How rude is that? It's up to you.

Snarky Rudester Bloggers Prove T+L Right

by HRIT Staff on January 24, 2012

First, Travel + Leisure shocked the world -- shocked, we say! -- by declaring New York City -- New York City! -- the rudest city in the nation. Unprecedented! Oh, the inhumanity! The sheer injustice of it all! Since no one we know has ever had a rude encounter with a rude person in the rude city that never [bleeping] sleeps, we have no idea how T+L came up with such an unpredictable and incredible conclusion.

Naturally, the smarty-pants bloggers at Gothamist -- New Yorkers, Ivy Leaguers, elitists, masters-of-the-snarkiverse -- responded in the only sensible way: by calling T+L "irrelevant" and its readers "sensitive."

Of course, the irony here is that Gothamist revealed it's infinitely more sensitive than the average T+L reader (poor babies). And when you consider that T+L's reach dwarfs Gothamist by, oh, 3-4x, it seems that relevance is in the eye of the beholder.

New Yorkers Aren't "Friendly" Enough, Say Sensitive Readers Of Irrelevant Magazine
America's Rudest Cities

Can You Hear Me Now, Rudesters?

by VZWatcher on December 29, 2011

Verizon Wireless, the nation's leading cell phone carrier, will begin charging customers $2 next month to pay a bill online or by phone. Gee, a system that eliminates paper processing for Verizon, presumably saving the company millions of dollars while ensuring they receive payment immediately ... it's somewhat less than obvious why Verizon now needs to charge a fee for that. (Apparently, they already charge $3 for you to pay them in person. You can avoid the fees if you provide them access to tap into your bank account directly. Funny how that one option is free.)

Of course, it's not really about what they need to do. It's about what they can do to stick it to millions of customers who are stuck in Verizon contracts -- and generate millions of extra dollars in revenue without giving the customer a single thing to show for it.

Greedy. And RUDE.

Verizon Wireless: Yep, That'll Be $2 To Pay Your Bill Online [CNET]

You Were Expecting Pyrotechnics?

by HRIT Staff on November 29, 2011

Well, we've all been there. That symphony performance is just so, well, snooze-worthy. Even when a loved one is playing, it can be hard to feign interest in that dusty, 200-year-old concerto. So, what do you do?

If you're the Seattle-area mother of a teen musician, you shout "boring!" and then get escorted from the theater by police.

OUCHIE for this poor teen! Now she has to add her mom's 'incident' to the list of high school mortifications.

Moms, high school is embarrassing enough. Try not to add to the pain, please!

How rude is that?

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Holiday Spirit?

by HRIT Staff on November 25, 2011

'Tis the season ... to stir shoppers into a bargain-hunting frenzy. Skipping Thanksgiving, waiting outside for hours (even days!) in the cold (who wants dry turkey with Uncle Harold anyway?). Storming the retail gates for that 50" LCD TV at a discount. It's all just good seasonal fun...until someone whips out the pepper spray and spoils it for everybody!

That's exactly what happened at a California Walmart, where a "competitive shopper" consumed by "shopping rage" used pepper spray to back off other bargain hunters angling for the same discounted video games she was after.

Maybe video game creators should take inspiration from the incident and create a Black Friday shopping simulator game -- and let people get their aggressions out without attacking actual fellow humans.

Read the story at the LA Times: Shoppers describe chaos after pepper spraying at Walmart

Why is Google So ...

by HRIT Staff on November 15, 2011

Have you ever wondered how Google comes up with those suggestions it offers up via its "Instant" setting? We have, too -- because some of the suggestions are downright hostile! Consider what pops up for suggestions when you type "why are girls so ..." or "why are guys so ...":

It gets worse. Search on virtually any group of people -- Democrats, Republicans, Californians, Canadians, nurses, police -- and "why are ____ so" produces a bunch of mean suggestions. Even searching on "why are people so ..." yields these suggestions: stupid, mean, fake, rude. Ouch!

So is Google just reflecting the habits of a nation of hostile searchers? Or are its suggestions spawning even more rudeness?