Stuff That You’d Like Me To Rank 2019, Ranked – The “No” List

A few weeks ago on Facebook, I asked my friends for suggestions about stuff that I should rank other than singles here on this website. The response was neither underwhelming nor overwhelming. I suppose that means it was whelming.

I’ve divided the total list of “all things my friends suggested” into three lists – No, Maybe and Yes. Over the next few days, I’ll share with you what I’ve placed on each list with a brief explanation about why it was included on that list. I’ve also, of course, ranked the selections.

This is the “no, I won’t be creating that list” list. I’ve ranked them in order of how much I regret not being able (or willing) to create that list from “least regret” to “most regret.”

23. Ex-Girlfriends
Suggested by: Jess Nevins

This absolutely delightfully dreadful idea was suggested by the smartest person I know, presumably in jest. I read it, laughed loudly, and immediately said (out loud) “ouch no.” Then I had to stop myself from ranking them in my head and decided that on any list like that, I’d be obligated to rank myself last because they were all better at relationshipping than I. Let’s never talk of this again.

22. Past Students
Suggested by: Jon Jeffries

Another “Oh no ouch ouch ouch” presumably joke suggestion from a former student. This list would be both ill-advised and totally impossible because I don’t think I remember all of my past students. Would I include just my students from my school? Or students I’d had in workshops? What criteria would I use to rank them? Did I already assign graded ranks to them? Students of a certain generation know that I firmly established a specific student as my official favorite student of all time primarily because she’s awesome and secondarily because it drove her friends into a state of fury. Anyhow, impossible to do. I love them all.

21. Kennedy Theatre House Managers
Suggested by: Frank Episale

For those of you not in the know, the joke here is that Frank (who suggested this) was at one time a Kennedy Theatre House Manager. While I admit I did know many house managers during my time as a student (and later as an alumni and occasional adjunct faculty member) of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, I did not know all of them. Furthermore, as with girlfriends and students, how could you pick one beloved house manager over another?

20. Love Boat Episodes
Suggested by: Kelly Williams

While I surely could rank summaries of Love Boat episodes from Wikipedia or some similar source, I also feel like that’s way more time than I’m willing to invest in Love Boat. I watched it a ton as a kid and often had to wait until my parents weren’t paying attention to put it on the TV. That is how much it was despised in our house. And rightfully so. I view my time spent watching Love Boat as a form of child abuse I inflicted on myself over my parents’ objections.

19. Brady Bunch Episodes
Suggested by: Brian Bozanich

Growing up pre-cable TV, I watched a ton of Brady Bunch in syndication. I probably saw every episode at least twice. My only real firm memory of the show is that they had an awful vacation in Hawai’i. Anyhow, I could probably use Wikipedia to find the episodes and then rank them, but I refuse to watch them again and that, in my opinion, would render any ranking suspect.

18. Inappropriate T-Shirts and Bumper Stickers
Suggested by: Bob Hollister

OK, this is an interesting idea, but it falls on the impossible side of the chart because I am a completist and there is no way I could possibly find every conceivable inappropriate T-Shirt and/or Bumper Sticker. I suppose I could solicit nominations and then make some sort of NCAA style bracket and we could all vote on them?

17. Flavors of Pringles
Suggested by: Dan Connell

Not a bad idea, but fails the diabetes test. I have diabetes. I can’t eat Pringles anymore. I never much liked them anyways. They always tasted a little bit like what I imagine a hamster’s salt lick might taste like.

16. Types of Crunchy Chip Flavours
Suggested by: Ichina Parker

Also not a bad idea, but also fails the diabetes test. Ranked slightly higher because it would have given me the excuse to taste some of my favorite chips.

15. Rank Seafood Restaurants
Suggested by: Kirk Lapilio

OK, so this was a joke suggestion, but I am amused by it. I suppose I could find seafood restaurants with 1 star reviews on Yelp and rank them based on that, but (as I’ve mentioned) I’m a completist and I wouldn’t know where to stop.

14. Children’s Television
Suggested by: Ichina Parker

An excellent suggestion, but a little too broad. Perhaps some sub-category like “children’s shows featuring humans in costumes” or “children’s shows that purport to be educational.”

