It’s that time of year. Everyone making top lists. I’m proud to say that Dave Cullen’s Columbine has made it on to 15 Best lists and still counting including NYT, Chicago, Salon, LA Times, Entertainment Weekly, etc.
For the record, here is my Top Ten List of Things I Hate (in 2009):
1) “Apps”
Where's the app for self-loathing?
2)Watching people use their iphone, especially men.
3) “Vacay” and “Staycation”
4) Robert Downey, Jr. and Mickey Rourke robbed at 2009 Oscars.
Sean Fuckin' Penn
5)”Man up.”
6) Jay Leno more than ever
Stinker
7) Did Michael Jackson die?
8) Mad Men withdrawal
I wd die 4 u
9) “Sexting”
10) Upping the Best Picture Category to Ten Oscar Nominations
Nominees or a minyan?
DID I MISS ANYTHING?
Filed under: The End of the World as We Know It |
Betsy Lerner 
More HATE.
1. People who gush and fawn over Mary Karr.
2. Leggings worn as pants
3. Mary Karr, the person
4. Mary Karr’s spiritual awakening
5. SJP in “Did You Hear About the Morgans?”
6. Lawyers
7. Bras and socks that fizzle before their time, aka “Quitters”
8. The feminine protection product known as “Instead” (It should come in different sizes!)
9. Bushwick
10. New Year’s Eve
Word.
Wow–did Mary Karr sleep with your boyfriend, or something?
OMG. You hate apps? I HATE APPS. I just hate the word and the way people go on about them. I’m a Mac person but I can’t stand most iPhone users, especially those who gave me so much crap for being a Mac person before it was cool. /rant
Thank you.
My husband is so guilty of #2, men showing off their iPhones. The way he whips his out at every lunch or dinner table, you’d think he was the first person to ever have acquired one of these fascinating and unique machines. Then . .. he subjects you to all his “daily dinner dish photos” of whichever pasta or risotto he’s cooked over the last two to three weeks .. . . .also love Jen’s comment and completely empathize!
What is it with that, the way every iPhone user thinks they’re the only one to own it? I’ve actually had people tell me I’m just “jealous” because I don’t have one – as if I couldn’t go out right now to any store and buy one myself if I wanted one… yargh.
His risotto and pasta photos? I, um…huh. Not what I think of when I picture “men showing off their iPhones.”
Ohhh, he’s ITALIAN. And you’re in FRANCE. That explains everything. Bitch.
hahahaha. That made me giggle. Because it does *sound* glamorous, doesn’t it? But truth is I live in a 200-square-foot sh*thole studio apartment where the dirty laundry is separated in bags under the kitchen table (in front of the washer, which is hiding in the corner), there’s mold growing in the wall against which my head rests at night, it’s been almost two years and I still can’t find a full-time job, and my husband, while he is an excellent chef and wine guy, also likes to yell at me for, say, leaving the laundry in the washer overnight (when previously he had yelled at me for taking it out and hanging it up to dry, which, he claimed, created such humidity in the hovel that he got sick). . . .so go figure.
So I love that even for a moment someone found something to envy in my life!!!!
Ooooo, Kim, read FAILING PARIS by Samantha Dunn. Your blog is my new favorite thing. I tried to find a way to message you directly, but couldn’t find a link.
“Chillaxin”
Nice!
11) I hate how when you’re numbering something with parentheses, the 8 always turns into a smiley face with sunglasses. 8) There should be an app to fix that.
I thought it was just me.
No, it gets me every time. Then I shamefacedly go back into my edit panel and insert a space into the numbering.
The overuse of the word hilarious. Some people are funny. Some aren’t. But it’s those who aren’t and THINK they are who describe themselves as hilarious. There’s just nothing funny about that.
In fact, I find it frightening.
What about the Kardashians?? They Top my Top 10 List. Why are people watching them?
So, you hate me, you really, really hate me?? But I love my IPhone. : ) Seriously, I do love my IPhone. It’s sad, but true, that I’m in love with an inanimate object. My fave-fave music is always close at handy, email, calendar, the little app that tells me if there are police nearby (seriously), facebook, bejeweled blitz, scrabble, yahtzee, suduko, dragon diction so I can dictate my story ideas and not have to scrounge for a piece of paper, oh, then can email the dictation to myself. How cool is that?? Shall I go on?
How about the word: conversate. Girl, we need to conversate about your Iphone dislike. Okay, I seriously never say the word ‘girl’, but it seemed so appropriate somehow.
Have a great day.
S
I love your blog, Betsy! I was reading it on my iTouch (iPhone’s cousin) the other day. I couldn’t get to my heavy, cumbersome computer, and I needed a quick laugh. Sometimes I need a change after I’ve been reading a depressingly good book that I purchased for my Kindle iPhone app, so I jump over to your page.
They tried to get me a full-blown Kindle, but I had read “The Economist” and knew that more people read books on their iPhone than Kindle. But that was a few months ago, it could have all changed by now.
