Bad Microwave Popcorn Directions

Microwave popcorn…it’s a great invention.  Even if you don’t know how to boil water on an oven or are confused about how long to microwave leftover Chinese food, microwave popcorn is always there for you.  Anybody can do it.  You read the back, it tells you the time to put it in for, and that’s it.  Sometimes microwaves even have a button called “popcorn” that takes care of it for you.  Now listen; we can’t pop a perfect bag.  Sometimes a few pieces get overcooked and you get that purple/blackish look that’s just devastating.  I know a lot of us out there strive for perfection and try to put it in for the perfect time and pop every piece…but it just doesn’t happen.  There are too many damn factors and variables.  But there is no excuse for when you are given piss poor popping directions…and that’s what happened to me yesterday.

Now microwave popcorn comes in different sized bags all the time, but what’s great about it is that they always give you an appropriate time variable, like pop between 2:20 and 3:00.  The same thing happened here.  Keep in mind this was a pretty small bag.  Look, I normally go for bigger ones, but it was just for me and I wanted a light snack, so get off my back!  Anyways, the time it told me was between 1 and 3 minutes.  This is a large time variable so I was a little concerned.  I decided to go conservative at 2:05.  I left 55 seconds off and the bag came up completely burnt…WTF!!  And usually when you burn the popcorn a little, most of the bag is still edible.  But in this one the entire bag was one big black hole!  It had to be completely thrown away…totally uneatable!

I’m just so upset about this I can barely stand it.  How can the directions be so far off?!  I went conservative at 2:05!  This is absolutely unacceptable!  Now it’s fair to note that the bag says “depending on the wattage of the microwave.”  Okay, I know a lot of you are saying, “Yea, it’s your fault.  You need to pay attention to the power level on the microwave and you would have known how long to put it in for.”  BULL SHIT.  First of all, who the hell pays attention to the wattage level of the microwave?  And secondly, the whole point of microwave popcorn is so cooking morons such as me have a ridiculously easy quick snack to eat.  If you are the type of person who cooks microwave popcorn, you don’t pay attention to fricking microwave wattage levels!  But most importantly, even if I did know the wattage level, I still went a low time amount within their range (2:05).  The fact of the matter is the directions to pop between 1 and 3 minutes is unbelievably off no matter what type of microwave you have.

So after I angrily threw the bag away, I put in another bag and went super conservative at 1:20.  For the most part this was fine.  There were a decent amount of kernels that weren’t popped but nothing too serious.  The point I’m trying to make is that this bag should have been between 1 and 2 minutes, not 2 and 3.  In fact the bag says “For best popping results, set time for 3 minutes.”  If I set that bag for 3 minutes, my house would have blown up.  Unbelievable. 

This topic gave me 8 ‘Oy veys’ of annoyance out of 10

Mario Brothers Chess: Fail!

If there’s one thing that really sets me off, it’s when human beings make illogical decisions.  So illogical that you have to think about how they came to that conclusion and it ruins your entire day.  That’s what happened to me the other day when I was at the book store.

While walking around Borders Books, I came across their very small board game section.  They had a lot of different things but it was mostly 25 different versions of Monopoly.  I actually like all the different Monopoly versions, but that’s a story for another day.  Anyway, one of the games they had was Chess.  Oh, but not just any Chess…Super Mario Brothers Chess.  Now I had to look at this thing because it really intrigued me.  From what I can understand, it’s just normal Chess but with Mario Brother characters replacing the generic Chess pieces.  They have the Mario side and the Bowser side.  For example, Bowser is the “King” piece on the evil side.  Okay, fair enough.  In fact, glancing quickly at the evil side decisions, I was mostly fine with it.  It’s the Mario Brothers side that really pissed me off.

First off, let me talk about where they had Mario which was annoying, but only mildly annoying.  He was the “King” piece as well.  This is frustrating because the “King” piece doesn’t do much.  You just have to protect him.  I’ve maybe played Chess once in my life, but I know this much.  I get Mario is the key character, so the natural inclination would be to make him a King, but Mario is a fighter and should be a Bishop or Knight or something.  The King should be like Toad or one of the Elder Toads that Mario has to protect.  But I accepted this.  It’s the decision of Luigi and Princess Peach that really wanted to make me throw several objects angrily against the wall.  They make Luigi the “Queen” piece.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!  This is so illogical.  How on earth does the maker of this game come to that conclusion and not make Princess the Queen!  SHE’S A PRINCESS!  This is so ridiculous for so many reasons.  Let’s begin:

First off, If Mario is the King than why would you not make Princess the Queen?  For the entire run of the Mario franchise, they are obviously in love, so why is it a stretch they would be married as King and Queen.  Oh, so Mario and Luigi are married?  Uh yea, they are brothers.  I’m not going to touch that one.  

