I'm reading through this list and I can't see one I disagree with yet. Ugh. Now I'm depressed, too.
714 Things to Be Cynical About
By Rick Bayan
If you still have any illusions that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds," you're about to lose them right here! Read my personal list and enjoy the bitter pleasure of cynical commiseration.
Be warned: it's a LONG list. If you have to break for dinner or electroshock therapy, I'll understand. (Just use the handy numbers to remember your place in the list, so you can pick up where you left off.)
As long as it is, my list only scratches the surface. If you're not too depressed by the time you reach #714, be sure to add your own contributions to the public list.
1. leaders 2. followers 3. outlaws 4. lawyers 5. backstabbers 6. brown-nosers 7. yes-men 8. middlemen 9. alpha males 10. women who try to be alpha males 11. good ol' boys who become president 12. bimbos who become celebrities 13. all other celebrities 14. prima donnas 15. dictators 16. people who take dictation 17. workaholics 18. slackers who pretend to be workaholics 19. slackers who don't pretend to be workaholics 20. hypocrites 21. charlatans 22. MBAs 23. mindless office drones who get promoted to management 24. conformists 25. nonconformists 26. poseurs 27. people who use pretentious French words 28. bores 29. boors 30. weasels 31. barracudas 32. pedophile priests 33. leeches 34. internal parasites 35. investment bankers 36. old-money snobs 37. new-money snobs 38. fashion snobs 39. food snobs 40. health-and-fitness snobs 41. "I'm hipper than you'll ever be in your dreams" snobs 42. upwardly-mobile career snobs 43. "team players" 44. negotiators 45. the fine print 46. broken contracts 47. overbooked flights 48. canceled concerts 49. annulled marriages 50. returned gifts 51. recalled automobiles 52. planned obsolescence 53. knowing that your two-year-old $2000 computer is now a mere toy 54. $500 electronic handheld organizers that are almost as efficient as $30 loose-leaf organizers 55. 27-year-old Silicon Valley millionaires 56. computer literacy replacing literary literacy 57. computer viruses 58. software bugs 59. unfathomable computer video games that are instantly mastered by subliterate pre-adolescents 60. the values instilled by video games (if it gets in your way, nuke it) 61. thinking about a future society run by people nurtured on video games 62. watching helplessly as a full day's work is eaten alive by your PC 63. watching the hourglass hang for two, three, four minutes 64. "application has stopped responding to the system" 65. "server does not have a DNS entry" 66. spending three hours on the internet in a futile search for information 67. the fact that you could have obtained the information in three minutes by opening a book 68. the proliferation of websites featuring naked people exchanging bodily fluids 69. the fact that those websites are more popular than yours or mine 70. spam! spam! spam! spam! 71. losing half our free time to internet addiction 72. losing most of our day to meaningless work 73. having to play office politics 74. having to play golf with your superiors 75. the term "superiors" 76. the term "subordinates" 77. cubicles and other sensory deprivation cells 78. people who thrive in cubicles 79. people who thrive on 14-hour workdays 80. people who take their cell phones on vacation 81. "A" students who end up working for "C" students 82. "It takes money to make money" 83. "It's not what you know, it's who you know" 84. the "power words" used on resumes to impress employers 85. the fact that employers are impressed with power words on resumes 86. college graduates who have to settle for a job at Blockbuster 87. the salaries of liberal arts graduates in the business world 88. the miseries of liberal arts graduates in the business world 89. prostituting yourself for less than a prostitute makes 90. staying at a job you detest because the alternatives are even worse 91. people who get promoted on the basis of the right shoes or haircut 92. people who get promoted because they resemble their vice president 93. executive bonuses that exceed your annual salary 94. the "fast track" 95. the "glass ceiling" 96. being underemployed 97. being overworked 98. being reprimanded 99. being ignored 100. being framed 101. being demoted 102. being moved into the hallway 103. watching everyone but you rise to the level of their incompetence 104. the annual incomes of CEOs 105. the writing ability of CEOs 106. multimillion-dollar "golden parachutes" awarded to dismissed CEOs 107. the practice of terminating veteran