Things that will guarantee that I don't care what you have to say

This will likely be a pot-kettle post since I know I do a lot of things on this blog that probably guarantee a lack of caring about what I have to say (like repeatedly posting that I'm too busy to post, for example), but I was recently reminded that there's a bunch of stuff out on the good ol' web 2.0 that annoys the crap out of me. Unfortunately for my two fans, I'm in the mood to share my annoyances at the moment.

Some of this has no doubt been mentioned here before -- and probably repeatedly -- but since it's nearly summer I'm sure you're all getting used to reruns by now. Unless you're the type of people who are willing to invest time in summer replacement series, of course, in which case I guess the not-Toronto office should probably take over this place for the next few months.

Um, anyway.

Things that will definitely, absolutely cause me to stop reading your blog/website/post comment/board post:

• The use of the phrase jump the shark. I (mostly) lurk on a couple of television fan boards, and the moment I see those words I skip to the next post. It's such a beaten-to-death cliche, and all it says to me is that the person posting either wants to piss off people who genuinely like a show (and, um, trolls? Flaming the freaks is a pretty lame way to amuse yourselves), or is too lazy to form a complete thought about a topic. I don't like such-and-such. But why don't you like such-and-such? Because it jumps the shark. Oh. How very enlightening. Next, please.
• Automatic music. If I go to your site and there's music playing that I have no option of getting rid of, I leave. That's all.
• Fancy cursors or cute graphics. See above. Unless you're a tween, just don't do cute if you want to be read.
• White text on black backgrounds. Actually, this one makes me sad because I know a lot of intelligent people do the white-on-black thing as a stylistic choice. Yes, it can look very good, but unfortunately for some of us it makes reading the site painful to near-impossible. More than once I've had to abandon reading a thoughtful post on a black blog because my eyes just couldn't handle it. I made a more ranty post about the whole thing a couple of years ago, so if you want more details you can find them here.
• Txt speak or overuse of emoticons. Hey, I text. Sometimes when I text I abbreviate things, although I don't like going full-on jargon. I can see why people do, though... when they're texting. If you're sitting at a real keyboard with an easily accessible shift key and have more than 160 characters available to you, then you should be typing in actual English. It doesn't necessarily have to be textbook proper English (Whomever knows I use my share of sentence fragments and things like that around here), but if it's all omg lol wtf then it just doesn't deserve to be read.
• Baiting. Too many people out there get readers because they say things just to upset other people. Frankly? I find the whole thing boring. Why get all up in arms about what some twit on a blog says? There are so many better things to do.

There's more, naturally, because one of my favourite things to do is be annoyed about something or other (or at least that's how it seems some days), but that's enough for now.

Especially since I need to change laundry loads.

Hey, did this really become an actual post rather than just a non-post excuse? Well, then. Things are looking up. Ish. For today. Tomorrow is another day, Scarlet, and lately I seem to be having trouble with two in a row...