What's bugging you? (2012)

[stalton]

I work for a very small company (6 FT employees) and this is 2 years in a row that they barely acknowledge my birthday. Everybody in the past has at least gotten a card and a small gift card. This year like last year, I received nothing. Now granted I'm not a big birthday person, but still.

Well, I'll wish you a happy birthday...possibly belated.

 

Thanks, it actually was the 10th

[MJLiverock]

I work for a very small company (6 FT employees) and this is 2 years in a row that they barely acknowledge my birthday. Everybody in the past has at least gotten a card and a small gift card. This year like last year, I received nothing. Now granted I'm not a big birthday person, but still.

 

This reminded me of my birthday experiences at small company. In my mid 20's I worked for a firm with about 25 employees, 4 guys and 20 or so women. Birthdays were a huge deal, lunch was usually brought in and a fairly expensive gift was given. I'm talking $200 gifts for your birthday from the office and coworkers. (Everyone was encouraged to chip in $5 plus the company usually kicked in $100). The problem was as a mid 20's guy, the gifts pretty much sucked. I received a bunch of decorative plates from some art fair one year, a bunch of gigantic wooden bowls one year, etc. It was like on Christmas as a kid when you opened a present and got socks, you had to fein happiness and make up some lie about how you liked it or had some use for it. The gift were expensive so I could never really point out how utterly useless they were to me but no one ever seemed to think, "Hey maybe a single 25 year old guy doesn't have a use for a boxed set of Christopher Radko ornaments and wreaths." A few of the younger women would always laugh privately with me about the total disregard for getting me something I might like, instead of my boss buying things she liked or thought I should like. The rule was always no gift cards or gift certificates but they all knew I was a huge sports fan so it wasn't like they couldn't have bought tickets to a Brewer game or Badger game.

[hawing]

I was at a funeral today (for one of the SO's sisters), and while I liked the church where the funeral was held, the priest used an absolute ton of incense and was standing next to me when he did it. I was standing in a cloud of incense for a few minutes (enough so others commented on it afterward), and my sinuses and mucus membranes are still smarting tonight.

 

Don't get me wrong; that I was at a funeral is an instant reminder that there are much bigger problems, but wow, that was a lot of incense.

[1992casey]

Backslashes and dashes.

 

Many advertisements offer web addresses that allegedly contain backslashes. No web addresses have backslashes. There's one ad like that read by Robb Edwards at almost every game. Web addresses have slashes, which can also be identified as forward slashes. If people took the ad copy literally, they could end up in trouble.

 

Along with that, almost every time someone uses the term "dash," he or she probably means to say "hyphen." The two terms aren't interchangeable. You frequently have to assume that when someone says "dash," he or she is wrong. An e-mail address, for instance, is very likely to have a hyphen, but is very unlikely to have a dash.

[Patrick425]

Along with that, almost every time someone uses the term "dash," he or she probably means to say "hyphen." The two terms aren't interchangeable. You frequently have to assume that when someone says "dash," he or she is wrong. An e-mail address, for instance, is very likely to have a hyphen, but is very unlikely to have a dash.

 

 

Hmmm.....explain the difference between a dash and a hyphen? My work email has a hyphen. When I need to read my email to someone, sometimes I say dash and sometimes I say hyphen (I probably say dash more often). People always know what I mean and I never had issues with receiving emails because of this. I never had someone say.."Oh, I used a dash instead of a hyphen". They are the same thing on the key board..aren't they? I will say that there have been a few occasions where I said "dash" and for some reason the person thought I meant underscore.

[1992casey]

Hyphens are joiners. Examples of their use would be to join syllables of words at the end of a line or to combine two words into one idea. They also avoid ambiguity, e.g., resign vs. re-sign.

 

Dashes are used to separate an abrupt change of thought within a sentence. They're also used to show a range of values (1999–2003) or to show a relationship (The Brewers won 2–1).

 

Visually, a hyphen is the shortest character. The en dash — approximately the width of the letter n — is a little longer. The em dash — approximately the width of the letter m — is the longest.

 

Getting the lengths right has always been easy to accomplish in handwriting. And of course, there was no problem in old fashioned typesetting. Typewriters were a pain, though. Two hyphens were used for an em dash, and one hyphen was used for either a hyphen or en dash.

 

The key on a typewriter or a computer is a hyphen, however, computers give us the option of using proper en dashes or em dashes. When people don't know how to create dashes, they can revert to the typewriter method. I'm not sure how to do dashes in Windows, but on a Mac, it's easy:

 

option-hyphen = en dash

option-shift-hyphen = em dash

 

It doesn't bug me when people don't get their hyphens and dashes right in their writing. It only bugs me when someone tells me to use a dash when a hyphen is called for.

[Patrick425]

Ok..was unaware of any of that. Anyways, when I say hyphen or dash for my email, people know to use the key on the standard keyboard that is right of the number 0 on the top row (just above and slight offset to the right of "P"). Not sure if that's a hyphen or dash, but that is the one to use.

[Baldkin]

Ok..was unaware of any of that. Anyways, when I say hyphen or dash for my email, people know to use the key on the standard keyboard that is right of the number 0 on the top row (just above and slight offset to the right of "P"). Not sure if that's a hyphen or dash, but that is the one to use.

