Beachcombing

Do you have a pet peeve? Everybody can usually sound off about something that annoys them in life. Generally I’m happy with most things, but in thinking about the topic I realized that an entire column could be written about the subject. For instance:

Our neighbor’s house has been on the market for several years now and there’s a huge 50-foot overgrowth of ivy along the 5400 block of Anaheim Road that averages three feet high and has some growth as high as six feet, making it impossible to exit a car, cross the parkway and reach the sidewalk. Every six months I’ve had to call the city to get the growth from covering the red curb because people will park there, making it impossible to see oncoming traffic when exiting Ramillo Avenue onto Anaheim Road. This condition should never be permitted anywhere in the city, yet this parkway has been that way for years. If you share this problem in your neighborhood, call the city’s Code Enforcement Reporting Line at (562) 570-2633.

I’ve mentioned this one before, wherein there are two doors opening outward at the Los Altos Post Office, yet patrons will use the one on their left. We drive and walk on the right side, why do people pretend they are in Great Britain at the post office? Ditto that for drivers who insist on using the left lane when approaching a parking space and expect you to perform the same illegal maneuver to pass them by.

Another bunch of pet peeves surface when driving: driving too slow in the fast lane, failure to use turn signals, checking email while driving or waiting for the signal to turn, taking two parking spaces and throwing cigarette butts or trash out of a car window. I keep printed not-so-flattering notes in my car to place on the windshield of any car that’s taking two spaces – just so the driver knows what others might think about them.

“Pop up” ads on my cell phone or computer suck. When I purchased a new smart phone last year it eventually came with a plethora of pop up ads. It took 15 minutes for a T-Mobile representative to kill off the source of these unwanted messages that always surfaced during an incoming call.

Annoying robotic phone calls are now under control. T-Mobile has a feature that reads “scam likely,” meaning you should ignore the call completely. We have a similar feature with our Spectrum home phone that will block most robocalls; it will ring once, then disconnect the robot. There’s also a programming feature that modifies the ring tone to let my wife and I know when the caller is a member of the immediate family. Those calls get answered quickly.

This discussion also applies to television programming. When I turn on the news it is to hear the news and not a bunch of “happy talk” among the newscasters. CLICK – I change the channel. The Sunday morning talk shows get aggravating when the panel discussions have participants interrupting or talking over someone else who is trying to make a point. CLICK.

Usually an individual’s character is measured by what small things make them angry. With that in mind, life is exceptionally good.

Congratulations to the winners in our Best of Long Beach Contest, who are listed on pages six and seven of this edition of the Beachcomber. This is the 18th year of this popular feature, made possible by the generous participation of the sponsors who provide us with gift cards or gift certificates with a value of $25 or more.

That brings to mind another pet peeve: copying the ideas of others without giving credit to them. The local daily newspaper and an online news outlet have been copying our Best of Long Beach feature in recent years, but we’re the only one rewarding readers with valuable gift cards/certificates worth more than $7,500.

Then again, according to Oscar Wilde, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

publisher@beachcomber.news