h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Do you mean in drawers? I hate it when the compartments for knives forks and spoons swap. You just reach in and grab and don't realise until you're trying to eat.
Would Paris Hilton count as a petty hate? Or would it be copletely justified?

yes i do mean in drawers!

Why is it when you find something in the shops that you really like, like as a completely random example, iced coffee, then it is promptly discontinued? It seems to happen to me all the smegging time.

In a similar vein...went to a job interview last week which involved practical testing.

Discoveing the medium for the practical test was not a desktop PC - which I am very comfortable with - but a bloody laptop with a keyboard layout that was just different enough to really slow me down as nothing was in the "right" place and the weirdest of keys got underneath fingers used to touch-typing on a larger and more spacious PC keyboard. Am I behind the times in only ever having seen a laptop about three times, yet alone used one properly?

I tried to explain this to person administering tests, who said I'd have to go with this as there wasn't a PC free.

Therefore the tests were unfinished and dotted with typos - I added an explanation why and said this was unfamiliar to me.

since then I've come accross a three-quarter sized shrunken keyboard that also has a totally unfamilar layout of keys and functions - it makes you go AAARGH!, doesn't it?

Petty Hate - redesigned computer keyboards.

The one I use at work is sort of squished and has a touch pad instead of a mouse. It is a complete pig switching between this and my home one and I am constantly having to relearn how to type.

If you look at most of what I write, it looks like I never did. I only notice it when it's been posted, never in preview.
Those mouses that don't have a left and right click annoy me.

Is there a law written somewhere that, when you are carrying a big pile of washing to the washing basket, one sock has to fall on the floor?

Yes. It's a socksist fact of life.

Similar to the ones that dictates one white teatowel will be discovered after the white wash is finished.

GRJ, if you like, I can send you a sock net that you just shove in the laundry machine with a considerable amount of socks in it, so nothing falls out.

Paris Hilton is far too big a hate to be petty hate material.

People who tamper with something that took hours to prepare and then ask you why it doesn't work anymore.

Actually, that's not a petty hate. I feel like I've been through a traumatic experience.

"GRJ, if you like, I can send you a sock net that you just shove in the laundry machine with a considerable amount of socks in it, so nothing falls out."

Thanks for the offer but that would give me one less thing to moan about

I've moaned about it many times before but I hate it when the media start referring to celebrities by their first name only. The telly was on at work this morning and they kept referring to "Britney" and "Beyonce".

There's a singer called Shakira who is very popular at the moment. I try to avoid her output wherever I can but sometimes it's unavoidable and I'm wondering if I'm the only one who finds her voice extremely unattractive. To me she sounds like Mr Bean on helium (I've thought long and hard about how to describe it but that's the best I can do, and that's pretty poor). But she looks good, which is usually enough for the muppets who listen to music with their eyes.

My ewif watches Strictly Come Dancing passionately and I keep telling her she's deluded if she thinks this is a dancing competition. It's purely a popularity contest; there's no way that either a 'heartthrob' male or person who plays a popular soap opera character will be eliminated in the earlier stages of the contest and they will probably reach the final.

Your 'ewif'? Come again?

I really hate the F word...fiancee. So I call her 'ewif'.

It's all HATE HATE HATE with me, eh?

Ooohh, I hate that advert with the puppets that say c'mon in a really annoying voice.

I like that, GRJ.

It took me a few watches to decide whether I liked it or loathed it.

Yeah, I just watch that advert and think "What? What was the advertising company on when they thought this was good?"

I hate that advert for deodorant with hundreds of buxom young ladies in the tiniest of bikinis running along a beach. I hate the close-ups of the bouncing breasts. I hate that the bikinis are obviously too small. I hate that the young ladies are gorgeous. I hate that the advert was just shown which means I've got to wait at least 15 minutes before there's a chance it will be shown again and I can hate it all over again.

Ahhh, the 'Minx' advert, as I fondly refer to it. I actually interpret it in my own way as all these lovely ladies wanting to kill that male creature who stands there and causes all the commotion. They're trying to stampede him to death. And I can't blame them. The slogan- Use more, get more- or whatever, just pi$$es the hell out of me. How vane! How stupid and shallow. Don't get me wrong, the Beckhams' latest, with him grabbing her bum and her showing the world his nipple, ain't much better, but assuming so much of a flipping deodorant really rubs me on the wrong side. And I used to buy that stuff for my husband. Might have to change for another brand.

And I agree, Shakira's voice is quite annoying, though her lyrics are fantastically funny.