employees a year before retirement 108. the term "terminating" 109. "leveraging" 110. "targeting" 111. "impacting" 112. calling downsizing "rightsizing" 113. downsizing profitable companies for the sole purpose of wooing investors 114. the fact that investors reward companies for downsizing 115. the fact that companies now exist primarily to woo investors 116. bonuses and stock options for executives who "trimmed the fat" 117. diet plans -- all 2,178 of them 118. joggers who perform ostentatious stretching exercises in public places 119. fitness zealots who carry hand weights when they walk 120. self-infatuated bodybuilders who know all their muscles by name 121. health-food fanatics who faint at the sight of a cheeseburger 122. health-food fanatics who smoke 123. anorexia nervosa (just put the food in your mouth and CHEW!) 124. restaurant patrons who send back perfectly edible food to impress their dinner dates 125. snippy waiters who would rather be snippy actors 126. waiters who tell you their name, call themselves "servers," and expect a 25% tip 127. waiting half an hour for a salad 128. waiting twenty minutes for your check 129. fussy, oily yuppie cuisine 130. anything with pesto sauce 131. "herbed" anything 132. "fruited" anything 133. anything with ingredients that require you to consult a glossary 134. gated communities 135. $600,000 yuppie homes on 1/4-acre lots 136. yuppie parents jockeying to get their child into a prestigious nursery school 137. the growing gap between haves and have-nots 138. doctors marrying doctors 139. lawyers marrying lawyers 140. men marrying men 141. computer geeks marrying computer geeks 142. professional jargon: the Tower of Babel revisited 143. the fact that people expect you to understand their jargon 144. "newspeak" 145. "groupthink" 146. "Big Brother is watching you" 147. totalitarianism 148. mass movements 149. mass media 150. mass murder 151. mass marketing 152. telemarketing 153. the pathetic scripts read by poor underpaid telemarketing agents 154. saying "yes" so we don't hurt the poor underpaid telemarketing agent's feelings 155. junk mail 156. the time we spend sorting through junk mail 157. the fact that junk mail is written by people who wanted to be writers 158. "Urgent: Reply Requested!" 159. "You may already have won!" 160. "If you're the winner, we will say MR. OCCUPANT HAS WON $9,000,000.00!" 161. "A special offer exclusively for Mr. Occupant" 162. "No strings attached!" 163. "FREE GIFT!" 164. "FREE TRIAL OFFER!" 165. televised trials 166. medieval trials (if you drown, you're innocent; if you float, you're guilty) 167. the irrelevance of the truth in all trials 168. jury rigging 169. plea bargaining 170. murderers acquitted because their side had smarter lawyers 171. innocent people sentenced because the OTHER side had smarter lawyers 172. convicted murderers paroled after serving six months of a life sentence 173. prisons that offer free education, VCRs, and complimentary mints on the pillows 174. legal loopholes 175. divorce settlements (both spouses lose; both lawyers win) 176. lawsuits by people who spill coffee on themselves 177. lawyers who encourage lawsuits by people who spill coffee on themselves 178. the absurd amounts of money awarded to people who spill coffee on themselves 179. the absurd amounts of money awarded to lawyers who prosecute lawsuits by people who spill coffee on themselves 180. the cost of private medical care 181. the tyranny of managed medical care 182. the inefficiency of public medical care 183. dying during a tonsillectomy 184. the fact that your death will be referred to as a "negative patient healthcare outcome" 185. health insurance companies that force hospitals to release patients as soon as the anesthesia wears off 186. health insurance being denied to the people most likely to get sick 187. health insurance as a capitalist enterprise 188. health insurance that covers 80% of a $500,000 medical bill 189. having a heart attack two days after your health insurance expires 190. the effects of age and gravity on the human body 191. shrinking from your original height 192. going senile 193. losing control of your bladder as a reward for reaching old age 194. drugs whose side effects are worse than the disease 195. cancer: opportunism incarnate 196. dandruff 197. gout 198. flatulence 199. herpes 200. psoriasis 201. Alzheimer's disease 202. Tourette's syndrome 203. St. Vitus' dance 204. hemorrhoids 205. chronic sinusitis 206. yeast infections 207. athlete's foot 208. gum disease 209. crotch rot 210. mad cow disease 211. elephantiasis 212. crabs 213. male-pattern baldness 214. irritable bowel syndrome 215. having to worry about your blood pressure and cholesterol 216. the fact that worrying about your blood pressure and cholesterol will probably raise both of them 217. the fact that virtually everything that tastes good can kill you 218. subsisting on granola only to find that it contains more saturated fat than two Big Macs 219. the wretchedness of heart-healthy diets (we are not RABBITS!) 