Thursday Thirteen #60

For my very first Thursday Thirteen, over a year ago, I offered a list of things that I will ban when I rule the world.  I am still waiting to be offered the position of Lord High Emperor of the Universe, but while I prepare for office I have been planning.  I’ve got a little list.  Here are…

   Thirteen More Things I Will Ban When I Rule The World

People who chew gum with their mouths open.  There is no excuse for that.  I’m sure that from childhood they were told not to chew their food with their mouths open, so why should gum be different?  I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them think they look cooler, or more attractive, chomping away like that and inflicting upon us all that wet, crunchy squelching.

DVDs with trailers that you can’t fast forward through.  This can be infuriating if you pop a DVD into your player and before you even get to the main menu you have to watch trailers that can drag on for several minutes; and the bastards disable the fast-forward feature, so you have absolutely no alternative but to sit through them.  You can mute the sounds, I suppose, out of a sense of rebellion, but you still have to endure them. 

Wearing baseball caps backwards!  To me this is the height of moron-dom.  Anyone who wears their baseball cap backwards should have their head turned backwards!

Milk.  Yes, ok, I know it’s supposed to be good for you and all that.  Builds healthy teeth and bones and, no doubt, gives you a glossy coat and a cold wet nose if you really insist. But it really is disgusting.  I have never been able to stomach the stuff.  In fact, when I was in Asia, I was told on more than one occasion that they think Westerners  carry a bad smell around with them because they drink milk.  I can remember untold times, when I was a child, being offered milk by well meaning adults, and on several occasions having to drink it.  Milk shakes and chocolate milk are another matter, but ordinary cow’s milk, neat, is something I haven’t drunk for maybe 25 years or more, and I have no plans ever to do so again.  Still, I find that even when you’re an adult people will offer you the stuff.  Haven’t they heard of wine?  Okay, I won’t ban milk, but I will ban…

Badly made ring pull lids on cans.  It’s infuriating, isn’t it, when you want to open a can of something or other, and you lift the ring to peel the lid off, and it breaks, leaving you with the can in one hand and the ring hanging insolently from a finger of your other hand.  So you have to go find the pliers and try to tug the lid off that way, or else search for your can opener in the kitchen drawer and do it the old fashioned way: assuming that the can has a big enough lip round the top for the opener to grip.  I shall accept no excuses – for manufacturers of badly made ring pull cans, punishment will be swift and condign!

People who have loud mobile phone conversations in public.  Twenty years ago, when mobile phones were thin on the ground, people used to do this in an attempt to show how important they were.  They strode around inside restaurants, trains, shops etc, carrying phones the size of bricks, shouting inanities.  “Hello. I’m on the train.  Yes, it’s almost six o’clock.”    And then there were the people who carried on as though they were in their offices.  “Tell him he better get his arse into gear! I want that report my desk by nine tomorrow.”  Now that the whole world and his dog has a mobile phone, there is no kudos, real or imagined, in owning one, so there is no excuse for showing off with yours, but people still do.  For some reason, Starbucks seems very vulnerable to this.

Soap-on-a-Rope.  Do they still make this stuff?  There was a time when this was the Christmas and Birthday gift of choice for people, mainly men, when you had no idea what else to get them.  I wouldn’t have minded really except one year I ended up with no fewer than four of the things.  One, I recall, was in the shape of a rugby ball and another was a general purpose red blob. I’m quite happy never to see the stuff again.

Fat free. I admit, I used to be fooled by this. Same with low fat or, even worse, “lo fat”.  Aha, I thought, this must be a healthy alternative to the regular kind of TV dinner, hamburgers, yoghurt, fruit pie or any one of dozens of kinds of food.  I was wrong. What they do, to make up for the fat, is to pump in huge amounts of sugar, so there is no health benefit at all in low fat brands.  Probably just the opposite.

