What grinds my gears!

[Buckethead]

You had me at:

What grinds my gears is websites with flash games...

[Khris]

When people have programming issues and post "every time I do X, it does Y". DUH.

[Mandle]

What grinds my gears is when an old mate comes over to Japan after a long while and we go out with them as a group and at some inevitable point, usually sooner than later, someone says "Let's go to karaoke!".

This means the next 4-5 hours just sitting around while everyone sings pretty much the same songs they always do. I mean, it's fun enough, but what I'm really there for is to catch up with my mate which is impossible in karaoke.

[Stupot]

@Mandle Just last week a mate of mine came over to Japan with his fiancée and we went out for dinner and drinks. At first we were considering karaoke but we ended up just going to a rooftop bar and talking. I like karaoke but, for the same reasons you mention, I was glad we didn't do that.

Mind you, it is a guaranteed way to get a private table in Shinjuku on a Saturday night.

[Click'd]

One of the NON-REBINDABLE hotkeys in OBS (a screen streaming/recording software) is Ctrl-F. What could possibly go wrong with that... And what does it do? It squashes your source into a small box. Which you then only notice after the fact. Argh.

Best thing about it: It WAS rebindable a few versions back. Progress, ladies and gentlemen! Someone thought it was a good idea to force it on the users.

/rant

[Mouth for war]

What grinds my gears: You're finally gonna get your first good paycheck in quite some time...and at the same time...the f*****g bill for the car tax is sent,  375$ gone immediately. GRRRRRR it's way too high IMO

[Mandle]

What grinds my gears: You're finally gonna get your first good paycheck in quite some time...and at the same time...the f*****g bill for the car tax is sent,  375$ gone immediately. GRRRRRR it's way too high IMO

Same thing happens to me all the time here but it's the city tax.

As soon as I start to get a bit ahead with my savings the friggin' city tax shows up and wipes it out.

And then usually at the same time the people from NHK (the national TV station) show up asking me for money when I don't even freakin' watch NHK and I also pay for cable TV which includes NHK and they wonder why I tell them to get lost.

Seeing as I get my NHK channel through my cable package it would be simpler to just block it when I don't pay the door-to-door beggers but it's the law here that everyone must have access to NHK because it's supposed to be indestructible in the event of a major catastrophe. Of course the real reason is that if it were an option to not pay then 50% of people would just do without it and the government would lose money. So why not just tack it on to another tax then instead of sending poor slobs door-to-door to mostly hostile receptions from the people they disturb. They even show up sometimes at like 7-8PM when people are eating dinner/relaxing after work. Because if these people didn't have this stupid job the unrealistically low unemployment rate would go up. The Japanese government hires ridiculous numbers of people for jobs that could be handled by a fraction these days just to keep unemployment down and this is paid for out of, guess what, our freakin' taxes!

In Australia I went to get my driver's licence renewed. It took 15 minutes from in the door until finished, including the eye-test and photograph. There were only like 7-8 staff in the whole office. Everything is handled by computer so you don't even need to fill out a form on paper. A greeter meets you at the door with a tablet where they input your needs and give you your number. There were about 6 numbers ahead of mine so I figured like a 30 minute to an hour wait but the numbers ticked down like one per minute and then I was called to the desk where all my data was already on the worker's screen.

Same experience at another government office but it was only 10 minutes there start to finish.

In Japan there are like 20-30 people working in any government office branch. You have to fill out the same bloody form every time you go in, then line up to hand in the form, then get your number and then wait for usually 1-2 hours until called while they go over the same information on the form that should already be in their system. No face-to-face worker has a computer at their station. They are still working directly off the paper forms you hand in and any other info on you they physically get from their massive banks of filing cabinets. You can always see staff in the back constantly filing and retrieving papers. Then there is a row of people on computers entering the data anyway. Then you are told to wait for like 6 weeks until your request is processed, after which time you must physically go back in to the office, get another number, and wait yet again until finally the whole thing is done.

Another amazing thing about this process is that I'm sure I fill in certain sections on the form differently every time I do them because the field description is so vague like "Length Of Stay". To this day I have no idea if that means the total time I have been in Japan, the time since I last filled out the form, or how much time I have wasted in their offices. This and many other sections like "Gross Worth Of Company" etc. I just fill in with random numbers and have never been asked about which shows they don't even look at and/or don't even care about these sections. Are they just in there so that the form fills an A4 size paper?!

Of course the only place where this isn't true and your business is handled quickly, painlessly, and digitally is, guess where? Yup: The friggin' tax office when you come in to pay. Funny isn't it that when it's them getting money from me everything moves along smoothly!

Now that I'm starting to sound like this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz2LaJOVAiA I'll just finish with:

BLAH!

[Mouth for war]

Ohhh government procedures...how I love them XD Haha I was thinking the same thing just a little while ago. When I need something from  an office there's a 2 month waiting time. When they want something I should've done it yesterday

[Mandle]

Ohhh government procedures...how I love them XD Haha I was thinking the same thing just a little while ago. When I need something from  an office there's a 2 month waiting time. When they want something I should've done it yesterday

...and there's only a bleedin' lizard in the bidet, and half the rooms are double-booked...

[Mouth for war]

Haha yeah and don't even dare to suggest to them to step out of the box and update the routines they've had since the 70's

[Mouth for war]

Oh and we can add a dentist bill now too....GAH!!!! POOR AGAIN!!!!!!! XD

[Slasher]

People who plead poverty and say they struggle to get by and yet have numerous cats and dogs...

