Tim Blair

The misuse of the word 'decimate' in the media is the first small petty thing that came to mind that wasn't directly inspired by my roommate.

I'll spare you the roommate-inspired list. Everyone who has ever had a roommate has one of those, and they tend not to be very original.

"it's all about oooiiiiillllll!!!!!"

i wish, in fact, it were, then i wouldn't be paying $2 a gallon, but more like the good old days of 35 cents.

The term "Messers", even when used correctly.

I am disinteresed in escape goat lists. Also carppy spelling.

The misuse of personal pronouns. I heard Halle Berry the other day state something like, "They had problems with he and I." Go back to school catwoman.

Don't Muslims get their goats from behind?

Blegging.

And here I thought I was the only one who was vexed by Muppet hopping.

I wish he wouldn't categorically rule out cell phones, because there's a relatively new phenomenon that creeps me right the fuck out.

Namely, when someone is walking straight towards you, or perhaps standing still, staring off into space, maybe nod slightly, and suddenly blurt something out to seeming thin air...

... And then you realize they have a very discreet headset/microphone attachment to the cell phone.

It is fun, though, to start talking to them in response to their thin-air conversation. They look like they've just awoken from a very long nap.

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Also, when people hold impromptu meetings in workplace hallways. They form this little ring, and when you have to walk through it to get to your destination, they jump back and give you a rude look, pissed off that you broke their concentration, I guess. The funny thing is, a lot of these hallway rings form right after they've just departed from another meeting.

--------------

Also, putting a conference call on hold rather than mute, and thus subjecting to the other poor souls on the phone to the romantic stylings, of, like, Kenny G.

People who will place their shopping cart in the narrowest part of the aisle, effectively blocking said aisle.

People in front of me who enter freeways at a speed well below the speed limit ("Floor it you jerk! You'e doing forty on an Interstate!").

People who pass other vehicles at a speed only 1 or 2 mph over the passee vehicles speed. ("Do you intend to pass that semi or are you entranced by the smell of diesel exhaust?")

I can think of others. Perhaps later.

I've noticed a new phenomenon concerning cell phones and meetings. . . I've been in meetings and someone cell phone rings. Not only do they answer it, instead of turning it off, they start talking to the person who called. AND, the phone call is personal, not work related. It's usually some kid calling their mom. My jaw dropped the first time I encountered this.

I've noticed a new phenomenon concerning cell phones and meetings. . . I've been in meetings and someone cell phone rings. Not only do they answer it, instead of turning it off, they start talking to the person who called. AND, the phone call is personal, not work related. It's usually some kid calling their mom. My jaw dropped the first time I encountered this.

Then there are the people who hit the POST button twice. Don't you just hate that?

Then there are the people who hit the POST button twice. Don't you just hate that?

My goats are always being got by fellow barbarian squinting Queensland suburbanites who maraud through this State's neighbourhoods of a night pillaging livestock to eat.

*****

And also misuse of the word 'enormity'.

And sometimes the person doesn't hit the post button twice, but the comment posts twice.

Clowns.

Brrrrrrr....

Socks with sandals. The baby-boomers version of bermuda shorts, blacks socks, and wing-tips (AKA, The Full Nixon).

There are only two things that get my goat, Racism and black people!

I hate living in a place surrounded by people who espouse every single trendy left-wing view there is, and if you happen to take a tiny bit of dissenting skepticisim from any of these positions, they look at you as if you just announced that you eat babies.

Ooh. I'm going to get ten columns out of this one.

True story: I used to sell guitars at a store called "World Music."

Got my freakin' goat every day.

Socks with sandals.

Sigh. I have been unable to break my boyfriend of this practice. But he's British. I guess it's part of his quaint Eurocharm.

People who preach to me about how I need to be tolerant, but then proceed to be intolerant of my intolerance. (Namely, most all on the left, and far to many on the right.) Friggin hypocrites.

TV advertisements that show fruit sloshing around in water.

All my goats are gotten. Of course, there's always Al Gore and his dynamic new style of public speaking.

Commercials for feminine hygiene products or impotence medications that run during mealtimes. Yuck.

Specific:

There is this guy at the corner of 9th and Irving. Every weekend he sings at the top of his voice accompanied by his accordion. He cannot either sing or play. I am just about to start a charity just to get rid of him.

Generic:

People who want government to CARE and just DO (i.e. regulate) something....

Fat Chicks.

