This morning, just now actually, I was reminded of something that bugs me.

Let's say I write this in my blog:

It was freakin' cold this morning. Nine whole degrees when I woke up at the crack of 10:00. And yes, I know it's a lot colder than that in other places.

Did you catch that annoying thing that I did there?

I'm annoyed by this use of the "and yes" segue. It just rubs me the wrong way. It patronizingly presumes that the writer knows what the reader is thinking, then it casually dismisses the reader's thought. It's a little argumentative, yet the reader never gets his say. The reader loses an argument that he was never really in to begin with.

Another annoying use of the same segue is here, paraphrased from Slashdot:

It seems that the New Year's Eve fireworks show in Seattle had to be fired manually, because the software that was supposed to run things crashed. And yes, that software runs on Windows.

This time, I still did the patronizing presumption thing, but I also presumed that the reader would agree with me. Again, the reader never gets his say. He suddenly find himself with an ally that he may not want.

Anyway, that's my little rant for now. And yes, I know this was a silly entry.