Alright, let me play Devil’s Advocate here for a moment.  Let’s say the makers of this game said; “Okay, the Queen is the best piece in Chess, therefore it shouldn’t be the Princess because she is someone who is always in mortal danger.”  Alright, fine.  Then you would want to put the best Mario character as Queen.  But that’s Mario!  Why would it be Luigi?  Luigi stinks!  In the first Mario Galaxy, Mario has to save him because he can’t get down from trees.  Come on Luigi!  The game is called Mario Brothers, not Luigi Brothers.  Also, it’s not far fetched to make Princess the most powerful Chess piece.  In Mario Brothers 2, she was a playable character, and not only that, she was the best because she could fly.

I just think Luigi is a disastrous decision for Queen here.  How do they not say in the board meeting for Mario Chess, “Well, the Princess is obviously the Queen piece.”  Come on guys; think this through a little bit.  Luigi!  Unbelievable.

This topic gave me 7 ‘Oh Veys’ of annoyance out of 10

Mac Fanboys

I need to touch on an incident I had at the Mac Store recently.  Now let me preface my post with this: I think Mac is a great product.  I can’t live without my I-Pod.  They are clearly superior to the PC world right now, and I give them all the credit in the world.  But what really gets to me sometimes is the arrogance of the Mac Fanboys.  What am I talking about?  Well, here it goes.

So I’m in New York with my friend who decides its time to buy a Mac Computer.  Fair enough.  We go to the Mac store, and there are people dressed in blue Mac Shirts everywhere.  They also have a Mac greeter waiting to take us into the exciting world of Mac.  Well, I was kind of bored, and thought it would be amusing to throw in a lame joke to the greeter to help lighten the day.  Now before I tell you what the joke is, let me be clear in that I completely acknowledge that this is a terrible  joke, but here it is:

I asked the Mac guy: “Excuse me sir, do you sell any Dells?”

I figured he would just do the customary half smile, “very funny sir” reaction, and then we could all move on.  But the reaction I got instead really set me off.  First his eyes bulged out of his head like he was about to explode.  The guy looked so irritated and offended, you would think someone just fired him.  There was no positive emotion at all.  Now before I tell you why this reaction irritated me for the rest of the day, keep in mind this is all speculation and opinion, but I feel pretty strongly about it.

I believe this jackass loves his Mac products so much, that even though I was clearly joking, he got offended.  As if to say, “How dare you mention another company except for Mac in this store.”  Oh, give me a break.  I didn’t mean to insult the preious Apple.  I was making a little joke, completely harmless.  But this is how a lot of die hard Mac Fanboys perceive the world.  They think the entire world revolves around this one company.  Look, Mac makes a lot of great things, but they dont run the fricking world.  They aren’t the NFL. 

It’s just sickening that these Mac dick bags can’t even take a joke.  Look, I know my joke wasn’t funny.  But for him to get offended really upset me.  And I wasn’t trying to be a jackass.  I was clearly just making a friendly joke.  There was nothing to get offended about.  I may never buy a Mac product again because of this one guy.

So that’s my Mac store story.  What’s the lesson here?  Learn how to take a  joke!  Also, when my friend checked out his computer, the cashier rang it up on an I-Phone…Fucking Mac.

“This topic gave me 7.5 ‘Oh Veys’ of annoyance out of 10.”

-Danjewish

Animals=Bad Commercials

I’m sorry, I just have to rant about commercials for a little bit.  I was thinking about the Super Bowl the other day and once again they showcased a handful of commericals featuring animals.  Can we stop with the animals please.  Enough!  I’m so sick of this crap.  And this year was just awful.

Remember that stupid Doritos commercial where the dog chokes the human for a bag of doritos.  Oh wow, an animal acting like a human!  Here we go again.  This isn’t funny.  Or how about Dennys.  Oh, haha, the chickens are playing pool.  That’s so outrageous…just simply uproarious.  Give me a break.  And can someone tell me why the Budweiser Clydesdale is interesting or funny.  Come on!

Advertisers think that if they just get a gopher or groundhog dancing in front of the TV, everyone will buy their product.  We see this all the time.  What is wrong with using humans!!  Remember those Terry Tate ads?  That was funny.  Why do we need fricking animals force fed down our throats in commercials.  How many times over the years have we seen rabbits, frogs, lizzards, and other stupid little critters talking and acting like humans.   We have plenty of great movies where animals act as humans, we don’t need to see a half assed attempt in a commercial.

Although I guess animals are better than those fricking E Trade babies which I just find disturbing.  But really, that’s in the same vane as my animal argument.  Oh hey, these babies are acting like adults, isn’t that clever.  Ohhhhhhhhhh, look at us.  Please.

This topic gave me 8 “Oy Veys” of annoyance out of 10.

