Some Things I Am Fed Up With Currently

I am cranky today

An incomplete list:

When I’m watching a show on a streaming service and it ends and the little clock in the corner tells me the next episode — or, even worse, an episode of a whole-ass different show — will start in five seconds (4… 3… 2…)

Give me a minute!

Gambling segments during every pregame show that are supposed to be “fun”

I just want to talk about the game, man. Get your own show for that.

Television shows taking like two or three years between seasons

I can barely remember everything that happened in an episode of a show I watched last week! I know things are weird with production schedules as the industry deals with the many tentacles of a shift to streaming and the way this delivery system has yet to be fully figured out but I really must stress that none of that is my problem. Figure it out.

Wind

Settle down. I’m trying to read a book out here.

Getting political ads for candidates running in states where I do not reside

I’m stressed out enough with my own people here in Pennsylvania. Keep it to yourself, New Jersey.

Mail

I do not need all of this paper.

The 90 seconds of flute music that my insurance company plays on a loop over and over and over when it puts me on hold

It is 2025. We should have some funky hold jams.

Ryan Seacrest being the new host of Wheel of Fortune

Nothing against the man as a human being. He’s probably very nice and he very clearly works hard. That’s great. But, buddy, let somebody else host a thing or two. At least Ken Jennings came into his role naturally, by being a notable contestant who was charming enough on camera that it made sense to give him the gig when it opened up. Wheel of Fortune could have done that. I realize as I’m typing this that I’m basically saying we should have let Snoop host it.

Baseball broadcasts that put the microphones so close to home plate that every pop-up sounds like it is going into the upper deck

Frankly, it is unfair and bordering on cruel to tease me with the prospect of a home run multiple times a game, only to have me look up and see the shortstop settle under a lazy pop fly in shallow left field. We’re all going through a lot right now. Don’t add that kind of disappointment to the list.

Self-checkout lanes

Two things:

• I don’t need to be looking up the produce codes for whatever kind of apples I grabbed

• It’s a double pain for me because I am disabled so I either have to go wrangle a frazzled customer service representative to help me or I have to wait in a long line of people who have full carts of groceries just to get my two boxes of k-cups and those mysterious apples

Speaking of wheelchair-related shopping gripes…

Upscale shopping centers that think using textured sidewalks with little bumps built into them will make the area feel more like a real small town

[trying to balance the apples I just figured out how to buy] Y-y-y-y-y-you d-d-d-d-d-did not have t-t-t-t-t-o d-d-d-d-d-do that-t-t-t-t-t!

Orange juice

I suppose this one could be phrased as “my stomach lining that no longer handles the combination of acid and sugar the way it used to and prevents me from enjoying my second-favorite breakfast drink” but we are lashing out today, not looking inward. Oranges, this one is on you.

Thank you for listening. Feel free to add yours in the comments below the links.

STUFF I CLICKED ON

— I was going to write the opening section this week about Popeyes but then I remembered Spencer Hall already wrote the definitive Popeyes blog over eight years ago

— good interview with Pablo Torre about the Belichick saga and his role in unearthing it all (related: we have a bubbling media feud)

— “You find any ham on the net”

— Fran Hoepfner at Vulture interviewed Jason Mantzoukas about his time on Taskmaster and I clicked on it so fast

— I am, as you can probably tell, fully Taskmaster-pilled now, and I’ve been clicking around to watch compilations of other great performances on the show, which led me to this 30-minute clip of Scottish wild card Fern Brady from a few seasons ago

— some bros went hiking after eating mushrooms and called the police to report the death of their friend who — surprise — had just gotten lost and was very much alive

— people will smear anything on their skin

— sometimes Dutch gummies contain weed even when they’re not supposed to

— this newsletter was delayed about 45 minutes today because I saw this list of funniest Inside the NBA moments and got lost in the algorithm a little

— good rundown on John Mulaney losing a fight to teens on live television

— I love that Ryan from The OC hates crypto this much

— see, Slow Horses gives me a new season every year

— George RR Martin is also fed up

— first peek at the new Knives Out movie

— I became briefly obsessed with the chess man banging the table

— CBS and Sony are just gonna keep suing each other over game shows, apparently

— speaking of lawsuits, our beige nightmare has ended

— this video is, with zero hyperbole, some of the best cultural analysis I’ve seen in a while

— useful screencap from Duster

Okay, that’s it for this week. Please share and subscribe and get to work on my grievances.