Annoying Places in the World

• Mt. Everest, littered with spent oxygen tanks and deceased climbers bent on "summiting," an annoying word
• Countries that make guitars out of armadillos
• Australia with its violent animals, kicking kangaroos, baby-eating dingos, surfer-swallowing Great White sharks, and biting, scratching Koalas.
• Nissan Pavillion: getting there, being there, getting out of there.
• Afghanistan
• Romania, especially the gymnastics connection
• Cuba, except for their food and music
• Nebraska
• Special pop cult sections in bookstores, like ones for Leonardo DiCaprio, Oprah, and Frank Sinatra
• Celebration, Florida
• Ave Maria, Florida
• Utah
• Miami, for a lot of reasons, including the high level of hositiliy there, the sprawl, and their streets, which are like, South NE West 162nd Street or Joshua Bedlerson Blvd. Things like that.
• Germany
• Café-restaurants inside museums, most of which feature some sort of quiche
• Hotel coffee stations at conferences and meetings
• Mexico
• Nigeria
• Buffalo, New York
• Ireland
• The Pacific Northwest
• Restaurant Sequoia
• Finland, except for the music of Sibelius and their dogs
• Delaware, which in order to attract attention is moving up its political primary to steal the thunder away from New Hampshire

Annoying People and Things in the Arts: Art, Music, Film and Television

• George Saunders
• Celebrity hybrid names: “TomKat” and “Brangelina” and “Bennifer”
• Celebrities who write children's books.
• Programming about subjects like plankton and people who are entertained by them.
• Carson Daly and Tara Reid, both as couple and individuals
• Russell Crowe
• Tom Green
• Jennifer Love Hewitt, especially her nickname "Love"
• Kim Cattrall
• Mindbender films.
• The movie "Dune."
• Uber-Enabler Pamela Anderson, particularly her liver problems
• Anna Nicole. There are simply no words.
• TV show and film plots that involve elite commando squads.
• Frida Kahlo and her eyebrow. Note "eyebrow," not "eyebrows."
• J. Lo "Jenny From the Hood" and her men and their shopping sprees and smootches and photo ops and SUVs and turkey-of-a-movie projects.
• Every single solitary thing about and having to do with the Man Show, clearly the beginning of the end of civilization. My sister cites Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carola as particularly annoying. I trust her.
• The Weakest Link.
• Foreign actresses who act in American films, speaking with American accents, and American actresses who take on roles for Brits, like Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love
• Paul McCartney, his wife Heather, her leg, his daughter, the daughter's clothing designs, his late wife and her vegetarianism, his millions of dollars, and their divorce.
• The Wedding of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones
• Irish song lyrics, as in: Paddy went down to buy a pint and he never came home again, again, no, he never came home again
• The stupid commercial for Kahlua Muddslide, which includes a lame, bogus cover version of the Stones’ Brown Sugar
• Any car commercials except ads for the new VW.
• Especially loathsome are Mazda commercials with that "feel the road" song and Toyota Sale-a-Thon commercials with the manic, screaming emcee.
• Any modern remakes of classic songs and movies
• Television commercials for mutual funds and other financial services that target the rich
• Old Navy commercials on TV
• The difference between violins and violas
• Rapper Li'l Kim
• Actress Annette O'Toole
• Actor Jason Patric
• Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens
• Country singer Jo Dee Messina
• Christian Slater
• Richard Marx
• Oprah Winfrey, especially her book list, film, chefs, and diets
• Kenny G
• Barbra Streisand
• Steven Spielberg
• Jean Claude Van Damme
• Michael Stipe
• Friends cast, especially Courtney Cox, because she’s a good actress who keeps acting in schlock
• Leonardo Di Caprio, especially his eyebrows and recent porkiness
• Marisa Tomei
• The white streak in Kitty Bartholomew's very dark hair
• All celebrity lesbians: Rosie O’Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres, Anne Heche, KD Lang, and Chastity Bono
• Garth Brooks
• Gen X femme singers: Jewel, Fiona Apple, Sara McLachlin, Tori Amos, Sheryl Crow, Paula Cole (especially her crooked mouth), Shawn Colvin, and who cares who else and what they have to say
• They were all at the Lillith Fair, so add that, too
• Steven Seagal
• Untalented sitcom actresses: Tea Leoni, Jenna Elfman, Brooke Shields, and so many more
• Elizabeth Hurley, her loves and frequently broken heart.
