Justin_Case001

Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Arbitrary and pointless traditions regarding what you do with your hands while swearing an oath. Now yer just like, , the f*ck? What is wrong with you? Yup, I'm weird. Weird things annoy me. I absolutely hate the tradition of raising the right hand for oaths, and also placing the right hand over the heart for various pledges. Why? Just why? What does it do? What does it accomplish? Does it mean anything? Seriously. Anything? Why the right hand? Would raising the left be worse? Is the left hand dishonest? So, if I raise my right hand in court, then everything is hunky dory, but if I raise my left, then... what? The oath doesn't count? I'm free to lie? Or is everything I say automatically perjury? Why the hand at all? Why not the right foot? What if hop on one foot and stick my right foot in the air while I recite the oath? How's that? I'm still putting a right body part in the air. Shouldn't that suffice? It's a helluva lot harder to hold your foot up than your hand, so if anything, shouldn't that count for more? How about your right elbow? Picture it. You see how absurd this sounds? How is the hand any different? Explain to me, using logic, why the hand is any different and makes your oath more legitimate. Ha. Gotcha. You can't. And how about the hand over the heart? Why does that make a pledge more legit? Hmm? Why not the liver? Wouldn't that be awesome? "Right hand over your liver, ready begin." That would be the tops. Why not any other organ? Oh, right, I know--because the heart is the center of human emotions, and it knows things... except that it doesn't. Contrary to all of our nonsensical ramblings about loving people with all of our hearts, and memorizing things by heart, (I wrote an entire entry on this, btw) even the stupidest mf-er on Earth knows that your heart houses no memories nor emotion. Your brain does. So, why don't we put our hands over our brains when we make a pledge? Put it on top of your head. There ya go. Or, (and this is a novel idea) why don't we just do nothing? Just speak the words. Who f*cking cares where your hands are when you make pledges, oaths, and promises? IT DOESN'T DO ANYTHING. Now, if, IF you believe in a specific religion, then placing your hand on that holy book and swearing on it does make some logical sense. IF you believe it. (That didn't violate any forum rules, did it? ) But simply raising a hand or putting it anywhere else does nothing. You're either honest or you're not. You either mean the oath or you don't. The location of your hand(s) is irrelevant. It's meaningless. It's stupid. We only do it because it's tradition, and you know what traditions are? Peer pressure from dead people. I swear, if I ever had to give courtroom testimony and take an oath, I'd probably get held in contempt for ranting about this. I'd probably do it Larry David Curb style. "Hey, judge, lemmie ask you something. What's the point of the hand thing?" Next thing you'd know, I'd be spending the night in jail. Pffft. Sweet merciful Celestia, our world is so dumb.

How in the wide, wide world of Equestria did it take me this long to get to this one? Y'know what really grinds me gears? Dust. Why...the...f*ck is it...absolutely...EVERYWHERE???!!! I hate when my house is dusty, and I f*cking hate dusting. Why does it accumulate so Celestia damned fast, even in a room with no windows that you keep closed up tight at all times?! Why is the entire world made of dust??!! Why is the universe so stupid??!! Why does everything suck sooo MUCH??!! On a related tangent, why does the verb "dusting" mean to remove dust? No other word works like that. Frosting a cake doesn't mean to remove the frosting. Greasing an engine doesn't mean to remove the grease. Oiling the hinges doesn't mean to remove the oil. But wait, you can dust for fingerprints, and that means to add dust... ...now I'm confuzzled... Well, anyway...

Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? When hard boiled eggs are hard to peel. Few things infuriate me quite so much as peeling an egg and having a chunk of the whites tear off with the shell. I just...

Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Self-ordering kiosks. F*ck these things. F*ck them to oblivion. Okay, what pisses me off isn't so much that ordering kiosks exist; it's when a restaurant forces you to use them and gives you no other option. In other words, they have no human employees that will help you or take your order, and they literally refuse to give you face to face customer service. Given my social anxiety and aversion to talking to people, you'd think I'd absolutely love these things, but you'd be wrong. I despise these kiosks for two reasons. One: I'd rather not touch a screen that countless other customers have been rubbing their grubby mitts on. Unsanitary. And two: I have severe social anxiety as it is, and using something like this when other people are waiting for me makes me extremely flustered. I just can't do something like this when I know others are standing behind me waiting. I won't even use a self-service gas station if there are other people there. I only get gas in the middle of the night when it's deserted. I'd rather risk an armed robbery than try to pump gas when someone else is impatiently waiting in line. If I'm using one of these kiosks, then the onus is entirely on me--if I'm having a hard time and taking awhile, then it's entirely on me, and I can feel the impatience and annoyance building in the people waiting, and that makes me collapse into a black hole of self-deprecating anxiety. If I'm ordering from a human being, then the onus isn't on me. I know how my mouth works, so I know I can say, "one burrito, hold the onions," without any trouble, and if the employee is new or something and is taking a long time to figure out the computer, then that's not my fault. I feel no anxiety or pressure because I'm not the one who has to do anything. These ordering kiosks are bullsh*t. They're basically just making customers do the employees' jobs for them. They're just turning customers into unpaid employees so they can hire less people and save a buck. If some people like 'em, that's fine, but they shouldn't be the only option, and that's the case at many places. A lot of fast food restaurants are going this way these days, including lifelong favorites of mine, and I cannot describe how much I hate it. You should always be able to order from a human if you so choose. I usually like any new technology that allows me to avoid talking to a person, but at the same time, I think it's a dark and dangerous path to keep removing humanity from everything. I hate the direction the world is going. We all know that technology is isolating us and making us more lonely and disconnected than ever before, but all we do is just keep making it worse. I'm not some old fogey; I love new tech, but I've also seen enough sci-fi to know how this ends. We're just racing towards a cyberpunk dystopia where human beings are obsolete with the pedal to the metal.