I was in Stockholm in 1995, riding the bus to Nordiska Kompaniet, known as NK (the big store where Anna Lindh was murdered last year). Another American tourist gets on the bus and asks the bus driver, "Is this the bus to the NK department store?" He must have been one of the few adult Swedes who didn't speak English so he just stared blankly at her. So, she cranks up the volume, "IS THIS THE BUS TO THE NK DEPARTMENT STORE?"

It gets my goat when people try to blast through a language barrier with volume.

By the way, NK was exactly two blocks from where she got on the bus. You could see it through the bus window.

I guess it also gets my goat when American tourists live up to the stereotype of, well, of an American tourist.

Margo Kingston

The SMH letters page

Everyone in Egypt

And here in Hong Kong:

People who don't ever use a tissue, though make a snorting sound for the next 30 minutes, often on a bus ride.

People who try and all get into a lift as you are going out.

ahhh, I feel better now.

All Viagra (etal.)commercials...Hey! Bob, youloseweightgetahaircutworkingout...gotabigboner?

And the celebratory dancing in the streets commercial....aarrrgh.

Stupid is as stupid does - Forrest Gump

When cousin Abdul gets my goat, and gives it a social disease.

Cousin Abdul is not a clean man.

What Quentin George and Crusader said.

Plus:

Public art installations and councils putting my money into graffiti as art, publicly-elected officials promoting their own causes to the detriment of their electorates, and publicly-elected officials who fly north for winter like so many taxpayer-funded fat birds.

When news anchors refer to satellite "photographs". Satellites don't take photographs, asshole. This implies film and the need to develop it. Satellites take *IMAGES* that are beamed to earth as ones and zeros and reassembled down here. Funnily enough, weathermen (women. whatever) don't seem to make this mistake.

And so called really shits me to tears. I would like to find the peabrain who started this journalistic trend and rip off their nuts with a fork.

People who get in my way at the supermarket on Thursday night or Saturday, who obviously don't work and could shop at any other time - "Get the *&%^ out of my *&^%ing way!" - The joy of restricted trading hours in Western Australia.

Also, all these people who appear to be a shed load smarter and wittier than I am, who post on this site or write letters to Mark Steyn (and get them posted on his site). Pricks!.

And another thing (my very busy goat is looking forward to the weekend):

Publicly-elected officials (the same official, in fact, as my second example above) who blithely rip off ratepayers and have absolutely no concept of accountability.

Tim B.!!! Have you been giving humor lessons to your posters again, you naughty boy!

Albee's "The Goat or Who is Sylvia", the most sophomoric and overrated play I have ever seen in NY. Also, the woman in the audience near me who spent 15 minutes unwrapping a cellophaned food item during same play.

People who talk during the movies, especially those who feel the need to constantly explain to their significant other what's going on.
The term 'significant other' grrr.

Web e-mail forms that don't have a check box so that I can send a copy of the e-mail to myself.

When you call a major corporation and the automatic answerbot asks you to enter some information to continue, and then that information is not available to the next answerbot and/or employee. I think the most I ever gave out my account number in one call was 4 times. On the converse side, one company recently had an actual person greet me by name apparently via caller ID. They knew all my info - all I had to do was explain my problem. This, of course, has merely raised my expectations for all other companies.

- People who call you on the phone and have nothing to say.

- News programs always telling you what's on at another time ... tonight, tomorrow, next week.

- Europeans getting all bent out of shape over the existence of McDonalds or Coke in their precious realms.

- Nostril hair.

- Mail-in rebates.

- Trailers and soundtrack ads on DVDs I purchase.

- Things so stupid that only an intellectual can believe them.

- Columnists who run out of ideas so they write a a column soliciting repsonses from readers to give them ideas for columns

-People who use precipitous when they mean precipitate (okay, I'm a pedantic prick)

-Leftwingers who talk and talk and talk and talk about how their views are suppressed

Goat rustlers got my goat. Har, har, har.

No. But seriously.

- People who write letters into the paper saying plastic bags should be banned.

- Other letter writers who protest any and every new development. (These things really piss me off!)

- Idiot television reporters/movie directors who use music to 'set the scene' and 'atmosphere' of a piece, while clearly not caring about the music at all, and obviously not having any knowledge about music whatsoever.

Arseholes who leave trolleys at the nose end of supermarket parking bays so that you don't see them until you're committed to taking the park and there's a queue of cars on your tail.
Nylon string guitars in mass.
Bastards at the ABC who mount a pretty plausible case for the word "enormity" to also mean greatness in size.
Jill Singer who on Jon Faine's ABC radio program carped about the CIA plotting against Whitlam. Fergawdzakes!!
The Freemasons, they got all our goats.

I'm with rosignol & illibc.

PLUS - Pointy-haired managers. They're everywhere, not just in Dilbert.