Also, Fun Size. Can someone tell me, where exactly is the fun in eating a miniature chocolate bar?  “Oh look, I’m eating a Kit-Kat that is only two inches long!  What fun I’m having!  It’s so much more enjoyable than those boring full-sized bars!” What it is, of course, is a way for the manufacturers to sell you less, but package it up as though you are getting something more.  Sometimes they call it snack size.  The actual harmful effect of these is that people eat lots of them, and consume far more sugar and fat, with all the attendant health risks, than they would if they were having a single full-sized bar, but they delude themselves that they are eating less.

I won’t ban the Oscars, the Emmys, the Baftas or the Golden Globes, because they do serve a purpose. But what I will ban, upon pain of lengthy terms of imprisonment, are those banal, inane, embarrassing spoken introductions that the presenters (usually in pairs) give before they get to the nominations for each category.

       “Hi Bob.”
       “Hi Susie, great to see you.”
       “Great to see you too, Bob.”
       “Y’know, Susie, without sound engineers, movies would be completely different.”
       “That’s right, Bob.  We depend on them totally for our lines to be heard by the audience.”
       “But y’know, the contribution that these unsung heroes contribute to the movies is often completely unrecognized by the public.”
       “Yes, Bob, and that’s a great shame because a skilled sound engineer can make an enormous difference to a movie.”
       “Well, Susie, why don’t we try to put that right by reading out the nominations for Best Sound Recording in a Motion Picture?”
       “That’s a great idea, Bob!”

I mean:  el mucho puko!

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, in other contexts, but I have to include it because I hate it.  Music, and other broadcast sounds, that are thrown at you, whether you want them or not, when you are a captive audience.  Loud muzak or TV in waiting rooms.  Whoever decided that people can not survive if they have to sit and wait quietly?  Ban it, I say!  Let people bring their own Ipods or CD players, with effective and non-leaking headphones, if they feel that without music for half an hour they will shrivel up and die.

Laugh tracks. Why do they have these?  Is there anyone out there who honestly will admit to needing audible prompts to tell him where the jokes are in a comedy?  Who needs to be told “This is a funny bit”?  I have never met anyone who told me that he appreciated a laugh track because without it he wouldn’t be able to tell where the jokes were.  They stripped the laugh track from M*A*S*H when they showed it in England and it didn’t suffer one bit.  The Wonder Years, in the 1990s, managed just fine without one, and it would be an absolute disfigurement if they added one to The Office, My Name Is Earl or 30 Rock, all of which are brilliantly funny without those added on noises.   It  is my understanding that the laughter on laugh tracks is mostly stuff lifted from live radio comedies of the 1940s and 1950s, so when you hear a laugh track you are in fact listening to a lot of dead people laughing.

Unnecessary packaging. It really annoys me to end up surrounded by a pile of paper and plastic debris after I have unwrapped something I have just bought.  I remember a while ago there was an attempt in England to organize a movement to take all unwanted packaging back to the guilty supermarkets and dump it there but I don’t know if anything ever came of it.

Pickles.  Yes, I know I had that in my first banning list, but I still want to eradicate these abominable, foul, disgusting things which masquerade as food.  Honestly, I saw people partaking of more appetizing food in “Zombie Flesh Eaters: Part  7”

.

Comments

[SJ Reidhead]

I agree with you 100%. I would add facial piercings and visible body art.

Maybe baseball caps worn indoors should be completely banned, except for baseball games.

SJR
The Pink Flamingo

[Karen of Sillymonkeez]

LOL!! Great list this week!

Mine's sort of dorky . . .

http://3garnetsn2sapphires.blogspot.com/2008/07/thursday-thirteen-3rd-edition.html

[HOOTIN ANNI]

Okay....may I be allowed to add a bit to your #1? Not only chew gum with the mouth CLOSED...but toss it in a trash bin....DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT spit it out on the sidewalk/parking lot ---I hate stepping on it and then tracking it in my car!!!

My 13 is published, hope you can stop by sometime.

[SandyCarlson]

If you deal with the gum thing, I'll learn to live without pickles. You have my vote, sir.

