N) Otherwise bright students who think that documenting the fact that internet users are using socially meaningful language constitutes an interesting research project.

N+1) Tech support people who laboriously get all the details of your issue and make you wait while they write it all down, then immediately transfer you to a new tech support person who has not read any of it but your name.

N+2) The obscure and unfair rule that limits the day to 24 hours.

N+3) Two-year-old birthday munchkins. Oh wait no, that's not bad, that's AWESOME!!!!!

#2 isn't a rule. All you have to do is get to a different planet. Given the probable number of planets in the universe, odds are you can get just about any length of day you want!

Good luck!

I heartily agree with N+1 except these days just about any company makes you run through the gauntlet of disembodied voices to answer the same ten questions ten times ("namebirthdayaddressphonenumbersocialsecuritymothersmaidennameshoesizefavoriticecreamflavor--") in the hopes you will trip up! What? That's not their goal?

Religious fanatics of all stripes.

support people who laboriously get all the details of your issue and make you wait while they write it all down, then immediately transfer you to a new tech support person who has not read any of it but your name.

Lying, cheating assholes

1. The way my week has been full of these huge peaks of adrenaline and disappointment. It's really fucking exhausting.
2. Vacillating wildly between hope/fantasy and the need to be practical, so if the hopes aren't fulfilled I am not absolutely crushed
3. I am having some strong and not very positive feelings about certain parts of my anatomy today. Need to get over that real quick.
4. Looks like my mother has diabetes. While I know this is a disease that is totally cope-able with, the thought of her having this chronic condition to manage just makes me want to cry.
5. Being irrationally tired...or maybe the tiredness is perfectly rational, given all of the above

- a check engine light which can be triggered by improper screwing on of the gas cap, but can only be cleared by a mechanic.

- the incompatibilities of many/most young kids' school options with the schedule of parents working "normal" hours.

- customers who insist on an eta for a fix after I have repeatedly told them said fix is probably not possible and addresses behavior which is not a bug in the first place.

- capitalism.

They sell gadgets that you can plug into your car that allow you to read the code from the car's computer that caused the check engine light to come on and clear the code (which turns off the check engine light). I've seen them for as low as about $60. Some of the fancier gadgets that can do the same thing will give you a lot of interesting information from the onboard computer, like instantaneous MPG, engine RPM, coolant temperature, engine loading, horsepower, along with having useful trip computer information. The one I have is a ScanGauge 2, which runs about $150 or so, and has all the fun trip-computery features.

1. Being able to smell people's breath from 7 feet away.
2. Heartburn.
3. Having already lost 1 relative to surgery gone wrong, feeling anxious about another relative's (less serious) surgery tomorrow.

1. Having a dirty kitchen but no housekeeper!
2. Homework
3. Craving bad-for-me-food

People who claim that unmarried women who want easy, cheap access to birth control are improper sluts, who also claim they are not being misogynistic.

1. apathy
2. capitalism
3. bad behavior on public transit
4. headaches

If you're available to meet for lunch in the next 30 mins or so, I can help out w/ the headache. Text me w/in the next 10 mins and I'll still be in SF.

1. Bosses who undermine their staff by ignoring the rules/policies agreed upon N weeks/months/years ago
2. People with no reading comprehension
3. People who can't be arsed to do their own research
4. Trying to explain to luddites why we scanned [foo] document so they don't have to now hold on to the original and possibly handle it instead of using the digital proxy.
5. Self-serving hypocrites who claim their argument has nothing to do with controlling a section of the population, it's about "Freedom of Speech/Religion"/...whatever. Lying liars who need a taste of their own medicine- nyah.

Out of curiosity, what's your objection to "man cave"?

It's a wildly successful marketing tactic that supports relationships to gender, purchasing, space, and human relations that are destructive.

It emphasizes imagined difference between men and women and implies that men need some special place protected from women to be comfortable or to be themselves. It sets up and/or reinforces an adversarial gender dynamic in the home and in purchasing/marketing. It reinforces notions of men as more primitive/less refined than women. It encourages people to buy/rent homes that are larger than they need so they can create said "man cave" and then fill them with shit they don't need.

Huh. I never thought of it that way.

K's man cave is a room that isn't really useful as anything other than an office, and we are geeks who need there to be an office (but the combination of wifi and laptop means I don't have to go up there, unless I send something to the printer). I have an analogous private space, my sewing room (I guess we could get into that gender stereotype, but it doesn't bother me). He can go up to his "cave" and listen to loud music and tool, and leave wires and computer parts everywhere without it bothering me.

The man cave isn't necessary, but it is nicer than our previous residence, where the office and the sewing room shared a room. We were always irritating each other! Oh wait, we still do that. ;)

Let me be clear: I don't object to people having particular spaces for different uses, or to be alone in a shared residence. I object specifically to the "man cave" phenomenon, and the naming and marketing thereof.

That's why I asked. I don't watch commercial TV or read many magazines aimed at men so I wasn't familiar with it as a consumer meme.

My office/library/workroom was christened the man cave without my participation. Partially because it's filled with the looming Victorian furniture and study decor I bought when I was living alone, and partially because it's, well, a cave, dark and very quiet without much outside light. The other office is in the open air in the living room loft and therefore more treehouse-like. I couldn't work there; M. thrives in it. How that ties to our respective genders or our purchasing is pretty limited, but I never thought we were the demographic to which you were objecting.

the sound of violent video games
driving
Rush Limbaugh & Rick Santorum
knotted muscles
cold hands and feet
infected taste buds

-not having access to health and dental care I can afford
-my period
-depression
-doing dishes
-the fact that a video game I enjoy playing is made so much less enjoyable by the cruel, hurtful, sexist, racist, homophobic people who also play it

I'm totally with you on the yellow mustard. Well, and on everything else on your list too, I hasten to clarify.

What I'm hating right now is ski areas who close parts of the mountain for no other reason than to preserve the snow for the weekend, when I'm going there tomorrow on a free midweek-only voucher and have never skied the terrain in question because the previous times I was there either it was closed or I was 6. File under "problems, first-world, petty".

I'm fortunate and have not been much exposed to terms such as "man cave." So I googled it.

http://www.mancaveworldwide.com/

That banner kind of hurt my eyeballs. Damn fun parties. (Exclamation points are girly.)

And then there's this beautiful statement at the bottom of the page that gives a whole new meaning to stereotypes:

What is Man Cave? We get guys together for events
called MEATings where they eat meat, drink beer, and experience fun products/games like hammerschlagen at a friends house all of which is provided by us.

Relationship misunderstandings and troubles, not knowing what's wrong, nor how to make things better.

Anything that comes out of the mouth of Rush Limbaugh, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich.

Right there with you on the yellow mustard :-)