• Mariah Carey
• Aerosmith, except Steve Tyler’s lips
• Woody Allen and Soon Yi
• Tom Cruise, the King of Dull
• Katie Holmes, his latest concubine
• Clint Eastwood and his illegitimate kids and ex-wives and ex-lovers, and especially his novel
• Snoop Doggy Dogg
• Puff Daddy (but not P Diddy)
• Burt Reynolds
• Movies with computer characters, like Toy Story and Antz.
• Fabio
• Child actors, especially former child actors like Mac Caulkin
• The cult surrounding Kurt Cobain
• MTV, which doesn’t play music at all
• Bad man Bobby Brown and wife-diva Whitney Houston, except her voice
• David Copperfield
• David Copperfield’s former paid ex-girlfriend Claudia Schiffer
• Celebrities like ET anchor Mary Hart who own homes in Montana and Colorado and Idaho, with the exception of Andie MacDowell and Ted Turner and Robert Redford. They’re all okay.
• Kevin Costner
• Mel Gibson
• Toni Braxton and her taste in evening wear, which revolves around two-sided tape
• R.Kelly, his song about flying, and his 5-part mini-series song
• Peter Gallagher’s eyebrows (the rest of him is OK)
• Jacko
• Jacko’s fecund ex-wife, Deborah.
• Lisa Rinna, especially her lips
• Kathy Lee and Frank, and Frank’s hotel mistress, and Kathy Lee’s children, especially Coty or Cody, and Kathy Lee’s singing voice, and Regis and Kathy Lee’s producer, Gelman, and Regis’ alma mater, Notre Dame.
• Kim Basinger
• Watermelon-smashing, 70s-clothes-wearing comedian Gallagher
• The on-air personalities of Entertainment Tonight (ET), especially Mary Hart and Julie Moran and Jann Carl
• Former ET personality turned New Age musician, John Tesh, especially his cereal box and frequent use of ET to plug his music
• John Tesh
• Yoko Ono, particularly her dark, oversized glasses and way of speaking
• Xtreme artists like Henry Rollins and Prodigy and NIN, especially NINs lead singer, Trent Reznor, but they do have one cool video and so does Tool.
• Michael Bolton
• Minnie Driver
• Billy Zane, especially his eyes and smile
• Julian Lennon
• Peter Fonda’s forehead, which keenly resembles that of an alien
• Carly Simon’s gaping smile
• Steve Tyler’s gaping smile. His lips are okay, but his smile is too big
• Celtic entertainers, including, Michael Flatley and Sinead O’Connor
• Celebrity Scientologists
• Salma Hayek
• Celebrity animal activists, including Tipi Hedren, Doris Day, Bob Barker, Kim Novak, Bridgette Bardot, and especially Kim Basinger with her beagles and elephants Jeremy Irons
• Robin Williams’ furry body
• Jim Carrey
• Faith Hill
• Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, the very fertile couple
• Over-scalpeled divas like Faye Dunaway and Cher
• Beck, I think, but I’m not sure.
• Manic, real mother searching performance artist Reno
• The constantly-muttering Liam Neeson
• Harry Hamlin’s wife Lisa Rinna
• Joan Baez
• Pete Seeger
• Comedians who ‘go’ serious, like Whoopi and Robin Williams and Michael Keaton
• Juliana Margolies
• Holly Hunter’s voice
• The ubiquitous David Sanborn
• Peter Gabriel
• Julia Roberts’s love life
• Eastern European films
• Sex-symbol celebrities who ‘go’ serious, like Sharon Stone
• Non-sex symbol celebrities who ‘go’ sexy, like Janet Jackson and Mariah Cary
• The white-eyed Judy Collins
• Seal’s cheeks
• X Files whiner David Duchovny and his over-acting wife, Tea Leoni
• Dr. Quinn and her viewers’ cult
• CDs featuring the music of bagpipes, didgeridoos, pan pipes and such
• Improvisational jazz
• Jewel’s poetry book
• Sonny Bono’s mom
• Jack Nicholson’s common law something-or-other, Rebecca Broussard, especially her lips
• Robin Givens, whose latest marriage lasted 24 hours
• People who pick on Jerry Springer
• Anthony “Zorba” Quinn
• Filmmaker Ken Burns
• Kirstie Alley
• David Caruso
• Carol Burnett, especially her Tarzan yodel and plastic surgery
• TV judges, especially Ed Koch
• Scott Rudin
• Phone thrower Joel Silver
• Frank Sinatra’s kids
• Pip-squeak bully Gary Coleman
• Montel Williams
• Singer Ray Stevens
• Inside the Actors Studio host and producer James Lipton
• Gauguin
• Lou Diamond Phillips
• Richard Gere and his visit to the Balkans and general political self-actualization.