220. regaining more weight after a diet than you lost during it 221. people who watch their fat intake and keel over at 47 222. people who eat lard, smoke two packs a day, and live to be 97 223. the likelihood that the survivors were also much HAPPIER during their long lives 224. suspecting that you'll be more like #221 than #222 225. the smugness of lucky people 226. the smugness of high-school in-crowders 227. the even worse smugness of art-world in-crowders 228. the empty pretentiousness of most modern art 229. performance artists: street loonies with foundation grants 230. artists who gain attention by exhibiting their own bodily excretions 231. artists who pass off collections of scrap metal as sculpture -- and have them deposited on idyllic college campuses 232. artists who decorate an empty canvas with one horizontal stripe 233. art critics who see profound meaning in an empty canvas with one horizontal stripe 234. movie critics who give rave reviews to bad films so their names will appear in newspaper ads 235. critics who call every passable film or play a "masterpiece" 236. critics who trash a film, play or book for the chance to turn a clever phrase 237. designated bestsellers stacked four feet high in the bookstore window 238. good books going out of print because nobody knows about them 239. nondescript chain bookstores driving out quirky independent bookstores 240. celebrity authors who earn more for one ghostwritten book than 100 editors make in a year 241. the state of publishing today 242. the state of Nevada 243. sleaze 244. bogus fun 245. bogus ANYTHING 246. breast implants 247. sex-change operations 248. bad toupees 249. good toupees 250. blazing white dentures 251. used-car dealers 252. chain letters 253. pyramid schemes 254. people who refer to pyramid schemes as "multi-level marketing" 255. euphemisms like "differently abled" and "mentally challenged" 256. oxymorons like "military intelligence" and "corporate culture" 257. "Catch-22" situations; e.g., "you can't get a job unless you already have a job" 258. millionaire ballplayers who grumble about their salaries 259. artificial turf, polyester uniforms, costumed mascots and other tackiness on the field 260. team owners who fire managers for losing the World Series 261. free agents who jump from team to team like hungry fleas 262. boxers who bite off their opponents' ears or other body parts 263. "great white hopes" = great white dopes 264. college football teams made up of convicted felons 265. pro football players who either strut ostentatiously or pray ostentatiously each time they score a touchdown 266. female sports reporters allowed into men's locker rooms 267. male sports reporters allowed into women's locker rooms (as if!) 268. sports teams with singular names; e.g., the Utah Jazz 269. sports teams with absurdly incongruous names; e.g., the Utah Jazz 270. sports parents who browbeat their kids for screwing up on the field 271. asinine chants of "We're #1!" (Americans always have to be #1) 272. sports fanatics who live vicariously through their teams 273. nerds who live vicariously through "Star Trek" 274. anyone who lives vicariously through any soap opera 275. celebrity worship 276. wealth without taste 277. taste without wealth 278. shamelsss celebrity promotional vehicles like "Entertainment Tonight" 279. John Tesh, shameless composer 280. "Candle in the Wind" 281. eulogies delivered by clergymen who didn't know the deceased 282. how we forget good people after their deaths and remember Attila the Hun 283. Gresham's Law: the bad drives out the good 284. the worldwide triumph of cockroaches 285. the worldwide triumph of rats 286. the worldwide triumph of American popular culture 287. absurd foreign imitations of American popular culture: Russian nightclubs, Czech rock groups, Japanese jazz bands, Turkish soap operas 288. the profitability of bad taste 289. the bad taste graveyard: disco, leisure suits, velvet clown paintings 290. pinkie rings and gold chains on wealthy building contractors 291. bad art in hotel/motel rooms 292. the fact that those bad artists can afford to stay in hotels with GOOD art 293. romance novels with