#5. Rhetorical Questions (Odd Phrases Part:2)

Don't get me wrong, I feel a lot of rhetorical questions are pretty great and useful devices, it's just one kind in particular that I hate. Like with the last post, I'll use the phrase in an everyday conversation so that you'll understand which kind of rhetorical question I'm talking about.

Me-"Hey John, how are you today?"

John-"Oh I'm doing well. So you know what I did yesterday?"

Although I think we all use this phrase (Yes, even I use it, I know, I'm a hypocrite) it's by far the most annoying one for me. I have no idea what you did yesterday, and I really don't care to hear about it. Unless I somehow managed to stalk you and watch what you did, I really doubt that I'm going to know. I think my favorite one though, is when someone said "You know what I dreamed about last night?". I have no idea what you dreamed of last night. How in the world would i possibly know that? Another close cousin to this phrase is the "question and answer in the same sentence phrase", let me use and example.

John-"Hey Mike, so you know what I did yesterday? I took a shower!"

Although this one doesn't annoy me as much, since I don't have to say "What?" as a creepy smile creeps across their face, but this one brings up a whole new matter, why did you even ask the question if you're planning on answering it before I can say anything?

#4. Thanking God Last

Recently I purchased an album by one of my favorite bands. Although they are not a Christian band, I still enjoy their music and their lyrics. After opening the album, I looked through the booklet that comes with the CD, and after looking through all of the lyrics, I came to the section where all of the band members give their thanks, and since I have too much free time, I decided to read some of them. I quickly saw a pattern that is seen a lot in the "Thank you" section of their album booklet. They put God as their last entry on the list. Now some people might think I'm just complaining about something stupid, which yes I probably am, and that I should be thankful that they even put God on their list period. But my question is why did the person even bother putting God on the list in the first place? Isn't the point of the thank you section for people to know how big of a role they played in their music? I don't think God is going to appreciate that you put Him dead last on your list. I wonder what the person was thinking when he wrote his thank you list.

"Okay, I want to thank my mom, my dad, my wife, my daughter, my brother, my manager and producer, the stage guy, the recording studio, my friend that offered us chips and dip at his house, that crazy fan in Denver that inspired me to write one of the songs, and I think that's it...oh wait, I forgot God...well...I'll just put him after the chips and dip guy."

Okay, maybe it doesn't go exactly like that, but still, I wonder how God feels to know that He goes after everyone on the list, even after the people that had very small roles in the bands music. Also, imagine the ego boost that the friend that served the chips and dip would have.

"Honey! Look! Those guys that came over the other night, the ones from the band, they put me in their thank you section, and guess what, I'm above God!"

My suggestion, if your putting God in your thank you section for your own benefit so that you feel good, then just leave Him out, He wants you to thank Him gracously, not because you feel guilty.

#3. Finding Things (Odd phases part:1)

When it comes to speaking, I get very annoyed by the use of cliches and phrases that make very little sense. This post is dedicated to the one that probably annoys me the most. I'll use the phrase first in a sentence to help you better visualize which one I'm talking about.

Me-"Hey Jimmy, how are you today?"

Jimmy-"Oh I'm doing well, I just can't seem to find my car keys though."

Me-"Well that's not good! I hope you find them!"

Jimmy-"Thanks, but you know how it is, whenever you lose something, it's always in the last place you look!"

I am of course talking about the well used phrase (At least by people around me.) of "it's always in the last place you look". Whenever I hear someone say this, I'm very tempted to ask them "Why? Do you usually look for it more even after you've found it?". But since I actually want to have some friends in my life, I tend to hold back on it. I just can't help but laugh whenever I think of someone having this conversation.

Husband-"Sweetie, do you know where I put my sunglasses?"

Wife-"Did you check your nightstand?"

Husband-"Oh never mind, I found them, they were on the counter. Okay, well I'm gonna go look for them in the car now, be back in a little bit"

#2. People that Write a Novel on Power Point Slides

Last year in my English class, we had to do a research project on Greek god or goddess, so naturally, being the nerd that I am, I decided to make a Power Point about it. There were a handful of other students who chose the Power Point route as well, and in my opinion all of them did fairly well, except for one young lady. In all of my year of seeing Power Points in school, I have never seen one fail in such a wondrous way. Not only did she clump whole paragraphs onto her slides, making the text so small you could barely read it, but worst of all, she had forgotten to take out the blue, underlined hyper links from when she copied and pasted it from Wikipedia, to her slide. Although I'm not sure if any of you have done something quite that obvious in your Power Points, I'm sure almost all of us have managed to ramble on in one and make our text so small that no one can read it. But to help you out, here is a short list of things NOT to do when you're making a Power Point.

1. Lots of unbroken, small text
This is by far the most popular mistake in the Power Point world of projects. People think that a Power Point is the same thing as a Word document, and that the more they write, the smarter they look, and the more impressed the teacher will be. Please, do not write a whole paragraph about why your business will do well in 2020, or why your favorite animal is Red Panda, and please, by all means, do not copy and paste from Wikipedia. Instead, spread it out over a bunch of slides, add a picture or those pointless clip art things.

