Five Random Things I Dislike

I'm too busy enjoying WDRV's Album Side Thursday to put any serious effort into blogging today, so here's a follow-up to Monday's similarly brainless activity.

• Raw tomatoes. If you stew them, puree them, turn them into salsa, or cook them in any other way, then I'm fine. But raw, they are nasty, squishy, soggy, evil fruit pretending to be a vegetable.
  
• Cooking with the pan handles inward. It annoys me to no end, because if you brown, saute, or mix in something, you need to grip the handle to do it right. I know a legion of mommy bloggers is now thinking, "But that's dangerous!" because kids can reach up and dump hot Hamburger Helper on their heads. Yeah, and they can also get into the knife block while you're struggling to mix in that flavor packet with one hand. The point is you always need to be vigilant of what kids/pets are doing in the kitchen no matter where your stupid handles are. If you're so worried, then move the handles in when you're not gripping them. And you don't need to keep doing it once your kids are old enough to know not to do something stupid like that.
• That new opening for Doctor Who that's apparently just for the American audience. I know there suddenly has been a lot more interest in it starting this season, but do we really need to be told the premise every time we watch? I mean, we may be a former colony, but I think we can follow a basic TV narrative from week to week. And for those of us who have been watching since 2006--let alone the 70s!--it's not just condescending, it's insulting.
• Cover songs on YouTube. You know the kind. Some guy films himself playing a Dylan song or something in his bedroom and puts the video up on YouTube. In theory I'm not opposed to this. You want to share your artistic expression with the world? Fine, be my guest. But there's so many of them! It's really annoying when you're searching for the original version of a song. Seriously, the other day I was searching for a particular U2 song--which I know has an official video that the record company has online--and the first few search pages were all cover songs and fan vids. YouTube needs to figure out how to make the search function precise enough to filter these out.
  
• Bad DVD commentary. No, I don't mean the kind where the commentators end up having their own conversation that has nothing to do with the actual film you're watching. I actually quite enjoy those. There are two types of commentary I don't like. The first is when the commentators get so wrapped up in the film that they forget to talk about it. Now, when it's a really great film, I can kind of understand being speechless for parts of it, but, all too often, the commentators haven't actually seen it for awhile, and so, not remembering much, they just watch it. The second type I don't like is when none of the commentators were in the same room together. For one thing, since it has to be edited together later, it totally kills any spontaneity. For another, I don't want to hear someone talking about the film, I want to hear a conversation among people to whom this film means something.