• Pierce Brosnan
• Robert Altman and all his films
• Warren Beatty
• The Elton [John] II candle collection
• Olivia Newton John, Country Singer. Especially her dolphin-filled music video for the song, “Precious Love.”
• Andre Rieu
• Marlee Matlin
• Any art with the word "virgin" or "vagina" in the title
• Harps and the harpists who play them
• Yoko Ono’s merchandising of John Lennon, especially his art and especially the book of John’s art for Sean

Things Around the House and in the Business World

Around the House
• Those little plugs of lotion and shampoo in pump or squirt bottles
• The last few paper towels that curl in annoying ways while you try to use them
• Floating dishes that move around in the sink while you wash them, causing water to spray all over everything
• re-sealable bags and tear-off strips
• Transformers on appliances that eat up all your sockets
• Remote controls
• Fancy kitchen faucets
• The scrolling menu on cable TV
• When your glass sticks to the coaster and it drips everywhere
• Videotape cases, especially the two buttons
• thermostats
• The "Open Here" spout of paper drink cartons that always gets messed up and torn when you open it
• Can openers, because that little magnet is the dirtiest inch in the house, and because the lid always falls into the can and you have to fish it out by hand
• Men’s designer colognes
• Spray nozzles. They all clog.
• Spice racks, especially the little jars and how greasy and dusty they get and the labels fall off
• Overly-manicured lawns
• Appliances used by people to maintain overly manicured lawns, such as leaf blowers
• The serrated metal strips on plastic wrap and foil and those zip-lock strips that don't work on baggies
• Cotton in pill bottles
• Lids that don’t fit their disposable cups, and cups that crumble and break, spilling their contents over the user
• Postage stamps
• Any tall kitchen bag that isn't drawstring
• Being out of stamps
• Price tags and the sticky gum that doesn’t come off.
• Shoulder straps
• Bra straps
• Eggs and bread because they should be sold in smaller units
• Vacuum cleaners, except Hoover Wind Tunnels, and especiall vacuum cleaner cords
• Reading glasses, especially those tiny screws that are screwed in upside down and fall out so you can’t see them and if you could see them you wouldn’t need eyeglasses to begin with.
• The little strips on official envelopes that say “tear off strip before opening” and you can’t and it gets all chewed up
• The control buttons on my Walkman because when I use them I never know which way the tape is going.
• Personal care products that have “wings”
• The One Book
• Shower stall organizers
• Japanese shoji screens
• Energy savers. On anything.
• Telephones and answering machines and anything else having to do with them, and telephone companies, too.
• Telephone recordings that say over and over, “your call is important to us” and “it will just be one more moment”
• The one single gummed up hair that gets wrapped around the end of a toothpaste tube and you have to unravel it to get it off.
• CD wrappings which consist of a cellophane wrapper, a long sticky label, and a little Mylar strip and you can’t get them off. They have to sell a gadget to cut through them, which tells you that they’re so annoying you need a gadget to get them off, but once you get the wrapper off with the gadget they are less annoying.
• Faulty bathroom fixtures, for example, toilets, towel holders, toilet paper dispensers, soap dispensers, and faucets, including electronic sensors,
• Low water pressure, and no hot water, too
• Safety caps on bottles
• Pantyhose, except Queen-sized
The Business World
• Agribusiness entities, like ConAgra. Especially meatpacking companies.
