20 WAYS TO ANNOY PEOPLE

BUT FIRST…  

THINGS ABOUT TO BECOME EXTINCT

 

Classified Ads

The Internet has made so many things obsolete that newspaper classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that could signal the end of civilization as we know it. The argument is that if newspaper classifieds are replaced by free online listings at sites like Craigslist.org and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind them. How long has it been since you’ve looked at a classified ad?

Movie Rental Stores

While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000 left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is down considerably in 2008, especially since the company gave up a quest of Circuit City. Movie Gallery, which owned the  Hollywood Video brand, totally closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost already.  

Dial-up Internet Access

Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in 2008. The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access. I have five or six Global Village 56K modems around here I’d make someone a good deal on.  

Phone Landlines

According to a survey from the  National  Center for Health Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only and, of those homes that had landlines, one in eight only received calls on their cells. The rate would drop faster if there was an economical alternative to Home Alarm System monitoring.

Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs

Maryland ’s icon, the blue crab, has been fading away in  Chesapeake Bay . Last year  Maryland saw the lowest harvest (22 million pounds) since 1945. Just four decades ago the bay produced 96 million pounds. The population is down 70% since 1990, when they first did a formal count. There are only about 120 million crabs in the bay and they think they need 200 million for a sustainable population. Overfishing, pollution, invasive species and global warming get the blame.

Fortunately the problem is receiving some attention.  Shorter harvest seasons, catch limits, etc.  An additional contributor to the decline has recently been identified and is being addressed.  Nitrogen enriched runoff into the bay from the manure of the many poultry farms in the area is now considered to be a major factor is the decline.

VCRs

For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be found. They served us so well. The currently evolving technology is ‘Blu-ray’.  The same dimensions as a CD or DVD disc buy capable of storing much more data on a single disc.  A dual layer Blu-ray disc can store up to 50 Gigabytes of data which is 10.5 times more than a single layer DVD disc.  The unfortunate issue here is the Blu-ray technology is not backward compatible to existing CDs and DVDs.  

Ash Trees

In the late 1990s, a pretty, iridescent green species of beetle, now known as the emerald ash borer EAB), hitched a ride to North America with ash wood products imported from eastern  Asia . In less than a decade, its larvae have killed millions of trees in the midwest, and continue to spread. They’ve killed more than 30 million ash trees in southeastern  Michigan alone, with tens of millions more lost in  Ohio and  Indiana . More than 7.5 billion ash trees are currently at risk. The spread of the EAB has not yet reached central Indiana and, according to Purdue there is a preventative ‘treatment’ available once it does.  It involves an insecticide treatment for trees in the quarantined area.  Here is a link to more nformation http://www.emeraldashborer.info/files/E2955.pdf.  In the meantime annual fertilizing to maintain optimum health is advised. 

Ham Radio

Amateur radio operators enjoy personal (and often worldwide) wireless communications with each other and are able to support their communities with emergency and disaster communications if necessary, while increasing their personal knowledge of electronics and radio theory. However, proliferation of the Internet and its popularity among youth has caused the decline of amateur radio. In the past five years alone, the number of people holding active ham radio licenses has dropped by 50,000, even though proficiency in Morse Code is no longer a requirement. Cell Phones and Text messaging plus the Internet chat rooms as communication tools have all led to the fast declining interest in Ham Radio.  

The Swimming Hole

Thanks to our litigious society, swimming holes are becoming a thing of the past. ‘20/20′ reports that swimming hole owners, like Robert Every in High Falls, N.Y., are shutting them down out of worry that if someone gets hurt, they’ll sue. And that’s exactly what happened in Seattle. The city of  Bellingham was sued by Katie Hofstetter who was paralyzed in a fall at a popular swimming hole in  Whatcom  Falls  Park . As injuries occur and lawsuits follow, expect more swimming holes to post ‘Keep out!’ signs.  

Answering Machines

The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly tied to No 20 on our list — the decline of landlines. According to  USA Today, the number of homes that only use cell phones jumped 159% between 2004 and 2007. It has been particularly bad in  New York ; since 2000, landline usage has dropped 55%. It’s logical that as cell phones usage rise, many of them replacing traditional landlines, that there will be fewer answering machines.  

Cameras That Use Film

It doesn’t require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance of the film camera in  America . Just look to companies like Nikon, the professional’s choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006, it announced that it would stop making film cameras, pointing to the shrinking market — only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to 75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.

Incandescent Bulbs

Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes, 100-watt) bulb was the mainstay of every  U.S. home. With the green movement and all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era incandescent bulb. The EPA reports that 2007 sales for Energy Star CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for approximately 20 percent of the  U.S. light bulb market. And according to  USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase out incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years. I have yet to find a CFL that makes a good reading light. Sound’s like I’d better stalk up on 3way incadescents.  

Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys

BowlingBalls.US claims there are still 60 million Americans who bowl at least once a year, but many are not bowling in stand-alone bowling alleys. Today most new bowling alleys are part of facilities for all types or recreation including laser tag, go-karts, bumper cars, video game arcades, climbing walls and glow miniature golf. Bowling lanes also have been added to many non-traditional venues such as adult communities, hotels and resorts, and gambling casinos.

Hand-Written Letters

In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world’s population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant, polite hand-written letter?  

