Chances are good that if you’re receiving calls from bill collectors then you likely don’t have the money to pay them in the first place. The economy is bad and many people are falling on hard times.

I would venture to guess that anyone having money issues doesn’t want to be reminded of them by frequent calls (or emails) by obnoxious bill collectors. It’s like adding insult to injury, rubbing salt in the wound, or any other appropriate saying…the point is that it’s unnecessary and if you don’t have the money in the first place, it’s a lost cause.

My theory with respect to telemarketers has always been that anyone can hang up on them so why not try to get them to hang up on me. I figured if they were going to try to waste my time and generally speaking interrupt my dinner, I might as well return the favor by wasting their time while simultaneously amusing myself.

On that note, David Thorne of 27bslash6.com has a brilliant method for dealing with these potentially uncomfortable, and certainly annoying situations:

Credit to David Thorne of 27bslash6.com

You know what really grinds my gears? Heated seats. Here are my top 3 reasons why:

1.) Women Love Them - most guys I know think they’re “okay” or “nice when it’s subzero outside to keep you at a temperature capable of sustaining life until your car heats up enough to take over the job”. Women, however, seem to think they’re “the best thing since sliced bread” and they “wouldn’t own a car without them”.

Why does this aggravate me? Simple, it’s just one more reason women differ from men. Why does that matter? Because the more women differ from men, the less I understand them and consequently the more I want to kill myself every time I try to.

2.) They remind me of heated steering wheels, an option that should be available on every car in the world but isn’t (even though heated seats are available on most)

Think about it, you’re wearing underwear – hell maybe even long underwear in addition to your pants, but chances are you’re not wearing any gloves now are you? Ever tried driving with 0.5″ thick ski gloves on? If you live in a climate cold enough to justify having heated anything then chances are the answer is yes. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that when you tried it, you likely either A) hit something in the snow or B) came close enough to hitting something that you vowed never to do it again (yet still try it out once or twice every winter).

First BMW got it, introducing it as an option on select cars as part of the cold weather package in the ’90s, now even Cadillac and VW are on board, offering heated steering wheels as an option in some models. ATTENTION CAR COMPANIES: the “people’s car” can now be purchased with a heated steering wheel, why can’t yours? As for BMW, Cadillac, and VW, why not roll it out across your whole product line? I mean for the love of god you ALREADY HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

3.) Chances are good that “heated seats” leave your back cold while at the same time make you feel like your ass is going to melt

Why is it that car manufacturers cannot under any circumstances achieve the appropriate ratio between back and butt heating? In the winter time (you know when these things actually get used) people generally wear thick jackets and more layers up top, so heat up the top more than the bottom to compensate. In most cars the back and bottom seat heaters are operated as one. The only exception I can think of is the Cadillac DeVille DTS which features a “back only” button but we’ll get to that later.

Most cars offer no provision to operate the back independently from the bottom, but that doesn’t matter because even if you have a “back only” button you’re still miserable. With only the back heated, your ass gets cold, with both heated on the same setting (as in most cars) your butt boils and your back freezes. It’s lose/lose. I propose separate switches for the back and bottom of the seat.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of switches, for the love of got please make the low mode actually function as such. There are plenty of us guys out there who may like to have children someday, and boiling their balls can’t possibly be doing them any favors. Do whatever you want with the high setting, but keep the low setting at about 70-75 degrees fahrenheit, you know room temperature. The goal is to warm us up to normal temperature, not cook us. Believe me, we understand that women are always cold and that they love heated seats…but that’s what the higher setting is for, right?

J. L’Monaco

Have you ever gone to the grocery store feeling blissful and at ease only to come out of the store snarling and moody, ready to go off on someone like a loose cannon? I know I have. When shopping at the grocery store, do you really think it’s that difficult to move your cart aside and let other people go by? Sometimes, it is almost as if people feel they are royalty and need not to respond to you when you say “excuse me, please.” This of course has no effect until you voice it loudly and with a touch of attitude; only then do people actually make the effort to move.

For a moment you feel satisfied, but then it happens. You are met by their gaze, a face immersed in disgust and disbelief. How dare you address them using a tone that is anything less than perfectly pleasant?