Poor Use of the Escalator

Sometimes people really piss me off, and by sometimes I mean all the time.  I was on the subway the other day and got quite annoyed.  Surprisingly it was not on the actual train.  It’s what happened afterwards that really got my yamakah spinning…

I had a long day.  My damn feet were tired and so I decided to take the escalator.  Normally I man up and walk the stairs, but this station has a shit load of stairs so I just couldn’t do it.  It was pretty packed as everyone power walked their way to the stairs and escalator which are right next to each other.  Now if you’ve ever been on an escalator which I’m sure most of you have, you know there isn’t much room. 

So I get on the escalator expecting a nice relaxing ride up to the surface.  But no…Instead I get a bunch of shit bags pushing and shoving and running their way up to the top.  Come on!  This is ridiculous.  The whole point of an escalator is to not move at all and let the movement take you up.  If you are going to shove people and run up anyway, then why not take the fricking stairs!!!  If they weren’t right next to each other or if the escalator was broken, then fine.  I can understand that.  But there is no reason to force your way up and push people such as myself out of the way!  I’m on an escalator, leave me alone.  The worst part is that several people were doing this.  I can’t talk about this anymore, it’s just too painful to relive.  Bottom line: If you plan on walking/running and you have a choice between stairs and the escalator…please take the stairs. 

This topic gave me 6 “Oh Veys” of annoyance out of 10.

-Dan Jewish

Eatery Incidents

There are certain things in life where there should be no surprises or curveballs.  Until yesterday, I thought Subway was one of those things.  I love Subway.  The food is good, its fast, and the price is solid.  The commercials on the other hand…not so much.  But that’s beside the point.  I hate how people bitch and moan about how they don’t put enough meat in their subs.  Oh, give me a break!  Have you ever gotten their Meatball Sub?  They pack that beast with meatballs.  Although sadly the Meatball Sub is what went wrong recently.  Yes, I had an unpleasant Subway experience yesterday.  But not only that, I had a second restaurant issue immediately following.  Well, I need to vent on my two eatery issues, so here it goes. 

Food Incident #1 (Subway): It’s dinner time, and I decide to go to one of my favorite cheap establishments…good ole Subway!  I went at 7:00pm, prime dinner time.  I was absolutely starving.  The line was a little long, but that’s to be expected.  I knew I wanted the Meatball Sub though.  I knew I had nothing to worry about.  Subway never lets me down.  Finally, it’s my turn.  I give my order and…something happened I will never forget.  The guy just hesitates.  He gives me this look like somebody had just died.  “Sorry sir, our meatballs aren’t ready yet.  It will be a little while.” You got to be kidding.  This is Subway!  The meatballs aren’t ready!  First of all, you’re Subway.  Everything should be ready to go 24 hours a day/7 days a week.  That’s ridiculous!  Second of all, it’s dinner time.  It’s not a random time like 3:00pm when nobody eats.  Okay, if it was 3:00pm and a lot of people had Meatball Subs for lunch (can’t blame them) and they decided to get a new batch ready to go, okay, I could maybe buy that.  But it’s prime dinner time.  This shit’s got to be ready to go, no excuses.  And lastly, it’s the MEATBALL SUB, arguably their most delicious and famous sub, and it’s not ready for dinner?!  You got to be kidding me!  What, do the meatballs have to reflect before they can be unleashed for the night! YOU’RE SUBWAY, get your act together.  Unbelievable!  Well, I guess even Mariano Rivera blows saves once in a while.  Thanks for nothing Subway.  I left.  I’m too hungry to wait for the prima donna meatballs to be ready.

Food Incident #2 (Chinese Food): Well after that debacle, I got my dinner somewhere else.  After eating I was still kind of hungry, so I decided to go to a small walk-in fast Chinese Food place for a light snack.  This place has some pretty damn good Chicken Teriyaki on a stick.  So I ask for 1 Chicken stick.  At first the checkout girl was nice.  She said it was going to be $1.80.  So I pull out my wallet.  I only had 2 twenties.  I hand her a twenty, and the look she gave pissed me off to no end.  “Uh, do you have anything smaller?”  I’m sorry, but stuff like this really sets me off.  Come on, really!  It’s called cash.  I’m giving you cash to pay for my item.  It’s one of the simplest exchanges of all time.  I’m sorry, this is all I have.  I can’t magically make smaller bills appear, ok!  This person should be happy I’m paying in cash and not credit card!  If she had asked me nicely if I had smaller bills, then okay, I wouldn’t be upset.  But nooooooooo, she has to ask me in the crabbiest way possible.  Give me a break.  I’m not walking next door and making change.  Maybe if you were nicer, I would consider it.  Just give me my excessive amount of change (sorry) and my Chicken Stick so I can leave this block of failed eateries.  Wow, I’m such a dick bag…trying to pay for my item.  Cut me a break.