The western world will be defeated, not by communists, or islamo-facsists, or green revolutionaries. It will be destroyed from within by creeping managerialism.

Pedants like Seppo really get my goat.

Oh, and teachers who get 10-year-olds to write error-free letters to editors promoting dumb leftwing causes.
And letters editors who publish the damned things.

Car drivers who try to drag my bike off the line at the lights. They never win, or learn.

Women who ride scooters in high heels.

Fat people in skin-tight clothing.

My girlfriend's mother. Uber Bitch.

People who use terms like "Going forward..." and "Opportunity for success" when describing a problem.

Pop music and modern R&B - crap.

Anyone whose idea of an appropriate reaction to a cranky friend who has miscarried after stressful fertility treatment is to remind said friend that "Too many people are having babies anyway." (And this person wants to be a counselor. God help his patients, I say).

Claire's Accessories.

Junior high students.

Seeing "His Dark Materials" praised to the skies. Dull narration, irritating heroine, total reliance on the long arm of coincidence, and self-righteousness, all in one fictional package! I couldn't finish the first book.

Right now - Germaine Greer (just saw her on the telly)

Generally - half-wit TV presenters who announce we are to see a "sneak preview" of the latest Star Wars movie. Yeah so sneaky that I will be watching it with 5 million other people, and seeing it on every channel - everywhere. No, thats what we used to call a "preview". A sneak preview is when I meet George Lucas down the pub and he invites me back to his place and shows me the new film before anyone else.

I agree with Sarah - nothing is as cringifyingly awful as applause in church - except maybe the church band playing rock-n-roll hymns when they're the only ones there under 50. Of course liturgical dancing trumps all for goat getting but you don't see that much nowdays.

(I already sent this directly to Lileks, but what the hell, I'll share the joy... and whew, what's getting my goat this very moment is the skunk walking past my open window. Damn nasty!)

What gets my goat is the Same Three Lame-O Stories on the Television News, to wit:

1) Wacky Wedding Ceremony. Underwater, skydiving, on a roller coaster, in Starfleet uniforms, ad nauseum. When I see two weirdos dressed like Klingons in scuba gear leap off a roller coaster and parachute into a lake for their most sacred day, I pray they never reproduce.

2) Truckload of Something Funny/Slippery/Unusual Overturning and Blocking Highway. Done to death. Needs more. F'rinstance, I once saw a truckload of bananas that had overturned on an icy off-ramp. Yawn. But if an ice truck had come by and wiped out on the bananas that had wiped out on the ice - brother, that's an angle!

3) Old People Doing Young-People Stuff. Grrrr. Enough with the skateboarding grannies. Switch it around. "Next on News 4 Dubuque - a fifteen-year-old boy who likes to sit in a rocking chair and bitch about Roosevelt!"

I swear to God, Shep Smith on Fox News once hit the trifecta in his Around the World in 80 Seconds segment, with the bonus Rescued Animal Nursed Back to Health and Returned to the Wild story. Sadly, it wasn't my goat.

Saying podium when you mean lectern (even worse is saying podium and not knowing you mean lectern).

People who input their "PIN numbers" into the "ATM machine."

Subscription cards falling out of magazines I already subscribe to.

People who have "issues" instead of problems.

News announcers "live on the scene" when they are standing in front of a place where something happened four hours ago. Or standing in front of the hospital where the victim was taken.

The phrase "world music." Like where else do you get your music from?

Worst of all is people who disagree with me and cannot see how that makes them total idiots.

Queues of any sort.

The one person in the shout who always takes 15 minutes to finish the last mouthfull.

Label drinkers.

Soccer moms who own fifteen kids and who have been listening to the same thunder I have for the last half hour, who then turn to me and say: "Is it supposed to rain?"

Women who carry their foofy little dogs into the supermarket with them. Women who leave their foofy little dogs in the car on a hot day. Women who have foofy little dogs.

Big fat men in nasty, sweaty T-shirts who spend fifty dollars on lottery tickets and gripe for thirty minutes about the local landowner who's rich because he stole all his money from the little guy.

Academics... because they're so academic.

Politicians who claimn to be "passionate" about anything.

The so-called "poetry" of Michael Dransfield and the woman "academic", i think called Dobrez, who wrote a huge, unspeakably boring book about it on taxpayer's money.

The scantimonious moralising of Robert Manne.

The US labor journal which is concerned about the dignity of Labor but not to the extent of paying contributors

And (if I can be so greedy as to have another goat gotten):

Misplaced - or unnecessary - apostrophe's.

:)

=:> (that's my goat)

Dickheads who still quote old Seinfeld sayings.

