Links of the day:

• One more reason to love Nicholas Hoare: this sign in their door. If you like books at all and live in Toronto (or Ottawa or Montreal), I suggest you visit. It’s like God’s living room.
• Much like a special candy-covered doughnut that Homer Simpson asked for, Dunkin’ Donuts is introducing an M&M-covered doughnut. I anxiously await the arrival of Skittlebrau.

.:.

You know who I find annoying? Not specific people (’cause you wouldn’t know them), but types of people who exhibit like behaviour? Well, let me tell you:

1. Smokers. No offense to any smokers who may be reading this, but you’re assholes. All of you.  You’re not assholes because you stink or because you slowly kill yourself or because you look ridiculous; that’s your choice. No, you’re assholes because you blow smoke in my face as you walk down the street in front of me, and because you throw thousands of butts on the ground every year as if the world is your personal fucking ashtray.
2. The tragic and desperate souls who drive down Yonge Street (or any other busy street) with the windows down and the mondo-nuclear-subwoofer bass on 11. It fills my heart with sadness that your need for attention is so bottomless and unfulfilled that you’re forced to spend thousands of dollars on a stereo for no other purpose than to get strangers to turn their heads in your direction for maybe two seconds.
3. People who play politics in the workplace. Office politics is the last refuge of the dull and incompetent. I don’t mind smart, capable people who understand politics, but when you make a career solely out of figuring out how to cover your ass next week, you’ll have to admit to yourself that you’ll never get another ounce of respect from anyone other than fellow political weasels. The rest of us see right through you, and know that you’ll get yours in the end.
4. Pedestrians/shoppers/drivers who have no idea what’s going on around them. We’ve all seen them. The person who stands on the escalator in just the exact spot that makes it impossible to pass them. The friends ambling down the sidewalk side-by-side so that no one can pass in either direction. The driver who tries to turn on a red light, unaware that they’ve blocked pedestrians trying to cross. Sometimes I think this is rudeness, but more often than not I think it’s just that people are oblivious. They can’t process two thoughts at once. It doesn’t occur to them that at least one other of the 6.2 billion of us could be on the same escalator, the same sidewalk, the same street. How do these people not get eaten by wolves or accidentally drink PineSol?
5. People who answer their phones during a movie. Phones ringing in a theatre don’t bug me; it doesn’t happen often and when it does it’s usually just forgetfulness, and the culprit is almost always apologetic. But occasionally you get some asshat who lets it ring a few times while he digs it out, lets it ring again while he checks the caller ID, and then answers the frigging thing. I once threw a handful of M&Ms at a kid who answered his phone, thinking he was a badass. Struck by candy, he turned around to find an audience whispering threats and plotting his death. He hung up.

Whew, that felt good. I’m not sure what possessed me to write that; I had a pretty good day. My cold is nearly gone, I got a lot done at work, I’m watchin’ hockey, I’m planning trips and visits…all is well, more or less. Maybe I just felt like making a list.

[tags]nicholas hoare, dunkin’ donuts, skittlebrau, smokers, office politics[/tags]