I Resent Your Description Of Our Swing Set

As has been discussed on this blog – neighbours are just the best. Apparently everybody needs good ones, but – does anybody actually have good neighbours?

Let’s think about my house that I live in right now. To the left is a strange family with a man that puts out his washing when it’s raining, to the right is a gigantic share house of students that sit chatting loudly till 4am on a weeknight (weekmorning?) – So no, that counts me out.

If you enjoy the company of your neighbours – please comment about it, because quite frankly – I’m not convinced this situation exists. Except in this dystopian fiction I read once, where everyone in the UK was separated into personality types. The book was kind of interesting, but not extremely interesting. I wouldn’t recommend it, whatever it’s called.

But enough about mediocre literature! To the complaint!

It’s just a delightful display of email aggression and I just had to share – enjoy:

Have A Happy Period

This month’s complaint (or so it seems to plod along at the moment) comes from Wendi Aarons from Austin, Texas and regards probably the most unloved of all products on the supermarket shelf – the maxi pad.

I’ve always thought that an all female staff is crucial for the effective marketing of feminine hygiene products and Wendi’s open letter is direct proof of this.

There are so many awful things I can say about pads and tampons – beyond my father’s need to call them “mop ’em up’s and plug ’em ups” (I’m sorry I had to write that), the marketing is probably the worst facet of this industry.

As Wendi alludes, the last thing any woman wants to do when she has her period is things like yoga, rock climbing or rhythmic gymnastics – yet the advertising seems to want to push us out of our foetal positions of horrendous pain and into the olympic swimming pool with something that looks like a massive parasitic sea creature living inside of us.

Enjoy Wendi’s letter, cause I know I did.

Don’t eat the yellow bits and you’ll be fine

Everyone hates airline food. Everyone. My dad hates it so much that Qantas have him on a ‘frequent complainer’ list – so they know where to send the vouchers whenever he sends in his rambling.

I’ve never had a satisfying thing to eat on a plane. I just don’t understand why it’s so difficult – it’s the same premise as a lean cuisine really, why the hell can’t they just get it right?

Also, why do they always choose food that looks like vomit? When you feel like doing it – eating it isn’t going to help.

A Styrofoam tray of powdered mash with watery brown ‘gravy’, petrified and reheated ‘fish’ with yellowy green mucus like sauce dribbles is not what you want jumping around on your lap in a dipping hunk of metal at 23000 feet.

It’s just not right.

Beyond the food, a flight is never a wonderful experience – that is unless you can fork out the price of a used car for what is basically hiring a reclining chair for 20 odd hours.

I’m ALWAYS seated right where some kind of roof appendage is in front of the television screen – or – if I’m supposed to have a personal one, it’s usually broken.

So today’s complaint is about just that – the flight. It’s from a year ago and I hope you haven’t seen it, because it’s hilarious.

This complainant went straight to the top when he got a pile of crap for dinner on a long Virgin flight, and it was so florid and well crafted that he got a personal response from Mr Branson himself… A masterpiece to be found after the cut:

Strata: For the good of residents everywhere

Apologies for the delay between posts – I could rattle off excuses, but it would only result in the admission that I’m a bad blogger and a bad person – undeserving of your precocious loyalty. I will also apologise about the superfluous use of ‘wanker words’; I have been watching a lot of Louis Theroux today while listening to smooth jazz for my job and it seems to have put me in the mood.

If you have a complaint about my actions, I implore you to submit it – as that is what this blog is about and would give me additional content to post. But alas – instead, I will appropriate:

Today’s complaint comes from the prodigious website 27b/6 and its author David (creator of the *’fazzo’ Overdue Account Spider) who writes:

If I had a large backyard, I would probably have about a thousand dogs but as my apartment is very small, I cannot have any due to both the Strata agreement and the fact that they would need to be taken for walks every day and I am too lazy for that. There is a park across the road from us but the last time I went there I was offered money to provide a sexual act which was kind of flattering but I declined and told them that I was late for a meeting which was a lie as I think I just played Unreal Tournament the rest of that day.

I did have a goldfish named (posthumously) Stinky who lived in a vase with a plant and when he died I figured it would be nice to leave him there so that his body would break down and fertilise the plant but after a few weeks the smell was so bad I could not enter the apartment without a towel wrapped around my face. My first thought was to take him to work and hide him in my Bosses car but out of respect Seb and I gave him a vikings funeral instead.