People who watch and discuss "reality" TV shows like they mean anuthing or that they are intimate friends with the losers on the tube.

For that matter, reality TV of any sort.

Argueing with a woman (name no names) who can't accept logic or rational reasoning.

• Young people who find it mandatory to get falling-down drunk at a party and THEN get aggro.
• Kids (especially but not exclusively) who form small impenetrable groups in shopping centres, right in the middle of the only pedestrian access!
• The current youthful habit of using US "ghetto-inspired" handshakes. (Can't think of another, nicer way of saying that.)
• Squeals, hugs and air-kisses
• People whose only information source regarding firearms is Hollyweird or the idiot box deciding what I, after 37 years of responsible ownership, can or can not own.
• People who call self-defence "vigilantism".
• Those who think preserving the environment means locking it away from everyone -- except themselves, of course.
• Being overtaken on the left, down the emergency lane, by a PYT (Pretty Young Thing™) on P plates, in a Hyundai Excel, on the mobile phone (sorry), cigarette in the other hand, at >100km/h, just before she cut right (no signals) into my lane, missing the front end of my car by less than a metre, and when I flashed my lights (briefly) in disapproval, she thrust her right (cigarette-holding) hand out the window to give me the finger -- leaving no hands on the wheel, while two metres off the bumper of the car in front. Yep, that got my goat all right.

Missing a twenty foot putt by a bee's dick.

Michael Moore.

Robert Hughes.

Fat-arsed women with sharp elbows in shopping malls.

Mainstream journalists.

Having your photo takn by some prick who spends 10 minutes fiddling with his camera to demonstrate his own importance.

Watching Collingwood losing Grand Finals.

Remember though that goats aren't all bad because a good goat will do that ......

Oh, OH YEAH, I just remembered one because I came across it AGAIN in the paper today: "News" stories that inform me of information that is "chilling".

Like "In a chilling message today, Osama bin Laden announced he was releasing the pox upon us."

Look, you ink-stained wretches: I CAN READ. I will decide whether something chills me or not.

The press adding the suffix "Gate" to any political contretemps.

I hate inaccurate nitpicking. For example, the word photograph derives from phot- (light) and -graphos (to write or otherwise reproduce). Technically, any image produced from light can be properly termed a photograph, so "satellite photograph" is correct. Using the term "image" has a more technical flair but is no more accurate than photograph. Similarly, "digital photography" is not a misnomer. Seppo, I'm looking in your direction (with a squinty eye and a scowl).

Another thing that really bugs me is retail packaging and labelling. Everything you buy these days is bedecked with stickers, tags, inserts, and another layer of frickin' stickers. Assuming that it isn't sealed inside an "adult proof" container that requires safe cracking skills and explosives to open. What I really hate is when I buy something and it has one of those anti-tampering stickers stuck to the actual product instead of the packaging, so you have to spend way too much effort trying to clean it off and even then the glue residue stays nearly forever.

Also, people who drive like crap. Especially those folks who never pay attention to yellow lights and just blow through red lights if it changes while they're in the intersection, or who never use their turn signals under any circumstance.

Feng Shui. Feng freakin' Shui. And, lastly, freakin' Feng freakin' Shui.

Did I mention Woody Allen-impersonations?

Oh yeah, speaking of "music":

Any music made in Seattle since 1990 by any Seattle bands, or by any bands that moved to Seattle so they could be considered Seattle bands. A bunch of suburban middle-class white guys whining about how bad life sucks. Yeah, growing up in Issaquah or Bellevue must of been terrible.

(Cobain gets a pass -- he was white-trash from the broke-dick logging town of Aberdeen.)

AND while I'm at it:

• Anyone who promotes anything starting with "New Age" as being "mainstream".
• Chiropractic as a science.
• People who regard John Lennon as a "genius".
• Vegans on a crusade.
• Harold Scruby :-(
• Grant Dorrington (for any Sandgropers here).
• Restricted trading hours (in WA).
• Blatant media misrepresentation
• Supermarket checkout signs that say "12 items or less" when they should say "12 items or fewer". :-)
• Ads that always show males as dickbrained losers.
• The fact that the most gorgeous women ALWAYS seem to be hanging off the arm of the ugliest, most bogan (boganest?) dropkick you've ever seen in your life.
• Idiots who keep adding to a list long after it's ceased to be relevant.

Jake brakes on trucks.

People who say, 'ooh, I was never any good at maths at school,' as though I'm meant to pat them on the fucking head and congratulate them for being retarded.

People who just amble along side-by-side, blocking the pavement, at the speed of three-toed sloths, when you're trying to get somewhere.

