What annoyed you today?

[Chuck]

People who are good without steroids and who take steroids anyway would be the ones who get onto professional teams from college. You'd have to take steroids to have a chance. No one would be forced to take them but you'd have to if you want the job.

[Jedo the Jedi]

I was referencing that maybe the players who are just as good without steroids would be "encouraged" to take them under the guise that what talent is there can only be made better. Otherwise, I do see there would be a huge increase in steroids by the mediocre players who want to play.

Still, I think it would just take the stat that only 1% of players make it into the NFL and narrow it to only .5% of players make it into the NFL.
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Dread Pirate Westley]

[Buzzsaw]

The reason these enhancing drugs are illegal is because it's accepted that they're potentially dangerous and harmful to use. If they're made legal it will provide a scenario in which essentially (for all practical purposes concerning competition) all players must use them to compete against one another with any degree of fairness.

The reason that so many athletes are tempted to cheat by taking them, even though they're dangerous, is because they really do work. They provide considerable performance enhancement.

IMO, those performance enhancing drugs accepted by the medical community as being harmful/dangerous should remain illegal to use.
With all the negatives involved concerning testing methods, accuracy, privacy issues, enforcement issues, I still think these drugs should be discouraged, kept against the rules, remain illegal, and steps taken to eventually eliminate them from sports (if possible).

[Jedo the Jedi]

Are they any more harmful than general drugs which our government has deemed illegal? That's partially an actual query by me (I don't know much on the effects of steroids) and partially to draw the comparison. Clearly "potentially dangerous" hasn't been a big deterrent, and the people juicing aren't necessarily the mediocre players who want to jump to the top.
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[The Ragin' South Asian]

I attempted the flip from this Kool and The Gangconcert video with my cousin a couple of times on Friday. On the third (and final) attempt, I got over but came down too fast to get my feet down and landed on my knee. It sort of hurt at first, but I had too much going on (one of our other cousins was getting married this weekend) to worry about it. But now that all that's over, my knee really f*cking hurts.

[Quailman]

You know that feeling you get when you reach into a pocket of some pants you haven't worn for a while and find some money? I got that today. So why am I posting in the What Annoyed You thread? It's a 1,000 Thai baht note, worth about $25-$30, but only if I remember to take it with me the next time I'm going to an international airport. I went to Thailand in March.

[Jedo the Jedi]

I'm pretty sure my bank does currency exchanges. I'm guessing you don't have an option like that.
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Quailman]

When I worked in a bank you'd get ripped off in fees and have to wait several days to get the cash. Of course that was over 30 years ago. It's probably changed since then. Even if I only got $20, it's $20 more than I had before I found it.

[Jedo the Jedi]

That's what I think. Of course, you can just wait until you go on another flight and spend the money on one tiny meal in the airport.
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Thok]

I went to vote at 7:45 this morning (by which I mean I got in line, outside the building in the cold).

I got into the building at 8:45.

I actually got to the voting machine at 9:55, and finished voting by 9:56.

[Jedo the Jedi]

That's why you should be an anarchist.

Seriously though, that is surprising to me. Two hours?
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Thok]

There were only 11 voting machines, and my county had 15 different ballot measure along with the various state measures and presidential races.

(Some of these measures shouldn't have been on the ballot. Like the county measure about whether copies of the budget need to be paper copies or can they be electronic. Or the county measure about whether the county legislature can choose to take a vacation in August.)

[Jedo the Jedi]

Oh bureaucracy.
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Death Mage]

No no no, I want to here where the people stand on keeping paper records. Where's a link to your county's election results page?

[edit] Or, if you don't want to give away personal information - like the general area of where you live - you can post the results when they are official.
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* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
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[Thok]

[Amb]

The discovery that Microsoft is pulling the plug on MSN messenger, which I have used (and still use) for years.

[Death Mage]

It's migrating to Skype, so it's not completely going away.
_________________
* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
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[Jedo the Jedi]

I think those people who believe even the lives of bugs are sacred must have never had roaches in their dwelling.

Disgusting.
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Trojan Horse]

Sallie Mae is a dirty rat.

Last Friday, I thought I had finally finished off my student loans. I went to Sallie Mae's website to make the final payment. When you make the final payment, they ask for a 4-day payoff amount: enough to pay the current balance and 4 days worth of interest (since it can take up to 4 days for them to receive the payment). So I paid the 4-day payoff amount, and I cheered like crazy. I'M DEBT FREE!!!

Or so I thought.

Sallie Mae finally processed my payment today, FIVE days after I submitted it. I still have a balance of 19 cents.

Okay, no worries. I'll just pay the 19 cents and be done with it. No need to worry, right? Wrong, for the following reasons:

1. The Sallie Mae website does not allow you to make a payment greater than the 4-day payoff amount (which is 19 cents right now).
2. The Sallie Mae website does not allow you to make a payment less than 1 dollar.



What am I supposed to do now? Wait until I start getting late fees? I'm sure they'd be happy about that.