Only long haired ponies will understand this one. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Frizz days. Most of the time, my hair brushes out just fine. I brush for a few minutes, and it's tangle free and the brush goes through smoothly with no resistance and no noise. But then, occasionally, for reasons that are utterly mystifying and inscrutable. the hair just decides that it won't brush out, no matter f*cking what. I never change my routine, I always condition, and all variables appear to be the same, including humidity level, but for seemingly no apparent reason, the hair just won't de-tangle, no matter how much I brush it. It actually seems to re-tangle itself as I brush. I can brush it until my arms and shoulders are literally so fatigued that I can't keep going, and it doesn't make one bit of difference, and every time I run the brush through, it sounds like tearing velcro. It's the f*cking worst!! And then the next day it will be right back to playing nice like nothing happened, even though everything is exactly the same. The hell??

Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Bad dreams. Well, er, um, it's not exactly any one specific experience of having a bad dream that annoys me. Well... heh... I might be kinda weird, but as an adult, I actually find the experience of an occasional nightmare to be kinda fun! I mean, when it's something wacky and crazy like some sci-fi horror. Lemmie start again. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Always having dreams about bad stuff and never good stuff. I only dream about bad stuff--the stuff that stresses me out irl. I basically only dream about two things. So, see, the thing is, I'm pretty much a germaphobe, and I'm scared of the rona (covid). I've never had it (a fact I'm quite proud of, btw ) and I'm f*cking terrified of long covid with brain fog. I know I probably shouldn't be, but I am. So, naturally I constantly have dreams of being surrounded and trapped by a mob of infected people coughing on me. Sometimes the dream escalates to a much worse pandemic, like small pox, or something totally new and much worse, like a proper apocalyptic death plague with a 99% kill rate or something. So, there's that, and then my other frequent dream is so lame, stupid, and cliché that I'm embarrassed to admit it. So, I was a Twilight Sparkle in school, in terms of grades and organization, and thus being tardy or not getting my homework done was my worst nightmare. So, I'll have this recurring dream where I'm awakened by my mom knocking on my door and telling me I'm late for school. I'm always the age I am now (nearly 40), but I'm still in high school. I will then proceed to rampage around the house in sheer terror and panic trying to find all my school sh*t, but can't. Then I realize that I haven't done my math homework in months. Sometimes the dream ends there, and sometimes I make it to school but realize that I've forgotten where all my classes are and can't find my schedule. I mean, how f*cking pathetic is that?! Why do I still have these idiotic dreams at 40?!! And that's it. I pretty much alternate between those two dreams. Why can't I ever dream about anything pleasant?? Hear me out here--I'm lonely and miserable irl. I've never been on a date or had a relationship in my life. Fated to die a virgin. Dreams are the one and only place where my brain has complete and utter autonomy, control, and power to deliver unto me absolutely any experience. If it wanted to, my brain could make every sleep a blissful escape into a perfect paradise. So why the f*ck doesn't it?! Where's the downside here??!! Why doesn't my brain just give me dreams of finding my true love and having fairy tale romances with her? How 'bout a sex dream, huh?? Tha'd be nice. Never had one. I have to be a virgin in my dreams, too. If I asked out a gorgeous woman, she'd probably say, "In your dreams, pal," to which I'd have to laugh and say, "NOPE, NOT THERE, EITHER!!" I'm basically miserable all the time, so why can't my brain throw me a frickin' bone in the one place where I could be a little bit happy?? I realize that fears and dreams and closely connected, and dreams are often the brain's attempt to deal with or work out real life fears or anxieties, but FOR F*CK'S SAKE!! I mean, come on. Why can't I ever dream about pleasant things? Why does my brain hate me so much? Why does my brain laugh at me and take pleasure in my suffering? Why? Why? WHYYYY????!!! I even tried to learn how to induce lucid dreams for awhile, but it was kind of a dead end. Why do brains have to be so annoying and stupid? Doesn't my brain know that I'd be happier and healthier if it just fed me pleasant dreams? Stupid brain. Stupid, dumb, stupid, stupid, F*CKING brain.

Yes, I agree--homemade is the best and only way to go to get great cookies today. Trouble is, I hate cooking/baking. I hate it so f*cking much. I wish I liked it, but I just don't. I'd rather file an income tax return than cook something. Microwaving a frozen burrito is almost too much cooking for me! My mom doesn't mind a little light baking now and then. Maybe I'll give that video a looksie and pass it along to her. I've actually had Tate's, and yes, they're very tasty, but I'm not a big fan of crispy cookies. I likes 'em soft and chewy. So... yeah. Thanks, though!

Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Chocolate chip cookies today. I feel like it's so hard to find a really good one. I swear, I haven't had a really good chocolate chip cookie in 30 years. Mrs. Fields' semi-sweet used to be my favorite as a kid, but they started to slip around 2000 or so. They suck today. And it's not just me--they used to be mom's favorite when I was a kid, too, and now she doesn't like 'em, either. They really went downhill. When my parents were young and dating, they used to go to the Famous Amos store. This was back when Famous Amos wasn't just a bag on the grocery store shelf, but they had a store where they baked 'em fresh. It was a completely different kind of cookie than the grocery store ones. Hearing my parents describe those... oh, sweet Celestia, they make it sound like an absolutely transcendent experience. They say that those were the best cookies that have ever been, and nothing today can even remotely hold a candle. The Famous Amos store hasn't existed for 40 years. I hate that I never got to try those cookies. Why can't they bring those back? We can bring back dire wolves (I guess? Apparently?), but we can't bring back those cookies?? The best cookies I can find today are just... okay. I mean, good, but nothing to write home about. Nothing like decades ago. Has every baker in the world just forgotten how to make good chocolate chip cookies??!

As I was watching The Dragon Prince, the same thing kept repeatedly popping into my head: "This is a kid's show??! No, really, is this actually a kid's show? Are we really sure that this is a kid's show?" I'm opting to forego the endless text wall this time in favor of something more concise and spoiler-free. I'm not gonna drone on forever with a lengthy review. I just needed to gush about The Dragon Prince for a couple of paragraphs. I had been eagerly anticipating the show for years, but I wanted to wait until it was finished before watching. It exceeded my expectations. The Dragon Prince is quite simply one of the greatest kid's show's ever made. It's just a masterpiece by any metric, and the fact that it's ostensibly for kids just makes it an even more surprising feat. I've always held the bending franchise (Last Airbender and Legend of Korra) up on a pedestal as the greatest kid's shows of all time. I used to think that nothing could ever compare, that nothing would ever equal it. Well, I'm here to say that DP is absolutely the equal of the bending franchise, and may even surpass it is certain areas. It's the heir to Airbender. DP is basically just Game of Thrones mixed with Lord of the Rings for kids. Well, I'd say not for kids, just approved for kids. It's for anyone and everyone. Any fan of fantasy will love it. What struck me time again was just what they were able to get away with. It pushes the limits of what I thought possible for a kid's show. It pushes the boundaries for romance, violence, and mature themes and morals. The complexity and believability of the world is simply unparalleled, except by the bending franchise. *Minor Spoiler* One scene in particular was easily the most violent, bloodiest, and most intense scene I've ever seen in anything rated for kids. It was shocking and f*ckin awesome. Many of the same things I said about Kipo And She-Ra can be said of DP as well, particularly when it comes to open-mindedness and advancing social thought, as well as disability representation. I just watched those first, so I talked in-depth about them. I don't really feel the need to repeat a bunch of it. If I'd watched this first, then I would have written a long post for this one. It amazes me how far kids' shows have come in a short time, and it may be the one and only thing that gives me a faint shred of hope for the future. The Dragon Prince is a towering masterpiece, and a must-watch. So, my question to you is: why are you still here?! GO! WATCH IT!

Long time fans of my series... *snickers*... pffft, yeah, right. A pony can dream, though, a pony can dream... Anyway, readers may remember that I did an entry on newfangled light bulbs way back in episode 6. It's time a legacy sequel! Y'know what really grinds my gears? F*ckin' LED light bulbs. They're so fickle and unreliable. We have so many that flicker on and off or go dim and then bright again and weird sh*t like that. And it's definitely the bulb, I guarantee you (not the fixture or the power). Incandescent was a way more reliable technology. In all these years, why haven't they figured out LEDs better? But y'know what's even worse? LED flashlights. I've never owned one LED flashlight that isn't a complete piece of fickle trash. They flicker, they go off randomly, they turn off if you point them up, and back on when you point them down (which would indicate loose batteries, but still, why can't them make that work, then?) The other day I had an LED flashlight do SOS on me. I mean literally, it was flashing fast and then slow like Morse f*ckin code! Then you shake it and it stops! The F*CK??!! When I was a teenager, I had a 3-cell incandescent maglight. Best, most reliable flashlight ever made, I'll tell you. As an adult, I got a 3-cell LED maglight. It was a flickering sh*tload of F*CK. I don't know if it's actually the LED technology, or if they're just cutting corners elsewhere and making flashlights sh*ttier and chintzier these days, but I'm sick to death of it. I just want a flashlight that turns on and f*ckin WORKS. Reliably.

I've spent 70 episodes telling you ponies what really grinds my gears. Now, as per @Fluttershutter's request, I'm starting this thread to find out what really grinds your gears. This isn't meant to be the big, earth-shattering stuff. The idea is to talk about all the little, inconsequential, stupid sh*t about everyday life that annoys you. So, how 'bout it? What really grinds your gears?