Taxi drivers who, when we are proceeding along a dead straight road will constantly ask which way I want to go. Bitch, if I want you to turn, I will tell you.

Taxi drivers who think I'm a sap and try to rip me off.

Taxi drivers who talk to me on the way to work when I am clearly nursing a blazing hangover.

Foreigners who live for years in a country and don't make attempt one to learn the language.

Baseball fans.

Baseball.

Any number of malapropisms and catachrestic usages of words. Blatant and flagrant come to mind, as does comprise/compose, disinterested/uninterested and effect/affect. Irregardless? WTF? The numero uno example is people using 'careen' when they mean 'career' or 'carom'. It is highly unlikely that your car was careening down the road, unless you'd put a special attachment on it on so you could lay boats on their sides and scrape the fucking barnacles off them.

The city of San Francisco in general, and Barry Bonds in particular.

I guess I just got David Gillies' goat.

People with loud car stereos whose bass makes my house vibrate, which causes head bobbing, which then makes me read the same line four times.

Hardware stores that won’t sell me industrial grade caltrops.

Children fifty years my junior who tell me that smoking is bad for me. *koff *

Public servants who speak a language that I know is English, but is unrecognizable as such.

Funeral parlour ads – especially the one with Diana whatsername. I remember now – Diana Grave Demeanour.

Well, I’ll just pop off now…

Anyone who uses the terms dominant paradigm, post-modernism or diversity, singly or together should get a goat. A very horny goat. A very horny and frustrated goat. (And I should get the webcast rights).

Oh Robin is right, I forgot about the customer-resistant packaging of various innocuous objects.

The hostility displayed by Canadians when asked if they're American. Australians are very aware of this and always ask me if I'm Canadian. The question has led to some very interesting conversations about Canadian pugnacity. Fucking retards.

No, Sean M., my goat she still here. She have pretty mouth, no? For you, special price, fifty dinar. OK for you my friend forty, but that lowest I go.

To the last one, omit if the context is a session of S&M involving tropical fruit and nut eating birds- I have nothing against a bit of dominant parrot-time.

Definitely my last - prompted by Robin and Katherine.

Supermarket packages with superfluous, stupid, dumb-ass lines like the packet of oats I saw the other day that was emblazoned with 'Great for porridge!'

I KNOW WHAT FUCKING OATS ARE FOR, DICKHEAD MORON MARKETING PEOPLE!

It's 10 PM. Do you know where your goat is?

BruceT

I'm with you on Grant Dorrington. What a sanctimonious pain in the arse.

I just thought of another one: people who abhor "over-population" but only in countries peopled by nationalities and races different from their own, as in "why do they have so many kids if they can't even afford a goat?"

People who insist I answer their question when the question was answered. They won't accept an answer that was not what they wanted.

People who insist I explain my answer when no explanation is needed. They won't accept an answer that was not what they wanted.

People who re phrase an answer into a different meaning and throw that back at me. They won't accept an answer that was not what they wanted.

People who say "if you say so." They won't accept an answer that was not what they wanted.

Pig Head Sucker, how about rock bands in church in general? Every church I visit these days has a bunch of teenagers and middle-aged men on stage writhing around with electric guitars and tambourines. Mortifying.

BruceT,
speaking of alternative medicine, isn't it about time homeopathy crawled away to die in shame?

OK, I notice that this is now called for:

Errm, no, that would be degenerate, rock-listening, non-driving, couldn't-give-a-rat's-arse-about-football. You owe me ten of whatever it was you were betting.

Coming from the Kyoto thread I have to confess to posses another goat, and major one at that:

People, who advocate implementation of international protocols that would cripple the economy, create massive unemployment and general misery and cause no noticeable difference in the global temperatures and/or quality of natural environment.

I just remebered that my god-bothering Aunty & Uncle didn't give our family any presents last Christmas but said they had instead donated the money to buy a goat for some third world family. So I don't know who or what got my goat, but I hope they are happy. (Saved us from having to thank my Aunty for the usually piss poor presents they normally give out.)

Dickheads who disapprove of shooting John Lennon.

Katherine,

Kyoto is nothing more than economic warfare...with pseudoscience as its ammo. Which leads directly to what really drives me nuts:

Idjits that think anything bad for the US must automatically be good for them.

People who use "lay" when they should use "lie," and "lie" when they should use "lay."

Once and for all, the correct usage is:

"I am going to LIE down"

NOT

"I am going to LAY down"

Usually I'm not that pedantic about grammar but that one really brings on the homocidal tendencies for some reason.