Fabio on the cover 294. Elvis and Princess Diana collectibles 295. the fact that the majority of autographed sports collectibles are fakes 296. the need to purchase separate shoes for walking, jogging, tennis and basketball 297. selling advertising space on anything that doesn't move and some things that DO (buses, stock cars, Olympic athletes) 298. people who sell cemetery plots or penny stocks over the phone 299. ingenious high-pressure sales tactics that make us feel stupid if we say "no" and even stupider after we say "yes" 300. buying things on sale: spending money to save money 301. annual "going out of business" sales 302. people who spend an hour clipping coupons so they can save 87 cents 303. receiving Christmas catalogs in August 304. discovering there's no Santa Claus 305. the ugly, insanely popular, hard-to-obtain toys that parents must buy to appease their children 306. the fact that parents NEED to appease their own children 307. cheap toys with hundreds of dollars worth of accessories to buy 308. toys merchandised as movie tie-ins 309. the licensing of dead celebrities 310. people who gain an identity by wearing t-shirts with commercial logos 311. "As seen on TV!" 312. the bewildering success of home shopping channels ("Who would ever watch nonstop commercials?," asked the cynic) 313. infomercials for psychic hotlines, motivational tapes, exercise machines and baldness remedies 314. people who have nothing better to do at night than watch infomercials 315. people who promise they'll call but never do 316. people who complain because you promised to call but never do 317. people who ask "How are you?" but don't really want to know 318. people who make you miserable 319. the fact that you ALLOW people to make you miserable 320. that luck is definitely a factor in getting what you want 321. that you can make your own luck but nobody tells you how 322. being unlucky in love 323. being unlucky in the stock market 324. stocks that plummet after you buy them 325. stocks that go through the roof after you sell them 326. having to pay your broker a commission on losing stocks 327. the fact that your broker has no incentive to sell you WINNING stocks as long as you pay a commission on losing stocks 328. the fact that the entire economy of the free world is in the hands of gamblers 329. lotteries 330. sweepstakes 331. church bingo 332. casinos 333. Wall Street, the world's biggest casino 334. that American Indians have to operate casinos to survive 335. Las Vegas 336. lounge acts 337. Frank Sinatra after 1970 338. pop music after 1970 339. life after 1970 340. striving 341. giving up 342. promises 343. betrayals 344. excuses 345. prejudice against fat people 346. prejudice against dark-skinned people 347. prejudice against excessively stupid and excessively intelligent people 348. prejudice against people with big noses 349. prejudice against ugly women 350. prejudice against gentle men 351. "all men are created equal" 352. "the pursuit of happiness" 353. chronic disappointment 354. expecting rewards in the hereafter 355. the apparent indifference of God 356. the possibility that God is a myth 357. the possibility that God is a crank 358. the possibility that God is a jokester 359. the prevalence of unbelieving theologians: NOT a good sign 360. the perverse intelligence of inanimate objects that roll just out of reach 361. boxtops that tear as you open them 362. paper grocery bags that tear when they're full of glass jars 363. toilet paper that tears as you use it 364. price labels that won't come off without tearing the product 365. plastic bags you have to open with your teeth 366. "twist-off" bottlecaps that rip your fingers 367. VCRs so complicated that you need an engineering degree to program them 368. 500 channels and nothing you want to watch 369. electronic gadgets that come with incoherent instructions written by well- intentioned Asians 370. major appliances that break down two days after the warranty expires 371. traffic lights that are programmed to turn red as soon as you arrive from the previous red light 372. picking the shortest line at a toll booth or supermarket checkout -- and watching the others pass you by 373. playing by the rules and watching the outlaws pass you by 374. man's treachery toward his fellow-creatures 375. raising and nurturing good-natured cows, pigs and chickens so they can become DINNER 376. killing rhinos for their horns 377. killing elephants for their tusks 378. killing baby seals for their fur 379. killing employees for their productivity 380. the National Rifle Association 381. the fact that it's