Please Scan Your First Item!

I was going to insert a photo of a supermarket self service machine [here] however 1. I do not have such a photo of my own and 2. I couldn't quite wrap my head around the licenses on supposedly 'free' images online.

So I thought knickers to it. If you do not know what a self service machine looks like in a super market it is basically a machine with a scanner, some scales, a computer screen and then a bagging area (which is also some scales).

And they talk to you.

They say such things as:

'Please scan your first item.'

'Please place the item in the bagging area'

'Insert cash or select payment type.'

'Please take your card.'

...just to name a few.

Now one of the annoying things it says is:

'Unexpected item in the bagging area.'

Which usually occurs when you have just scanned something, it has registered on the screen (so the machine knows what it is) and then instructed you to put in the bagging area.

And then you have to wait for an actual human being to come and sort it out.

Now that is quite annoying but the phrase I hate the most with these machines is after you've paid.

So the machine tells you take your card or your change and about 10 seconds later while you are still putting said card or change away the machine says:

'Please take your items.'

Hang on a second, give me a chance to get myself sorted. These machines seem to think that after the instruction to take your card or change you just throw everything in your bag or pocket and immediately walk off, shopping in hand.

I do actually find that more annoying that the 'unexpected item' declaration.. as that doesn't happen every time you use one of these machines (just almost every time).

Here endeth the rant!

Random Thought #50 - Comments

Yes today's random thought is about comments.

But I'm not talking about comments on a blog. No I'm ranting talking about the comment boxes on surveys.

You know you use a store card or buy something online and they want to know what you think - fair enough they want feedback.

And some feedback/surveys are simple - you put what you want to put and they say 'thanks for taking the time to leave feedback'.

In some surveys you get those comment boxes that ask you why you said what you said or ask if you have any comments.

And sometimes I don't know what to put... so I leave that bit blank and try to move on to the next bit.

But in some surveys you can't do that - you have to put something in that box or you can't move on.

And that irritates me... to the point that in one such survey I put in the comment box that I found such comment boxes annoying. Now I just put a full stop.

But it looks as though that won't be enough soon. 

I recently went to leave feedback for a product I had bought. And I just wanted to leave some standard feedback - something along the lines of 'as described, quick delivery'.

But I was informed that that wasn't enough - they wanted more. And I almost left them a scathing comment on how my original feedback wasn't good enough for them. But it wasn't the seller's fault it was the host website's fault.

 Comment boxes annoy me... end of rant.

  (please feel free to comment :) )

Random Thought #41 - Enough With The Adverts

Sometimes Internet, you run slowly … sometimes very slowly. But what really drives me up the wall is when I’m waiting for a page to upload… or wanting to leave a page and down in the corner of the window it says ‘waiting for’ followed by an advert or a link that I’m not even interested in.


I don’t want cheaper insurance. And since October 2011 I have only been on a certain social media site twice. And then it was for about 30 seconds each time.

Your advert that is trying to get my browser to ‘not respond’ is not going to encourage me to click on it.

And one more thing Internet – stop stalking me when it comes to shopping. So I do a bit of browsing looking for a certain product. And then when I check my emails, or go on other people’s blogs, or one of the many, many other social media sites out there, I’m confronted with adverts for what I’ve just been searching for.

Stop it – Internet I will ask for your help when I want it. Stalking me is not going to get me to buy anything any faster…

Now do what I actually want you to do and stop with the adverts!

Random Thought #35 - Why... Just Why?

Dear TV Programme People

Why, oh why do you insist on putting half a season of a programme on TV and then suddenly stop showing it?

I was enjoying Pan Am season 1, The Mentalist season 4, The Rachel Zoe Project season 3, to name a few. (Granted all of season 3 of Rachel Zoe was shown sometime last year but that's no excuse.)

I don't know who you are trying to please by doing this but it certainly isn't me! In fact it's not just in recent times that you done this. I remember you doing this a couple of years ago with a season of Desperate Housewives AND with a previous season of The Mentalist.

Just show the whole season!!!

Random Thought #32 - I'll Just Have To Walk A Little Further

After about a month of torture I have decided to start using a different bus stop. So I'll  have to walk slightly further... and quicker to catch the bus in a morning.

Why? Well it's very simple why... if I don't start using a different bus stop the school children stood at my usual bus stop will drive me completely insane!

I know they are only kids but there are only so many stupid questions, Donald Duck impersonations, shouting and general messing about that I can stand.

You want further proof that I need to change bus stops? Well here it is:

1. Occasionally school children approaching the bus stop will ask their friends who are already standing at the bus stop 'Are you getting the bus?' (The word duh springs to mind).
2. One child asked another 'Have you ever been to Greggs?' Which to some of you may mean nothing but in the UK Greggs is a chain of bakers, and I would have been astonished if the answer had been 'no'. Which is wasn't.
3. Ten minutes of constant requests for one boy to say different things like Donald Duck is enough to drive anyone mad!
4. The bus stops in my area have a bit in the middle with timetables and other information on either side. This part of the bus stop is movable. One child, clearly entertained by simple things, likes to play with this by spinning it round... and round... and round... you get the picture.
5. The other day when I arrived at the bus stop I was informed by a girl that the bus had already been. I ignored her and a couple of minuted later the bus arrived... more or less on time (the buses never run on time so 'more or less' will have to do).
6. This one is the one that really got the irritation cycle going for me. I honestly could not believe that someone said this. I was absolutely speechless otherwise I might have said something to the boy in question. On the 14th September 2011 the aforementioned Donald Duck impersonator asked his friend, 'When does 9/11 start?' (OMG!!!!)

