This blog was really designed for me and others in the interwebs to vent their grievances. Yes there is twitter, and facebook and formspring... and even god forbid myspace.

But this blog comes with fun facts!

Friday, December 3, 2010

Notes that aren't in tune

Now I'm a bit of a music nerd, and whilst I don't have perfect pitch, in my school bands I've had my fair share of icky notes but my god there are some doozies. Akin to babies playing violins whilst screaming, out of tune notes are disgusting to ears and most annoyingly easily prevented through tuning, and generally proper breathing! Nothing is worse than the sharp breath in every time somebody hits a dodgy note

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In fact it was Cher in her song Believe that was first to use Auto-Tune a common industry tool in the 1980s however it wasn't until the turn of the century that this tool used to make people sound vocally correct was used. Nowadays artists such as T-Pain use Auto-tune as regular practice, however many are against such as Jay-Z and his DOA album (Death of Auto-tune)

Natural Disasters

This may seem silly, but really how stupid are natural disasters. Regular things and people on this planet do their best to lead honest lives and to just stay out of each others way, then BAM! Flash Flood, Bushfire and Hurricane! Natural Disasters are not only cruel, but due to the general way of the world for some reason they always end up affecting the same hapless people, who can't afford to rebuild. Plus they make things smell gross, and that in itself angers me.



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By estimates the 2004 Sumatra earthquake cost some $14 billion
2005 Katrina cause $125billion. In terms of the cost in human lives the Laki Volcano explosion on Iceland killed only 9000 in 1783, however this represented 1/4 of the Icelandic population. Some 10,000 people per year are killed by Earthquakes.

Natural Disasters, bastards!

Speaking German

Now this may seem like a weird thing to be angry about, but really as a non-native speaker of the language it's as hard as the dorky kid trying to be cool. The issue I have is that there's a lot to think about. Is it regular or irregular, what tense is it in, is there a modal verb, what type is the preposition, is the person i'm speaking to higher in rank and position to me. How the hell am I supposed to spell/say that word.

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German as a language is spoken by over 100 million people. The Standard German is spoken by educated people everywhere, but on top of that you have several different dialect regions with their own words, contractions and other expressions. Added to this Germans have a penchant for not only changing the spelling of their words, but joining words together such as this beauty Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz which means beef labelling oversight transfer law.

You just can't win when it comes to learning German.

Rude People

It's a daily thing, people on the street, in shops even in your own house are often less than polite. Even in a day where people do have high-stress jobs it doesn't mean that rudeness is acceptable, and it angers people. Ironically it is this anger and stress that causes people to "be short" with unblinking customer service attendees who normally get the rude end of the schtick (although i don't imagine there really is a polite stick)

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Some 8 out of 10 Americans believe rudeness is caused by bad parenting.
43% of people do not turn off their mobile phone in cinemas
And the icing on the insolent cake. 90% of drivers will experience an aggressive driving incident with Road Rage being the US' #1 Traffic incident.

Manners please.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Leaving the Seat Up

As a female, men leaving the seat up is one of the most major inconveniences known to me. Not only is it gross when we have to touch the underside of a toilet seat, but the sheer laziness of the previous user ensures the ire of the female toilet going world. One of the dirtiest public toilets in the world, the Lincoln Memorial Toilets (I kid you not) was riddled with upstanding seats... in a female bathroom no less
the mind boggles!

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In light of this anger... have some toilet related facts.
1. The first toilet in a row is the least used, and most often cleaned
2. A person spends an average 3 years on the toilet
3. The toilet handle in a public bathroom can leave up to 40,000 germs per square inch

It seems we still may have a while to go from Sir Thomas Crapper, inventor of the toilet... who I'm sure after first use, failed to return the seat to the proper position!

Sore Feet

So I recently started a new job, I work in a supermarket as a "checkout chick" which I actually really enjoy, because I get to complain to people and make them listen as I hold their groceries hostage. One side effect of this though is really bad foot pain from long haul standing. When asking some of the more seasoned workers what they did to stop the pain, they replied "we don't." Don't think I've ever been more disappointed in an answer.

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One of the most painful foot conditions, trench foot came about in the First World War with the unsanitary conditions in the trenches. Treatments included rubbing whale blubber on the feet of soldiers as a type of coating, but it was eventually found that this in fact sped up the onset of trench foot due to sweating.

It was also reported that there were cases of trench foot at the 2007 Glastonbury Festival

Might just go soak mine in a bucket of warm water!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Sleep Deprivation

Whether you're a university student spiking your coffee with red bull, or a mother with a newborn that you just can't quite believe would cry so much..sleep deprivation is experienced by everyone and it sucks. What's worse is waking up finally after you did get some sleep realising that you're still tired and the three hours isn't going to cut it. There's no rest for the wicked, or anybody else apparently.


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British Ministry of Defence researchers have been able to reset soldiers' body clocks so they can go without sleep for up to 36 hrs. Tiny optical fibres embedded in special spectacles project a ring of bright white light (with a spectrum identical to a sunrise) around the edge of soldiers' retinas, fooling them into thinking they have just woken up. The system was first used on US pilots during the bombing of Kosovo.

So there is rest for some wicked people I suppose

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