easier in the U.S. to obtain handguns than Cuban cigars 382. the oil cartel 383. U.S. alliances and wars motivated by the sweet smell of oil 384. the tobacco industry profiting from the slow suicides of smokers 385. people who start smoking to be cool, then sue tobacco companies when they develop lung cancer 386. the fact that tobacco ever caught on in the first place ("Why would anyone stick burning leaves in his mouth?," asked the cynic) 387. the fact that tobacco is more profitable than book publishing 388. the fact that nearly ANY industry is more profitable than book publishing 389. exploitation of resources, including human resources 390. the term "human resources" (we are not BAUXITE!) 391. billion-dollar sportswear companies that profit from exploiting child labor 392. clear-cutting the rainforests to make room for McDonald's beef cattle 393. excessive hysteria over snail darters and northern spotted owls 394. insufficient hysteria over the approaching extinction of tigers, pandas, gorillas and other first-rate mammals 395. Greenpeace (skip the '60s poetics -- just tell us what you do) 396. war 397. Pentagon spending habits; e.g., $640 toilet seats and $76 screws 398. the contractors who charge $640 per toilet seat and $76 per screw 399. being drafted 400. boot camp: sadomasochism as a character-builder 401. being expected to die for a country you can't locate on a map 402. bombing the wrong village 403. being killed by "friendly fire" 404. being killed one day before the truce is signed 405. being hit by a bus one day after returning to civilian life 406. the raunchy brutality of urban life 407. drug pushers 408. street gangs 409. rapists 410. carjackers 411. slumlords 412. racketeers 413. panhandlers 414. muggers who shoot you for a cigarette or a pair of sneakers 415. welfare mothers raising FUTURE welfare mothers 416. welfare fathers who sire six children by six different women 417. ghetto dwellers blaming their problems on racism 418. middle-class blacks encountering REAL racism when they move out of the ghetto 419. the fact that most stereotypes contain a grain of truth that keeps them alive: emotional Italians; smart, aggressive Jews; hot-blooded Latins; beguiling, hard-drinking Irish; disciplined, regimented Germans and Japanese; inbred rednecks 420. not being allowed to say that blacks have rhythm or superior athletic skill -- despite all the compelling evidence in their favor 421. not being allowed to talk about Jewish cultural influence -- despite the likelihood that the 20th century will be remembered as a Jewish Renaissance 422. the fact that Jewish sensitivities may have been conditioned by 2000 years of nonstop anti-Semitism 423. "Some of my best friends are [fill in the blank]" 424. the fact that every oppressed minority group likes to think it suffered more than every other oppressed minority group 425. Holocaust museums, AIDS quilts and other public statements of victimhood 426. the fact that we still NEED Holocaust museums, AIDS quilts and other public statements of victimhood 427. symbolic protests with live people masquerading as dead bodies 428. demands of amnesty by whining political agitators (if you don't want to be arrested, don't commit a crime) 429. '60s radicals who used the Vietnam War as an excuse to promote Marxism 430. '60s radicals who became Wall Street tycoons 431. '60s radicals who still wear tie-dyed shirts and sandals 432. liberals whose friends are exclusively upper-middle class 433. conservatives whose friends are exclusively upper-middle class 434. capitalism 435. communism 436. socialism 437. fascism 438. commericialism 439. terrorism 440. male chauvinism 441. female chauvinism 442. plagiarism 443. optimism 444. Freudianism 445. psychoanalysts who keep their patients coming back for 20 years 446. patients who still hope for a cure after being psychoanalyzed for 20 years 447. group therapy: a less expensive cure that doesn't work 448. electroshock therapy: a quicker cure that doesn't work 449. finally going crazy 450. psychiatrists who are crazier than their patients 451. finding happiness only after getting a lobotomy 452. being labeled a "former mental patient" for life 453. "sensitivity" training and other forms of brainwashing 454. psychobabble: the standardization of introspection 455. codependency and other pop-psychology concepts designed to sell books 456. the fact that there wouldn't be so many self-help books if any of them worked 457. anyone associated with the O.J. Simpson trial who wrote a book 458. O.J. Simpson 459. 