Likes and Dislikes

In the summer, my blog achieves a new level of quirky because I have wayyyy too much time on my hands.

This is how I ended up coming up with this post about things I like and dislike.

Things I Like

• When people say funny things in their bios on Twitter. Yesterday, I saw a guy who described himself as a “Mediocre high fiver.”
• (It’s true. Some people just don’t excel at giving good strong high fives.)
• Same goes for bloggers who make good use of their “About” pages. One girl who spends her winters here in the frozen tundra of Michigan described herself as an “Ice Squirrel”.
• (I may have to use that.)
• Ditto for the two year old Emperor when he loses the miniature Woody character’s cowboy hat…which is itself the size of a cornflake. He spends half the day scouring the house like a little gold prospector until he finally comes across it. He then runs victory laps around the house, shouting at the top of his lungs, “‘Ere it is! ‘Ere it is!”
• He is equally excited about brushing his teeth. (Though I secretly suspect he views the toothpaste as liquid candy.)
• The Emperor knows how to work the keys to the kingdom too. When we pass these giant poster ads of slender brunette models with glossy lips outside TJ Maxx, he points to them and yells “Momma!! Momma!!”
• (I promise I have never looked half as good as one of these models in my life.)
• (Then, seconds later, he points to the Soft Pretzel stand,  “I wanna.” He says. “Peeeeease?”)
• (He’s no dummy.)
• Lastly, I’m liking how the state education cuts have birthed some really creative complaints. Like the school superintendent who wrote the governor and asked him to make his school into a state prison. “Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day. Access to free health care. Internet. …Access to a library. A weight room… Computer lab….The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student.” So please, Governor Snyder, make our schools prisons, he pleads.
• (I avoid the political realm as much as possible, but I confess, I actually got out of my car in a store parking lot yesterday to sign a recall petition.)

Things I Dislike

• Those drive-thru boxes at fast food places that greet you with a recorded message suggesting a new menu item. “Would you like to try a fajita?” And then you say no, you would not in fact like to try a fajita and you give your actual order. Silence. Static. More silence. “Welcome to our restaurant. What can I get for you today?”
• (Epic customer service fail.)
• (If I didn’t NEED my sweet tea, I wouldn’t even tolerate it.)
• Something else I dislike…when people operate 10 different twitter accounts to re-tweet their stuff. I think they are under the impression that their tweets “looks popular” when there are 9 auto-retweets going out with it. They hope people think that these accounts are operated by 10 different people, all who are stark-raving-mad fans of their tweeting. My message to them? Everyone knows its you.
• (You get one twitter account for yourself and maybe one for your organization. After that, you’re committing a twitter crime.)
• Something else that sorta bugs me: Churches who make their contact info a mystery. I get why you might not post your megachurch’s lead pastor ‘s info on your website. But when there isn’t an email address for a single human person, but just an institutional little form to fill out? Maybe you could also have a “take a number” tag system at your door with a digital sign that tells them what customer is being served.
• That reminds me, some organization keeps trying to sell me a membership to my home high school’s “Online Alumni Association” for a small fee. Um, I hate to break it to you, Online Alumni Association, but we already have a way of connecting online. It’s called Facebook. And our whole class is on it. We even have our own Facebook page for our class. And guess how much we pay to use it??
• I also dislike how the Toy Story people characters do not fit onto the rideable animal characters very well. Actually, I could care less, but this is a deal breaker for the Emperor who sees the people riding the animals in the movie. False advertising at its finest. Above is my latest fix for that problem. Some good old fashioned masking tape. Pixar, no doubt, would be proud.