some things really rip my knickers
more so the last couple of months than any other time 
at the moment I'm rippped by....
1. buying bags at Pak 'n' Save... which Andy will only be able to do after walking over my dead body
- it's the principle of it all... if I'm going to spend $300 the least they can do is give me a few freaking bags 
2. how the food they actually serve at Mc Donalds never (ever) looks like it does in their marketing material
- my Deli Choices always look like they've been dragged 10kms by a bus over a wet road 
3. international shipping issues
- I wont repeat myself, see Goodbye Linksys hello Logitech and a big :P to Amazon... for full rant 
4. and last but by no means least... the "Sorry, Unable to process request at this time" error 999 message that Yahoo! Answers has been consistantly throwing at me for the last 5 or so days 
- It's frustrating in itself but what's more frustrating is the lack of "hope" that the issue will be resolved anytime soon. With Yahoo! Answers it's been going on for months, and if you look back at some of the documentation / writeups about the same error 999 issue with regard to other Yahoo! services, it actually goes back a couple of years.
If you fire off an email to Yahoo! Customer Care you get their stock standard reply, which is does't really help as it's almost identical to the error thrown into your browser...
Hello,
Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.
We're sorry you've had difficulty accessing Yahoo!. The error you received is typically caused by unusual activity from either your computer or your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to Yahoo!. While this type of problem is usually temporary, if you continue to experience this error, we recommend that you try the following suggestions:
1) Contact your ISP and let them know you are experiencing connectivity problems with Yahoo!. You may have difficulty accessing Yahoo! if we detect unusual network traffic coming from your ISP. Only your ISP will be able to address and resolve this abnormal activity.
2) Check that you are not using any third party software program or application to access Yahoo! services. Please keep in mind that these types of programs are not supported by Yahoo! and may violate our Terms of Service, and therefore may contribute to your receiving this error.
3) If you have not scanned your computer for spyware and viruses, please do so now. Some spyware programs and computer viruses will run separate programs on your computer for a variety of purposes, sometimes slowing your computer down in the process, and even preventing you from accessing certain Internet sites such as Yahoo!.
For detailed information on virus protection, please visit:
http://security.yahoo.com/malware.html
For detailed information on spyware, please visit:
http://security.yahoo.com/spyware.html
4) You may want to try accessing Yahoo! through a different computer or through a different Internet connection.
We hope this is resolved for you soon so that you may continue to use Yahoo!.
Regards,
Yahoo! Customer Care
*cough* 
It seems there is a lot of variation with regard to what actually causes the error 999 issue and what resolves for some, there is a great article Yahoo Error "Unable to process request at this time -- error 999" over at murraymoffatt.com which was well worth the read if only for background and to work your way through the summary of suggestions... but it wasn't really specific to my situation of Yahoo! Answers so I ended up wrapping my eyeballs around the post Reoccuring problems with error 999 over at the Yahoo! Answers Suggestion Board. The suggestions were relevant but alas there was nothing earth shattering in regard to a cure for my own situation but while "hope" was well and truly out the window I had found "companionship" which really is the next best thing... there's nothing like being able to spit out your frustration to another soul also suffering the same fate.. a problem shared isn't really a problem halved.. but a good b*tch sure helps to shoot a cool breeze through your overheated bloomers 
After many frustrating hours of running through the obvious I came to the conclusion that (for my situation):
spyware / virus not an issue
cookies, not an issue
IP number not an issue (we disconnected our router to obtain another IP... same problem)
3rd Party programs, not an issue (I closed down all Yahoo! Services, RSS feeds etc and just made sure there was only one connection to Yahoo's servers)
Time, not an issue, I didn't go near Yahoo! Answers for 3 days, on my return, I was immediately smacked with the same error 999 message 
but all was not lost, enter brief glimmer of hope... Yahoo! ID
I had killed off my own Yahoo! ID (a Level 7) by this point and I was unable to post anything on Answers using it so I switched to Andy's Yahoo! ID (Level 6) it worked a treat.. for approximately 5 posts and then I managed to kill his off too 
I then logged into Yahoo! Answers with yet another Yahoo! ID (Level 1) ... and it worked a treat... but I hit my daily limit (20) and I was unable to answer anything else but thw ID had a far greater lifespan (20) than the others so I'm kinda swinging towards the fact that if I didn't use my daily limit I would still have been able to happily post until the cows came home.
Next day I got up and decided to start from scratch: scan (nothing), cookies (killed all and started fresh), IP (generated a new one), 3rd Party apps (none, I killed off my RSS program) and off I went.
I managed to get in a post... woohooo!
second post.... error 999.... grrrr!
False hope really messes with your head!
Insert a little bit of plonking:
I soon found out that I could get a certain increased lifespan from my Yahoo! ID if I didn't post any links in the Source field, as soon as I did I was immediately greeted by error 999
so I moved the source links to the main body of the answers, no error 999 and it let my post through, this lasted for approx 15 or so posts... then I was once again smacked with error 999
At this point I exited the room bloomers blazing 
and in stepped Andy 
after a couple of hours of twiddling here's what he managed to work out:
I could use my Yahoo! ID quite happily and answer whatever I liked when I liked so long as I didn't post any links or information that contained the text, not just urls, wackyb.co.nz
if he changed my links and any text from wackyb.co.nz to wackybc.co.nz (or d or g etc) I was in with a grin.. but that kinda defeated the purpose as it made the links invalid but Andy being Andy he fiddled... where I am not allowed to 
... and he created a tiny url generator which meant I could post links for wackyb.net that redirected to .co.nz ... the wee gem 
so for me, in this situation, the error is without doubt text string related... don't enter wackyb.co.nz and I was all good to go, but enter wackyb.co.nz and I was a dead duck.
Just to explain my "need" for being able to post links and why not being able to is such a knicker ripping issue for me... all of the questions I answer fall under the tech support bracket, not everyone can pull off a preference or file change by text alone, some need supporting graphics to help them through, and then some answers really need a lot more information to go with them, the explaination I guess, behind why something happens or why / how a solution actually works... to me it's pointless posting information that isn't supported by background... how do ppl learn or even begin to understand if there is no explaination as to why it occured in the first place or how it is be resolved just by following some outlined steps.. they can't... hence the supporting links which all provide more information if / when needed 
By now the day had passed and it was really late so I took my still smoking bloomers off to bed, got up the next morning, set about answering using Andy's tiny urls and decided to beat my head against the same door without them to see how long I lasted first... and I lasted for the entire day... 41 links directly to our .co.nz got through... no error 999 at all! Has my error 999 issue been resolved? I think not, I honestly believe it's just a "now quirk" but that's ok, I don't have "hope" that error 999 will ever be fully addressed but what I do have is a work around for it... so later on today if I find the time to hit Yahoo! Answers I can do so knowing that should error 999 slap me in the face I can smack it right back with a tinyurl
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as the address is long to begin with.. but it can make some neater 
my pet hate at the moment is providing proof of identity, firstly how a birth certificate with no photo or signature.. printed on plain paper is any form of id :
secondly why my drivers licence with photo id and tons of security features built in is not sufficient... and how is getting someone that has known you for over a year to sign any form of id what so ever!? :- you could have lied to them when you first met... your priest or doctor doesnt ask to see your passport when you first meet them.... grrrrrr... 
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