20-year-old Hollywood starlets who form their own production companies 460. Hollywood agents of any age 461. the "A" list for Hollywood parties 462. the people who decide who's on the "A" list 463. Hollywood movies after "Star Wars" 464. blockbusters 465. sequels to blockbusters 466. bad movies based on old TV shows 467. the fact that those bad movies become blockbusters anyway 468. Julia Roberts, highest-paid film actress of all time 469. The fact that the highest-paid actress used to be Demi Moore until Julia Roberts replaced her 470. the fact that it would take the average U.S. worker more than six centuries to earn what the top male stars receive for one film 471. the fact that Michael Ovitz received five times that much when he was fired from Disney 472. the fact that Michael Eisner received more than five times as much as Ovitz in ONE DAY, when he cashed in his Disney stock options 473. the symbolism of Pia Zadora buying and demolishing Pickfair, once the grandest mansion in Beverly Hills 474. overreliance on special effects in mainstream Hollywood films 475. too much @$&#*!% profanity in mainstream Hollywood films 476. knee-jerk contempt for religion in mainstream Hollywood films 477. knee-jerk contempt for Hollywood by the religious right 478. films that depict Jesus as a blue-eyed Nordic 479. "To him that hath, more shall be given" 480. the old-boy network 481. the tendency of high-school in-crowders to become adult in-crowders 482. being snubbed by the in-crowd because of your looks, clothes, taste in music, or weird family 483. being snubbed by a friend in the presence of in-crowders 484. teachers who embarrass you in front of the entire class 485. students who embarrass teachers in front of the entire class 486. homework in every subject 487. teachers' pets 488. the worship of student athletes (except in cross-country, wrestling, golf and fencing) 489. cheerleaders 490. the importance of being selected as a cheerleader 491. parents who murder cheerleaders who were selected over their own kids 492. wanting to be considered cool: the root of all teenage vices 493. the inexplicable vogue for multiple pierced body parts, including tongues 494. peer pressure (ask any lemming) 495. being taunted for being virtuous 496. having to worry that you're gay if you're still a virgin at 18 497. having to think your entire future will be determined by your college board scores 498. being rejected by your #1 college 499. being rejected by your #2 college 500. being rejected by every college except your "safety" school 501. being rejected by your "safety" school 502. going to your #1 college -- and hating it 503. bickering with the college administration 504. crass college students who major in merchandising or finance 505. idealistic college students who major in history, philosophy or French (turn back before the world devours you!) 506. being stuck with a roommate from hell 507. the hell you have to go through to pledge a fraternity 508. fraternities in general 509. sororities in general 510. fraternity boys who become top executives 511. private university graduates who look down on state university graduates 512. state university graduates who look down on state college graduates 513. state college graduates who look down on community college graduates 514. high school dropouts who earn more than all of them 515. mom-and-pop businesses driven out by shopping malls 516. mom-and-pop businesses driven out by designer boutiques and tattoo parlors 517. what it takes to succeed 518. motivational seminars that promise easy success 519. the fact that the easiest way to succeed is to give motivational seminars 520. consulting: the art of succeeding while unemployed 521. the success of writers and artists who sell out 522. the wretchedness of writers and artists who don't 523. tenure for scholars: freedom to be mediocre 524. being denied tenure 525. semiotics, deconstructionism, and similar vehicles for academic obfuscation 526. Afrocentrism (sorry, the Egyptians weren't black) 527. Women's Studies (sorry, women aren't an ethnic group) 528. the shameful exclusion of non-Western cultures from old history textbooks 529. the overemphasis on non-Western cultures in current textbooks 530. the term "Third World" ("How come we never hear about the First and Second Worlds?," asked the cynic) 531. Montezuma's revenge 532. what the Spaniards did to Montezuma 533. trying to convert the heathens 534. selling refrigerators to Eskimos 535. having to call Eskimos "Inuit" 536. having to call Burma "Myanmar" 537. having to call Dave Barry "America's favorite humorist" 538. the fact that Tom Cruise is more famous than John Adams or Charlemagne 539. the fact that MTV is more famous than the 3,000-year-old nation of Armenia 540. Planet Hollywood 541. the Hard Rock Cafe 542. gawking tourists who wear Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts 543. paparazzi 544. supermarket tabloids 545. people who buy tabloids and complain about paparazzi 546. Calvin Klein ads (what exactly are we selling here?) 547. reading about the triumphs of the shallow in "People" magazine 548. the term "beautiful people" used without irony 549. chic: the triumph of style over substance 550. 