• Car company mergers: Daimler-Benz, Chrysler, Rolls-Royce
• Nike CEO and alleged slave labor king Phil Knight (he gets a second listing under Sports)
• Starbucks
• Microsoft Corporation, called by its competition as “the Dark Side”
• Marriott Corporation
• ‘Team Rodent’: Disney, or ‘Mauschwitz’ to those who work there
• The stock market, especially ‘corrections’ DC Cablevision
• Raytheon, except for Doug
• 7 Eleven/Southland Corp.
• Tyson foods
• Seagram’s heir and poser movie mogul Edgar Bronfman, Jr.
• Safeway, especially the one at 17th and Corcoran
• Blockbuster
• MCI, especially their multiple solicitations for business
• Outback restaurants
• Corporations
• Banks and banking, especially the requirement at some banks for customers to leave their thumb print on checks
• CVS drugstores
• Businesses that take down your phone number and then they don’t call you when there’s a screw-up
• Amazon.com vs. Barnes & Noble.com
• Beauty pageant pimp Donald Trump
• Dutch grocery conglomerate Royal Ahold, which bought Giant Food
• 101-10 dial around numbers and the corporations who hide behind them.
• Macy’s and their Thanksgiving Day Parade
• Applebee’s
• All commercials using old songs from the 70s
• The “Welcome to Our World of Toys” song from FAO Schwartz
• The Cozy Shack pudding jingle and the Daisy Sour Cream commercials, "What would you do for a dollop?"
• The sign in 500,000 Chinese restaurants that says, “No check please”

Annoying People and Things in the Arts: Art, Music, Film and Television

• Celebrity hybrid names: “TomKat” and “Brangelina” and “Bennifer”
• Celebrities who write children's books.
• Programming about subjects like plankton and people who are entertained by them.
• Carson Daly and Tara Reid, both as couple and individuals
• Russell Crowe
• Tom Green
• Jennifer Love Hewitt, especially her nickname "Love"
• Kim Cattrall
• Mindbender films.
• The movie "Dune."
• Uber-Enabler Pamela Anderson, particularly her liver problems
• Anna Nicole. There are simply no words.
• TV show and film plots that involve elite commando squads.
• Frida Kahlo and her eyebrow. Note "eyebrow," not "eyebrows."
• J. Lo "Jenny From the Hood" and her men and their shopping sprees and smootches and photo ops and SUVs and turkey-of-a-movie projects.
• Every single solitary thing about and having to do with the Man Show, clearly the beginning of the end of civilization. My sister cites Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carola as particularly annoying. I trust her.
• The Weakest Link.
• Foreign actresses who act in American films, speaking with American accents, and American actresses who take on roles for Brits, like Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love
• Paul McCartney, his wife Heather, her leg, his daughter, the daughter's clothing designs, his late wife and her vegetarianism, his millions of dollars, and their divorce.
• The Wedding of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones
• Irish song lyrics, as in: Paddy went down to buy a pint and he never came home again, again, no, he never came home again
• The stupid commercial for Kahlua Muddslide, which includes a lame, bogus cover version of the Stones’ Brown Sugar
• Any car commercials except ads for the new VW.
• Especially loathsome are Mazda commercials with that "feel the road" song and Toyota Sale-a-Thon commercials with the manic, screaming emcee.
• Any modern remakes of classic songs and movies
• Television commercials for mutual funds and other financial services that target the rich
• Old Navy commercials on TV
• The difference between violins and violas
• Rapper Li'l Kim
• Actress Annette O'Toole
• Actor Jason Patric
• Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens
• Country singer Jo Dee Messina
• Christian Slater
• Richard Marx
• Oprah Winfrey, especially her book list, film, chefs, and diets
• Kenny G
• Barbra Streisand
• Steven Spielberg
• Jean Claude Van Damme
• Michael Stipe
• Friends cast, especially Courtney Cox, because she’s a good actress who keeps acting in schlock
• Leonardo Di Caprio, especially his eyebrows and recent porkiness
• Marisa Tomei
• The white streak in Kitty Bartholomew's very dark hair
• All celebrity lesbians: Rosie O’Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres, Anne Heche, KD Lang, and Chastity Bono
• Garth Brooks
• Gen X femme singers: Jewel, Fiona Apple, Sara McLachlin, Tori Amos, Sheryl Crow, Paula Cole (especially her crooked mouth), Shawn Colvin, and who cares who else and what they have to say
• They were all at the Lillith Fair, so add that, too
• Steven Seagal
• Untalented sitcom actresses: Tea Leoni, Jenna Elfman, Brooke Shields, and so many more
• Elizabeth Hurley, her loves and frequently broken heart.
