

I’ve mentioned this in years’ past thinking that the dumbest trends would be first to go, but at least 15 years later and here we are. This is constantly a matter of silly marketing of something else rather than anything to do with the music industry. Usually it’s for a cheap trailer to a new movie or TV show. The process is meant to lend an added sense of drama, but the result is silly after silly -- mostly because of the sheer volume of the practice. Literally just now I saw a commercial with a slowed-down “raw” version of “Praise You” by Fatboy Slim. Here’s an article from earlier this year with the author lamenting that this is the third such list he’s needed to compose -- http://screencrush.com/trailers-with-sad-cover-songs-third-list/. This trend is most often associated with “gritty” reboots of previously existing franchises. As a side grievance maybe it’s time to stop making fun properties all dark and gritty. There are only so many numbers on a standard brightness/contrast scale and we’re into the negative ones now. Freakin’ bring on the bright spandex already.

Social justice as a means to be mean-

Look, I get that most progressive causes mean well. 30 or so years of political correctness have gotten a lot of us to re-evaluate how we exist in a society and what we can do to make others’ lives easier. But veeerrrrrry often I see a lot of social justice warriors blatantly calling stuff out not so much to help the oppressed, but to use an opportunity to take someone else down without the darn social consequences. It’s pretty much sidestepping one form of oppression in favor of another. These up and comers are remnants of high school mean girls. It’s like they’ve got to be mean to SOMEBODY, so victimizing with justification is the most convenient path. Listen, do what you need to make the world a better place. Just don’t enjoy hurting others (this is pretty much the same advice one of the cruel SJWs would recommend to others anyway).

Too many end of year movies-

I watch a lot of movies. I also write -- twice a year. These two things reeeeeaaaaallly get in the way of each other. I write my grievance list on 12/23 and my movies of the year list on 12/31. Traditions old as time. For some reason, the movie industry drops about half of the year’s “good” movies within the single month of December. That usually means I don’t get to see most of the prestigious pictures until after the year is over. December’s busy enough with all the lame Hanukkah and solstice stuff going on. I swear I really really would have watched Roma in the theater if I weren’t camping at my parents’ house for the holidays right now. Obviously this wreaks havoc on my end of year movie list. I always have this stupid awkward separate list within my movie list to point out all the interesting movies from the previous year not included on the appropriate list. And why? The movie company thinks people won’t remember anything for awards season unless it’s released within a couple weeks of the year deadline. More often than not, most of these movies get forgotten in a sea in which they’re a measly drop. Hey movies, we need awesome ones of you in March too.

USB plugging in wrong-

I’ve plugged a USB device in, I’m guessing, about 2,500 times. I haven’t ONCE gotten it right. It’s ALWAYS upside-down. Just once, before the technology goes obsolete I’d like to be correct in my insertion.

Day is life, sleep is death-

So I’ve just realized every day is its own life story. At the beginning, my eyes are glazed over and I can’t walk. After that I get the most stuff done in the youth of mid-morning. By the afternoon or mid-years I’m over it and just want to rest. And then at the end of it all I’m in bed, wide awake and remorseful, horrified by the mystery of sleep or horrified to repeat the process.

Merry Christmas-

So all other holidays are “happy,” but isn’t there something limiting about “merry”? It’s like a happiness subset. I feel the need to be bloated or at least halfway to jolly in order to be merry. What if I don’t like merry? What if we can have the kind of endorphins for Christmas that aren’t the same as unbuttoning after a day at the buffet? What about the “thrilled” or “demure” or “blithe” aspects of the day? I want those for Christmas. The season covers like a tenth of the entire year so we can’t limit ourselves to just being merry. I propose each day during the holiday season is something other than merry. “Ecstatic Christmas!” “Jubilant Christmas!” “Intoxicated Christmas!” “Tickled Christmas!” “Can’t complain Christmas!”

Pain hurts more than joy satisfies-

An eternal imbalance. Most of what I feel could apply to this list, but can't be properly covered. It would amount to just taking constant dictation of my feelings and that would be closer to typing than writing.

The end of the world-

So yeah. After all this -- the world is ending. We’ve practically got an exact time and it’s very likely we’ll destroy each other before even then. This is like, super annoying. I don’t want the world to end. As much as I hate everything, I’m actually quite fond of this world. I think even if we had another world or maybe even two others, this one, the one we have, is so filled to the brim with wonder, that it’s hard to even imagine someplace cooler. There’s too much to love and I’m not just talking about nature. DEFINITELY not just talking about nature. I’m more about the whimsy of our own weird minds. Humans are a joke, but we’re also hilarious and at times -- at times -- we’ve really been there for each other. And yeah I know. Some of us are religious and the end of the world is a good thing. It’s when God Himself sorts out everything for the better. But, BUT, doesn’t it annoy you just a little bit that we couldn’t just get the house all sorted by the time our parents got home? After doing the fire thing and pyramids and The Renaissance and landing on the moon and The Office we couldn’t learn from all that and just finish it all up for the good on our own? God’s on His way and you don’t feel the slightest bit guilty about the NEED for such divine intervention? Life in general may be the ultimate universe mutation and our end may have been coming since our inception, but I hate to see it go with so much unsaid and unfelt. We ALMOST made it. Strangely I feel we were totally on the very cusp of figuring everything out for each others’ sake, but even those of us who have everything we could ever want are only met with the depression that comes with the emptiness of matter.

Mom-

One of these days Mom won’t be around anymore and I have no idea what I’ll do at that point.