10 Most Annoying Things..

Here is my current list of the things that drive me "nuts". While the list looks like its in order, it isn't. Written as they come to me.

1. Rickard's Red TV Commercial using "O Fortuna" - this is the ad from hell. It drives me completely nuts - in part because the beer isn't up to much (its from Molson, what would I expect) but worse it engages in musical abuse - abusing the words of a very fine piece of music. Well, I assume it does, since you cant actually hear them after the first few bars.

2. The Public Understanding of Canadian Health Care - it is impossible to have a rationale discussion about health care, since most don't know what actually happens in the system and speak of it as if it were a completely private system, which it isn't and never has been.

3. Films which Stop Without an Ending - these are usually French and just kind of finish without any conclusion, resolution or plot satisfying close.

4. Coffee that Tastes Likedishwasher water - most love Tim Horton's coffee, I don't.

5. Home Depot Tool Department Staff - if you just want a screw (metal), they always try and sell you a $500 tool that will help you screw this into the wall. I just want the bloody screw.

6. Screwdriver Designs - there are at least three kinds of screwdriver - Phillips, that square pants bob thing and a flat head screwdriver. Why ?

7. Poor Quality Customer Service - its getting worse. My builder Colin is the worst - we are now on the 3rd year of waiting for him to finish a job - but its becoming a pandemic. The motto "we're not happy till you're not happy", which used to be the exclusive domain of Air Canada, now seems to have been adopted by many organizations.

8. Sanctimonious Celebrities - commenting in depth (hm..) on Africa, poverty, New Orleans...I dont mind Julia Roberts and John Travolta doing their bit to help out in New Orleans, that's fine. Its when they start talking about Africa and poverty and what needs to be done that I get my joint out of my nose (or is it my nose out of joint).

9. CBC Television - I simply just dont see the point of things like the local CBC news, which has less than 6000 viewers. In fact, less than 10% of Canadian's polled "miss" CBC during the current strike. (Dont you find it amazing that, having got close to $1b of our money, no one from the federal Government is stepping in to get the strikers back together. They should be asking the CBC to rebate the Government for a failure to deliver a lousy TV service).

10. "Light" Newspaper Coverage - as a journalist myself, I need to be careful here. But I do miss in depth, analytic, critical newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph (which I still read online) or The Guardian (which is worth reading just for the printmisses - a.k.a. as misprints). We do get some in depth pieces from time to time, but the critical perspective permeates the DT and TG in a way it doesnt in our news here. There is this bullshit that "journalists shouldnt get in the way of the news" - well, there is no "news" other than that which a journalist choses to make news.

11. Not Integrating the GST with the Price of a Good or Service - this does drive me and most of my visitors from around the world nuts. You never know what the price at the till will be, since we dont integrate the GST into the price of an item (except for gas at the pump). Do people think that the GST may be repealed and we can just forget it - zero chance.

12. People who cant count to 10! - oops.