annoyances « Patti O'Shea's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘annoyances’

Hey, I’m Having Coffee!

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

I look at Saturdays as a day to sleep in. It’s the day where I can dawdle through my morning coffee as much as I want without having to worry about being late. It’s the day where I can lounge around in my pajamas and relax. Do others not view Saturday this way?

Because it seems like every Saturday morning someone comes knocking at my door. It might be a politician stumping for votes in the upcoming primary, it might be Jehovah’s Witnesses, it might be someone selling something. It happened again yesterday. I was barely up for an hour and was still in my PJs and had just sat down with my second cup of coffee when there was a knock at my door. I took a look out the peephole, but I didn’t know either person. I left them standing there and went back to my coffee.

If it had been later in the day, I would have been writing and I wouldn’t have even bothered to get up and check who was out there at all.

I’ve gotten so tired of strangers coming to my door that I’ve browsed for a DO NOT DISTURB sign. I hadn’t actually bought it, but I bookmarked one I liked the last time I had someone at my door that I didn’t know. It was a politician that weekend.

Today was it. I’d had enough. I ordered the sign.

By next weekend, anyone who comes to my door will see this:

If you’re a friend, ignore it and knock anyway. Solicitors, survey takers, salespeople, and other uninvited pests, take heed. I’m either enjoying my coffee or writing and your interruption isn’t welcome.

Tags: annoyances
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Facebook "Advertising"

Monday, February 16th, 2009

I have a problem with the so-called advertising on Facebook. I, BTW, think it more closely resembles spam than real ads, but that’s not my issue. Although why FB is willing to take anyone’s money and let their site look like the inside of my spam folder is something I’ll never understand.

What are my issues then?

How about the ads where you can make $5,000 a month by working from home? Yeah, right. If this is like the scam that used to go around a few years ago, the only way to make this is money is by rooking others into paying you for your information on how to work at home. These ads are a pyramid scheme, which are basically illegal in a lot of states from what I understand.

Then there’s the ads where I can “get my share of Obama’s stimulus package.” The great part about this ad is that it was appearing on FB weeks before the stimulus package passed. Do people really think the federal government is handing average citizens checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars? But then, why do they need this money when they can make $5,000 a month working from home?

I also get ads where I’m being offered a chance to self-publish. Um, no thanks. See, the Publisher pays the author not the other way around. When I think of all the teenagers or young adults on FB who have a dream to be a writer one day, I hope to heaven they’re smart enough not to get taken in by a vanity press. You want to self-publish your family history? Great! Or have a non-fiction niche subject with a built-in audience that’s too small for a publisher? That’s a good option for self-publishing, too. Fiction? Nope. Don’t do it.

The FB ads also show pictures of celebrities–implying an endorsement that I guarantee you they do not have–and FB has done nothing to rein in this misleading and probably illegal tactic. I swear if I could find some way to email Oprah, I would let her people know that her name and image have been used without her permission. So have images of Rachel Ray, Angelina Jolie, Cheryl Tiegs, and so many other famous people that even I recognize them.

They’ve had their images and names associated with wrinkle removers (Does anyone really believe a Hollywood celebrity is wrinkle-free because of cream? I immediately think plastic surgery, but then I’m cynical when it comes to “miracle creams.”) and a gazillion weight loss products of various kinds, including the magic berry.

Lately I’ve noticed a new ad with Katie Couric’s picture–As seen on 60 Minutes. Here’s their magic product that will make you live forever. Um, sorry, I watched that episode of 60 Minutes and they talked about a chemical found in red wine. Researchers are investigating whether or not they can make it into a pill form that will work. I’m supposed to believe that your doctors out-trumped the doctors interviewed on the show and beat them to the punch? Call me a cynic, but I’ll wait until someone reputable bottles this.

I’ve also been challenged to compare my IQ to Bush, Obama, and Manny Ramirez of all people. (Baseball player formerly with the Boston Red Sox who finished the 2008 season on the Los Angeles Dodgers.) I’ve been offered a free hot pink MacBook just so I can use it and tell them what I think about it. Somehow I don’t think Apple is just giving those things away in exchange for opinions. There are similar ads for pink iPhones–guess you’re not supposed to wonder who’s going to pay that monthly phone bill.

The thing that bugs me the most about these ads is that they are hugely misleading and designed to rook kids who don’t know any better. If Facebook previewed the ads and just cut out the illegal stuff like the pyramid schemes and the bait ones that would help. What they should be doing is not allowing the ads that are using celebrity pictures and names without permission. If that isn’t illegal, it’s sure as heck immoral, but I believe celebrities have a right over their images for the purpose of advertising. Being a public figure does not give anyone the right to stick your face on an ad for miracle wrinkle cream or anything else.

