How to Irritate People

Found this List of 32 ways to annoy people:

1. Sing the Batman theme incessantly.

2. In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sensual massage."

3. Insist that your drive-through order is "to go."

4. Learn Morse code, and have conversations with friends in public consisting entirely of "Beeeep Bip Bip Beeeep Bip..."

5. If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.

6. Amuse yourself for endless hours by hooking a camcorder to your TV and then pointing it at the screen.

7. Speak only in a "robot" voice.

8. Push all the flat Lego pieces together tightly.

9. Start each meal by conspicuously licking all your food, and announce that this is so no one will "swipe your grub."

10. Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 99 copies.

11. Stomp on little plastic ketchup packets.

12. Sniff incessantly.

13. Leave your turn signal on for fifty miles.

14. Name your dog "Dog."

15. Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions "to keep them tuned up."

16. Reply to everything someone says with "that's what YOU think."

17. Claim that you must always wear a bicycle helmet as part of your "astronaut training."

18. Declare your apartment an independent nation, and sue your neighbors upstairs for "violating your airspace."

19. Forget the punchline to a long joke, but assure the listener it was a "real hoot."*#

20. Follow a few paces behind someone, spraying everything they touch with a can of Lysol.

21. Practice making fax and modem noises.

22. Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and copy them to your boss.

23. Make beeping noises when a large person backs up.

24. Invent nonsense computer jargon in conversations, and see if people play along to avoid the appearance of ignorance.

25. Erect an elaborate network of ropes in your backyard, and tell the neighbors you are a "spider person."

26. Finish all your sentences with the words "in accordance with prophesy."

27. Wear a special hip holster for your remote control.

28. Do not add any inflection to the end of your sentences, producing awkward silences with the impression that you'll be saying more at any moment.

29. Signal that a conversation is over by clamping your hands over your ears.

30. Disassemble your pen and "accidentally" flip the ink cartridge across the room.

31. Give a play-by-play account of a person's every action in a nasal Howard Cossell voice.

32. Holler random numbers while someone is counting.*#

Here are some of my own additions:

33. Start a conversation with someone, while wearing stereo headphones.*

34. Deliberately rattle the loud plastic bag you are packing items into.

35. Turn up to a formal function dressed in a t-shirt, shorts and jandels and hang around the the best dressed guests.*

36. Pop a paper bag in the library.

37. Say "Ah-hem!" repeatedly, while standing in a long queue.

38. Only look sideways at the person you are talking to.#

39. When you are sitting at a window seat on long haul aircraft flights, get up every 5 minutes to use the toilet, or stretch your legs.

40. Recline your seat back, as far as possible on aircraft flights.#

41. Park your bicycle on a car park space.

42. Set your cell phone alarm to go off loudly, during meetings at work.

43. Ask the supermarket checkout operator to weigh your 14 tomatoes individually.

44. Ask for black coffee with milk.*

45. Ask for white coffee with no milk.*

46. Turn the bathroom taps off hard, so that they become difficult to turn on.*#

47. Hand over $100 for a $1 drink.*

48. Offer to fix other peoples electronics by dismantling the parts, and then saying "I don't know how to fix this!'"

49. Burp over food in the supermarket.

50. Ask a bank teller for a $100 note in exchange for one thousand 10 cent pieces.

51. Ask for a $1 discount at the $2 shop.

52. Go to your rugby team's home game, and cheer for the visiting team.

53. During the big game, adjust the television aerial, even though the reception was previously perfect.

54. During an aircraft flight, start a coversation about plane crashes.*

# Means I have been on the receiving end of this.
* Means I have been guilty of this heinous act.

Rubik's Twisted Nightmare

Ever since my early days at intermediate school, I have been able to solve the standard 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube (pictured above). Now many years later, things have taken a drastic turn. I came across this 5X5X5 monstrosity (pictured below) at a local shop, and being an old veteran war-horse of the Cube, I just had to pick this up.  I won't solve this new beast in a hurry, since the difficulty is definitely steeper. At least I have all the corners sussed.

 Erno Rubik invented his "Magic Cube" in 1974 and obtained a Hungarian patent for the Magic Cube in 1975 but he did not take out international patents. The first test batches of the product were produced in late 1977 and released to Budapest toy shops. The Cube was held together with interlocking plastic pieces. In September 1979, a deal was signed with Ideal Toys to bring the Rubik's Cube to the Western world, and the puzzle made its debut at toy fairs in January and February 1980.

Sales of the Rubik's Cube boomed during the early to mid 1980's. During this era, world records for solving the puzzle were set. Times recorded at less than 30

 seconds were not unheard off. My quickest time is a relatively sluggish 4 minutes and 12 seconds.
Movies such as Wil Smith's "Pursuit of Happiness" appear to have assisted in the current resurgence of the puzzle's popularity.

Update:
My latest solving times for the following cubes are:

2x2x2: 1 minute exactly
3x3x3: 4 minutes and eight seconds.
4x4x4: Only 2 pieces away from solving this for the first time.
5x5x5: Only a few pieces on the last layer left to solve.

 

Dictionnaire ... Anglais ... Confusion

Learning foreign languages can be a confusing exercise. 

I have always struggled with french, particularly the use of feminine and masculine words.

However, looking in my own back yard, I can see things from a non-english speaking person's perspective.

Here are some real posers for folk learning english as a second language.

Loosen is an antonym for fasten; However unfasten is a synonym for unloosen!
Dispensible is an antonym for indispensible; However, valuable is a synonym for invaluable.
 
Warning: the following words are self contradicting, and should never be allowed to roam free amongst the english speaking masses.

Unshelled:
Here's a context for this word;  "The peanuts were unshelled.", which could mean "The peanuts had not been removed from their shells." or "The peanuts were removed from their shells."

Awesome:
The original definition of this adjective was "fearsome or mighty"; but the now commonly accepted slang can be used to describe  "enjoyable or fun."

Awful:
As with awesome above, this can mean "inspiring" or more commonly "revolting or terrible". 


Handicap:
This word can mean "an advantage" (e.g. a handicap in golf); or it can be a disadvantage (e.g. a disability).


My brain hurts!

Maybe I should try spanish ... one of these days.

Anyhow, Dunedin is enjoying an awesome summer and the New Zealand team were awe inspiring at the rugby sevens in Wellington.