If there’s one thing that makes me want to smash things, it’s non-human devices that thank me for my patience.  It’s not just the automated voice that interrupts my elevator music every two minutes while I’m on hold scooping flesh out of my face with my fingernails.  Today’s tirade is dedicated to my Toshiba flat screen TV, which thanks me for my patience during the entire sixty grueling seconds that it takes to warm up, while I stand there calculating how many cumulative hours I’ve spent dumbly staring at it with my remote control.  If I had the money, I’d take a sledgehammer to it, but sadly, I can’t afford a sledgehammer.