13. Moles
Suggested by: Nathan Lee

I know Nathan pretty well, so I suspect he means the kind of mole that grows on your skin. But it is also possible he means the blind little dudes that burrow underground. And it isn’t inconceivable that he means different solids, liquids and gasses that have the same number of particles as in 12 grams of carbon-12. In any case, I am intrigued by this suggestion and might reconsider upon further clarification.

12. Mythadventure Books
Suggested by: Cindi Knox

These sound like my kinds of books, but I’ve not read them and have no personal connection to them (I do, it should be noted, have a personal connection to a number of moles).

11. Sugary Breakfast Cereals
Suggested by: Tony Pisculli

Another one that fails the diabetes test, but I used to love sugary breakfast cereals. According to family legend, my father once came downstairs to find me asleep hugging a box of Lucky Charms. Alas, I am out of touch with modern sugary breakfast cereals and would not necessarily know how to make this a complete set. I could, however, follow Steph Kong’s counter-proposal that I rank cereal mascots.

10. Musicals
Suggestedby: Ichina Parker and also by Tom McNamara

This is a little too broad, but I suppose I could do a subcategory like “Musicals I’ve Seen” or “Musicals by Sondheim” or “Musicals That I Despise.”

9. Stephen King Novels
Suggested by: Tony Pisculli

I genuinely regret that I have not read enough of his novels to do this. I could rank Wikipedia summaries or movies based on Stephen King novels, but both of these feel like copping out to me.

8. Animated movies
Suggested by: Sean Choo

Too broad (but Into the Spiderverse would be #1) but I could do a subcategory like Pixar Films or Studio Ghibli films.

7. My Thoughts, In Chronological Order
Suggested by: Sean O’Malley

Does he mean *my* thoughts or *his* thoughts? If the former, wow, that’s a whole lot of time for me to spend ranking the ideas depression sends through my head. If the latter, he would need to provide me a list of all his thoughts from birth to now, in order, at which point I wouldn’t need to rank anything, because they’d already be ranked in chronological order. Wait, maybe he’s joking.

6. Legend of Zelda games
Suggested by: Mike Short

I’ve played the original Zelda on NES and both Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hourglass on DS. That’s it, I’m afraid. Provide me with the platforms and the games and I’ll gladly play through all of them and then rank them. No, I mean, seriously. Do that.

5. Children
Suggested by: J.W. Arsenault

I kind of find this idea hilarious in it’s never-ending scope and also potential for it’s curmudgeonly nastiness. I could imagine a joke list that allows me to rank like 15 imaginary kids in my neighborhood by how much I want them to get off my damn yard. A little bit outside the scope of my normal list-making, but possibly a riot. Still, no.

4. SNL Seasons
Suggested by: Frank Episale

A really pretty excellent idea that is conceivably possible because I watched the show religiously from it’s debut until the early 90’s, but fails because I’ve not watched it live much since then. I could possibly rank each season based on a representative sketch. Maybe there is a list of “best sketches from each season” and I could make a grand list and… and…

3. 80s Sitcoms
Suggested by: Tony Pisculli

Another excellent idea that fails because I missed pretty much all Sitcoms except for The Cosby Show after I headed to college, and I have no idea what I’d do with The Cosby Show now. Pretend it never happened, I suppose, but then how would I rank A Different World? Anyhow, this would require too much additional work for a completist like myself, but maybe there is some workable subcategory.

2. Words in the OED
Suggested by: Joe Koenan

Completely, utterly impossible, but what an amazing project this would be. I suppose I could use do MS Paint images of the phonetic spelling of each word. By the time I finished one letter, there’d be a new edition of the OED out and I’d have to start again. I mean, I sort of love this idea simply because the execution would be a monumental nightmare.

1. Top Five Covers From 80s Bands
Suggested by: Mike Mariani

I love this idea, but it’s really not the kind of list I make. I’d want to rank all songs covered by all 80’s bands. I guess I could limit it to “80’s rock bands covering songs that were big hits for other bands” but even then this would be an enormous project. Let me gift you with five random covers of perhaps dubious quality for the time you’ve spent reading this list. Please enjoy “I Am The Walrus” by The Pop-O-Pie, “American Pie” by Killdozer, “Hair” by The Dickies, “Cruella De Vil” by The Replacements and this delightful a capella version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Fuzzbox.

Coming Soon: The Maybe List.

Stuff That You’d Like Me To Rank – No – Maybe – Yes