Jumbled

I just read a bunch of McSweeney's lists and feel the need to replicate them except I only have one item for the list.

Incidentally, have you ever thought about the two main formats for McSweeney's lists? They usually go like this:

LIST OF NAMES YOU COULD CALL SOMETHING IF IT WAS OTHER THAN IT ACTUALLY IS (e.g. alternate titles for things, what someone would have written if they hadn't written something else)
-Overly complicated run-on sentence that says something pretty realistic and/or witty
-Punchline (single word, sudden seriousness in place of irony or lightheartedness, or replacement of realistic complication with something pithy and short, or something mundane in conjunction with something lofty)

That's the basic template. The important part is the punchline - it's all about timing.

Actually, it's more complicated than that. Catbirdseat does this "Music-Blogger Best of 2007 list Cheat Sheet" and it's pretty awesome. I feel like I could do a cheat sheet for McSweeney's lists. That may be forthcoming.

Doesn't mean they aren't genius. I love lists and their proliferation in society, and frequently think of (um, for example, wow, I am a nerd, I can't believe I'm about to say this) the tags/labels on my blog posts as a sort of microlist - the same goes for tagging Facebook photos. They border on found poetry.

Anyway. Here is my McSweeney's-style list for today, with only one item on it.

Things that cause me to be consumed with a combination of bewilderment, indignation, and a feeling that possibly God, if he ever existed in the first place, has forsaken me
-TiVo inexplicably failing to record the Office.