• Mariah Carey
• Aerosmith, except Steve Tyler’s lips
• Woody Allen and Soon Yi
• Tom Cruise, the King of Dull
• Katie Holmes, his latest concubine
• Clint Eastwood and his illegitimate kids and ex-wives and ex-lovers, and especially his novel
• Snoop Doggy Dogg
• Puff Daddy (but not P Diddy)
• Burt Reynolds
• Movies with computer characters, like Toy Story and Antz.
• Fabio
• Child actors, especially former child actors like Mac Caulkin
• The cult surrounding Kurt Cobain
• MTV, which doesn’t play music at all
• Bad man Bobby Brown and wife-diva Whitney Houston, except her voice
• David Copperfield
• David Copperfield’s former paid ex-girlfriend Claudia Schiffer
• Celebrities like ET anchor Mary Hart who own homes in Montana and Colorado and Idaho, with the exception of Andie MacDowell and Ted Turner and Robert Redford. They’re all okay.
• Kevin Costner
• Mel Gibson
• Toni Braxton and her taste in evening wear, which revolves around two-sided tape
• R.Kelly, his song about flying, and his 5-part mini-series song
• Peter Gallagher’s eyebrows (the rest of him is OK)
• Jacko
• Jacko’s fecund ex-wife, Deborah.
• Lisa Rinna, especially her lips
• Kathy Lee and Frank, and Frank’s hotel mistress, and Kathy Lee’s children, especially Coty or Cody, and Kathy Lee’s singing voice, and Regis and Kathy Lee’s producer, Gelman, and Regis’ alma mater, Notre Dame.
• Kim Basinger
• Watermelon-smashing, 70s-clothes-wearing comedian Gallagher
• The on-air personalities of Entertainment Tonight (ET), especially Mary Hart and Julie Moran and Jann Carl
• Former ET personality turned New Age musician, John Tesh, especially his cereal box and frequent use of ET to plug his music
• John Tesh
• Yoko Ono, particularly her dark, oversized glasses and way of speaking
• Xtreme artists like Henry Rollins and Prodigy and NIN, especially NINs lead singer, Trent Reznor, but they do have one cool video and so does Tool.
• Michael Bolton
• Minnie Driver
• Billy Zane, especially his eyes and smile
• Julian Lennon
• Peter Fonda’s forehead, which keenly resembles that of an alien
• Carly Simon’s gaping smile
• Steve Tyler’s gaping smile. His lips are okay, but his smile is too big
• Celtic entertainers, including, Michael Flatley and Sinead O’Connor
• Celebrity Scientologists
• Salma Hayek
• Celebrity animal activists, including Tipi Hedren, Doris Day, Bob Barker, Kim Novak, Bridgette Bardot, and especially Kim Basinger with her beagles and elephants Jeremy Irons
• Robin Williams’ furry body
• Jim Carrey
• Faith Hill
• Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, the very fertile couple
• Over-scalpeled divas like Faye Dunaway and Cher
• Beck, I think, but I’m not sure.
