Top Tens…sorta
Top Ten(ish) Favourites of 2009*
2. Laughing.
3. Knowledge-sharing, successful cooperative teamwork and those who do what they say they’ll do, especially in a timely manner.
4. Reading for hours and hours.
5. Hot pink and chartreuse.
6. Smart and funny television: 30 Rock, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Modern Family, etc.
7. Frankincense, patchouli and lavender. And black. Oh, and cheese.
8. Really good presenters, public speakers, stand-up comics and humourous superheroes.
9. Enjoyable game-playing, the point of which is FUN (and sometimes winning), like Boggle, Twister, Pictionary, and Dealer’s Choice Poker with folks who have never played or, like me, keep forgetting the rules.
10. Going to the movies by myself and sitting so close to the screen I feel like I’m actually in the film.
11. The kind of music, whatever that happens to be on any given day, that makes me completely forget I’m even here and seems to get all the synapses firing the way they’re supposed to (or the way I imagine they’re supposed to which, now that I think about it, might not even remotely be the way they’re actually supposed to be firing).
12. People who are kind. The same ones who are able to say “I’m sorry” and “Thank you” and “I was wrong” and “You’re doing a great job!”
*(1. Family, true friends, good co-workers & selfless volunteers are always the implied #1 on the above list)
Ten(ish) Least Favourites of 2009
1. Bullies. Including people who perceive themselves to be raised up when they attempt to beat others down.
2. Liars. You know…that…eventually…the truth will out.
3. Selfishness. Always putting your own interests, financial or other, before everything else. Click here to see how lucky you already are and here to see how significant.
4. Know-it-alls and those who feel a compulsive need to constantly and condescendingly correct others, even when, more often than not, they themselves are woefully misinformed.
5. Those who refuse to remove the huge burning log from their own eyes before attempting to remove the speck from yours.
6. The empathyless. If someone asked you, “Why did the death of [insert close relative here] upset you so much?” would you think that person had a living, beating heart? Yeah, me neither.
7. Incompetence and cowardice masked by bravado and the inabilty to ever say, and utter intolerance of hearing, “I don’t know.”
8. Malicious game-playing, the point of which is certainly not fun…malicious game-playing includes knowledge-hoarding, rule-changing, mobbing, politics, banking and sometimes pictionary.
9. Misuse of the apostrophe. Enough said.
10. Complainers. Unless they’re really, really, really funny. (Lewis Black and Larry David are allowed to complain until they’re blue in the face.)
11.Drivers who, for whatever reason, completely forget they’re behind the wheel of 3 tons (more or less) of moving steel. Also those to whom the 4-way stop is a complete mystery.
12. The nursers of imaginary grudges and perceived slights. Get over yourself. We didn’t even notice you were in the room. (see number 3, above) ((also please note: this is very different from the nursers of REAL grudges and REAL slights…nursing those is, of course, completely legitimate))
13. Being accused of having the accuser’s faults. I have enough of my own to correct already, thank you. (This will generally only occur if you’re part of that small group of individuals that is 1. in a relationship, 2. divorced or 3. working for a living.)
