Top 10 Tuesday: What I’m Not Thankful For
November 20th, 2007 | by Scott |Here is the year-end schedule of top 10 lists:
November 27–Christmas Wishlist
December 4–Blogs of the year
December 11 and 12–Fiction and Non-Fiction Reads
December 18 and 19–Top 20 Albums of the year
OK, it’s Thanksgiving season and I have blogged a lot over the last few weeks about God’s blessings in our lives. But I would risk squelching the curmudgeon in me if I didn’t roll out my yearly list of things that I am not thankful for. Again, it’s all in fun.
10. Christmas before Thanksgiving–If Christmas is officially going to comprise one-sixth of the calendar year than let’s at least move Thanksgiving to one of those months that doesn’t have anything else going for it. Like March. We need a good holiday in March. How about Thanksgiving as the first Thursday of March Madness?
9. High School Musical–Please make it stop. Please.
8. The Writer’s Strike–I am fully supportive of the writers and believe that they deserve a piece of the pie when it comes to on-line revenue. However, because the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers refuse to budge we will be subjected to a line of even worse reality show offerings than usual. I mean, is anyone jonesing for The Celebrity Apprentice, Here Come The Newlyweds, Farmer Wants a Wife, or My Dad is Better Than Your Dad?
7. The myriad of unelectable Presidential Candidates–If you are polling at 5% or under in any state or national poll, will you please just drop out now? Your little internet band is not going to propel you to victory. There is no state you are going to pull off that creates a domino effect. Just go.
6. Perez Hilton and the culture of hatred–It’s not cute. It’s not funny. It’s just mean.
5. Zombies, vampires, Ninjas and all of the asinine Facebook apps. No, I don’t want a candy-cane. Nor do I want to take your quiz 
4. The BCS–It can’t be fixed, so don’t try. The only solution is a play-off system.
3. Taboo subjects–It’s a shame that there are areas that we are so sure of ourselves or afraid to re-address that we can’t have discussion. As a result we have to walk on eggshells and fail to wrestle with the socio-political and religious topics that need to be grappled with.
2. Notre Dame–End the TV contract. They no longer warrant special attention.
1. A refusal to utilize spell-check. Oh, and multiple exclamation points. One will suffice!
What about you?
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Now playing: Ben Kweller - Penny On the Train Track
via FoxyTunes
27 Responses to “Top 10 Tuesday: What I’m Not Thankful For”
By Hero on Nov 20, 2007 | Reply
As a proud Irish woman, I’m here to say there’s a fantastic holiday in March that doesn’t need any bumping from the turkey.
By Scott on Nov 20, 2007 | Reply
Ahh, but think about it. March Madness starts on March 18th in 2008. St. Paddy’s day on the 17th, Thanksgiving and wall-to-wall basketball on the 18th. And then call in sick on the 19th.
THAT is Thanksgiving.
By John on Nov 20, 2007 | Reply
I’m already sick of Christmas, but that comes having taken a job at the mall since my job search is going so slowly. So the thought of moving Thanksgiving is fine with me since I’m going to be dead around it this year anyway. But what would happen with all the big Thanksgiving morning football games? Around here a lot of these are huge rivalries going back 75 or more years.
By Matt on Nov 20, 2007 | Reply
I’m with you on number 8. Where am I supposed to get my news from without new episodes of the Daily Show?
By R-Liz on Nov 20, 2007 | Reply
Regarding #5: I just started Facebook a few weeks ago, and I feel totally overwhelmed. I can throw a sheep at someone? What? And I’m horrible at the witty banter folks seem to leave on each other’s “Wall.” And do I answer someone when they leave me a message on my wall? And if I do, do I leave the message on their Facebook page or mine?
Honestly, I’ve thought about taking down my page b/c the abundance of piddly-crap downright overwhelms me! And I think my ineffectiveness at maintaining the witty and shallow banter with others is seen as indifference.
And I’m so with you on #3. That’s why I love coming here.
P.S. My blog sabbatical has been lifted. For what it’s worth…
By That Girl on Nov 20, 2007 | Reply
I am SO guilty of the multiple exclamation points!!!
I even find myself using them in sympathy cards and there is almost NO way to cover an exclamation point…
You are in my thoughts and prayers!!
By Scott on Nov 20, 2007 | Reply
John, easy solution. Make Black Friday a national holiday. How much more quintessentially American can you get than football and shopping?
Matt, there is no news without the Daily Show.
By Scott on Nov 20, 2007 | Reply
Ruthie, don’t give up on Facebook yet. It is a great way to stay in contact with people. I’ve re-established ties with friends I haven’t seen or talked to in years.
If someone writes on your wall then the “etiquette” is that you write on theirs. And their seem to be some upright bi-pods that can hold an erudite conversation on there.
Terri, exclamation points on a sympathy card? Now, that’s funny. Well, not funny funny but you know what I mean!!!
By Doug Freeman on Nov 20, 2007 | Reply
Scott, what about diet pills in care packages?
By Happy on Nov 20, 2007 | Reply
Okay what’s wrong with not using spell checker?????????????????????????????
Eye dount due topped twinty lisps butt ef eye did u wood bee da furst two no.
By Scott on Nov 20, 2007 | Reply
Dad, it’s not the diet pills in care packages. It’s that you kept sending them.
