My current pet peeves, in no particular order:
1. People who can’t seem to respect the most basic rules of spelling and grammar, particularly in online forums. Look, I know you whippersnappers think it’s kEwl wHen u tyPe liEk tHis, but in the real world, we like our capitalizations to be a bit more predicatable, thanks. Especially irritating when someone types like this whilst asking for advice in communities such as
![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
or
. I can’t take someone seriously when they can’t type like an adult.
2. Somewhat related to online communication: If you get in the interwebz asking for advice from complete strangers, at least pretend to take it. If you wanted to be coddled and validated, then you should have asked for that, instead.
3. People who act like vegetarianism can’t possibly be healthy (“Oh noes, where do you get your protein/iron/B12?!?!?!”) or people who claim to be vegetarians and yet eat chicken/fish/copious amounts of junk food. If you eat chicken, you’re not a vegetarian. If you eat fish, you’re a pescetarian, although you’re on the right track. If you eat nothing but junk, you’re a complete idiot. Most people I know are morons when it comes to things like nutrition, and I get really sick of the “Mmmm…juicy, juicy steak” or “You HAVE to have meat to survive” comments. 90% of people probably have no idea what sort of things their food is doing to them. I don’t mock your culinary choices (although I probably could), so I expect mine to be respected as well. I don’t sit there and retch while my lunch or dinner buddy eats chicken or other animal, nor do I make a scene when I discover some meat or meat derivative in my food. I’m not “one of those.” So lay off.
4. People who don’t control their children in public. I expect to be able to go to Target/Publix/the coffee shop and not be run over, hit, or otherwise annoyed by someone’s screaming, flailing little crotch spawn. There was this 3 year old kid in the Philly airport that must have been demon possessed, because he was screaming like a danged banshee and literally flipping off of the seats in the waiting area. Hismother’s solution? “Here’s some more candy!!!” *headdesk*
5. Living somewhere that entails a one hour drive (at least) to see good live music, buy decent groceries, or catch a flight. I so want out of here.
Crotch spawn… hmm… I’m going to have to steal that one.
Some responses. I mean none of this as a criticism; mostly I’m just bored at work. Today was apparently meeting day.
#1 really is annoying, but I also find it fascinating. I know people who can speak pretty alright, and might even be able to string a few sentences together on paper, that email like a youtube commenter. What is it about Internet that makes people do that? I’ve heard one theory that people treat online communication, regardless of the context, as informal to the point that they’re barely aware of what they type, but some things (like youtube comments) seem intentionally spiteful. I confess that I’ll do the “i’m too cool to capitalize” thing on IM.
#3: Isn’t B12 a concern (oh noes)? I thought it only came from animal sources or soulless laboratories that torture bunnies in their free time or something like that.
Dietary choices involve choosing which living thing to kill, and I guess this is why they can be as annoying as religions. Part of your rant kind of highlights that. What is vegetarian enough to be called a vegetarian? And why care? Labels like that seem to me to diminish the actual dietary aspect and turn it into a moral framework. Maybe that guy who came up with the orthorexia idea has a point.
Personally, I think that vegetarian or vegan diets are fine and dandy, but there does seem to be a line where things get weird, like those people who only eat raw fruit. I eat meat, but I not for every meal. Our meat-oriented culture does seem unhealthy and wasteful. But I also reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet, so maybe health isn’t something I should I complain about.
#4: God I hate kids.
#5: It takes me an hour to get to the airport, but I suspect the reasons are different. Weren’t you planning to move to Chicago at some point? How much longer do you think you’ll be stuck in Alabama (making Georgia look better since 1819)?
As far as groceries, the interbutts have given me a cartoon to think about every time I return to the parents’, so I can laugh, and then I can sigh.
http://overcompensating.com/posts/20080102.html
#2-B12 is really only a concern if you’re vegan, and you can get it through fortified products and supplements then. I get tired of being told that I’ll be served chicken or fish “because you’re vegetarian.” Apparently, many people think that only beef/lamb/pork are actually meat. I respect when people eat meat only rarely, or only eat fish/seafood, but to call themselves “vegetarians” seems wrong to me. If avoiding red meat and severely limiting one’s intake of meat is the only requirement for being a vegetarian, I’ve been one for 25+ years.
I could never be a fruitarian. It seems unbalanced to me. Maybe some fruitarian thinks I’m an asshole for saying that, but it seems extreme to exclude grains, dairy, legumes, and vegetables from your diet. I love fruit, but not that much.
5-We’ll be here for another 2 years, give or take a few months. It can’t come fast enough, IMO.
Have you ever met a chicken? Nasty, awful creatures. Killing them makes the world a better place. And fish are really just very elaborate vegetables.
I think the core problem with attitudes toward food is the one described in that food book you recommended: we’re too far separated from our meals. Maybe I’m just a sick asshole, but I’d love for chickens to be sold like lobsters: pick one out of a pen, and twenty bucks or thirty bucks later the butcher hands you a knife and you’re on your own. I think there would be a lot more vegetarians, at the least.
I’ve never killed anything I’ve eaten. The nearest I’ve come is talking to the dude who killed something I’ve eaten, swapping recipes and asking questions about appropriate storage, and I realize that this is a lot closer than a lot of people have gotten to their food. I wouldn’t even know where to find a proper butcher around here. Maybe the hunters and fisherman have it right. I don’t even know firsthand the dude who killed the deer whose meat I enjoyed a couple of years ago. I hear he’s a pretty ok guy.
I was in TJ Maxx after work tonight and can TOTALLY relate to #4. These 3 kids were running around the aisles where the home stuff (read: breakables) is and nearly knocked me over. They were like “make a break for it” and took off running and were screaming at the top of their lungs…and they were DEFINITELY old enough to know better (late elementary school age). I have no idea where the adult was in this situation, so I shot the kids dirty looks when I left the area. Too bad they didn’t see me. LOL
I’m sure their mom (or dad) was decked out to the nines, checking out whatever useless stuff, on his/her cell phone, and totally oblivious to the children’s behavior.
#4: Howler monkeys! lol.
The epitome of howler monkeys. I love Twenty One Minutes!
“Living somewhere that entails a one hour drive (at least) to see good live music, buy decent groceries, or catch a flight. I so want out of here.”–I couldn’t agree with you more on this one. That’s why I put in an app at UW-Madison. My husband can adjust to the cold
Oh, awesome! Good luck w/ that. And yeah, he’ll get over it. I think Wisconsin is exponentially cooler than Central Alabama.
I totally agree. I could respect omnivores if more of them were somehow involved in the killing and processing of their own meat. In other countries, you will see whole dead animals in the window of the butcher shop. In Spain, we saw a dead piglet in the window of one of the meat shops and I was just fascinated, if a bit queasy. Here, it’s neatly chopped, de-boned, skinned, etc. (And it’s probably nastier than what you get overseas, but that’s another issue entirely).
There would be way fewer chickens if they weren’t being bred for food. My sister used to have a pet chicken, and she was a pretty nice little bird. The eggs she laid were pretty good.