• Manic, real mother searching performance artist Reno
• The constantly-muttering Liam Neeson
• Harry Hamlin’s wife Lisa Rinna
• Joan Baez
• Pete Seeger
• Comedians who ‘go’ serious, like Whoopi and Robin Williams and Michael Keaton
• Juliana Margolies
• Holly Hunter’s voice
• The ubiquitous David Sanborn
• Peter Gabriel
• Julia Roberts’s love life
• Eastern European films
• Sex-symbol celebrities who ‘go’ serious, like Sharon Stone
• Non-sex symbol celebrities who ‘go’ sexy, like Janet Jackson and Mariah Cary
• The white-eyed Judy Collins
• Seal’s cheeks
• X Files whiner David Duchovny and his over-acting wife, Tea Leoni
• Dr. Quinn and her viewers’ cult
• CDs featuring the music of bagpipes, didgeridoos, pan pipes and such
• Improvisational jazz
• Jewel’s poetry book
• Sonny Bono’s mom
• Jack Nicholson’s common law something-or-other, Rebecca Broussard, especially her lips
• Robin Givens, whose latest marriage lasted 24 hours
• People who pick on Jerry Springer
• Anthony “Zorba” Quinn
• Filmmaker Ken Burns
• Kirstie Alley
• David Caruso
• Carol Burnett, especially her Tarzan yodel and plastic surgery
• TV judges, especially Ed Koch
• Scott Rudin
• Phone thrower Joel Silver
• Frank Sinatra’s kids
• Pip-squeak bully Gary Coleman
• Montel Williams
• Singer Ray Stevens
• Inside the Actors Studio host and producer James Lipton
• Gauguin
• Lou Diamond Phillips
• Richard Gere and his visit to the Balkans and general political self-actualization.
• Pierce Brosnan
• Robert Altman and all his films
• Warren Beatty
• The Elton [John] II candle collection
• Olivia Newton John, Country Singer. Especially her dolphin-filled music video for the song, “Precious Love.”
• Andre Rieu
• Marlee Matlin
• Any art with the word "virgin" or "vagina" in the title
• Harps and the harpists who play them
• Yoko Ono’s merchandising of John Lennon, especially his art and especially the book of John’s art for Sean

Humans, Human Life, and What We're All About (including a list of humans who defy explanation)

Annoying Things About Humans
• Certain shoes that make your socks scrunch down
• Nylons in summer
• Paper cuts
• Hepatitis, especially the particularly insidious Hepatitis C
• Multiple births resulting from fertility drug use, and especially the McCaughey septuplets
• stem cells and other words for them, like "pluripotent cells"
• Those nose strip things that keep your sinuses open and the people who wear them
• Spit, especially on sidewalks
• Pimples in your ear
• Mysterious production of nasal secretions during cold weather.
• Blisters, bunions, corns and calluses
• Birth control and its first cousin, ovulation
• Viagra, especially 3rd party payment issues and also celebrity revelations
• Hair in your face
• APOE genes
• Bodily functions, like vomiting and sitting on the toilet, portrayed in movies
• People who look at their earwax, except my dad. He can.
• The whole circumcision controversy, like men who want their foreskins back
• When you sit on a toilet seat and it’s wet.
• When soap gets in your eyes
• When soap gets up your nose
• How when you go to do some minute task your nose starts running or it itches or you sneeze.
• Internet-broadcast surgery like Carnie Wilson's
• Breast milk depositories and lactation centers and especially World Breastfeeding Awareness Week (Aug. 1-7, if you need to know)and ProMom, the non-profit for breastfeeding advocacy
• Dropping something
• When you’re reading a novel and you have to flip back to figure out who a character is or something that happened earlier
• Being sick and having to go out and buy medicine or food
• When you’re walking along and you see a pair of underwear on the sidewalk or along the road
• Bumping your head when you pick up something you drop
• Trying to read the paper when it’s windy
• When you reach for a paper clip and it’s tangled up with a bunch of others.
• Having to alphabetize stuff, like this list.
Humans Who Defy Explanation
• Tom Cruise
• Grover Norquist
• Liza Minelli
• David Gest
• US Senator Orrin Hatch, Composer & Musician (www.hatchmusic.com)
• Architect Frank Gehry
• Filmmaker Harmony Korine, whose picture "Gummo" was voted the worst film of the year. Mr. Korine's filmaking focuses on "ordinary freakishness" and prompts critics to use phrases like "stomach churning" to describe it. In one movie, a person is portrayed as wearing bunny ears while sitting on a toilet and playing an accordian.
• PR Tzar Gerald Cassidy, the Duck-Killer from Stafford County, Virginia
• Ira Rennick, who wanted to build a 42,000 square foot house with 2 bowling alleys and 29 bedrooms in the Hamptons
• Jay Lieberman, who is building a 12,000 foot home in the Hamptons with an $800 shower head and 9 and a half baths.