2. Lots of bulleted items and lists
Another popular mistake. I think people feel the need to simply list everything they can think of in their Power Points. "Oh what's that? I have to research the 50 states? I know! I'll make a Power Point that has a slide with all 50 state capitols on it! Then it'll look like I did real research!". Big lists and bullets are for notes, not Power Point slides.

3. Stupid backgrounds
I think we've all seen this one. Someone wants to impress us with a Power Point by putting a cool photo of a landscape in the background. The only problem though, is that once they put the text over it, no one can read all of it. My favorite example of this is when, at my church, they made a Power Point with the worship song lyrics on them so the whole congregation could sing along. They fancied up the background with mountains, and sunsets, and eagles, and ocean scenes. But once they put the text over it all, How Great is Our God, became something more like "ow G rt is o r Go" since the white text blended in with everything, but luckily since every Christian knows the lyrics to that song by heart, we didn't have to worry to much.

4. Pointless animations
Out of this whole list, none of these annoy me more than this one. This is the person that wants to really impress his classmates by showing off his "tech skills" in being able to find the animation tool. I really don't see any point in this tool, since it was basically made for kids to make text fly in and out of the page, in circles, and squiggles at hypersonic speeds. Luckily, I think many people lose the interest in this tool as they grow older.

#1. Apple Commercials

I think we've all seen these commercials. They're played on every television station, seen in every website ad, and printed in every computer magazine. They are usually advertising a useless, yet seemingly simple product that is always better than Microsoft. They showcase catchy, and slick looking products like the Mac Air, or the iPod Touch. In fact, I don't think they're one person in this whole country that doesn't know what an iPod is. But in case you've never seen an Apple commercial, here's a brief guide to let you know if the commercial you're viewing, is indeed one advertising for Apple. If you have then identified a positive match for an Apple commercial, I would highly suggest switching the station.

White Background
This is the holy grail of Apple advertisement. The totally white background with a person standing in the foreground is a sure sign of an Apple commercial. Why does Apple do this? It provides their commercials with a postmodern, clean, sterile look that makes people say "Wow, look how pure and simple their products are, they have a white background, they must be better than Microsoft."

Random Person in Foreground
Much like the white background, no Apple ad is complete without a seemingly random person telling you how great and simple the Mac or iPod is. These people are usually dressed in regular, everyday clothes like jeans and t-shirts, yet you will sometimes see people in more dressy clothes like suits and pants to show clothing diversity. The variety in people is also made to give the effect of, "Wow, you just pulled 15 random people just like me off the streets, gave them an Apple product to test out, and now they're telling me how simple and easy it is! If plain Jane over there in the jeans and t-shirt thinks it's simple, then I bet will too".

Random Hand Gestures
For some reason, everyone that owns an Apple product also likes to talk with their hands. In every commercial for an iPod or Mac, the "random" people are always expressing their great joy in buying an Apple product with their hands more so than their voices. Once more, I think this is telling me that since I use hand gestures, I have to own an Apple, because people that own PC only talk with their mouths.

Random Indie Music
No Apple commercial is complete without its soothing indie background music. But we can't have well known indie musicians like Death Cab for Cutie or Radiohead, no, we need random, underground indie groups that only the most diverse, and open minded people have heard of. I think every indie band dreams of one day having their single played on an Apple commercial to show their true underground power, yet once it's played on the commercial, then that band loses any sort of credibility since they're now considered "mainstream", and that's just not cool in the Apple world.

Random Objects
This is the newest edition to the Apple commercial family traits. These commercials usually involve someone pulling out something like an manila folder, then suddenly, like magic, a super slim Mac is pulled out of it! It truly is the coolest thing I've ever seen, and makes me want to run out and buy a Mac laptop that is so slim that it doesn't even have a CD drive. But just imagine the awesome conversation starters you can have by showing off your new laptop by pulling it out of a manila folder! Here how I think one would play out...

Friend: Hey Mike, nice party isn't it?

Me: Yeah, but you know what it needs? Some music.

Friend: Yeah, you're right, it does, but how are where are we going to get some tunes? Say, why are you carrying a manila folder?

Me: Oh, don't worry, this manila folder will solve all of our problems.

Friend: *Strange look*

Me: *Pulls out Air Mac*

Friend: Whoa! I had no idea they made laptops small enough for manila folders! That's so cool! Here's my CD, let's get this party started!

Me: Oh, sorry, it doesn't have a CD drive...

Okay, so the Air Mac kind of sucks for parties, but hey, at least you can stun your friends for 10 seconds.

100 Things That Annoy Me: A Disclaimer to Viewers

The other day, my brother showed me another well known blog called "Stuff Christians Like". Right from the start, I found his post about things Christians do to be hilarious, and usually very accurate. One thing that I kept thinking to myself was "Wow, why didn't I think of this myself?". So inspired myself, I decided to make a similar blog about the 100 things that annoy me. I don't know if I'll actually reach 100, or if I'll get to 200 or 10000. Some of the things will be things Christians do, while others will be things that everyone seems to do. Lastly, before I start, I would simply like to say that this list is not to make fun of people that have these certain qualities, since I myself am guilty of many of these, but the blog is more of to get people to laugh and say to themselves "Yep, that's me alright", since as many comedians say, the best jokes are ones about real life.