Grrr! I wish I could tune these ads out the way others do, but I can’t. I’ve reported the offenders on the celebrity front over and over and over, but Facebook does nothing. Anyone have Oprah’s email?

Tags: advertising, annoyances, facebook
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The Blog Where Patti Rants

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

First, I updated my website today and added a new Extras page. This is a work in progress, but so far I have a glossary for the Light Warriors series, a list of the theme songs for all my books, and the videos are grouped together. I used bookmarks so it’s easy to access the information you’re interested in seeing.

Now, beware, I’m about to rant.

Today, I received an email from an author I have never heard of before in my life. I most definitely never signed up for her newsletter nor did I enter any contest she might have been running because I don’t enter contests from other authors. I figure they’d rather have a reader win than another writer and I do them the courtesy of not throwing my name in the pool. Yet for some unknown reason, this woman thought it was okay to just add me to her newsletter list. Grrr.

To say this irritated me is understating things. The only way people get on my newsletter is if they sign up for it, or they enter a contest where they are given fair warning that entering will put them on my newsletter mailings–and I haven’t even held a contest in a couple of years. You’d think the law of karma would protect me, but I guess not.

Where do some people get their idea of proper online etiquette? Just because my email address is available on various loops (and this was the email address I use for loop email) does not mean that I’m fair game. If she harvested this address from any of the writing loops I’m on, she violated list rules on top of spamming, and given the genre of her book, I have a fair idea from which loop she might have gotten my name.

This author accomplished thing–she ticked me off. Big time. Enough that I will never buy a book from her. I don’t appreciate spam whether it’s for Viagra, penis enlargement, or an author.

Now extrapolate. She harvested my email address, so odds are good she harvested others–probably a lot of others–and they were spammed, too. Probably a lot of these people are as angry as I am about it. Does she really think she did herself a big favor by sending out this email to all of us?

Don’t spam, people, it’s not nice.

Tags: annoyances, spam, websites
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My Morning In Purgatory

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

I had to bring in the urban assault vehicle (with apologies to Stripes) to get the oil changed on Saturday. I had an appointment for 8:30 in the morning on the theory that the shop is much like the airline and that my chances of being delayed would be much lower the earlier I was there. It was a futile hope.

Once again, they didn’t get me in right away. They only had two guys working, you see. This is endlessly frustrating to me. If you know you’re only going to have two people working, and if someone calls for an appointment and you’re full, why don’t you tell me to come in at 9am? Or 9:30 or whatever? Instead, I was trapped in the waiting room and it was exactly two hours before I could get out of there.

That made me crabby enough–shouldn’t an oil change be about half an hour?–but what really pushed me over the edge was Saturday morning television.

I did bring a notebook and a book book with me to entertain myself while I waited. I’m used to being delayed at this place. But I finished making notes for the chapter I’m working on and the book was the final one in a series. I’d read the first two at least 6 months ago, maybe longer now, and I had trouble getting into the third one because I couldn’t remember the others real clearly. The magazines didn’t appeal, but I read the local newspaper and the Wall Street Journal.

That took me through the Strawberry Shortcake cartoon without my hearing it. The only reason I was aware of it was because one of the guys who works there walked by and commented on how he couldn’t believe that cartoon was still on.

However, by 10am, I was done with the papers and there was nothing left to do–except watch the television. OMG! When did Saturday morning TV get so bad? I only saw one show, something I think was called Cake TV and it was hideous!

(Okay, I know I’m not the target audience, but I can still watch Scooby Doo Where Are You? and enjoy myself.)

The laugh track on this Cake show was annoying, the acting was awful and overplayed, and the “jokes” (and I use that term loosely) were so horrible that I would sigh loudly and mutter to myself. Fortunately, I was alone while I was doing this.

Chaning the channel wasn’t an option and neither was turning it off. The buttons on the television that do those two things had been removed. I was trapped!

All I have to say after that half hour in hell is: Parents, I feel for you! I’d be homicidal if I had to listen to that every weekend.

Tags: annoyances, demotivators, TV
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Holiday Talk

Wednesday, December 26th, 2007

A couple of weeks ago, my dad was over at my house and working on a project. This is when he commented that it would be nice if I had a sink in my basement–and since I’d have a plumber coming over anyway, I might as well put in a toilet and a shower down there, too. (He’s really good about spending my money.

But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. And I’d want to sheet rock the room off so that it was an enclosed space, which means I’d need a light in there and a door. So I hopped online last night and checked out sinks. Because it’ll be a small room, I wanted a pedestal sink and I found one I really liked–for $650. There are sinks that are much cheaper than that, so I might end up with one I don’t like as well if I do this. That’s still very much up in the air. It’s nice to dream about, though.

