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That paragraph was roughly 500 characters, which means there were roughly 500 soundwaves that came out. That's just one action, repeated over and over again, by one person. Now imagine the computer room that I'm in. It's seven in the morning. There is only one other person in the room aside from me perusing a computer. He's typing right now, and it annoys the life out of me. Of course, I'm typing too, but here is why I believe I'm not a hypocrite here.
The other person doesn't only make typing noises. He fidgets too. He thinks he's being quiet, but he's not. I can hear the wheels at the bottom of his chair make slight moves, shifting a little bit here and a little bit there on the hardwood floor. I can hear him inhaling quickly, almost desperately, and then letting out each puff of air steadily, with an air of relief. I can hear him scratching, and I know that the slow, but determined reptition is him scratching his forearm, and that the gentle, fast itching is him scratching his back. I can hear him move his mouse along the surface of the desk. I can hear him sniff.
I am fully aware of the fact that it's impossible to be completely quiet all the time. However, one can strive to be, especially when it's fairly obvious that others in the vicinity are trying to get some work done. This is all almost second nature to me, but I make sure that I'm comfortable in my chair when I first sit down. I see no need for any noise to be made when breathing, and I see no need to scratch at all. I hold in my sneezes, I hold in my yawns, and I sniff only when I'm alone.
And even though some noises are inevitably to be made, I try to do it in a way that is pleasing to the ear. While I'm typing this, I type full paragraphs continuously until the very end, and take longer intermissions between paragraphs. There's no need to stop if you learn how to organize thoughts in your head. Why is there any need to be so sporadic and choppy when you type, that's so cacophonous.
Trees rustle, coins jangle, doors creak and printers sound like they're about to explode. But hey, we have controls over our own bodies. So what if other people are making more noise than you? So what if it's just the sound of you tapping some keys? The fact that it's a small amount of noise doesn't mean it isn't pollution. Who needs to graze the floor when they're walking? You're going to make all that noise just so you can get some gum out of your bag? Who needs to hear rap music come out of your phone when you get a call? No, not everybody wants to hear how you flirt with girls over the phone. And explain to me this: why the heck is it that I can tell the difference, when you're scratching your damn arm, and when you're scratching your friggin' back?!
...between the hours of 10pm and 6am.
At 6am, the cleaner lady comes along, and I don't know what she's doing, but she makes a lot of noise for something like six hours non-stop. She's always pushing the vacuum cleaner with wheels around, or her little trolley thing that holds her brooms and mops and cleaning stuff, and it rattles inside the trolley, and it feels like she's cleaning the place again and again and again and again. After noon, it's then around ten hours of students coming in and out, talking on their phones, talking to each other, grumbling in frustration at their computers, stomping, coughing, sneezing, ruffling through their bags...
...and I can't bloody concentrate on my blogging during these hours. And right now, this doofus two rows in front of me thinks it's cool to play music loudly. What if I was to watch my American Idol episodes loudly, huh? It's not fair.
Okay, it's Santana, but even though it's good taste, I can't concentrate in the presence of any noise. I just can't.
There are also two guys seated on my right that are chatting about cars. One guy appreciates Lambourghinis for their design, but prefers Ferraris as it suits his personality. The other guy's favorite brand is the Maserati.
If you ask me, my favorite brand of car is Shutthehellup. I can't blog properly, damn it!
My best friend in Hong Kong was playing games with me online during the weekend, and although I hate sore losers and boastful winners, this special type of person that my best friend was pretending to be angered me the most, and made me want to blog about all three in the first place. I can only describe the kind of annoyance I'm talking about with the words, "sore winning".
My best friend will win, right, and then he'll say how he was lucky that time. And that I'll win next time. And he goes, "there, there, don't worry, man. I just got lucky. I'm going to lose next time, you'll see."
To which, my reaction is TAKE THE DAMN VICTORY AND SHUT UP ALREADY. It's so annoying by itself when you lose, and to rub salt on the wound, the opponent patronizes you, and encourages you. They're not your coach, or your personal trainer, or your best friend at that point - they are the opposition, so just act like it!
Contrary to sore losers, which I blogged about a couple of days ago, on the other hand, there are also those that boast a lot about winning. They like to shove their victory in your face, whether it be a vainglorious checkmate on a chess board, a full house full of hot air in a poker game, or a highfalutin hotel bought and set in place on Boardwalk (if you're American) or Mayfair (if you're British) when you're playing Monopoly.