Tiger jokes. The use of “plummeting” and “skyrocketing” for fluctuations of 10-15%.
And thank you for letting me know I’m not the only person who develops nausea over the directive to “man up”.
“Back in the day.”
“Long story short.”
Betsy, I hope you saw that Dave Cullen’s Columbine made it on MY best-of-09 list. In fact it was #1. Good work.
http://tinyurl.com/ylqnnqz
Also, I hate iPhones, agent-bashing, and all the constant whining that the world is coming to an end because the publishing industry is changing. The world changes, people. Deal with it.
People who say, “Your shoe is untied.”
Also, I hate blog spam! Ugh. More and more spammers are finding my blog and leaving those gibberish comments. I hate hate hate them.
(Sorry, I’m using your blog to vent this morning. Guess I needed the outlet.)
Rachelle, Have your webmaster set up an Akismet Spam file on you site, and it will catch most comment span. You have to periodically empty it which only takes one click. Akismet has caught over 45,000 spam coments since I had it installed. Oh, and it’s free.
The word “sporting” used as a verb in mundane sentences.
Come on people, let’s get serious about things to hate:
1) Notre Dame
2) New York Yankees
3) L.A. Lakers
Whenever someone whips out an IPhone and starts smearing the face of it with their index finger, I whip out my $29.99 cell phone and start smearing the face of it with my middle finger.
“Foodie” and “nabe.” Also, I am so with you on both the iPhones and the Apps. “There’s an app for that,” elicits a fingernails-on-chalkboard response from me.
If you don’t turn this blog into a book called–The Trees for the Branches– I gonna have to start hating that.
Thank you for hating Apps and the 10-movie Best Picture Nominations. THANK YOU.
Hey, my favorite Betsy post ever! haha.
It only took me a day to stumble onto it. And really nice to see you chime in, Rachelle.
I agree with nearly all the hate list, especially the linguistic ones: vacay and man up have to be stopped.
I had no idea the iphone use was causing such pain, though. I sport mine (hahaha) all the time and had no idea anyone was noticing or getting nauseous. I’ve never even owned a mac, but I do love my iphone. Best invention since the Tivo. Now if they could only get the headsets to last more than four months.
Bluetooth, Dave. Bluetooth.
I really liked this one: ‘The use of “plummeting” and “skyrocketing” for fluctuations of 10-15%.’
All the hyperbole on TV “news” makes my eyes roll. Every day they try to convince us the planet was battered around to an unrecognizable state the morning/afternoon/night before. It rarely was.
I’m not feeling especially hateful toward anything (it being the holidays and all), but I dislike being urged to adopt “best practices”.
People who say “Absolutely” for “Yes”. It’s not just that I hate the sloppy lazy conversating that “Absolutely” represents — I absolutely hate the people who conversate like that.
Dave Cullen deserves all the accolades the publishing and reading worlds give him — he wrote an important book and he wrote it beautifully. He makes me hate myself for not writing like Dave Cullen.
gee–am I the only one who actually thinks he’ll like the 10 best picture noms, if only for the greater chance that some weird stuff (e.g. Fantastic Mr. Fox) might actually make it? The Os are so calcified (but yet of course so compelling) that I’ll take something, anything like that to let some air in the building. But I’m sure I’ll be disappointed by the 10 anyway.
Also, I pull out my iPhone at dinner way too often.
This is my first break out of lurker mode- and I’m probably too late on reading this post to be posting…
BUT I would like to add
1) Twitter and tweeting and everyone talking about twitter like it’s gods gift to man
2) the resurgence of 90s fashion (10 years is not enough time to make me nostalgically put those horrible flowered dresses back on)
3) hipsters still moving into my city and sucking all the originality out of it
4. and not just iphones but people constantly pulling out their iphones in mid-conversation to check out an app or text someone.
I agree about the iPhone. I don’t have one and I ‘m glad. I’m very careful about adopting the latest technology.
i do get how sucky it is to whip out the iphone over dinner–or mid-conversation.
i normally never do that, but made an exception while visiting for the holidays. my general rule is that if the dinner/conversation companion is so boring, why bother having dinner or a conversation with them. with my family . . .
haha. it’s not that they are so boring, just inhabiting a different world sometimes. they weren’t necessarily boring, but i was bored. my iphone allowed me to flee, part time, and keep company with some of my friends. hopefully that kept me from getting restless, sad, and frustrated and picking fights.
no fights this year. whew!
People who say “Well played.”
People who call other people “Sir,” especially in the comment sections of blogs.
And the combination of the two is exponentially worse.
I’m WAY late to this party and probably don’t belong since I love my iPhone (though I try very hard not to be obnoxious about using it, much less conversating about it).
But Betsy, I wondered if you’ve seen this video: The iPhone Ad You’ll Never See. It’s a hilarious spoof of the real “There’s an App for That” ad.
Referring to champagne as “champers.”