I'm livid. I'm going to call them up and give them a piece of my mind tomorrow. It looks like I'll REALLY have to fight for my freedom.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edit: now I'm annoyed with myself for clogging up this thread with such a trivial matter. It took about 30 seconds to convince the guy on the phone to waive the 19 cents. "Crisis" averted. Move along, nothing to see here.

[Jedo the Jedi]

Emptying my cabinets and moving my furniture for the bug people because my apartment said that was a requirement, but the bug people came and told me it was unnecessary.

Also, today is a day when marital communication is failing utterly. *sigh* At least it's Friday.
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Quailman]

Yet another reason I hate cats.

In my front yard there are rows of boxwoods to each side of my walkway. I placed three Christmas light nets on each and they look okay. This morning when I walked outside I found two from one section lying on my front walk, still connected to each other. The third was nowhere to be found. Well, I did find it later, on the far side of my yard, where it had been dragged through my begonias.

I can just imagine the stupid cat walking under the boxwoods in the dark, on his way to relieve himself. Suddenly he realizes there's a "noose" around his neck and he takes off running, pulling all three nets out of the bushes. After about five yards two come loose, and he pick up his panicked pace until he sheds the third one in the begonias ten yards further on.

Time to set the trap again.

[Neo]

Orange peels are fairly effective (in my experiences) at keeping cats from spending time in an area.
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_{Ad Astra}

[Amb]

I got told off for misspelling Dilemma.

I was told to change it to Dilemna.

I have never seen such a terrible way of spelling a word with no N in it.

Then I discovered that it's a common mistake!?!?

Adding silent letters that aren't there into words? Noow thatks dyiabholicall!

(Luckily I was able to prove the stupidity of the requester and was allowed to keep the correct spelling)

[Jedo the Jedi]

I've actually never seen the erroneous spelling before. This is news to me, and it naturally makes me shake my head in disappointment at the stupidity.

This is why they should still teach Greek and Latin in schools.
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Scurra]

This is a fascinating one.
There was a movie that came out a couple of years ago called The Dilemma and it provoked much debate from people who thought it was spelled incorrectly. Even though a cursory glance at a dictionary will show that it has never been spelled with an N, not even as an alternative!

The most plausible explanation I have seen is that it derives from a cursive handwriting confusion (it's very hard to writing two consecutive "m"s without it looking like "mn".) But that doesn't really explain how it became so widespread.
The best explanation I have seen came from a blog post I read which was that all the people who get it wrong have actually slipped over from an alternate universe in which the only difference is the word "dilemna" and so nobody noticed...
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Death Mage]

Someone promised me the end of the world, and failed to deliver. I am very disappointed.
_________________
* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
[YOUR AD HERE!]

[Quailman]

[jadesmar]

Thieving thieves that thieved several keyboards and a mixing board from my rehearsal space.

Boo@people who steal from poor musician types. Boo@thieves in general.

[Amb]

According to what I have read, its a canadian thing. The person who wanted me to correct it is a Canadian living in NZ too.

[Quailman]

Here it is, Christmas Day, and we've lost power three different times for about two hours of the ladt four. We're going to start cooking soon. The main dish is a roast that cooks on the range. Our backup plan is to move it to the burner on the side of my gas grill that I've hardly ever used (the burner, not the grill - I use the grill all the time).

[Quailman]

The wind has picked up again and the power keeps flickering on and off. What a pita!

[Quailman]

No sooner did we sit down to eat than the power went off again. This time we heard the transformer blow so we knew it would be a while. It just came back on after eight hours. We ate and cleaned up by candle light, being careful not to put to many scraps down the drain, as the disposal wouldn't run. We did not want to open the fridge. Instead, the leftovers went into an ice chest (without ice), which I placed outside. It was about 70 ^o F in the morning, but was 38 ^o F by 6 PM.

We'll remember this Christmas for years to come.

[Jedo the Jedi]

All of this happened in Houston, Q?
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Quailman]

Yes. Well, Spring, about 20 miles north of Houston. And we lost power again this morning for another hour.

When I read about all the snow falling in other parts of the country I realize we didn't have it so bad.

[Chuck]

My power was out for about 40 minutes tonight. When I went outside a repair crew was already there so I guess they shut me and some of my neighbors off to repair something. But still, Quailman must be a jinx. Or is Texas a jinx?

[Jedo*]

This Cotton Bowl is rigged. The OU defenders are not even trying to make tackles. Stoops would never tolerate these flimsy arm tackles otherwise.

It's a conspiracy I tell you.

[Jedo the Jedi]

College football fails me for the second time. I don't really care about either team, but I'm tired of the Yankees/Patriots-style Alabama team. Seriously. Stop buying your wins.[/over-reaction]
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Zag]

I'm offended that you think the Patriots do that. The NFL has a hard salary cap, unlike MLB where the Yankees just go over the salary cap and pay the fine. The Pats, like every other NFL team, stay under the salary cap. They just have a coach who is better at choosing talent and much better at making the best use of the talent he has.

[Jedo the Jedi]

I did end that by saying it's an over-reaction. In the midst of their dynasty, I was thinking that, but they've shown since that they aren't perfect.

Alabama though...*sigh*
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.