Here's a collection of thoughts on some of the things of lesser importance that have bothered me recently. This is likely to become a regular feature here, because sometimes, some things don't really need a whole blog entry written about them! 😂

Dutch customer service

Over the past month or so, I have seen a major dip in quality of the customer service I get from the various services I use. This is especially irritating considering that customer service has never been a strong point for the Dutch, but now it's pretty much non-existent. I understand that mistakes happen, but when they happen frequently and without apology, it's hard not to get upset.

We've had multiple wrong orders delivered, problems with the orders that are successfully delivered (damaged or missing goods), extremely late deliveries, and lazy couriers who can't be bothered to close our gate, leaving it to flap in the wind. Complaints are filed, but I suspect they go straight into the void. Nothing beyond a refund is ever offered. Not even a "sorry this happened, we'll try to do better next time!". So, for the unnecessary services at least, there won't be a next time.

My neighbours

I have beef with two different sets of neighbours right now. One set thought it was acceptable to be screaming along to Taylor Swift at eleven PM on a Monday night and not stop until after midnight. This caused me to have broken sleep, which always tends to lead to a foul mood the next day. So yesterday was rather unpleasant for me and, of course, I had to suffer through some more of the aforementioned shitty Dutch customer service in the evening.

The second set are actually well within their rights to be renovating and making the metric fuckton of noise rattling through the entire block, but that doesn't mean it's not frustrating. Noise-cancelling headphones with the volume up can't really do much for the vibrations, and watching Silo with my husband this morning wasn't the best experience (yay for subtitles, though!).

TV show inaccuracies

Speaking of Silo, which I otherwise love and would probably count amongst my favourite TV shows now, I'm SO bothered by the fact that, without spoiling anything, if the story were anthropologically accurate, everyone would have a similar accent. However, the main character and her dad are portrayed by actors who unfortunately just cannot do solid American accents. It's really distracting to my overthinking. 🙃

The reaction to Five being announced at Download

As a Millennial metalhead who knows a little something about Download Festival, this choice makes nothing but sense. But so many people are angry about it. As if Download are somehow betraying them for daring to give any attention to a cheesy 90s/00s pop group, despite the fact that The Vengaboys were there last year and it was a raging success.

I don't get it. They're not playing the main stage with the rock and metal acts. They're playing a village tent for a little bit of fun. Tr00 metalheads like fun. They also like Five. They're literally "five bad boys with the power to rock ya"!

The "I'm employed" meme

This is the thing that triggered me to write Mainstreaming the Internet Was a Mistake, and I've come to realise that some folk actually take this stuff seriously. There are people out there going about their day thinking that having a job precludes them from having to know anything. It was funny in the context of celebrity/influencer drama, but some are legitimately defending the fact that they don't know about current events due to being in work.

It's so strange that we're allowing capitalism to be the reason we don't stay informed and also telling everyone about it like it's some sort of flex. Why?

The casting of Lev in The Last of Us TV series

I'm not really angry about this, just disappointed. I know it's likely difficult to find trans actors in the right stage of transition at the right age with the right look etc., but I personally would have been more comfortable with them changing the look in order to give a trans actor the job over a cis actor that looks "right". I feel like they're trying to avoid the same backlash from casting Bella Ramsey as Ellie, which is actually the least of their problems after fucking up with season 2 being SO different from the game. I'm actually angrier about that.