55-year-old celebrities who try to look 30 551. cosmetic surgery 552. Michael Jackson, self-made alien 553. Michael Jackson's marriages 554. Michael Jackson's peculiar friendship with Elizabeth Taylor 555. Elizabeth Taylor's marriages 556. the publicity uses of entering the Betty Ford Clinic 557. alcoholism as a "disease" 558. gambling as a "disease" 559. AIDS as a "civil rights issue" 560. the sad last days of discarded celebrities 561. tabloids that exploit the sad last days of discarded celebrities 562. the woes of former child stars 563. the warped ambitions of stage parents 564. the futile ambitions of would-be writers 565. the fact that nobody reads literature anymore 566. the fact that Walt Disney World is the biggest single tourist attraction in the U.S. 567. the disappearance of classical music radio stations 568. the perplexing success of the ugliest pop music 569. the inevitable triumph of energy over refinement 570. the fact that cultured men today are predominantly gay 571. the fact that heterosexual men today are predominantly uncultured 572. the fact that single men have to feel suspect if they're cultured 573. men who regard women as sex toys 574. smart middle-aged women who regard uneducated young men as sex toys 575. middle-aged alpha males with trophy wives 576. women who praise sensitive men but fall for alpha males 577. men who demand that their women look like Barbie 578. women who demand that their men be "financially secure" 579. crude, lascivious men who leer at women, make jokes about breasts, etc., etc. 580. hip, contemporary women who leer at men, make jokes about penises, etc., etc. 581. the comical ineptness of intellectual men in the real world 582. the shrill fascism of intellectual feminists who denounce our rigid "phallocentric" institutions, like grammar, sex and rocket science 583. the condescension of older businessmen toward the "little ladies" 584. women who characterize flirtation as sexual harassment 585. men who characterize sexual harassment as flirtation 586. the male double standard: it's OK for men (but not women) to fool around 587. female double standards: it's OK for women (but not men) to bash the opposite sex, have their own colleges and clubs, whine, let their spouses support them, etc., etc. 588. the fact that everything ultimately boils down to sex 589. the fact that sex fuels the egos of people whose egos don't need fueling 590. kinky sex (isn't "normal" sex kinky enough?) 591. impotence: nature's way of telling a man he doesn't deserve to get lucky 592. faked orgasms: woman's way of telling a man he's luckier than he deserves to be 593. potential lovers who tell you about the "great sex" they had with a previous lover 594. current lovers who are having "great sex" with somebody else but don't tell you about it 595. current lovers who are having "great sex" with somebody else and DO tell you about it 596. the inventiveness of women's excuses for saying no 597. the inventiveness of men's arguments for persuading a woman to say yes 598. sexual starvation 599. watching people who are dorkier than you get all the sex they want 600. having to practice safe sex 601. having to practice salesmanship to get sex 602. the depth of conversations at singles bars 603. the depth of conversations in online chat rooms 604. the depth of conversations in most marriages 605. spats 606. replays of the same spats 607. breaking up after making up 608. being dumped by someone you love 609. being dumped for your best friend 610. being dumped for your mate's best friend 611. being dumped as part of your mate's latest career move 612. "Can't we just be friends?" 