Well those are my stories.  In conclusion, I guess the Subway incident irritated me more.  The Chinese Food place was simply annoying customer service and its possible she had been standing on her feet all day so I’ll cut her a little bit of slack.  But the Subway thing…there is no excuse for not having your fucking meatballs ready.  I know on average people probably get about 2-3 food incidents a month like this, but I got 2 in 1 day….unbelievable.

This topic gave me 7 “Oh Veys” of Annoyance out of 10.

-Danjewish

Airport Misfortunes

I was visiting friends in gorgeous San Diego last week when they all prodded me with the same question – “How did you miss your flight to New York last December?”  This was a topic I had been avoiding for quite some time as it makes me wake up in the middle of the night screaming.  I had promised my friends I would eventually reveal my story even though retelling it brings me nothing but anguish, pain, and suffering.  But they didn’t care about that.  They just wanted to laugh at the ridiculous nature on how I missed my flight.  I think its time to let go of my anger and finally vent my frustration so that when people ask me about it, I can just say go read my blog and leave me the hell alone.  So here is the story…

 

So first let’s go over how I did not miss my flight.  I did not arrive too late, there were no security issues, the flight was not delayed, I had my ticket, I arrived on the right day, and there was no plane malfunction.  So what’s left you ask?  Well, where do I begin?  First of all my flight was the weekend before Christmas week and I was taking a red eye.  Now you have to understand that I am a neurotic and borderline paranoid individual and arrived a whopping 2 hours and 15 minutes before flight time.  Do you think that’s enough time?  I also arrived insanely early because I fear and hate technology and don’t want to use the self ticket check-in.  So I get in the boarding pass line.  The line really wasn’t too long so I wasn’t worried at all. 

 

Now after a while I notice that the line is barely moving.  Everyone in line was taking forever in talking to the clerks.  How long does it take to say “Here is my ID,” get your boarding pass, give them your luggage and move on.  Apparently everyone felt the need to dictate their life story so I started to worry that something was up.  I decided to swallow my pride and use the self check-in computers even though this meant giving my spot up in line.  It was clear nobody was going to save it as they were all blood thirsty hounds wanting to get to the front as badly as me.  Now here’s the thing with the self check-in.  It says you need your email confirmation number or the credit card.  I didn’t have the number and the ticket was not under my credit card.  I immediately called over some Useless Customer Service Dick Bag (or UCSDBs as I call them) who told me I needed these things.  Great, so I can’t even use the shitty computers.  Thanks for the help.  I had no choice but to get back in line.

 

As I get back in line there was a decent amount of time left and still weren’t too many people in line.  But they took even longer at the front counter!!!!  At this point I started flipping out.  I called a couple friends frantically to see if they could look up my information but there was no answer.  It was way too late to call my East Coast friends.  The line just didn’t move.  I started calling over more UCSDBs.  They pretty much just shrugged their shoulders and ran away.  Unbelievable!!  So I arrived 2 hours and 15 minutes before flight time and when I got to the counter my plane had 5 minutes until departure.  It was over.

 

So naturally I just wanted to vent my frustration at the counter clerk whose night had probably been a living hell with other customers but I could really care less.  The next thing he said though was something I will never forget and made me so angry he threatened to have security kick me out.  Now is everyone ready for this statement, because I’m not so sure I am.  Seriously, you won’t believe what he said to me.  This quote is not a joke.

 

“Well sir, this line is more for questions and complaints then a boarding pass line.”

 

Okay, there are several things wrong with this statement.  First of all, you are a fricking boarding pass line.  What are you talking about!!  Your main function in life is to give people boarding passes!!  This is the most important aspect of an airport aside from actually leaving the ground.  That’s what an airport does.  I even double checked this when I was waiting.  “Is there another line I can go to?”  I was told no!  You’ve got to be kidding me.  Also, if people are standing there complaining and asking too many questions, you need to tell them to go to customer service or something and move them along because there are people like me who still don’t have a boarding pass!!  I can’t believe he said that!!  What a jackass!!

 

So after sleeping next to a McDonalds all night and waking up to the smell of McGriddle sandwiches, I tried to get on an early morning flight.  Unfortunately there was a horrible snow storm and they were all delayed till 2017.  So my New York trip was cancelled.  Was there more I could have done to try and get the computer check-ins to work?  Probably.  But I was told by an employee that I did not have the right information and I did try to call people to help me get that information.  Could I have checked in online or remembered my electronic information.  Yes.  These things are all true.  But here’s the deal.  To avoid all this crap, I arrived 2 hours and 15 minutes before my flight.  That’s like 5 Seinfeld episodes without commercials.  Regardless of the mistakes I made at the airport, arriving 2 hours and 15 minutes before your flight should probably make you ok to make the plane.  My friends said I was 20% to blame.  I agree.

 

-Danjewish

 

This topic gave me 9.5 “Oh Veys” of annoyance out of 10.