Friday, December 16, 2011

A week of moaning #3: Oi! No!


I’m running out of week, so here is a general list of things that tick me off, before I end this childish week of groaning on Sunday with a moan about the single biggest failure in modern fiction. (Then the annual Invisibles love, then a holiday.)

So yeah, it’s a hard life sometimes, and these things make it harder:

* Readers who consistently assume that the writer shares the exact same point of view as one of their characters.


* Film festival wankers! I have missed out on so many screenings because I’m stuck in line behind some smug couple who don’t know if they want a Sav or a Pinot with their film, and I just want to get a fucking ticket, and then the movie start time creeps past while I’m still in line, listening to that woman at the counter loudly demanding to know why her expired vouchers are no good any more.

* Members of the public who try to tell me how to do my job when they have no fucking idea what it actually entails. (Mentioned earlier in the week, but it’s been a rough couple of days on that score.)

* Anybody who thinks superheroes who don’t kill are lame.

* So there is this one ad that plays on television all the time, and it features all these people getting on a train and then putting these SUPERAWESOMEHIDEF televisions up over the windows, and then marvel at pictures of the sun and other places around the world, and I don’t know why – probably because I really enjoy sitting in trains and watching the countryside roll by - but this ad irritates the piss out of me.


* Top ten lists of music that nobody but the reviewer has ever heard.

* Fast food places where the food isn’t fast.

* Paranoid lunatics who see the whole world in terms of their own political ideology.

* Soft porn! People who love porn don’t like it, and people who hate porn don’t like it, so what’s the point? (copyright BotY)


* People who moan about the fact that David Lynch films are hard to understand, and people who go on about the fact that David Lynch films are easy to understand.

* Comic book collections that don’t tell a full story.

* The Academy Awards

* People who sneer at me because I didn’t vote in the last general election.

* Especially when they say “Well, you can’t complain if you don’t vote”, as if that’s the only real reason for exercising my democratic rights.


* Drivers who go 20 kays under the speed limit and don’t pull over, or drivers who have no idea how indicators seem to work, or drivers who take too long to move when a traffic light goes green, or drivers who stop for no bloody reason.

* All other drivers on the road, basically.

* And cyclists who ride in the middle of a traffic lane, bringing everyone on the road down to their own pitiful speed.

* And for that matter, the prick who set the timings on Auckland traffic lights. I’ve driven in some big cities, and Auckland easily has the worst I’ve ever driven through.

* Every judge on every talent show ever.

* Anybody who has ever checked their phone, halfway through a movie in a darkened cinema.


* Anybody in criticism who plays the man, not the ball.

* People who whine about lazy storytelling.

NEXT: I whine about lazy storytelling.

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