Some things that piss me the fuck off

[trinityvixen]

Time for a good old-fashioned gripe. Here's what's annoying me this week!

1. People who pronounce things wrong.
I don't mean people who don't speak English well or have accents. They are lovely and allowed to speak with accents all their life for all I care, especially if they are British. (Or Australian. Or Kiwi. Or even South African, though I will probably confuse that with one of the others--or all of the others at some point.) I mean people who were born and raised in America and obviously speak fluent English who insist on pronouncing words that they clearly have only ever read on paper in a way that is stupid and obviously wrong, and worse, no one corrects them.

Currently, after leaving behind my book last week, I am listening to an audiobook of The Stand. I haven't even caught up to where I left off, I was just enjoying having it read to me while I worked, did chores, etc. But the guy they've got reading it is going to drive me out of my goddamned mind. I mean, this is something that was recorded and edited and produced and no one stopped to go, "Buddy, you do not say things that way. Look it up the dictionary if you can't read it."

Stasis. Say it to yourself. Stasis. The dictionary would like you to know that that is pronounced STAY-sis. Not STAH-sis. It's bad enough I have to listen to you say "modem" as mo-DEM, which is weird but not wrong (according to the dictionary). I've lost count of the others, but STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT. Every time, I'm yanked bodily out of the goddamned story. STOP IT.

2. People who are anorexic presuming to lecture other people about their eating habits. Yes, this article has to do with the Kevin Smith kerfuffle, which should be discussed in terms of customer service and has instead devolved into "Fatties deserve it." But it's a good read. Because even if you want to make this about someone being fat, end of story, you really, really shouldn't let anyone that obsessed with food tell you what's right and what's not when it comes to a) eating, b) obesity, c) anything else. Obsessed people make very poor philosophers.

3. The fact that I'm probably going to have to buy this expansion.
Kotaku had a good article about the two-pronged strategy to encourage gamers to buy games new, which would funnel money to developers and not to retailers like GameStop that turn around used games, on which developers see nary a penny. One strategy was to keep the game relevant--to keep updating and updating and updating it with downloads to make it worth holding onto. This would keep the game in the hands of the few who do buy it immediately and would keep them from pawning it off, thus cutting down on the supply of (if not the demand for) used games.

I find this all incredibly obnoxious. In Mass Effect 2, one of the main teammates of your player character was obviously an afterthought add-on of just this type of system, thus making him uninteresting and conversations with him less interesting that bothering anonymous NPCs in the game. You needed to have him to get achievements, but you couldn't relate to him worth a damn. But you did need him for those achievements.

And I like these games. I really liked Assassin's Creed II. I don't even object to their being a second game with the main character from it as opposed to creating a new adventure with a new assassin. But not like this. Especially not when, as is the case with a lot of "downloadable content" what you're really doing is downloading the right to access data on a disc you've purchased. Maybe this DLC is different, but it's still dragging out the franchise and stringing along the fans, dropping substandard fare on them and hoping it's just good enough that they don't protest. Balls to that.

And, yes, I'm mad that I still want it. I will wait to hear reviews. The first reviews of AC II DLC were...not kind. Perhaps this ranting will all come to nothing. But I'll still be annoyed in principle, just so we're clear.

Comments

[linaerys.livejournal.com]

I love Paul Campos, but then I read the comments and now I need to take a shower.

>:( Sometimes I really hate people.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I've heard stasis pronounced "stah-sis" in certain technical applications. Unfortunately, the OED is behind a pay wall, so I can't check the comprehensive source.

Is harass one word or two? heh

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Meme Roth : Fat Acceptance :: Glenn Beck : Liberalism. That is, she's the most offensive, ridiculous, awful person opposing the group, but for some inexplicable reason she's considered the spokesperson (presumably because she's the head of her one person organization that sounds authoritative?) Every time something like this happens, she pops out of the woodwork to say something nutty. If journalists included an obligatory, "Meme Roth got birthday celebration cupcakes banned at her kids' school as part of her crusade," people would have the appropriate reaction to her insanity.

Airline seats are always a concern, because they're designed to only be comfortable for people under 5'4" and under about 120 lbs., and then people are quite happy to yell about the fat person invading their space on the airplane. At least on Airtran, the cheap business class upgrades offer a decent compromise. Southwest in particular is infamous for mistreating fat people; I won't fly it if I have a choice.

Re: AC2 - Battle of Forli's been getting bad reviews, but Bonfire of the Vanities has been getting better buzz. So I'll end up having to buy it, as much as I hate their marketing strategy.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Read the Kevin Smith article. I'm split on the issue of airplane seats. One the one hand, the airlines are absolutely pushing the blame for having seats smaller than the average American onto the customer and cloaking it in culturally accepted bigotry.

On the other hand, when you buy a plane ticket, you are not buying a trip from A to B, you are buying a specific amount of space on a plane going from A to B, which is priced accordingly. Hence first class. It sucks if you are too wide (or tall) to fit in that space. But I think the airlines have a perfect right to charge more if you are taking up more space than they have sold you, since you are taking it (on a crowded plane) from another paying customer. That's what they do with luggage. People don't have the right to be charged the same amount for a product regardless of their size--I mean, clothes don't work that way. Shoes don't work that way. Jewelry really doesn't (as someone with man-sized fingers, I cannot buy cheap rings).

So framing it as a debate about "endorsing bad eating habits" (jesus christ, seriously? You still think you can judge health by appearance?) is definitely wrong. Airlines not accomodating most of the population, wrong, but not new. Airlines exist to annoy us. If they weren't so damn convenient, they'd never be able to get away with so much inconvenience. But airlines enforcing rules about how much space they've sold you? That I'm cool with. (Until it happens to me, of course.) If they were up front about it--most people don't have an airline seat at home to check with before they buy tickets.

[cubby-t-bear.livejournal.com]

Spelling does the same thing to me. I don't care if "orientated" is an acceptable alternative spelling. It's "oriented," damn it all.

One of the most knowledgeable signals people I ever knew always called it "mo-DEM" (and he was around when they were invented). So I guess it's definitely an acceptable pronounciation, but always sounded weird to my ears all the same.

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

Lol I get the whole mispronunciation thing. I can forgive customers who pronounce Nguyen as "noog-yen" because it's not exactly a common name here. But the number of people who've asked me for "Mayo's last dancer"? Srsly people. Chairman Mao? The Communist revolution? Have you ever studied any history? Any at all? >_<