Happy, I stand corrected.
By justin on Nov 21, 2007 | Reply
Listen.
All I need to do is send your snarky ron paul innuendos to our spambot (aka get a link to your blog at lewrockwell.com) and the traffic will shut you down.
By Scott on Nov 21, 2007 | Reply
Who is Lew Rockwell?
By justin on Nov 21, 2007 | Reply
Lew Rockwell is a true libertarian, anti war, pro freedom, anti statist guy who is friends with Ron Paul, and operates an organization that helps promote Austrian Economics (gold standard, true free trade, etc).
Pretty much all the Ron Paul people read his blog, and they put links up to all sorts of stuff referring to Ron Paul, and if its negative, people usually end up getting bombarded with comments
By Scott on Nov 21, 2007 | Reply
Yikes, that is a frightening picture. As one who eschews all things libertarian I think I will just stay on this side of the blogosphere.
By Jason Bybee on Nov 21, 2007 | Reply
A playoff system in college football would dilute the importance of the regular season. As it stands now, one loss (usually) means you’re out of the national championship hunt. That makes the regular season more important in college football than any other major sport. Honestly, who cares about college basketball until March? Your team certainly has to do well to make the big dance, but the regular season record means so much less in college basketball. Do we really want to do the same to college football? The BCS is flawed, yes, but a playoff system isn’t a perfect solution either.
By Scott on Nov 21, 2007 | Reply
Nobody cares about college basketball (except Greg) until March not because of the play-off system but because it’s not football.
Sure, a field of 64 teams in football would great “dilute the importance of the regular season.” But turn the BCS teams into a play-off system and you still have each loss being a tremendous blow to your chances.
By justin on Nov 21, 2007 | Reply
You don’t eschew all things libertarian. I can guarantee that.
For one, you are anti war. I don’t think that you can be more anti war than a libertarian. Its why many liberals are being drawn to Paul’s campaign. They realize that by reigning in the power given to the federal government (through getting rid of the income tax and the federal reserve) states that are more progressive are free to raise taxes to whatever level they deem acceptable. If a state wants socialism, its theres. Also,when the Federal Government is small, war is less likely. War is a consequence of a strong state. If you have a weak federal government, especially a President who doesn’t choose to use his power to do something because he thinks its a good idea, but cedes his authority to Congress who is more representative of the people, less wars will happen.
Cause war is one of the biggest evils of the state. Not just because of the killing of people who had nothing to do with whatever problem there is, but because in war, the government has the right to say “you must come fight. or you will be thrown in jail”. Its slavery. Plain and simple.
Jason,
Sure, the regular season is important, but its certainly not fair. Strength of schedule doesn’t play nearly as big a part of what’s going on. If a team plays nothing but teams ranked in the top twenty five (which can often happen in the SEC for instance if they’ve got a difficult out of conference schedule) and they lose all their games, they would likely be ranked near the bottom of college football. But you put that same team in like, the mountain west, and they may run the table.
By Scott on Nov 21, 2007 | Reply
Justin, OK maybe not ALL things but most. I just can’t buy into it. I don’t want to get into a prolonged discussion of libertarianism. That might be a good post-Thanksgiving topic but I would imagine it would be very easy to find more anti-war positions than that of a libertarian. As a matter of fact there is disagreement among libertarians about this very war that we are in.
By Jason Bybee on Nov 21, 2007 | Reply
Even with that system, Scott, somebody’s going to get screwed. If you took the BCS bowls and did a playoff system, you’d inevitably come across a season where some “less deserving” team wins a conference championship and gets an automatic bid, thus forcing the “deserving” team to take up one of the at-large bids, which will leave somebody out and everybody will gripe about how flawed the playoff system is. Make no mistake; I’m not necessarily opposed to a playoff system per se, but it’s not the universal solution everybody seems to think it is.
Another problem is the lack of a conference championship game in each conference. It’s hardly fair that an SEC team has to face a grueling regular season schedule and THEN defeat the best team in the other division to have a shot at a National Championship when all Ohio State usually has to do is beat Michigan. Ridiculous.
By Scott on Nov 21, 2007 | Reply
I don’t think a playoff is a perfect solution. However, I don’t see one better. And you are right, someone will always get left out. But it’s the same in basketball.
I think there is far greater possibilities in a play-off system whatever the permutation.
But, how would you answer the problem?
By greg on Nov 21, 2007 | Reply
you guys are just blasphemous…
By greg on Nov 25, 2007 | Reply
“but a playoff system isn’t a perfect solution either.”
Practically every other sport seems to think it works pretty well.
College basketball. The NFL. The NBA. Major League Basketball. Other divisions in college football. They all have playoffs. They all have a champion based on games played on the field, not based on being selected as one of the top two teams by a questionable process.
There’s only way to have a real, valid champion - the way every other sport does - is to play it on the field.
By greg on Nov 25, 2007 | Reply
that should have been Major League Baseball…
By Happy on Nov 25, 2007 | Reply
But probably the two best teams right now won’t make it into the BCS Championship Game.
By Scott on Nov 25, 2007 | Reply
Yep. There has to be a playoff. If this past weekend doesn’t confirm that then nothing will.
By Scott on Nov 28, 2007 | Reply
Although I am excited about a Mizzou-WVU championship game.