I feel very strongly about open concept floor plans.

For the blissfully ignorant, an open concept floor plan (henceforth known as an open plan) is one built without walls or formal partitions between living areas. The main living area will include the kitchen as part of a larger room, which may include the family room, living room, etc.

The major advantage of having it that way is fluidity between spaces and the flexibility of the owner to delineate their own boundaries between spaces. I suppose it's easier during parties because everyone's in the same area, and announcements can travel through the whole space easily.

But the disadvantages are legion.

I see open plan homes as homes where the builders were too lazy to put up interior walls. Interior walls are necessary to shield parts of the home from each other. Things like smells, sounds, sights. In an open plan, you cannot run from the mess from one area of the living space. You can see it from the whole open plan. The smell of the kitchen wafts without interference from walls. And it is impossible to have a private conversation - everyone in the all-encompassing room is privy to your words. Walls are necessary to separate different areas, to subdivide your life. 

It is only a very scandal-free, open and organized person that can live in an open plan home. A person devoid of scandals will have nothing to hide. An open person will not feel they have anything to hide. And an organized person will be able to maintain boundaries in their home without the aid of walls. 

In conclusion, an open plan home is suitable only for the latter day Jedi master.

( 300 and pulp fiction )
White guys with acoustic guitar.

White guys with acoustic guitar (thank you for putting a name on it, Todd) are the bane of my musical existence. They seem to exist solely to pick up girls at parties. Yes. Play designated white-guy-with-acoustic-guitar music at party, become centre of attention, make some girls swoon, annoy their partners. I know that's exactly what they intended to do when they lugged it over.

And it's not like white guy with acoustic guitar music is likely to be particularly exciting or heartwrenching or innovative. I mean, the musical range of mainstream white-guy-with-acoustic-guitar music spans from  "Hey There Delilah" (classic wgwag song, sappy, fairly harmless) to "Daughters"(fathers, be good to your daughters SO I CAN FUCK THEM LATER) to "The Lazy Song" (turn the tv on, THROW MY HAND IN MY PANTS).  

I'm sure there are decent white-guy-with-acoustic-guitar songs that don't shamelessly proclaim the cover artist as a sensitive, girlfriend-stealing sap, or a creepy schmuck who is try too hard. There are perfectly good people who play non-mainstream, non-love-songs on acoustic guitar. Those songs are unlikely to be played at parties ("hey, what's that song?" "oh, it's by a band you probably've never heard of" "ok, then... cool"), so they don't fall under this particular umbrella of songs that I'm referring to. 

It's lazy. It's the cheapest way to seem appealing to the greatest number of females at once. All of the white-guys-with-acoustic-guitar sound approximately the same. Thus sound of that particular brand of plaintively singing white guy with acoustic guitar makes me instantly suspicious and slightly outraged, because it sometimes works.