*I actually heard someone use that word today… I stared at them dismayed for some time.

The complaint and resulting lulz – after the cut.

Damn! I HATE free software…

I’ve been sitting here racking my brain and resources for a way to follow yesterday’s entry. I keep going back to re-read it, just because I can’t believe it. But yes, it happened.

I now have this brilliant image in my mind of the complaints’ author – she’s in her late 60’s with half moon glasses and her black, grey-streaked hair pulled into a tight bun while she sits at a typewriter grimly working her way through the many things she’s decided to complain about. (Yes, I realise she sent it in an email, but this image works much better for me)

But back to the issue at hand, I decided to go with the delightful morsels from dearadobe.com – a blog dedicated to the unrivaled niche of short, almost tweet-like complaints about software company Adobe.

I have to say, I don’t have a problem with Adobe. I actually admire them, they released a free pdf reader and flash player, that very many people have on their computers (I went to say most, but have no figures to back this up)

Their other products are popular and reliable if you have the money for them. Also, one of their product names should be in the dictionary… (Who on earth says “have you manipulated that image yet?” – It’s ‘photoshopped’ people!) How’s that for marketing?

But enough grovelling from me, to the complaints. Some of my favourites:

Please create an installer that puts your software on my computer in less time than it takes to install an operating system.

Why does Photoshop cost as much as a pre-owned small car? Drop the price please!!

Could you make Adobe Reader start up slower? I’d like to have enough time to go get a sandwich before I read a one page document.

Why do you install six “helper” applications in the background when all I want is Photoshop? Keep your Bridge to nowhere the fuck off my system.

Let me keep my browser open while you update your programs. Or eat hair. The choice is yours.

Adobe Updater is the single worst piece of software I have ever seen. Please fuck off with that.

Why do you think it’s reasonable for your updater to steal focus while I’m typing and interpret my keystrokes as approval to reboot my machine?

Your updater sucks. Make it, perhaps, suck less.

Please remember that some of us are starving artists and don’t have hundreds of dollars to shell out on your products every year! Try to make it reasonable to stay on top of technology!!

Mouse wheel. Learn what it is.

I installed Acrobat 7, then had to restart my computer six times in a row — once for each patch. It is not 2001. This kind of bullshit is no longer acceptable.

Sort out your installers. They make baby Jesus cry

Alot of this stuff has its merit, but really – the software is FREE. You’re lucky they update Reader to begin with. If I were Adobe, I’d take it away from you and then see how much you dislike my installer while you’re staring blankly at the nonsense code of a pdf in Word.

Another thing, as I realised the first time I had to get Adobe Audition for my job – yes, it is expensive. Because what you should be doing with their products is paid work… Not sitting at home eating 2 minute noodles refreshing fark.com for their photoshop competitions only to produce shit like this:

*breathes*

Yes. It’s shopped.

The Linguistic Atrocity

Today’s complaint comes from Charlotte in Sydney and I’ll let her do the talking, because, quite frankly – she does it so very well:

I manage a Japanese goods store – the type that most people may be familiar with – we sell things like stationery, toys, bags and similar things from Japan. Many of these items are hilarious because of their poor English. The two types of people that come into this store are either ex-pats wanting something to remind them of home, or Australians who just find the products funny.

This is fine with me; I find them funny as well. We had this particularly ‘engrish’ bag in stock that sold quite quickly (photo attached)  – though about a week later – we received this email:

USE THIS WEBSITE TO TRANSLATE: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/

Hello,

I have linked you to this website because I think it’s very important that you understand what I’m writing. A friend of mine recently gave me a bag from your store as a ‘funny’ gift. I have to say, I most certainly did not laugh.

It was a bag with a smiling red dog on the front with the absolutely nonsensical words:

“No objcction”

and then underneath that:

“I beard chiece’s
a big patty
tonsgot Sourds
The too doesn’s
Its Let’s go out”

I think I speak for everyone in the English speaking world when I say – what on earth do you think you’re trying to communicate? I am a high school English teacher and I take offence to this item not only being displayed, but sold in Australia. A linguistic atrocity has been committed here.

What will children passing by think? That this is how you should speak? I certainly hope not – because it will be community leaders like me that will have to pick up the pieces.

I am willing to sacrifice my time to teach your staff English, you need only ask. Beyond that, there are so very many places where you can learn to speak English in Sydney for free – I implore you all to take up that opportunity. I have been into your shop since and I am also willing to come into your shop one evening to tell you which of your products are incorrect, which, I am sad to say is the vast majority.

