NOT RELATED TO TIGER Five things I hate
Because my columns have just been too positive
Reviewing my recent Tech pieces, I noticed that my columns have been very positive and upbeat. Trying to come up with a way to balance out all of this positivity, I remembered a video by ItsKingsleyBitch, one of my favorite vloggers, titled “Things I Hate.” It gave me an idea: I should write a “Things I Hate” column.
Without further ado, here are five things I hate:
1) When people won’t admit they like stuff
During my freshman year of high school, there was a group of people — myself included — who always sat in the front of the bus. Pretty much every one of us visited 4chan on a regular basis. However, no one would ever admit it.
“I heard from so-and-so, who heard from Eli, that this is what was happening on 4chan.”
“Did you hear what happened with 4chan and the Habbo Hotel … of course, I wasn’t involved because I would never go to a site like that.”
“Look at all of these funny images that I totally did not get from 4chan!”
I was no better than anyone else. I finally visited 4chan after hearing so much about it, and the next day I still pretended I had never been there.
The same phenomenon occurs when people talk about the media they consume. A Britney Spears or Ke$ha song will be at the top of the charts, but when you ask around, no one will admit to having downloaded it. Well, screw that! Image boards are awesome, I have Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, and BrokeNCYDE on my Android phone, and I really enjoyed the movie Legally Blonde.
2) When people hate on the word “like”
Like, seriously. In high school and middle school, whenever I said something along the lines of “I drank like 20 Fanta Oranges last week,” there were some teachers who would always respond by asking, “Did you drink 20 Fanta Oranges, or did you drink like 20 Fanta Oranges?”
You know what? “Like” is a useful word. I wasn’t counting how many Fanta Oranges I was drinking; I can’t say for sure I drank exactly 20. Nor is it accurate for me to say I drank “about 20,” “around 20,” “roughly 20,” or “approximately 20” — these phrases still convey too much precision. For all I know, I could have drunk 10 or even 30. In other words, I drank like 20 Fanta Oranges.
I dare anyone to convey this exact level of precision anywhere as concisely.
3) When people think aliens will look even remotely like their stereotype
Whenever photographs or videos of supposed extraterrestrial life forms manage to generate a lot of chatter on the Internet, I can often debunk them simply based on how closely they resemble the stereotypical humanoid image of extraterrestrial life that is popular in movies and other forms of entertainment.
Most likely, the development of extraterrestrial life — if there is any — and the development of the stereotypical alien image have occurred in isolation of each other; what are the odds they would match so closely? C’mon guys: if you’re going to try to fool people by uploading fake content, at least make it believable.
4) When I’m away from my electronic devices
Because I didn’t have access to wheels, I spent the entirety of Friday and Saturday carrying things from New House to East Campus in order to move into the room I am staying in for the summer. While this was indeed tiring, it would not have been so bad were it not for the fact that one of the first things I moved into my new room was the charger for my Android phone, and I have since been unable to find it. This means I have had no electronic device with me when away from Simba — my MacBook Pro, which I named after the upcoming version of OS X. In other words, I have spent entire hours without using an electronic device.
It is bad enough not being able to check my email, go on Facebook, or read the news without having to lug Simba around. However, the worst part is not being able to look up information when I’m not with him. For instance, during one trip from East Campus back to New House, I was thinking about positive feedback loops and become deeply concerned that I had mixed up terminology. What I had thought were positive feedback loops for the past three years might actually be negative feedback loops! During the same trip, I also realized that I did not know what “40 oz.” meant … 40 ounces of what? Without my Android phone, I couldn’t look any of these things up, and they bugged me until I was finally able to get back to an Internet-connected device.
Throughout Friday and Saturday, I kept drinking Gatorade because I thought I was dehydrated, but maybe I was instead experiencing the symptoms of technology withdrawal.
5) When people complain about stuff
I hate it when people focus only on the negative and complain about everything. I especially hate it when people don’t just complain about stuff, but also write their complaints down, proofread them, turn them into a top five list, and publish them in one of the most-read issues of their university newspaper so that everyone has to listen to them complain.
There’s no need to balance out positivity. Plus, I’m in a pretty good mood because I just recently started playing Pokémon Black, and it is epic. Despite popular belief, the world is awesome — at least until I get tired of playing Pokémon.