David, how about a magnificent assortment of 10 Topps baseball cards from 1988-1995. Highlights include Bobby Ayala and Joey Cora. Perfect for framing (darts optional).
Shipping and handling: US$45.

"World music": I didn't know anyone else bothered about that. I'm constantly having to turn off Radio 3 in the evenings to avoid this.

What else gets my goat?

(1) The common misuse of the phrase "begging the question".

(2) Pointless consultation exercises.

(3) The use of the phrase "wake up call for the planet" in any article concerning the weather

I wondered when someone would mention global warming.

Sarah: I am highly tempted, but no. I can download pictures of baseball players from the internet, blow them up to life size, and have at them with firearms.

rexie: ooh, ooh, me too! Petitio principii. That's like a 14 on the GRRRR-ometer.

I forgot another one: Emeril Lagassé. Yeah, dude can cook. Yeah, dude gives me hives. And he stole the whole idea of having a band playing when you cut back from commercials from me. So did Letterman, that no-talent hack.

PNN,

Usually I'm not that pedantic about grammar but that one really brings on the homocidal tendencies for some reason.

PNN

Ummmm … I mean … like … wouldn't that be homicidal?? (Sorry, been a long day.)

People who skimp on shoes.

David Gillies: While we're on the subject of logical inaccuracy, how about "refute" meaning little more than "repudiate" or "deny"?

“Lifestyle shows”. Fucking Lifestyle shows. I mean JEEEEEEEEESSSSSUSSSS! What sort of lame motherfucker needs his goddamn TV to tell him what’ll make him happy??? For Christ’s sake, if you don’t know what makes you happy, get your stupid arse off the fucking couch and go out and see what in the fucking world pushes your fucking buttons. The fucking TV won’t tell you.

And while I’m on the subject, the fucking word “lifestyle” really REALLY pisses me right off. What the fucking fuck was it with the brand of mayonnaise that came out a couple of years back here – ‘Praise “Lifestyle” with canola’??? Was that a fucking food product or a wardrobe accessory or fucking what?

I feel better now I’ve said that.

Sorry I’ve been fairly unimaginative in my choice of profanity … it is Friday and all…

rexie: I think I love you, man (in a non-squelchy way).

Erm, pundits who go for unfunny 'humour' pieces when the real story gets inconvenient. Imre's good at that.
Oh yeah, Aussie clone tv. Why did they get Cornelia Frances to play Anne Robinson? Plenty of shrill bitches around...
Let's save a few posts here...
'You say Margo and I say Janet
You say Dave Marr and I say Miranda
Phillip - Angela
blah blah - blah blah
etc'

People who insist I must like some sort of sport before I can be considered a member of the human race. If God had wanted us to run about in the sun having blunt objects thrown at us, he would have given us cleats on our feet and made our heads out of rubber.

People who are cheery in the morning.

People, in general.

BruceT,

You are of course correct. I knew as soon as I mentioned grammar I'd have to go and make some obvious spelling error and get egg all over my face. Just my luck.

Partners who don't want sex when you wake up on a rainy Saturdasy morning.

Partners who don't want sex when you wake up on a rainy Saturdasy morning.

Partners who don't want sex when you wake up on a rainy Saturdasy morning.

It's a rainy Saturday morning.

Hello, Sue.

The term "pop music" - blech.

They make excuses like, "Can't you waitr till tonight?" Or "We've been married 12 years." Phooey!

"why do they have so many kids if they can't even afford a goat?"

they have so many children, timks, because, unlike our friend habib, they can't afford to keep a goat on the side...

Andrea: I'm a moderate sports follower. Other than that, I agree with you 100 per cent. Cheery morning people should be machine-gunned.

Sue: When I say I don't like cheery morning people, I don't mean...

Anybody else irritated by the endless junk science that manages to get to the top of the news? I'm thinking of the stuff that epidemiologists churn out on things like associations between passive drinking and toe-nail cancer (to take a fictional example from the Numberwatcher, John Brignell).

beep- "Hey its me, give me a call, I have the information you wanted."

If you are going to leave a phone message, leave your name and number so I don't have to either try and guess who you are or look around for your number.
or better yet just leave the information I needed on the phone message so I don't have to call you back at all.

Some non-believer Hezbollah swine just got my goat with an RPG.
Kebabs, anyone?

would that be an rpg-bq, habib? yum!

People who say, "That makes me nauseous." when they should say, "That makes me Nauseated."

People who say "verbal" when they mean "oral." Verbal encompasses both oral and written statements.

People who use the words "utilization" and "utilize", both of which has exactly the same meaning as "use", but is longer and, apparently, must therefor be better.

