Current pet peeve:

I updated my virus scan as commanded by the Great Gods at McAfee. Unfortunately, now I have one of those lovely, cryptic .dll errors anytime I go in to run a scan, ie my scan software is dead. So I go over to McAfee's site to find out what happened - obviously, they killed my software and I want them to fix. Well, I got caught in this endless loop of "click here for customer support" and "click here for technical support" or "Go here to have your questions answered." Anyway, I spent 30 valuable minutes on this problem and have now decided to uninstall the software and try it again. I'm not yet ready to cough up money to find out what happened to the software. Especially for a software package which cost less than $20 and it might be worth my while to even go and buy another copy than to spend time running around in circles trying to figure out what vs34398.dll error actually means.

Here's how I compute it:

• Go to Best Buy: At this time of the year, you can't pay me enough to go shopping. That's what amazon.com is for. But with traffic and parking, I'd say this is about $10, minimum
  
• Finding software: Cheap. About $1
  
• Standing in line: $5 easily, plus you have to put up with people arguing over flyers and just being generally cranky during the "most wonderful time of the year." (Yes, I am so bah! humbug about this particular holiday).
  
• Gas, driving time: Make it about $2, as gas prices are dropping, but my driving time is still valuable.
  Grand total: $18
  

Ah yes, opportunity costs...

Keep in mind I still intend to write McAfee a letter re their website. If I can find their email...