 

That's a minus sign.....

[TheCrew07]

A business across the street and 2 buildings away is burning, so far they've had at least 6 different engine companies arrive plus other rescue vehicles and police. I was at a customer this morning and just returned to the office. When I exited the highway I was concerned the company I work for was on fire.

 

I have mixed feelings, relieved that everyone I personally know and our place of work was not burning or in any danger but I'm concerned for the people that worked for the other company given the nature of the response.

 

I actually had a hard time getting into the office as 3 of the 4 streets in the area have been blocked off.

 

The people that are parking on the street and in various parking lots around the area to watch the fire need to go find something else to do. Gawkers are the devil.

[1992casey]

A minus sign would be properly represented with an en dash. If you look closely, I think you'll find that the plus sign would be the same width as the en dash. Let's see:

 

+

–

-

[1992casey]

It's bugging me that Craig Cushon doesn't pronounce "Ramírez" correctly. And at least twice in the last couple of days, he's said "Jerry and I" when it should have been "Jerry and me."

[TooLiveBrew]

It's bugging me that Craig Cushon doesn't pronounce "Ramírez" correctly. And at least twice in the last couple of days, he's said "Jerry and I" when it should have been "Jerry and me."

Coshun is poor in general at speaking correctly on-air, but he does seem especially bad with names

[1992casey]

After years of mispronouncing it, I think Craig finally got Paul Maholm's name right. He still doesn't say "Lucroy" right. Gallardo was a double-whammy. Craig was mispronouncing both "Yovani" and "Gallardo." It took him about three years to correct that.

 

There's no room for negotiation with Ramírez. It's pronounced the same in both English and Spanish.

 

Craig also has his own unique pronunciation for "Aramis." He pronounces the second syllable as "ram" as in St. Louis Rams.

 

The name Aramis is an interesting case, though. Over the years, I always thought that the pronunciation we usually hear (ah-RAH-mis) didn't seem "Spanish-like." About a year ago, I bought something from a sales person who had Aramis on his name tag. I asked him how to pronounce his name. He said it was "AIR-uh-mus" in English and "ah-rah-MEESE" in Spanish.

 

For Aramis the baseball player, I'm fine with "ah-RAH-mis." It's generally agreed upon, it gets the second-syllable vowel right, and maybe that's his preferred pronunciation.

[1992casey]

Dude just did it again… "That'll do it for Jerry and I."

[NeedMoreFans]

Gas stations charging $1.00 for air.

[TooLiveBrew]

Dude just did it again… "That'll do it for Jerry and I."

Us will see you tomorrow!

[DuWayne Steurer]

What's bugging me? People that come to visit unannounced, eat my food, tease my dog, stay for 7 hours, generally inconvenience people in my house, and then act put-out when at 11 pm, I make mention of the fact that I have to get to bed, as I work at 6 am the next day. Oh, and then they need a ride home.

 

This is the third weekend in a row this event has occurred, for family relations sake I have to be diplomatic about how I handle this, which makes it even more frustrating.

[Invader3K]

What's bugging me? People that come to visit unannounced, eat my food, tease my dog, stay for 7 hours, generally inconvenience people in my house, and then act put-out when at 11 pm, I make mention of the fact that I have to get to bed, as I work at 6 am the next day. Oh, and then they need a ride home.

 

This is the third weekend in a row this event has occurred, for family relations sake I have to be diplomatic about how I handle this, which makes it even more frustrating.

 

Wow. Probably time to set up some boundaries with these people.

[hawing]

Woah, RoCo, that is way out of line. You can make me the anonymous message board heavy who says that's way out of line, if you think that would do any good.

[AZBrewCrew]

Walgreens. First it was their "Be Well" campaign where upon checking out they would say "thank you and be well". It sounds so fake and rehearsed but employees are forced to say it by management. Fast forward to this morning, had to stop in for some baby wipes,now they are pitching their new "rewards" program. But as much as it bugs me I will likely still shop there because its down the corner from my house.

[logan82]

Be well John Spartan.

[hawing]

Walgreens. First it was their "Be Well" campaign where upon checking out they would say "thank you and be well". It sounds so fake and rehearsed but employees are forced to say it by management. Fast forward to this morning, had to stop in for some baby wipes,now they are pitching their new "rewards" program. But as much as it bugs me I will likely still shop there because its down the corner from my house.

So is getting the "balance" card the only way to get sale prices on anything at Walgreens anymore? We've made use of their buy-one-get-one-free (now usually buy-one-get-50%-off-another) deals on vitamins and such for a long time, but I'm not keen on sharing a lot of my personal information with them for a discount (especially if the discount continues to shrink). That would bug me.

[AZBrewCrew]

hawing, i believe that is the case. To be honest I didn't really listen to their pitch too closely as I was trying to corral a 2 year old.

[fondybrewfan]

I am extremely tired for obvious reasons this morning. I keep telling myself not to get worked over sports; after all they are only sports, by holy merciful mother of everything that is holy. I just couldn't fall asleep; way worse than after Game #6 of the NLCS last year. At least the Crew actually got beat.

[bani1717]

That was an ugly game all around. I would argue that getting sacked 8 times in the first half equates pretty well to getting beat regardless of the officiating.