People who use the work "utilize".

Any deliberate obfuscation of otherwise clear language.

"The medium is the message." Abstract art.

Comment threads that are so long you give up on reading them, and your observation overlaps another one that you didn't read until too late.

Anyone who, when faced with an inconvenient fact, tries to send it down the memory hole.

Hint: Changing the subject and pretending it never happened do *not* alter reality, buddy.

Solipsists.

Anyone possessing the delusion that the government has money of it's own. And where does that money come from, exactly?

On a related note, people who think that things we couldn't otherwise afford magically become within reach of everyone if the government is paying. Like poor people who go to an expensive restaraunt and think they can suddenly afford to eat extravagantly because they're splitting the check.

BTW, somebody stop me when you have enough.

The concept of entitlement.

The cult of the victim.

All beliefs are sacred, except Christianity.

All cultures are of equal value, except American.

Self-refuting belief systems, that go "poof" when applied to themselves. (Relativism, Multiculturalism, etc etc)

Things so stupid only an intellectual could believe them.

Anyone who expects to be treated differently than they treat others.

You're not that important, get over it.

Great suggestions, all of them. One big pet peeve of mine is when someone calls for someone else ( at work, home, wherever), and asks "Do you know how long Susan will be out/on the phone?" NO, I DON'T. And it's rather egotistical of you to think Susan should rearrange her life to accommodate your schedule.

Ah, venting felt good. :-)

Anyone caught using the phrase "it's for the children".

Arbitrary prohibition of chemical substances. Prohibition (big 'P') brought us the Kennedy's. Haven't we learned anything?

Public sector unions. The very *concept* is abhorrent. WHO do you work for, exactly? Think it out.

Whover is responsible for their being a plastic grocery bag full of diarrhea in the corner of my apartment complex's laundry room. From the smear on the floor, apparently it started in the middle of the room and was dragged into the corner.

No, I am not making this up, yes I need to move and noone is reading this anyway. :)

Any system that eliminates incentive.

The conviction that theory trumps data.

The notion that "all people are good on the inside".

(These are all related to...) Socialism.

When commentators (typically sports-related) say "Every team could use 'a' Barry Bonds, or 'a' Vladmir Guerrero." Those damn dehuminizing a's drive me crazy. Just say Barry Bonds or Guerrero! AUGH! My BP is rising just thinking about it....

"Fashion" that has nothing to do with expressing (or hiding) things with color, texture and shape and is instead about somehow making huge distinctions over small, artitrary differences. Consider the shape of the toes of "fashionable" shoes.

People who are bad at their jobs.

People who take no pride in their work.

Bureaucratic careerism.

The "hard sell". Sales should be about customer service taken to another level, not about interpersonal manipulation to make someone do something they don't want to do.

Pictures of children dressed as adults.

Anyone who says they're "saving the planet" with a straight face.
Pop stars, actors and celebrities who embrace causes.
The entire population of Adelaide.

people who say that someone who has been arrested for some brutal crime was "a good kid" or "a quiet neighbor"

"Charitable causes" that exists solely to raise money for themselves.

Door-to-door canvassing.

Mandatory "voluntary" contributions. (look at a college student's 'Student Activities' bill)

(anything)-Separatists. Fine, go form a cult and drink some Kool Aid, we don't want to hear about you.

Identity politics. To an American, whose country has no ethnic basis for existence and is based on ideas this is almost treason.

Envy. Live your own life. If it sucks it's probably your fault.

Affirmative action. Let's end racism with... racism.

My final goat-getter: people who have better goat-getting posts than I do.

Greg, that plastic bag is really upping your misery quotient today, isn't it?

Waitpersons who won't bring me a glass of water even after I've asked 3 times, but bring me a cosmopolitan immediately.

People who use their laptops in movie theaters while the main feature is right up there, on the screen.

Children who kick the back of my chair.

The fact I used "waitpersons" without even thinking about it.

Like today, people who come up to you at funerals and say, 'How are you...?'

Cabbies carting lesbians, who stop at intersections and say, 'Ya wanna go straight...?'

Cruel really, but I can't help myself.

People use laptops in movie theaters?! Where is this? Hopefully somewhere with the death penalty...