[Mama Duck]

agh, the DVD's. Especially when the little guy wants to watch a movie and I don't need him watching inappropriate trailers. Grrrr.... ;)

[Nicole Austin]

LOL! Great list! I think we should ban all cell phones. They are such a nuissance.

[Lilibeth]

Very funny, probably because I agree with you...well, on most things. Sadly enough I happen to love milk--especially the low fat kind. ha ha.

[Susan Helene Gottfried]

I've decided that NOT using my cell phone is part of what makes me so utterly cool. That and the fact that I, too, loathe milk. Ugh.

But for those snack-size candy bars? I know this is hard to understand, but they are really good for taming the PMS beast. Just one, that's all I need.

[Jill]

Same as you, I don't like the taste of milk, but I do force myself to drink some with breakfast(to try to mask the aftertaste!)

[PJ]

Not the pickles again! I agree with the chewing gum and most of the other things though.

[Kay]

I'm with you on the loud cell phone conversations in public. I absolutely detest them, and I'm not above shooting the perp a very dirty look---unless I think I might get shot!

[Ann Bruce]

Oh, #2 would be a godsend!

[On a Limb with Claudia]

Let's ban them together. I don't mind pickles, but if you say ban them - I'm in!

Happy TT!

[Mary Emken]

I don't know why it's so hard for people to pull over to the side of the road when they need to talk on their cell phones. I have been back ended four times while I sat at a red light and stop sign.

Did you know that pickles are made from cucumbers. I like them both.

I like a cold glass of milk onces in a while, but I have neveer been told I carried a bad smell ,but then I brush after I eat or drink.;)

I don't know who invented those pull ring on cans, but I agree they need to go.

Well, again you've made my day with your hummor.

[Lori]

OK...I think men with baseball caps on backwards are very sexy. Dont ask me why but its a turn on so Id have to fight you on that one...and Milk. Im not a big Milk drinker but you cant eat cereal without it. Other than that, I could live in your world. Soap on a rope is stupid. HELLO!!!!Happy TT Nicholas:)

[Janet]

Music on blogs, too, please! Gives me away at work :-) Can't turn the sound down cause then I'll not hear when I get an email ;-)

Give me all the pickles! YUM!

[Carol]

Okay!!!

Our lists are not quite alike, but I do feel your pain on a few of these.

I do love me some good cold MILK, though. MMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmILK!

[Adelle Laudan]

I am with you on chewing gum with your mouth open, Drives me insane. I'm living on the ground floor of a twos storey unit apt building for the first time in my life, my newest addition to the list... people who throw live cigarette butts off of their balocony's. I've had to dodge a couple since I moved here less than two weeks ago,ugh! Fun list. Happy T13!

[FickleMinded]

your list definitely made my day! :D

[Robin]

Just to be clear, we're only banning that vile plain glass of ordinary milk, right? Not the milk that gives life to ice (or for that matter hot) coffee. Right???

I'll take the pickles off your hands though. Yum!

[Nina]

Great List!

I agree we must ban those trailers!

Why even wear a baseball hat!

Have a good T13.

[Wylie Kinson]

My God, man -- NO milk?? What on earth would you put in your tea?

And those fun-sized bars? They work perfectly for the audience intended - KIDS. Less fat/sugar in children is a good thing.

And you can't ban pickles or every pregnant woman in your imaginary kingdom will stage a coup an oust your arse off the throne.

Always enjoyable, N :)

[Michelle C.]

Love Love Love your 13. :) Very well written and funny on a day I needed humor! Thanks for sharing!

[The Gal Herself]

LOVE your take on awards show cross talk! It amazes (and annoys) me how bad professional actors can be at reciting lines. You're the only person I've ever seen go after milk and pickles, but then, I find the consistency of tomatoes offensive, so I'm not judging you. Thanks for stopping by my TT.

[stace]

LOL great list. I agree on the gum and the dvd trailer's..why do they do that/???? I usually end up getting up and doing dishes until its over :-P
Milk hates me and i drink my coffee black..so ban away !