Or perhaps you have had the pleasure of experiencing the I am going to read everything on the food label before taking an extra 5 minutes to decide whether or not I want to place said item in my cart people. I must admit, I am absolutely one of those people, BUT what seems to be the difference between me and the rest of the group is that the word courteous is incorporated into my vocabulary. Is it really that hard to step aside while reading the food labels when you know someone is behind you trying to look at the product you’re standing in the way of? Come on people, let’s be a little bit more courteous and thoughtful toward one another and move out of the damn way. Perhaps if we did just that, there would be a lesser feeling of wanting to explode like a nuclear bomb after an average trip to the grocery store.

Alright that’s enough for now; I’m off to the store.

Kaylie

I moved into a new house about 6 months ago and began shopping for TV providers. I called 4 providers (cable and sattelite) and ended up choosing one of the cable companies.

Part of the quotation process is providing them with your home phone number so that they can determine exactly where you are geographically and thus provide you with the right information. They do not, however, always ask for your name.

So here it is 6 months later and I’ve recieved 3 of the letters pictured below. Look who it’s addressed to: not only is it impersonal, but what are the odds that I’d still be in the market?

Return to Sender, Dfdfd Dfdfd Doesn't Live Here

No I don’t really think this is the cause of economic downturn..but I did think it was funny that I keep getting these letters which are obviously nothing more than wasted money on their end so I figured I would share as a contrast to all of the Obama/McCain/Election BS on every other site I’ve visited today.

Get out there and vote, if you can, if you want to,

J.L.

As licensed drivers, we know the laws and understand that pedestrians have the right of way. What really pisses me off is when I stop to allow a pedestrian to cross the street only to have them try to wave me across. I clearly stopped to let the pedestrian cross the street and fulfill my good deed for the day, but now they’re trying to ruin that for me.

So what do I do? I wave them across; after all, I’m the more important person since I am in a vehicle that could easily kill them and thus should have the power in this situation. However, 9 times out of 10, the pedestrian insists that I proceed before them. This really pisses me off because spend more time waving at each other than it takes to actually cross the freaking street.

The other aggravating part is that it always ends the same way – I finally give in and proceed slowly into the intersection; but of course right when I start to accelerate, the pedestrian decides to walk across. Now we both see one another moving and stop to continue our game of hand gestures.

Not only does this waste my time, but it makes me feel inferior. I should always be superior to a pedestrian when I am a motor vehicle.

The only time it is okay for a pedestrian to motion me on or tell me what to do, is a crossing guard at a school, a police officer, a construction worker, or anyone else who wears a reflective vest that pretends to imply authority. Other than that, there really aren’t any exceptions. I am the car… I have more power.. I will tell YOU what to do.

<3 Lilian

Two days ago I decided to take advantage of the last few days of warm weather this season and barbecue, so I did what any reasonable man would do – got in the car, drove to the grocery store to pick up some meat, and $220 later returned home. No I didn’t buy $220 worth of meat, I’m not that Manly or carnivorous, but that’s what happens when you go to the grocery store hungry. I was so hungry in fact that I picked up fast food on the way home because after an hour and a half at the store I had no interest in waiting for the ribs I bought to cook.

Last night I was all set to barbecue: it was a beautiful evening and I had all the ingredients. I opened up the first slab, seasoned it accordingly, and moved right on to slab #2. But the second slab just didn’t smell right. My first thought was: be a man, any bacteria will burn up when it hits the grill; but no I wussed out and went back to the store because the slab was obviously spoiled.

I hate returning food because years ago while in high school, I bagged groceries for “a living” and used to watch everyone from whiny old ladies to poor families who couldn’t afford to eat return food (they were able to eat half of an item and return it) and something about that scarred me for life.

I walked in to the store, stopped at the service counter and told the woman working there that I had purchased the ribs the day before and they smelled funny. To which she responded: “Well did they taste okay?” Yea they did, I just thought I’d make a special trip here to let you know that. I also took the liberty of re-forming the slab to hide the missing portion that I ate, why don’t you stick your face in there and let me know how they taste.

Thank god she isn’t out building bridges or something…

If in doubt, throw it out (or return it I guess),

Jason

I thought LTMB could use a little bit of ethnicity in the mix, entonces aqui estoy! (so here I am)

I was at the hardware store yesterday picking up a couple of items. It’s a moderately sized, privately owned local hardware store so there was only one register open with approximately 5 or so people in line. At first I reacted in the standard American manor we all know and love – I was annoyed. How dare I have to wait an extra 2 minutes to check out. Then I realized it wasn’t so bad: it smelled like popcorn, I wasn’t stuck in traffic, and of course there was all sorts of amusing useless shit in the checkout line aimed at impulse buyers (like anti-monkey butt powder, pictured above)

20 seconds after I got in line this “professional” looking guy walks over. I don’t mean a guy in a suit, I mean a tradesman, a guy who clearly makes his living doing hardware store type stuff, a carpenter, gc, painter, plumber, something like that. He proceeded past the line in formed at checkstand #1 to the service counter where he demanded they open another register. He then walked to register #4 (because why would they open up two checkstands right next to each other, that would make too much sense and I’m sure there’s a union rule against it somewhere).