There is also the kind of bragging that comes with showing your support for a particular sports team. I actually personally don't mind this - although feel free to disagree. I've just been exposed to many displays of gasconade when people come into lectures, classrooms or the workplace gloating over Manchester United's defeat of Liverpool, India's triumph over Australia in cricket, and Jenson Button's domination of the Formula One World Drivers' Championship. Although I don't participate in the shouting and cheering myself, I get it - I would cheer for television shows, or books, if they ran around a pitch passing a ball to each other in front of millions of people.
But when it comes down to personal bragging rights - people tend not to have any in my eyes. To show off with or without substantiation is annoying nonetheless. Nobody cares that much if you win - a good game is a good game, and that's that. I tend to see it as an act of ego-boosting. A truly confident person doesn't need to advertise his skill. A truly impressive demonstration of achievement waits for others to do the congratulations.
Although this was true in the case of Kayne West's shout-out to Beyoncé a couple of months back, sometimes, some people, like Taylor Swift, deserve a minute of glory time. I've heard of having insecurities - but Kayne West... God knows what's wrong with him.
A pat on the back is nice, but a continual 24/7 patting of one's back is bravado that's clearly going overboard. Tell me, dear loyal readers, do you hate it too?
My 4-year-old cousin is a sweet boy, who brings a lot of love and laughter to our family dinners. He's learning to be conversational within the family, he's active and loves running around, and he's fairly disciplined in his general behavior and potty training, thanks to my grandmother's heavy hand.
If there's one problem that I had to point out, though, it would be the problem of him being a sore loser. He throws a tantrum, cries, kicks and screams if he believes somebody else is the winner, he cannot stand to lose. To be fair, we've taught him to think he is always a winner. I remember when the four of us cousins had a race at one point, and obviously, it was a matter of whoever was older, was whoever that ran the fastest. We like to tell my 4-year-old cousin that as long as you finish the sprint, everyone wins, we want to encourage him to think that everyone's a winner in the eyes of the family. So when it comes to him really losing at something, it upsets him immensely, because in his mind, the best policy is shared, unified victory.
But then again, he's only four years old. Who can blame him?
Who we can blame are the grown-ups, even the teens. They say it takes a real man to admit defeat, as people nowadays are so obsessed with keeping their reputation and dignity above everybody else's. I'm sure everyone out there knows of the sore losers I'm referring to - the kind that quit (not forfeit, they quit), and lose their tempers in the middle of a game because they know they're going to lose. I'm talking about the type that whine about how their tactics went wrong, or how they were tired, or weren't paying attention, the sort that complain after the game is over about how the rules were biased for those taller than him, or those with better mathematical skills than her, or how the opponent had a lot more time to spare to adjust to the controls than he/she did, how the sun was shining in their eyes, or on their side of the pitch, how it was their first time playing, how they got stuck, how they tripped, how they weren't thinking straight...
Why don't you just shut up, and move on with your life, instead of dwelling on it? What is wrong with healthy, happy competition where there are winners, and losers that just happen to be you? Jeez, no need to throw a hissy fit, just try again next time!
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It's so damn annoying when you hear people complain about the weather. 15°C is too cold, 20°C is too hot, and when it's 17°C, it just so happens to be too windy for one's liking. They don't know hot until they've been to Brunei or the Central African Republic, they don't know cold until they've been to Norway or northern China. Face a drought in central Australia, or a snowmelt flood in Minnesota, or a negative 24°C hailstorm in Munich, before you start complaining about the climate where you live, and perhaps blurt out your opinion and vague understanding of global warming. You don't know how good you have it until you've been to the extremities of the world, meteorology-wise. If it's cold, wear thicker clothes. If it's raining, bring an umbrella with you. You don't need your mother to teach you that much. Grumbling on and on about it isn't going to change the weather, so quit complaining!
When people tell me they're tired, I don't know what exactly they would like me to do to help them. Is this just something that is a 'problem', an 'issue', a matter that deserves multiple people's attention? Does it make them feel better if they confide in me about their exhaustion? Or do they expect me to make them a double espresso, made with extra strong-tasting Coffea arabica beans, and with an additional dose of sugar/sweetener added? Or do they expect me to sing a lullaby to them? Perhaps count sheep with them? Get them home and in their jammies and tuck them in?
It's annoying how people say they're tired in the morning, although, it is understandable since they just woke up. But then again, people also say they're tired after they finish their dinner, and when they' realize just how late it is when they stay up in the middle of the night, and the next day, they complain, yet again, about their tiredness after vigorous exercise during the daytime, and after a good long afternoon of playing games, or work, or day out with the family.