Wild Horses

It is estimated that 100 years ago, as many as two million horses were roaming free within the  United States . In 2001, National Geographic News estimated that the wild horse population had decreased to about 50,000 head. Currently, the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory board states that there are 32,000 free roaming horses in ten Western states, with half of them residing in Nevada . The Bureau of Land Management is seeking to reduce the total number of free range horses to 27,000, possibly by selective euthanasia.

Personal Checks

According to an American Bankers Assoc. report, a net 23% of consumers plan to decrease their use of checks over the next two years, while a net 14% plan to increase their use of PIN debit. Bill payment remains the last stronghold of paper-based payments — for the time being. Checks continue to be the most commonly used bill payment method, with 71% of consumers paying at least one recurring bill per month by writing a check. However, on a bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers’ recurring bill payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).  

Mumps & Measles

Despite what’s been in the news lately, the measles and mumps actually, truly are disappearing from the United States . In 1964, 212,000 cases of mumps were reported in the  U.S. By 1983, this figure had dropped to 3,000, thanks to a vigorous vaccination program. Prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine, approximately half a million cases of measles were reported in the U.S. annually, resulting in 450 deaths. In 2005, only 66 cases were recorded. Honey Bees

Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing  America is so dire; plummeting so enormously; and so necessary to the survival of our food supply as the honey bee. Very scary. ‘Colony Collapse Disorder,’ or CCD, has spread throughout the U.S and Europe over the past few years, wiping out 50% to 90% of the colonies of many beekeepers — and along with it, their livelihood. The ‘Vanishing Bee Syndrome’ is getting major attention in several areas.  There appear to be several contributing factors, including the idea that this is simply an indicator of the general health of the world. The honey bees, we have today are not native to this continent (introduced in the 1600’s) and have been genetically ‘fined tuned’ over the years to obtain an optimum ’safe, effective pollinator’.  This makes them susceptible to the slightest environmental changes.  The Vanishing Bee Syndrome isn’t new, but it’s increased significantly in the past decade.  There is a very good article generated by Penn State Research if you would like more information http://www.rps.psu.edu/indepth/bees1.html.

News Magazines and TV News

While the TV evening newscasts haven’t gone anywhere over the last several decades, their audiences have. In 1984, in a story about the diminishing returns of the evening news, the New York Times reported that all three network evening-news programs combined had only 40.9 million viewers. Fast forward to 2008, and what they have today is half that. There are all kinds of opinions as to the decline of the new media.  My favorite is as the education level of the population increases the need for having the biased interpretation of the ‘media’ decreases.  Another generation or so and it may disappear entirely. If you took a poll of today’s ‘evening news audience’ I’m convinced the age level would be predominately 50+ years.  Why?  The Internet, primarily.  You can peruse in 5 minutes all the information it takes the ‘evening news’ and hour plus to generate.  And!  There are no commercials and it’s not ‘interpreted’ for you.   Additionally the news publications are ‘going’, too.  One of the better weekly publications, US New and World Report, had already gone to bi-weekly publishing and will soon change their format to be only longer term study reports.  But, they have converted their ‘live reporting’ to the internet,  check it out.  It’s a great place to see the summary of daily happenings.  http://www.usnews.com/

The Family Farm

Since the 1930s, the number of family farms has been declining rapidly. According to the USDA, 5.3 million farms dotted the nation in 1950, but this number had declined to 2.1 million by the 2003 farm census (data from the 2007 census hasn’t yet been published). Ninety-one percent of the U.S. farms are small family farms. Unfortunately this is an extension of the ‘mom & pop’ issue of the retail sales industry.  It’s impossible to compete on a smaller volume basis.  Even the Amish are finding it nearly impossible to ‘buck the tide’.

Yellow Pages 

This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry. Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like Reach Local and Yodle Factors like an acceleration of the print ‘fade rate’ and the looming recession will contribute to the onslaught. One research firm predicts the falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even reach 10% this year — much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.

Another in the category is ‘Public pay telephones’.  Seen one lately?  I read an article recently indicating there were less than 15,000 in the US and nearly all of them are in Bus Stations and Airports.

 

20 Ways To Annoy People

 

1.     Sing the Batman theme incessantly.

 

2.     Specify that your drive-through order is “to go.”

 

3.     If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.

 

4.     Speak only in a “robot” voice.

 

5.     Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 98 copies.

 

6.     Claim that you must always wear a bicycle helmet as part of your “astronaut training.”

 

7.     Give a play-by-play account of a persons every action in a nasal Howard Cosell voice.

 

8.     Ask 1-800 operators for dates.

 

9.     Produce a rental video consisting entirely of dire FBI copyright warnings.

 

10.  Dress only in clothes colored Hunters Orange.

 

11.  only type in lowercase.

 

12.  Repeat everything someone says, as a question.

 

13.  Wander around a restaurant, asking other diners for their parsley.

 

14.  When Christmas caroling, sing “Jingle Bells, Batman smells” until physically restrained.

 

15.  As much as possible, skip rather than walk.

 

16.  Pretend your computer’s mouse is a CB radio, and talk to it.

 

17.  Cultivate a Norwegian accent. If Norwegian, affect a Southern drawl.

 

18.  While making presentations, occasionally bob your head. like a parakeet.

 

19.  Leave your Christmas lights up and lit until September.

 

20.  Sing along at the opera.

 And finally: Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do… write to these men? Why don’t they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen could look for them while they deliver the mail? Or better yet, arrest them while they are taking their pictures!