Card games inflight drive me nuts. The sound of shuffling the cards is very loud on a flight. I'm not sure why, considering the cabin can be loud anyway if you're sitting behind the engines. Perhaps because it's such a completely different type of sound than anything else on the plane.

When I'm home playing poker with buddies, the sound of shuffling doesn't bug me at all. Just on airplanes.

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One unrelated thing I noticed a couple of months ago: I was boarding a late-night ORD-MCI flight on United. A 757, very lightly loaded, maybe 50-60 pax total. I had already upgraded using an e500. I'm standing about 30 feet away from the GA when I notice a couple come up and ask for preboarding. The weird part is that I actually was a casual acquaintance of the couple: they're late 50's/early 60's and fairly visible members of "society" - wealthy donors to the arts and all of that. Nice people and all, but they definitely like to play the "DYKWIA?" card a lot. On the ground, I'm sure it works at restaurants, theatre, etc.

The GA, seeing that they don't need assistance, attempted to tell them to board with their group. They insisted, a little bit of back-and-forth went on, and finally the GA gave in and let them preboard. I was surprised...I wanted to say "hi" to them but just assumed they'd be in F and I'd catch them on the plane. Anyway, I boarded after them with just enough time to peek back and see them settling in at about Row 20. I waved, smiled, and made my left turn to Row 6. United OLCI usually tries to upsell this upgrade for $65 - I'm still surprised they didn't buy it. Maybe 5 of us total in F...

In any case, pax who don't need preboarding but grovel for it are a tad annoying. On a mostly-empty 757 it doesn't really affect anyone else, but still...