[Mandle]

People who plead poverty and say they struggle to get by and yet have numerous cats and dogs...

Ah, but are they the same cats and dogs week-to-week?

[Mandle]

What grind my gears is the behavior of many people on Facebook.

A friend of mine started off a funny incident story with the phrase "Oh my Golliwogs!".

Somebody posted what the word "Golliwogs" "actually means": That it is a racist slur in the UK and should not be used.

I posted that it doesn't "actually mean" that and only means that when used in that context otherwise it refers to a childrens' doll or a delicious chocolate biscuit. I went on to say that because of over-sensitivity and out-of-control PC ideals that pretty soon we are not going to be able to use any word without offending someone or other.

This person accused me of a passive-agressive attack on them when they were just trying to "warn a friend about a term that could offend some people", and told me to "deal with your issues, dude!"

I wanted to ask them: if it is true that the word "Golliwog" is so taboo in the UK then what have they renamed the dolls to? Oh, wait, they haven't renamed them because the word is only offensive when used as a racist slur against a black person. (And even then I suspect that this slur is so archaic that anyone using it in 2018 would probably get laughed at. This isn't "Love Thy Neighbor".)

I never got to reply though because my friend deleted the whole post to avoid further conflict.

Fair enough.

BUT THEN she posts another thing saying that she will be more careful to look up the full meaning of words before posting in the future so as to avoid insulting anyone.

She won't, but that's not what grinds my gears. She is bowing down to this SJW (who is white of course), conceding their ridiculous point, and walking away still thinking that it is words and not the context they are used in that are in the wrong.

The dumbing-down of our moral responses into knee-jerk reactions to trigger words with no concern to the context in which they are used.

THIS GRINDS MY GEARS!!!

[ManicMatt]

It is my understanding that if someone was called a golliwog, they are referring to the dolls, which is unacceptable. The dolls themselves are considered to be racist by most people these days, and I only ever see them in places like Cornwall in small shops. They haven't changed the name because the dolls are generally considered taboo in the first place. So the word in itself as far as I'm aware isn't racist, hence why I have been typing it, it's the name of those dolls.

I haven't heard the word in any other context, in my experience, so I would be confused by someone saying "Oh my golliwogs", and take it to be as random as saying "oh my Rice Crispies!"

[Stupot]

I'm pretty much in agreement that this culture of getting offended by everything is reaching critical levels of insanity these days. And my gears have been ground plenty of times for this reason. That said, the term Golliwog is a difficult one. Yes it is the name of the dolls but it has been used as a slur in the UK for many years and I even remember being gently advised to be careful using that word even when I was a kid, so it's not a recent SJW-era thing.

But yeah, this person posting on your friend's wall is just a busy-body.

I'm by no means a “lefty liberal snowflake”. I do tend to side (for want ofvs better word) with those people more, though. But I'm not there yet. It's funny. I used to tell such terrible racist and everything-ist jokes and justify it by saying it was an appreciation of the joke, the wordplay, rather than racism. These days I still like a risky gag but I'm far less likely to tell those jokes than I once was. I think that means I've grown.

But there are still a lot of things I will laugh at that some extreme PC brigadiers would delete me for. Progress is slow and I think it's good that some people are keeping a check on what is okay or not okay to say. But there has to be some wriggle-room. Using the word ‘Gollywog' as an exclamation of surprise, is something that those people shouldn't get really upset about.

[Mandle]

I would be confused by someone saying "Oh my golliwogs", and take it to be as random as saying "oh my Rice Crispies!"

Using the word ‘Gollywog' as an exclamation of surprise, is something that those people shouldn't get really upset about.

I'm pretty sure she meant it as a play on "Oh my golly gosh" and I thought it was really quite cute and funny and (after it was called out) obviously not at all in any context that could make it a racist slur.

[LameNick]

Frankly this moronic wave of constant effort to rummage through the media and internet and seep through every word trying to figure out the worst possible interpretation regardless of context is really getting on mi nerves. 
There are plenty of things I hear daily that evoke painful thoughts and memories in me, but it never occurred to me to take offense and blame the source, unless actually their true intent was malicious.  And the possibility that someone could potentially be a sack of shit full of hatred with retarded discriminatory convictions shouldn't be a reason to bully everyone who isn't scared enough to filter every word through the latest strict SJ protocol. People should be on the save side when giving out gun permits not when deciding whether someone should be allowed to express themselves.

[josiah1221]

I'm offended by this thread!   

Haha, sorry, I couldn't resist    

I do agree though it has gotten quite ridiculous this day in age. It's summer time enough with the "snowflakes", oops, better be careful or I might offend someone, smh!

[Blondbraid]

From what I've seen, Golliwog dolls do look like racist caricatures and blackface/minstrel type of designs that aren't acceptable today and I can clearly see why many people would find them offensive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golliwog

While there are some pretty dumb arguments made around different words or images or cultural appropriation, insults like "SJW" and "snowflake" has also been used to dismiss real bullying and legitimate grievances.
To me, avoiding slurs never felt like a sacrifice, and requests asking for people to take others into consideration in any public space are there to make people feel safe and welcome.
Why would it be any worse than being asked to keep quiet in a library or leave leave a bus seat free for the elderly and disabled?