2 Minutes later, he was still over there all by himself and decided to go bitch at the service desk again (not realizing that the people there were taking their sweet time because he was being a jagbag).

So here this guy thinks that he’s more important than everyone else in line, as well as everyone working at the store. Consequently not only did he whine until they opened a new register cut everyone else who had already been waiting in line patiently, but he also only saved himself at most 10 seconds (since he still finished after me, where he would have been anyways) and got flicked off by an 80 year old woman in the parking lot as she got into her Olds 88.

I wish I thought I was better than everyone else in the world, that guy must really have some great self esteem. Hopefully he’ll get his one day when he’s on the other side of the coin. As the golden rule says treat others as you wish to be treated”

Un Saludo, (best wishes)

Juan Luis

I saw an ad for a car I was interested in this morning and emailed the private party selling the car to ask what options were on it. The response I received said: “as for the options, please see the additional pictures below”. Annoyed, I looked expecting to see detailed shots. What I saw were the same pictures I had seen in the ad, but larger in size. I’m trying to buy a car here, not play Where’s Waldo or decipher a Magic Eye puzzle.

After a few minutes studying the interior picture it all made sense — the car had no options, not a single one. One would think this guy would have the common courtesy to tell me it’s a base car instead of wasting my time playing hide and seek while he risks aggravating me and losing a potential customer.

I have about 500 friends on Facebook, I would say of that number 150 are good friends/family of mine, another 250 are acquaintances — not quite friends, but certainly friendly. The remaining 50 are likely to be girls or other people whose friendship I accepted in order to see their profiles and/or pictures.

For some reason, people I know barely or sometimes not at all insist on adding me as their friend on facebook. Lets be clear, I’m not talking about the guy you met through a mutual friend at a group dinner last week who you spent a good hour talking to about cars/watches/sports/whatever and are friendly and, on the fast track to becoming friends. Nor am I talking about the girl you met while out at the bar yesterday night that you spent 2 hours talking to/hitting on/making out with.

I’m talking about a month ago when you went to your friend’s birthday party with a female friend of yours and were introduced to a girl who you didn’t want to talk to. You answered her repeated questions with one word responses, all the time trying to pull away from her; you weren’t interested, hell you were even there with another girl! Yet magically when you finally did pull away, “What’s your last name so I can add you on Facebook?” she asked. You’ve had more than enough by now, and throw her a fake, but memorable last name. Yet amazingly after conveying nothing but disinterest and providing half a fake name when you friend tags her birthday pictures on Facebook 2 weeks later, she finds you and insists on adding you as a friend.

I’m also talking about the guy who happens to be a member of an internet forum you frequent. He finds your profile through someone else on the forum who you actually are friends with and assumes that since he knows who you are and you may even know him by his username, that you know his first and last name and consider him to be a friend of yours.

Even better than that guy, is the guy who doesn’t know you at all, but adds you because you have a common friend, and they insist on having 17,345 “friends“ on Facebook. You deny him, and what does he do? Adds you again 3weeks later, then another 3 weeks later, then 2 months later because clearly you must have made a mistake….twice. By the way, a thank you to Facebook for finally adding a “block” option; (as can be seen in the picture below) it is much appreciated and has not gone unnoticed.

This is how the friend request screen should look...no offense Nicholas

To those of you who have been using Facebook since it’s inception, or at least for a long time remember that once upon a time ago when someone requested your friendship you were given two options: Accept and Deny (which functioned as ignore). Recently, Facebook changed this to the more politically correct sounding ignore. I propose a change to the Facebook friend approval options: Accept, Ignore, and Deny, only this time deny should not only deny the request, but also feature a blank for you to inform the sender of the denial (like every other denial in society: credit applications, health insurance, etc). I would also like the opportunity to cite a specific reason such as: I don’t know who you are, you’re an annoyance, it says friends…which we’re not, yea I know we slept together but it just wasn’t good enough to repeat, etc.

Your Friend,
Jason