» annoying people http://canadianbaconbarbie.com Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:37:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Excessive Functionality, or Hell’s Soundtrack http://canadianbaconbarbie.com/2008/03/excessive-functionality-or-hells-soundtrack/ http://canadianbaconbarbie.com/2008/03/excessive-functionality-or-hells-soundtrack/#comments Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:34:48 +0000 admin http://canadianbaconbarbie.com/2008/03/excessive-functionality-or-hells-soundtrack/ If there is such a thing as hell, I’m 90% sure that most of my appliances would live in it. Not to supply people with fresh laundry or microwaved burritos, but to annoy people with their constant beeping. I’m not sure what appliance designers are thinking when they build automatic beeps into things, except that perhaps they believe they are being helpful. But they really aren’t. My microwave beeps 3 times every 30 seconds or so if you leave something in it after it is done cooking. My clothes dryer beeps 3 times every 30 seconds when the clothes are about to be dry. (Not when they are actually dry.)  The weird thing about both of these beeping functions is that they are pretty much superfluous, because both the microwave and the dryer are loud enough on their own that you can hear them stop. So what’s the point of the beeping? Both of these appliances are valuable in part because you can *do other stuff* while they are working. But there’s no real drawback to forgetting stuff in the microwave or the dryer, really. So your burrito gets cold and you have to heat it up again. So your clothes get a little wrinkly if you don’t take them out immediately. Who really cares? You can just heat it up/dry it a little longer. Not a big deal. In the lower-archy of hell’s soundtrack, though, I’d probably give the absolute lowest spot to that sound that Microsoft Windows used to play when you’d do something wrong. It kind of sounded like a cat stepping on a piano, but it was called “chord.” Probably the most annoying beep in history. Why can’t any of these beeping noises be pleasant in some way rather than making me want to tear my hair out?

]]> http://canadianbaconbarbie.com/2008/03/excessive-functionality-or-hells-soundtrack/feed/ 0 If I wanted to be rich, I’d invent and market a Pe… http://canadianbaconbarbie.com/2007/07/if-i-wanted-to-be-rich-id-invent-and-market-a-pe/ http://canadianbaconbarbie.com/2007/07/if-i-wanted-to-be-rich-id-invent-and-market-a-pe/#comments Tue, 17 Jul 2007 20:18:00 +0000 admin http://canadianbaconbarbie.com/2007/07/if-i-wanted-to-be-rich-id-invent-and-market-a-pe/ If I wanted to be rich, I’d invent and market a Personal Sound De-Amplifier. It would be kind of like the Listen Up Personal Sound Amplifier. If you haven’t seen the commercials for this, check out their website. The device allows you to eavesdrop on your neighbors while pretending to check your mail, among other things. Anyway, my device would have the opposite effect, allowing you to selectively stifle annoying sounds in your general milieu. Ideally my invention would work with a remote that you could point at people and things to turn down their decibel level. I can think of the following uses for such a device:
  • Drown out HPGs (High Pitched Gigglers). One of these is sitting two tables away in the coffee shop where I am currently working and does not seem to want to tone down her supersonic laugh, despite my dirty looks.
  • Stifle the LTs (Loud Talkers). The male half of a couple playing backgammon today was an LT and did not seem to knotice that the entire coffee shop could hear his game.
  • Reduce outdoor mowing/weedwhacking sounds, which seem to occur only on the days I want to sleep in.
  • Turn down the volume on passing trucks and cars when you are trying to talk on your cellphone outside.
  • Turn down the volume on annoying cellphone talkers

It’s a pretty self-centered device, really. So I think it would have a pretty good market.

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