- People who don't seem to know the difference between to and too

- Coffin ads on TV

- People who assume you are stupid because you don't agree with them

- Telemarketers

- Electronic SPAM

- Spyware/Malware that installs behind your back and is difficult to remove

*Personal injury lawyers
*Lawyers who become career politicians
(they don't "get my goat" as much as make me want to puke on them)
*High school graduates who get confused giving change back. "Lessee...mmm...why'd you give me $22.03 for a $11.78 bill?"
*Misuse of pronouns. ("Me and a friend went to the store." arrrgh)
*Drivers who mysteriously slow down to a stop, then put their blinker on
*Mumblers. If I wanted to hear just every 3rd word, I'd go to the fast food drive thru.
*"Euro-chic" and similar terms
*Victim culture, a.k.a. Lack of Personal Responsibility
*"Concerned" people who are really enrichening themselves (see: Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader)
*Endless blabberers. Like I'm really interested.

-Incorrect usage of their/there/they're.

-Anti-American pussies. There are assholes in every walk of life, we just happen to have a lot. No reason to hate the whole lot of us.

-Dr. Phil. Who's this fuckin clown? He's a divorcee who preaches to us on how to maintain a relationship. And: (true story) Friend of mine saw him out on the town one night coming out of a restaurant. He was quite obese, and wearing a nice shirt and tie, had sweat stains running from his pits to his pants. My drunken friend, wanting to holler something at the celebrity, settled on this remark: "Dr Phil!! You're...you're all sweaty!" This guy has a book on how to lose weight! Practice what you preach!

Normally where I live is a pretty cool place, but sometimes something happens that just blows me away and all I can think of is "I have to get OUT". I've been trying all day and I simply cannot conceive of a scenario that would explain the plastic poopsack and its location.

When you're sufficiently excited or agitated, meaning to say or write one thing (and thinking you did) and actually doing something else. When I'm calm I use its/it's, there/their/they're, here/hear properly, and I can even spell- went to a district spelling bee as a wee middle schooler.

Anyone who complains that they're bored. Life is precious, and you are a waste of it.

Hipsters. What exactly is it you think you know that the rest of us don't?

Anyone who demonstates their individuality by donning a uniform.

1. Getting onto a thread too late
2. Stories about some guy who's just beaten some complete stranger to death in a drunken/drugged frenzy, in which his mother/ex-girlfriend describes him as a "gentle giant".
3. Idiots who insist on stopping their shopping trolleys directly adjacent to another idiot's trolley in mid-aisle, creating an impassable barrier. It makes me want to fly into a drunken, drug-fuelled frenzy...

Idiots who believe copnspiracies in restraint of trade such as tariffs will strengthen the economy.

Two words: Essential Oils.

* People who play rap on the car stereos at ear-shattering volume. No, prick, at 3 AM I don't want to hear about your "ho".

* People from whom words "George Bush" elicit condescending laughter or shudders of dread.

* People who have raised whining to an art form, e.g., leftists, feminists, and White Sox fans.

Lots of good goat-getters above.Yet my American friends missed a major league Billy: Calling government spending an investment.

Brown Line, White Sox fans? Shit, you want whining, try Red Sox fans. I just wish the Red Sox would hurry up and win a World Series just so those Boston bitchers and moaners would finally shut the f**k up.

Those infuriating and numerous bits of card that tumble from the pages of magazines I am reading inviting me to subscribe, when I'm already a subscriber. And those advertisement inserts in same magazines that are made of thicker paper that make it difficult to hold the pages open ...

Paradigms, shifting or otherwise.

Movie sequels i.e., any movie with a Roman numeral in it. Why is this a sure-fire indicator of excruciating badness?

1) People who bring small children to late movies. Did you expect your eight month old child to sleep through "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" ? Are you hoping that the five year old will not have bad dreams because you took them to see "Day of the Dead" ? ( moral of this goat is never see a R-rated movie late at night.)
2) People who start signal for a turn two blocks away/ Those who start to signal in the middle of the turn.
3) People who refuse to use the turn lane .

Goat stuff: You're merging onto a busy, fast-moviing highway and you think you see your break. But the car that could let you in speeds up just when you're running out of room. Turns out they are exiting only thirty feet later. (A disturbing new trend around New York - Argh!)

People that use profane language... Come on, use some bold tags if you want to make a point, but all the cussing just makes you look like an F-in' idiot!

News media folks that seem to believe our life is improved by hearing about Scott Peterson, Kobe Bryant, Madonna, J-lo, Britney or (Insert name of your favorite bimboloid here).

Whatever Greta Van Sustern is interested in at the moment.

Ted Kennedy.

Any other politician from Massechussets.

Being the last post.

Pre-emptive de-goating;

Folks making fun of my misspelling of Massachoosits... messachewsett... mazzachoositss...

Awe, heck- thank God I'm from Texas and don't have to learn how to spell such a lame state!

a test

Fuck you jack and your fucking tests. Post something substantial or be banned like all the other dickwads.