• The Fairfield, Iowa cat bashers
• Bungling Boulder DA Alex Hunter
• The Ramsey Family
• Marshall Applewhite, even though he’s dead up there with Bo Peep
• Columbia Falls Aluminum Company scumbag owner Brack Dukers
• Airbag thieves
• The jailed heiress who killed her polo playboy boyfriend
• The anti-tank toting Native American whale killers vs. the animal rights terrorist Sea Shepherd crew
• Michael Swango
• Eddie Fisher
• Eddie Fisher. Again.
• The family who lived in Warwick Towers, who caused three fires resulting in the entire building having to evacuate each time

Food and Sports: Two Really Annoying Things That Go Together

Annoying Foods
• Ketchup marked "Fancy Ketchup," as opposed to, I guess, "Unfancy Ketchup" or "Ordinary Ketchup."
• Salt water taffy
• Exotic fruits you can't tell apart, like guavas and papayas and starfruit.
• Bamboo shoots in Chinese food
• Phloem bundles, which are the stringy things on bananas. The term is pronounced FLOM and they carry nutrition to all parts of the banana. In fact, strings on any fruit are annoying.
• The salt on salt bagels and soft pretzels
• Banana-flavored anything
• Garbanzo beans
• Yogurt
• Cheese doodles
• White grape juice
• American cooking, the upscale kind
• Fajitas
• Pruneburgers, a patty made of hamburger mixed with prune puree, and offered in public schools as a healthy low fat lunch alternative
• Brummel & Brown Spread. The newest butter imitator, made with yogurt and vegetable oil.
• Broccoli in Chinese food
• Broccoli in general
• Sourdough bread
• Mayonnaise (vinegar + mustard + eggs = a bad combination), the single worst food ever created. Especially the big restaurant sized gallon jars.
• Japanese food: raw seafood which should be cooked and cooked veggies which should be raw
• Cream cheese and sour cream derivatives, including cheesecake and worst of all, cheesecake pudding and yogurt
• Any and all fast food French fries except McDonalds.
• Curry powder
• Balsamic and other ‘flavored’ vinegars
• Thomas’ English muffins, which aren’t, except for the maple syrup flavored ones. Nor are their bagels authentic.
• The fat substitute Olestra
• Chic foods, including goat cheese, ‘gourmet greens,’ like arugula, and shiitake mushrooms
• How you can’t tell onions from celery from cabbage in Chinese food
• The practice by Chinese and Mexican restaurants of putting lima beans in rice. Green beans and carrots are bad enough.
• Chocolate sodas, like YooHoo
• Other flavored sodas like peach and strawberry soda
• Cereal based on cookies and candy, except for Oreo O’s, which are great.
• Non-dairy creamers, “Dow Cow.”
• Anything involving blooming onions, including Outback restaurant and gadgets used for creating blooming onions
• Shoo-fly pie
• Breakfast cereal, except oatmeal
Really Annoying Things About the Already Annoying World of Sports
• Brandy Chastain
• Kobe Bryant's pitch for Nutella hazelnut spread. As if.
• Any and all things having to do with pro-Volleyball
• Reggie White, Orator
• Xtreme Sports, especially skateboarding, snowboarding, and the language thereof
• Playoffs
• Team-hopping NFL coach George Seifert
• Collegiate auto racing
• Martina Hingis
• John Madden
• Champions for Christ leader Greg Feste
• Any and all pro tennis players
• John Elway’s wife
• John Elway’s wife. Again.
• Michigan’s ex-basketball coach, Steve Fischer
• The sport called, “Speed Golf”
• PJ Carlesimo
• Tara Lipinski
• The cult of golf, for example, conversations about golf, clothes for golf, golf resorts, TV coverage of golf, and especially books, training tapes, and magazine and newspaper articles about golf.
• Speed skaters’ thighs
• Latrell Sprewell
• Baseball. Just what is the infield fly rule anyway? And then there’s all that spitting and picking.
