Posted 7/08/2005 05:25:00 PM by Douglas

A disturbingly banal and increasingly common approach to writing about things without actually trying: Lists. There's an endless array of them, in every corner of the internets, providing you with one of two things. They're either a countdown of "ways" that would make a grocery store woman's magazine seem informative ("ways" to find a man, "ways" to lose your man, etc), or a countdown of the "best" or "worst" of something you're probably only vaguely interested in to begin with. In order to keep from being left behind in this burgeoning new field, I present Enthalpy's List of Pointless and Totally Useless Lists. So here it is, ironically, in no particular order. Enjoy!

1. Top Ten Favorite Words (Not in the Dictionary). Impress your friends! Vanquish your enemies! Condescend to co-workers because you know some words that are so freakin' cool, the dictionary is scared to include 'em. That's right. . . . scared.
2. FBI's Ten Most-Wanted Fugitives. I have no idea what their success rate is when it comes to the apprehension of the FBI's Top Ten, but I've always thought it was a source of pride for a fugitive to finally make the cut. Not unlike the Who's Who of American High School Students, except without the keep-sake photo book they try to sell to your grandma.
3. Top 100 Albums of the 1980s. This one fuses together two recent popular obsessions. Lists, and the 1980s. I guess we're far enough removed by now to have some sort bizarre fascination with feathered hair and parachute pants, but take it from a survivor: It sucked. Hard. But what would a list of lists be if it didn't include some blow-hard's synopsis of some random Talking Heads album? Nothing, I tells ya.
4. Top 10 celebrity excuses. Excuses for what, you might ask? Your feigned indifference towards their pointlessly decadent lifestyle? Excuses for their less than stellar performance in that crappy movie you were forced to watch on the plane to Newark? It could be an excuse for why they're stalking you, or for their very existence. I don't know, but I'm glad CNN's there to keep track of all this for me.
5. 10 Things Your Contractor Won't Tell You. In reality, there's probably a lot more than 10. Do you think he'd tell you if you had a big honkin' piece of spinach in your teeth, or if your fly was down? What if you had a big greasy snoogie hanging out your nose, and it receded into your nasal cavity with ever inhalation, only to reemerge as you let out a sigh over the tile samples he was showing you? Do you think he'd tell you that? Of course not. Bastard.
6. Top 13 Most Overrated Songs. As rated by the International Federation of Song Raters. Well, no, and therein lies the rub. Here's yet another list of overplayed crap that someone got tired of listening to on the radio. There's a solution for that, and they come on these little round plastic disks with holes in them. They're called CDs, and you can pick 'em up almost anywhere, and then not be subjected to Hotel California by one of ClearChannel's DJs ever again. Unless you want to.
7. Most Unwired Cities. I lay a challenge to you, the unwired cities of America: Get Wired! When I first saw this one, I thought it was a list of "The Most Underwired Cities", but sadly, this has nothing to do with boobies. Imagine my disappointment.
8. America's [top 25] Revolutionary Athletes. Sadly, I have not been able to find the top 25 list of America's Most Athletic Revolutionaries. You wouldn't know by looking at him, but Eldridge Cleaver was quite a pole vaulter, and the Symbionese Liberation Army's time in the four man, 800 meter relay was unbeatable. Patty Hearst was the anchor leg.
9. 28 Ways to Save on Vacation. Ah yes, the randomly numbered list of things a common garden slug already knows. If you need to be told that your hotel is going to rape you on your phone bill if you use their long distance (#22), chances are you're not smart enough to work the lock on the door, either. You'll probably be better off staying home, drunk in your wading pool.
10. Ten Ways to Spice-Up the All-Star Game. Are you wondering why the TV ratings for the All-Star game has been shrinking in past years? Me neither, but if you were, here's your opportunity to disagree with some yahoo at Sports Illustrated (which is neither a Sport, nor Illustrated, but I digress.)

There are countless others, but I can't make fun of them all.