Entries Tagged as 'Oakland'

(Cat) Lady of the Night

October 22nd, 2013 · 95 Comments

Dear late-night cat: plz discipline ur lady. kthxbai.

A MESSAGE TO THE LATE NIGHT CAT LADY  1. DO YOU REALLY THINK STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET AT 1 AM AND CALLING IN A HIGH, LOUD VOICE IS THE BEST WAY TO BRING HOME YOUR CAT?  2. DO YOU BELIEVE YOUR CAT CAN HEAR YOUR VOICE AND NOT YOUR NEIGHBORS?  3. DO YOU IMAGINE YOUR NEIGHBORS ENJOY YOU WAKING THEM FROM SLEEP AT 12, 1, OR 2 AM ON A NEARLY DAILY BASIS?  SUGGESTIONS: 1. BRING YOUR CAT IN BEFORE 10 PM.  2. REALIZE THAT YOUR VOICE CARRIES AND THE HOUSES ON THIS STREET ARE CLOSE TOGETHER.  3. CONSIDER GETTING A DIFFERENT PET - MAYBE A GOLDFISH.

related: Please walk your elephant quietly!

Tags: "helpful" advice · cats · most popular notes of 2013 · neighbors · noise · Oakland

Game of Thorns

June 20th, 2012 · 19 Comments

Dear Notewriter: Clearly, you’re not a scholar of Indian religious traditions, so just FYI: “Karma” doesn’t translate from the Sanskrit as “sword-wielding mercenary” or “the guy Liam Neeson played in Taken.”

To the asshole who stole my PLANTS: KARMA WILL FIND YOU AND IT WILL KILL YOU!

(Also, the Knight of Flowers is offended by your insinuations.)

Thanks to Hannah in Oakland for submitting!

related: The Orchid (and Daffodil, and Begonia) Thief

Tags: die bitch die · flowers, trees, houseplants & gardens · karma's a bitch · Oakland · stealing

Or I’ll call the cops, maybe?

June 18th, 2012 · 18 Comments

By the end of the summer, could Carly be the new Kanye of passive-aggressive notes? She does have the Beliebers behind her…

Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, but quit blocking out driveway asshat

related: A little bump and slide

extra credit: Best of the “Call Me Maybe” meme [buzzfeed]

Tags: most popular notes of 2012 · Oakland · parking

Clap Your Hands Say Nah

November 7th, 2011 · 85 Comments

“For the past couple of weeks,” writes Anna in Oakland, “someone in the alley or the building next door to mine has started clapping every day at 8:30 a.m. Just clapping. For at least ten minutes at a time. It’s been driving me crazy, and apparently I’m not the only one.”

Yeah, I can see how that would get old.

Dear neighbor who likes to clap by his open window on the alley early in the morning: Please have some consideration for your neighbors who are still sleeping. Please close your window. Or do your clapping thing in the middle of the day instead of the early morning. Thanks, A neighbor who sleeps later than you.

related: What the hell is going on at this office?

Tags: neighbors · noise · Oakland · WTF?

My Other Kid Could Beat Up My Honor Student

October 19th, 2011 · 80 Comments

Writes Daniel in Oakland: “I love the tension between the ‘student of the month’ sticker on top and the totally passive-aggressive ‘every child is honored’ sticker below it.”

related: The car you drive can say a lot about you as a person.

Tags: car · Moms & Dads · Oakland · schools & teachers

Feel free to apologize

May 16th, 2010 · 39 Comments

“I found this posted on every vertical object within a block radius around Adam’s Point in Oakland,” says submitter JasonP. (I particularly enjoy point #4 of the response.)

Just a point of advice - If you're going to vandalize someone's building, don't be stupid enough to put the same logo on your vehicle and park it 4 blocks away 4 days later. Now I have your license plate number. Enjoy speaking with the cops.   1. I DID NOT

Meanwhile, a set of neighbors in Vancouver, B.C. were tussling over a similar case of mistaken identity.

Feel free to apologise

related: I’m not creepy, in fact…I’m quite gay.

extra credit: “But he was dressed like a ‘gang person,’ you guys!”

Tags: "helpful" advice · CAPS LOCK · exclamation-point happy!!!! · graffiti · mistaken identity · neighbors · noise · Oakland · Oops? · rebuttals · Vancouver · vandalism

Blowing smoke

May 28th, 2009 · 342 Comments

There’s a guilt trip…

Hello Kancer!

And then there’s a guilt trip.

Your barbecue = 9/11

related: Your hamster died? Well, I can top that.

Tags: guilt trip · New York · nice stationery · Oakland · odor · thanks (but not really)

The art of the passive-aggressive note

May 23rd, 2008 · 77 Comments

Sure, it’d be easier and quicker to just clean it up. But the modern passive-aggressive (like Katey in Berkeley’s ex-roommate) can’t pass up the opportunity to make a point.

CAT ACCIDENT ->

A common variation on the Van der Rohe approach, as documented below by Sam in Dallas, is the so-called “Reverse Magritte.”

NOT A TRASH CAN

Meanwhile, post-modern passive-aggressives (like this New York office-worker below) can’t resist throwing some irony into the mix, intentional or not.

WTF? "What the fuck?"

More recently, passive-aggressives have begun to show the influence of the burgeoning neo-pop movement. Our anonymous submitter in Houston, for example, designed the original stamp below for use in his work. “I am an engineer and we have to mark up technical drawings for manufacture,” he explains, in his artist’s statement. “It gets used at least twice a day.”

WTF?

The bleeding-edge of passive-aggressive note-writing, however, lies on the west coast, where Rebecca in San Francisco says that in the past, “We’ve had an ongoing series of notes left in the office kitchen — usually of the ‘your mother doesn’t work here’ or ‘there is no such thing as the coffee fairy’ variety.” The Koons-inspired piece currently on display in the office breakroom, however, makes its point with no words at all.

the Jeff Koons approach

related: Why-fi

Tags: actions speak louder · art · Berkeley · cleaning · Houston · New York · Oakland · obnoxious definition · office · roommates · San Francisco · WTF?

Landmine in my bloodline

February 8th, 2008 · 110 Comments

Nothing could have prepared Lauren in Oakland for the passive-aggressive avalanche that awaited her the other day at her new apartment. She calls the experience of finding the notes totally surreal. “It keeps playing back in slow motion in my mind, from the second I saw the first one hanging over the threshold to my absolute horror and delight at finding an eleventh one hours later on the bathroom door.” Here’s the theme park version!

“I’m not sure anything in particular prompted it,” Lauren says, “but I live, apparently, in some kind of alternate dimension where full-grown adults believe in chore-wheels, so it could’ve been anything — but certainly not ELEVEN things to correspond with the number of found notes. Then again, I’m not a timebomb waiting to explode, so how would I know?”

related: recipe for roommate discord

Tags: blitzkrieg approach · cleaning · ellipses-crazed · Oakland · roommates · spelling and grammar police

Free markets, free people, free papers

October 19th, 2007 · 217 Comments

Another doozy of an apartment manager note from Oakland, California! Our anonymous submitter wasn’t able to save any of those 14 notices, so it’s unclear if any of them were anything like this one.

if only they had consulted m-w.com

related: love, apt. 3

Tags: California · CAPS LOCK · excessive underlining · guilt trip · landlords and property managers · neighbors · newspaper · Oakland · obnoxious definition · stealing