613. watching your ex-mate get lucky while your heart is still broken 614. searching for new mate so you have another chance to experience all of the above 615. the lamentable decline of romance 616. the unlamented demise of Western Civilization 617. the survival of tuberculosis bacilli and political parties 618. big government: a charity funded by legalized extortion 619. taxation without representation 620. taxation WITH representation 621. representative government masquerading as democracy 622. Washington insiders 623. dinner parties for Washington insiders 624. buying an ambassadorship 625. foreign ambassadors with 137 parking tickets who claim diplomatic immunity 626. backslappers and palm-greasers 627. congressmen who sell out to lobbyists 628. presidents who sell out to lobbyists 629. lobbyists 630. political cronies appointed to high office 631. the politicians who appoint the appointees 632. political scandals 633. cover-ups of scandals 634. press coverage of cover-ups of scandals 635. the blindness of the press toward JFK's scandals 636. the bloodlust of the press in covering Nixon's one scandal 637. candidates for the U.S. presidency since 1960 638. candidates for local office in every era 639. selling favors for campaign contributions: political prostitution 640. making impossible campaign promises: political courtship 641. committing impeachable offenses: political adultery 642. being impeached: political divorce proceedings 643. photo opportunities and sound bites 644. spin doctors 645. mudslinging as a viable campaign strategy 646. pollsters' and psychics' predictions 647. corporate earnings forecasts 648. investors who bail out of a company because it earned $1.24 per share instead of $1.26 per share 649. companies that downsize because they earned $1.24 per share instead of $1.26 per share 650. the stock market soaring on news of higher unemployment 651. going on unemployment yourself 652. mortgages and other long-term, life-sapping obligations, like marriage 653. divorce 654. having to pay alimony and child support 655. not receiving alimony and child support 656. staying single because you think the other option is even worse 657. having to think of yourself as "unfit" if you don't propagate your genes 658. looking at some of the people who DO propagate their genes 659. watching a billion years of evolution sputter out when you die childless 660. knowing that all your knowledge and experiences will evaporate when you die 661. being dead 662. being embalmed 663. being displayed at an open-casket funeral 664. decomposition 665. eternal damnation 666. heaven 667. purgatory ("What's the point?," asked the cynic. "We've already been there.") 668. reincarnation (damned if I'm taking calculus again!) 669. past-life regression therapy 670. aromatherapy 671. foot reflexology 672. chakras 673. auras 674. spirit channeling 675. energy vortexes 676. good karma and bad karma 677. gurus 678. false idols 679. pop idols 680. the artist formerly known as Prince 681. the company still known as Microsoft 682. monopolies 683. landing on Boardwalk with a hotel on it 684. not passing "GO" 685. not winning 686. not even breaking even 687. the fact that virtue is rarely rewarded 688. that the rewards usually go to the wrong people 689. that good things don't last 690. that bad things never go away 691. that nothing you do in this life will matter 10,000 years from now 692. that nothing you do in this life will matter 10 years from now 693. that nearly everything you do is dictated by your genes 694. that you'll never have enough time to do everything you want 695. that everything declines eventually, including you 696. the decline of language 697. the decline of art 698. the decline of decency 699. puritanism: lusting to prevent others from lusting 700. searching for happiness 701. searching for kindred spirits 702. searching for love 703. searching for self-esteem 704. searching for the meaning of life 705. searching for a flashlight with live batteries 706. searching for answers 707. never finding the answers 708. not wanting to find the answers 709. realizing that the answers will always elude you if you search for them 710. knowing that you're still clueless after all these years 711. realizing that all the wise men, philosophers and self-help authors were clueless, too 712. knowing that the world is going to fall apart eventually 713. not caring if the world falls apart 714. "whatever"
After reading over most of that, there's quite a few that I disagree with. Still more that I agree with, but I think he's way off base on some...although I guess that's to be expected with any list of 714 things.
Pretty much. This list reads more like a pet peeves list than a "things to be cynical" list in my opinion. I'm just as cynical as this fella and so if anything, I'm not in the least bit depressed but glad someone out there isn't very trusting...even though I strive to be #55.
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by knapplc » Fri Jun 29, 2007 3:15 pm 