I hope that this email will not only assist you to make your success in our country – but assist all those that your products have misled into speaking improperly.

Charlotte continues:

It’s with deep regret that I have to decline her offer to not only patronise me and my staff with her English lessons, but also for her to come in and strip my store of all its products. It just so happens that I was born in Australia and learnt English in primary school and from my parents like everyone else.

Now that I can not only speak English and Japanese – but am almost fluent in French, I’ll be happy to offer my staff any linguistic assistance they may need – which is none, as they can all speak English also.

Wow… Charlotte. That’s amazing. That’s unbelievable.

That’s… um… I’m, really sorry…

My Neighbour The Arsehole

Pen Wars is a friend to complaint makers, takers and finders alike and nowhere else will complaints in any entertaining form find their home.

This is why I couldn’t refuse Paul from Sydney, NSW when he  sent me a series of entries via our submit page

An Unreasonable Thing To Expect Ever Happening

Neighbours are tricky. I’ve never had a neighbour I’ve gotten on with and I think it’s the Murphy’s Law of living anywhere there’s someone else close by. In fact I’ve had a number of neighbours that have made my life a living hell – but less about me.

It seems Paul has been holding these complaints about his neighbour for many years and thus I’m happy to show them here.

And so behind the cut – The Tales of Arthur the Arsehole

The screen is just not enough

Some ads are offensive, some ads are shocking, and some ads are gross.  Though as we move on to the different levels of desensitisation in our society, advertising agencies have to go further and further into the sick sad areas of their brains to keep us interested.

The best news about this is that this brings the crazy complainers out of the woodwork. My favourite bit about this, is that for some reason these people are fond of punctuation and caps lock – yet seem to be allergic to spell check.

Today’s complaint comes from the Advertising Standards Bureau, who is keeping their complainant anonymous after dismissing their case regarding this ad:

Which to be honest, I think is gross but very clever. However (let’s call them ‘discusted in WA’) not only doesn’t like it, but seems to gradually lose control of their emotions and then ends it composed, yet misspelled:

It’s unnecesary to be so graphic. It’s totally discusting, nauseating and offensive.
This ad makes me and my family and i’m sure many other people fisically sick, the first time i saw it i was eating dinner and couldn’t eat anymore. Everytime it comes on we switch the channel.
Do you think it’s good to have a child sneeze in your face as you are just sitting down to dinner? I have never seen anything so disgusting.
It is not necessary to show such a REVOLTING and DISCUSTING thing on TV to advertize the fact that people need to have the flu vaccine. Who in their right minds wants to see runny green mucus running down a pain of glass ??? Especially when it is dinner time ?

It is repulsive to watch with phlem on the screen.

Well, ‘discusted in WA’ – no one in their right mind wants to see runny green mucus running down a pane of glass, but something tells me that’s the point.

Who wants to see crash victims sprawled on the road, a brain getting cut in half or especially bright lights and colours on your screen at 1am with a crazy man screaming “COME IN FOR ONE DAY ONLY!!!!!! ONE DAY ONLY!!!! CRAAAAAZY PRICES!!”

The answer is no one. So the plan of action is to maybe find something else to do while you’re eating dinner, like, say… speaking with your family. Then to the serious business of putting a current version of Word with spell check on your Christmas list this year and removing your shift key. Good luck with that.

A pizza, a welshman and a telephone

If you haven’t seen this video yet, this is one of the best complaints I’ve ever heard. I’d rather post original content, but I just couldn’t pass this one by. Enjoy…

The Inaugural Complaint

Hello everyone and welcome to Pen Wars. I’d like to start us off with a personal complaint, which in a way was the catalyst for this blog. If I may, I’ll employ some theatre of the mind to get you in the groove:

A lonely, wet, umbrella-less night

It’s a cold, dark night at a mostly damp Sydney bus stop. A girl sits uncomfortably, perched on the edge of the saturated bench shivering and smouldering all at once.

It has been a 50 minute wait for the bus so far and it’s growing late after the long 9 hour working day. Money’s short as pay day is tomorrow.

The bus is timetabled to come every 20 minutes, and yet only one passes without stopping – overladen with stumbling passengers. Angrily, the girl sticks out her hand to flag a taxi and with her other, impulsively searches in her bag for her iphone.

She furiously writes the following complaint (after the cut)