• The NBA, especially players’ proclivity for fathering illegitimate children
• Nike CEO Phil Knight (he gets a second listing under Business)
• Titans’ building their teams new sports stadiums at public expense, especially George Steinbrenner and
• Art Modell
• Trekking and treks
• Notre Dame University
• Ki-Jana Carter
• Norv Turner’s scarred cheeks and neck
• The University of Michigan, especially their colors, “Blue and Maize”
• The New York Jets, especially their crummy quarterbacks and coach named Tuna, and the New York Giants, too.
• Joe Theisman, especially his restaurant in Alexandria
• Mike Tyson
• Derek Jeter
• Sports announcer conversations about groin pull injuries
• The Salt Lake City Olympics
• Redskins owner Daniel Snyder
• Football coach Lou Holtz
• Katarina Witt, especially her Playboy layout

Annoying Things in Current Affairs, the World, and the World of Journalism

Current Affairs and People in Politics
• Joe Biden
• Ann Coulter
• Superior vs. District vs. Circuit Court
• Unregistered voters (what are they undecided about?)
• The Reform Party
• West Nile Virus
• World leaders like Fujimoro of Peru and Vicente Fox, the new leader of Mexico, whose names don't match their countries
• The Ruckus Society
• Scientology, especially as a human rights cause
• Oliver North
• N.J. Governor Christine Todd Whitman, now, thanks to her handlers, is “Christy” to make her more appealing, which can never happen
• Anti-Vivisection and vegan organizations, especially PETA and their cookbooks and their www.jesusveg.com
• The US Congress
• The Year 2,000 Computer Bug or Y2K
• The NEA
• Orrin Hatch (see second mention under Annoying Humans section, ref "People Who Defy Explanation")
• Newt Gingrich
• Christian Coalition imp Ralph Reed
• Hindu pilgrims bathing in the Ganges
• Paula Jones
• All of Bill’s other babes
• Susan Carpenter-McMillan
• Babe Buchanan
• Roger Ailes
• Gary Bauer and the Family Research Council
• The Rutherford Institute, especially Paul Whitehead
• “Bibi” Netanyahu
• Perennial Maryland political candidate Ellen Sauerbrey
• Glendening vs. Sauerbrey
• Haley Barbour
• Kenneth Starr
• Lucienne Goldberg and lucienne.com
• Trent Lott
• The last New York State Senatorial campaign.
• Alan Dershowitz. Sometimes. Not always, but when he is, it's really bad..

The World of Journalism
• Joe Scarborough
• Post-mega deal Katie Couric, particularly her frequently changing looks.
• Former Post columnist Mike Causey, now working for the Washington Times after working for a failed dot com
• the paper the Sunday New York Times Magazine is printed on
• The Blue Sheet
• Dee Dee Myers, especially her hair.
• Greta van Susterern
• The crowd on the streets outside the Today show
• Gossip columnist George Whipple II, especially his bushy eyebrows
• National Public Radio (NPR)
• The late Murray Kempton
• Laura Ingraham, who once clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas. Especially her dark eyebrows and her new book, "The Hillary Trap."
• Local news directors
• Bob Woodward
• CNN’s weather people
• Rush Limbaugh
• Job-lover William Safire
• George Will
• Tim Russert
• Rodent-like and overly-intense CBS This Morning critic John Leonard
• Channel 4 reporters Debbie Lockhart, IJ Hudson, and Pat Collins
• PJ O’Rourke
• Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens
• Articles that continue on other pages further in the back
• Multiple scent strips in magazines
• News anchor Catherine Crier
• Maria Shriver’s monstrous cheekbones or jawbones or whatever they are, but I love her book.
• The “Style Invitational” in the Washington Post, which I either never get, or it’s simply not funny
• The Business Section of the Washington Post
• Reporters who over-pronounce Spanish, like ‘El-Sal-va-DORHH’ so people know they speak the language
• ESPN’s odious program, The Sports Reporters
• All Fox News Channel anchors but not Brit Hume. I like him.
• George Stephanopoulos
• Chris Matthews
• Journalists with eyes that always look dark and dilated, like NBC correspondent Bob Hagar, ESPN correspondent Bob Ley, and Peter Jennings
• MSNBC filming Imus eating breakfast
• Documentaries about animals, especially ones about monkeys, chimps, baboons or sharks