You see what sort of creatures I'm up against. I'm sure I wasn't as bad as that when I was at school (someone please tell me I wasn't!).

So to avoid me having a nervous breakdown (I've already got one of those lined up at work!) I'm going to start going to a different bus stop.

Do You think This Is Bad Manners?

I have a relative... who I won't name, even though they are unlikely to read this but you never know. So anyway I have a relative, whose wife had a birthday a couple of weeks ago. Now we haven't seen them since before the birthday and so we haven't been able to give her her present yet.
However the relative went up to another relative of mine, who we had recently visited, and asked if we had left the present with them.

Now we had never mentioned a present, we hadn't told them there was a present to be collected at some point. They just assumed there was a present to be had. Which my immediate family and I think is really really rude.

This relative does this a lot. If you dare to forget their anniversary or something, or you post your card and it is late, they become almost unbearable. I would never go up to someone and say 'where's my present?' But they do. My Dad said a few years ago he told the relative that you don't ask things like that. To which the relative replied 'I do'.

Just to show how different two sides of a family can be. A couple of years ago when my sister turned 17 the aforementioned relative said that they would give her some money as a present the following week. And then they forgot. And we have never mentioned it. Well we moaned about it amongst ourselves. And it came up again as a conversation topic due to this recent incident. But we never actually went up to them and told them that they owed my sister a present.

You could understand if they were children. Children say what they think. They could be forgiven for that. But given that the wife is 9 years older than me and the relative is 18 years older then me... and I am 26... well what do you think about it?

Is it rude of them or should we be hammering on their door demanding my sister's 17th birthday present?

M is For... Morons

*WARNING! THIS IS A RANT. I REPEAT: THIS IS A RANT*

A moron is defined as someone who is notably stupid or lacking in good judgement.

It's a term that I tend to use to refer to people that I see doing something very stupid. I am now going to give you three examples of what I see as moronic behaviour.

1. Buses - these morons tend to be schoolchildren. They stand at the bus stop waiting for the school bus to arrive. The normal non school bus pulls up. Picks up the non schoolchildren and prepares to pull away from the bus stop. And a lot of the time there will be a child who feels that they have to wait until  the bus doors close and then press the emergency button on the outside of the bus. So the doors open again.
Why? I can't understand why anyone would want to do that. It's dangerous for the people on the bus and the idiot on the outside of the bus. Although the other day I did see a girl stopping a boy from doing this - one up for the anti moron party!  

2. Email scams - granted I don't actually see these people. But I have received these emails. I get them supposedly from various banks that I don't have an account with, supposedly HMRC and even a share company (I must be going up in the world if I'm getting fake share companies trying to scam money out of me).
Again why? Your life must be pathetic for you to sit there making up emails to send out to people to try and illegally part people with their money. Or even worse unleash a virus on their computers.
Some of these idiots can't even spell! I once received an email supposedly from my bank about a 'possible account theft'. Only they had put 'posibile'... 

3. Haters - I have only ever come across these on Youtube but I have to say that they are morons. If they thought about it they would realise that they are in fact making themselves look like complete idiots. They tend to hang around the make-up 'gurus' (and usually the ones that are actually really nice in their videos), leaving hateful and nasty comments.
So let me get this straight. You hate this person so much that you sit and watch their videos just so you can say something nasty about their hair, make-up, face, family etc.
Their lives must be so empty to do something like that. What is the point? If I do not like someone on Youtube I do something astonishing... I don't watch their videos - I know it's extreme isn't it?

Maybe it's just me - maybe I'm the moron for thinking that the above behaviour is ridiculous and stupid.

J is for... Just

I don't know why but I have recently developed a dislike of the word 'just'.

Not in it's adjective form - when you are just in something or something is deemed to be just.

Not like that - I don't like the word just as an adverb - I was just doing this or it was just like that. He was just this, that or the other

I don't know why I have developed this dislike - but it does come with its pros and cons.

I have realised that I use the word 'just' as adverb quite a lot when I'm writing - I still do. That is a problem when you suddenly can't stand the word.

On the plus side this does mean that whenever I feel myself typing/writing the word 'just', I stop. I think about what I want to say and either think of a different word to use, or delete it altogether.

 I hate the adverb 'just'. That's *just* the way it is. (ARGGHHHH!!!!)

F is For... Fragment (Consider Revising)

That is one of the most annoying things I find when writing. You write a sentence, a squiggly green line appears underneath it to say that there is something grammatically incorrect about it.

So you click on it and instead of telling you what exactly is grammatically incorrect with it all you get is 'fragment (consider revising)'.

If it is so clever that it can point out to me that it is not right then why can't it tell me how to correct it?

This is the reason why when I took part in NaNoWriMo last year that I switched off the spelling and grammar checker - otherwise it would have driven me insane! I was probably insane to start with, to say that I would write 50k words in a month but that would have tipped me over the edge!