You see, I am tired, if you want me to be frank. I work from 11:30am 'til past midnight for six days a week as a bartender. I have to keep a smile on my face, and talk to customers, my coworkers, and my boss constantly, as if I enjoy washing and polishing a thousand glasses a day. I have to pour over a hundred glasses of wine in a day, over twenty cups of coffee, and over two hundred glasses of beer. I have to remember the names of over fifty different beers, and what their corresponding bottles, glasses, and coasters, look like, as well as memorize each glass and bottle's locations amongst the shelves in the bar, their brewing methods and distinct features, their country of origin, and their prices. I have to remember all the food on the menu, all the ingredients in each dish, how they're cooked, what the chef recommends, what the manager recommends, what wine goes well with what meat, what sauce goes well with what meat, and to which customer every dish coming out of the kitchen should be served. I also need to know a lot of miscellaneous crap, like where to find the spare limes to make garnishable lime wedges, where to find the milk, where to find the various kinds of tea bags (English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Green, Peppermint, etc...), which dial or switch adjusts and controls which light in the restaurant, what music to play at what hour and with what atmosphere, and which credit cards we take and which we don't.........
Uh, of course, I'm tired.
But I don't complain about it, because that doesn't help anybody. It never helped me when I was primary school, 'cause that just made my parents bring me home earlier to put me to sleep. It doesn't help at school, it distracts you, it gives you a reason to not pay attention. It also gives you a reason to be lazy at work. And It doesn't help when you run, when you swim, whenever you do exercise, 'cause that one breath spent on expressing your fatigue could've been used instead on invigorating you one breath bit further.
I suggest people should just suck it up. If you're that tired, if you're really tired, then forget about your work, or your studies, or your friends and family, all your responsibility, and just go home, go to bed, go relax, go to sleep, go take a break, go rest your eyes, until you're not tired, and generally, just shut up, 'cause I get most of my tiredness, from listening to that one line too often: "I'm tired~"
Argh. People can be so damn whiny. (Oops, was that a bartender's pun?)
Sorry, folks. It's been a tiresome week and I've been arriving home at around 10pm every night for the past three nights. Exhausted, your familiar hater naturally goes to sleep. I don't know what else to say. Forgive me.
Today, I was on Facebook and I found a message in my inbox from someone who I used to go to school with a long time ago. He wanted to ask me out to eat dinner, have drinks, catch up, reminisce about the good old days, that sort of thing. I remember our group of friends used to go out to watch movies every Friday. The mall we went to also had an ice-skating rink in it, and I recall that was always a lot of fun before and after seeing a film.
There was one time the class dunce (the one that poured sugar in his mouth) decided to join our group to see a movie. He chose the film for us, a terrible choice in my opinion, as he decided we should watch Bad Boys 2, a bad sequel to an already appawling first movie, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, rated 23% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Anyway, our group all hated the damn movie, but the idiot in our class loved it. Since we all disliked the distasteful car chases and gun shooting, we started chatting and laughing at the back of the cinema...
...and then things got a little out of control. One of my best friends decided to stand on one of the chairs and stick his hands in front of the projector. Watching a dog's silhoutte eating Will Smith's old rusty yellow car was simply hilarious.
And then this guy sitting three rows in front of us, a white man with thin-rimmed glasses, stood up, walked up toward us, and told us to "either shut up or get the Hell out of the cinema".
And so we all got the Hell out of the cinema.
Yeah, I get it. There's nothing more annoying than, say, a young boy that exclaims "COOL!!!!" whenever Batman or Spiderman suddenly appears on the screen, or nothing ruins a movie more than a young girl that screams, or even cries, after there are loud sound effects. I think it's the worst when any grown adult doesn't understand that he/she has to switch their mobile phone off before the movie starts, people who have crappy ringtones, who have no sense of respect for the people around them, and who talk at an unbelievably high decibel.
Yeah, all of that can get pretty irritating. Those dumb teenagers in the back projecting hand-shadows on to the screen deserve to get flogged. I understand where the guy with the thin-rimmed glasses was coming from. I probably would have said the same thing, if I had the same stinking, substandard taste in movies as he did.
I don't know if there's a handful of vegetarians out there that actually nibble on a chicken wing every now and then, but seriously, "So you don't eat any meat?" has to be one of the most idiotic questions to ask a vegetarian, or a human being.
Some would say I'm just jealous of the attention vegetarians get, but really, I mean, asking them when they last ate meat, what they think meat tastes like, why they chose to be a vegetarian, what do they do to get protein, what do their friends and family think of vegetarianism, what happens if they eat a hamburger, will they encourage their kids to be vegetarians, blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah... I don't think it's really that great a topic. I don't think it deserves that much focus by a pair or a group of individuals.
Come on!
Are you really that interested? ... Really?
Sigh, well, as they say, small things amuse small minds.
... I suggest you just shut up, and drink your soup.
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