It ended up being a topic of discussion at Christmas. The holiday was mostly nice for my family–I hope it was for yours as well.

The thing that kept it from being completely nice was the digital camera I gave my parents. I bought them the same brand I have (although theirs is a new, more advanced model) and I thought it would be set up the same way with a nice cradle for the camera. That way they could just grab it and take pictures whenever they wanted. Instead, the new version of the camera requires that the battery be yanked out and put into a recharger, which isn’t nearly as convenient or as simple as mine.

The camera also arrived without a memory card. I was irritated by that until I read the instructions and found out it has some built in memory, so that some pictures could be taken. Now I’ll have to go out and find a 2GB card for my parents. Then they won’t have to worry about running out of space before I can upload the pictures onto the computer for them.
Other than that (and the snow that still hasn’t stopped) it was a good day. The only thing I wanted was a cordless phone and I got that. Setting it up is today’s project–when I get home from the Evil Day Job (EDJ).

Hope your holiday was as nice!

Tags: annoyances, holidays, house, pictures
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Off Kilter

Friday, December 7th, 2007

Did you ever have one of those days where you didn’t feel exactly right? Not sick, just not able to really click all day. I had one of those days yesterday. I had a bunch of stuff to do, but I couldn’t work up enough steam to accomplish anything. I even nearly fell asleep in at the dentist, and since I have a huge phobia, that’s saying a lot!

So nothing was accomplished yesterday. Not my worksheet for the online class I’m taking, not answering email, not holiday cards. Nada. I’m hoping for a higher productivity day today.

Did I mention the dream I had after I added all my winter blankets to my bed? The one about someone sitting on me? Last night, I added a fifth blanket to my bed–a goose down comforter that my mom gave me–because I’ve been cold at night. I woke up about an hour after I went to bed and I felt like I was suffocating!

I was warm, but I’m not certain it was worth it since it took more than an hour to fall back asleep, and even then, I had to fold back the new comforter so that it wasn’t over my chest. Isn’t the human mind strange? Or maybe it’s just mine.

Tags: and-the-beat-goes-on, annoyances
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The Name Game…Redux

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

Remember when Logan put me through all kinds of trouble to come up with his surname? Remember how I said I was never complaining again about a character telling me his/her name because it made everything so much easier? Well, I’m being forced to go through this hell again–Hope won’t share her last name. Grr. Okay, granted, I’m not doing anything right now that makes it needed and the important part was her first name, but I want to know. Besides, name does play a role in personality and she’s a big enigma to me.

What’s even more frustrating is that I read through what I wrote yesterday and it all pretty much sucks. Considering the sleep thing, and how the nap messed things up, it’s not a huge surprise, but I was hoping that I wouldn’t need to rewrite it all.

My other cross to bear is my Polynesian couple who still have no names, but who’ve started sharing scenarios. They’re all similar, so I’m thinking the premise of the story is going to stick. I guess it’ll just be a matter of what form it takes. The stories I’m seeing so far, though, aren’t really workable as a book, but this is percolation stage and that’s okay.

The stones were delivered for my new garden’s retaining wall yesterday. It’s amazing how much that stuff costs, but it’ll look so nice when it’s done. Of course, there’ll be pictures. I’m sure y’all have been sad for months without flower/garden shots posted here.

And because I can’t resist whining about the weather….It was summer in Minnesota this last weekend. Temps were in the mid-80s and I was running around in short sleeves and still thinking it was hot. Tuesday it got cold. Way cold. I seriously wished I was wearing my winter jacket when I left work yesterday afternoon. It’s 35 degrees with the wind chill and I think I’ll be putting it on this morning when I leave the house. Brr! I even had to put socks on which I totally hate.

Tags: annoyances, characters, names, stories, weather
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Consider This My Saturday/Sunday Post

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

It has been one long day. I had to get up at 7am for a 9am appointment, sat for about an hour while my oil was changed, and edited my proposal. Then came a trip to Home Depot where I picked up cedar mulch, weed killer, a respirator so I can spray the spiders dead outside my house without killing myself, and a cover for the peony tree so it can stay nice and protected all winter. There was some other stuff, too, but those are the highlights.

My plan for the day was to work in the yard, but my mom decided she was going to come over today and balance my checkbook. I know what you’re thinking, but my mom needs something to keep occupied. My dad and I have tried a million things she can do other than sit in front of the TV. Most of them haven’t worked, but this (and reading my galleys) does because she feels like she’s helping me out. Which she is. So anyway, I had to find all the statements. That proved to be a challenge.

You see, the last time my mom tried to balance my checkbook was last February. It was almost a year’s worth of statements at that time (I know!) and she never did get it to balance. She wrapped up all the statements and gave them to me to put away. I did, but today, I couldn’t find them. They weren’t where I thought they were.

Let me explain the difficulty of this problem. I had boxes I didn’t unpack from when I moved a year ago. They’ve been shifted between the spare bedroom and my office several times. The statements could be in any of those boxes. I started unpacking them into my new filing cabinet, certain I would find them at any minute. I gave up around 7:30 after 6 hours.

In between my search for the missing statements, I had to make continual visits to the yard to okay what my dad was doing. He’s laying out where the new flower garden is going to go. My outdoor plans included helping him with this, but that didn’t happen.

So I emptied a bunch of boxes. Yea! And never did find my bank statements. Boo!

This is really bugging me now because I know I had them. I remember holding that bundle of statements. I just can’t remember where I put them. I’d like to continue going through boxes tomorrow, but I need to write.

Bottom line, one long and busy day.

Tags: annoyances
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The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Tuesday, September 18th, 2007

A spider story. I loathe spiders–there aren’t words to describe how much. I bought a bug vacuum a few years ago primarily because of spiders (they don’t suck up box elder bugs, anyway) and I just want all spiders to stay far, far away from me and my house.

With that as a prelude, imagine my pleasure to open the door into the garage Monday morning on my way to work just in time to watch a spider rappel from the top of the door frame. Of course, I was running late for the Evil Day Job (EDJ)–I always am–and he comes to a stop about 8 inches from the ground. I didn’t have time to wait, so I brought my foot up and tried to drive him to the floor. I thought I had him, but I couldn’t find a body. I checked my pants and my shoes, but I didn’t see anything. Another check of the floor, but still no victim. I didn’t have time to look any more and I hustled out the door.

And I spent the entire drive to work feeling creeping sensations on my legs. I kept reaching down and brushing at them, worried that the damn spider was crawling on me. I did a more thorough search of my clothing when I reached work, but all was clear, and when I got home from the EDJ yesterday afternoon, I examined the floor more carefully–even shaking the rug. No spider. So where the hell is he?

Writing didn’t go real well yesterday. I read through the scene that I want to replace and cringed at how bad it was. I can’t believe it took this long for me to see all the problems. I didn’t have an immediate idea on how to fix it, so I worked on scene goals last night. The list isn’t finished yet–I need to think on it some more–but I do have a better grip on my h/h and how they’d really be behaving as opposed to what I wrote. I hope to get some more thinking in today, and with luck, some writing done during lunch.

Tags: annoyances, characters, spiders, writing
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The Good Old Days

Monday, July 9th, 2007

Whatever happened to telephone etiquette?

I’m not talking about rude cell phone usage–that’s a topic that could go on forever–I mean regular old telephone courtesy?

Last night, I didn’t get to bed until nearly 10:30, which is late enough, but what really made things bad was the phone call I got last night. At 11:05. I was nearly asleep when I heard it ring. It was a wrong number, but the damage was done–I didn’t fall back asleep until after 1am.

It used to be that you never called anyone before 9am or after 9pm. If something was important, you could push it a little, but if the phone rang after 10pm at night, the immediate thought was: OMG, someone died. Now, it seems like people call any time of the day or night, completely unconcerned with such niceties like people sleeping.

When did this change?

I’ll confess, I hate the phone anyway. The proliferation of email and the ability to handle things online is something that I love because I don’t have to use the phone. It’s possible I might be slightly biased against any phone calls.

I know my dad has received phone calls from lodge guys at all hours, too, and these are older men who you’d think would follow the unspoken, old “rules” about calling.

I miss the days where people adhered to never calling anyone, not even your best friend, after 9pm. Sigh.

Another confession: I have caller ID and I only answer phone calls if I feel like it. The phone was installed for my convenience, not the convenience of the caller. Of course, it still breaks my concentration (Or my sleep) because I have to get up to check who’s calling, but it’s better than killing myself to get to the phone only to find out someone is trying to sell me something.

And now for something completely different. It poured here yesterday afternoon for a really long time. Lots of lightning and a little bit of hail too. My poor lilies were mostly protected from the pounding, but we got so much rain that there was standing water in the tree ring. I can only hope they don’t drown before it can drain off.

The severe weather drove me off the computer and the sky looked funny enough that I tried to figure out what I’d need to grab to take to the basement if the tornado sirens went off. They didn’t, thank goodness, but the storms and the lightning lasted for a long time so I was off the computer for a long time. There went my plans to work on a proposal or to even answer email.

Tags: annoyances, life, weather
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