The most annoying things of 2007

Another year, another pile of annoying pop-culture tidbits to bemoan. From Sacramento’s own retroCRUSH.com, here’s a sneak peek at the annual list—trimmed from 100 to 44 to help reduce our carbon footprint.

44. Miley Cyrus

You’d think with all of those sold-out Hannah Montana concerts, this Disney kid would invest some cash in fixing that jack-o-lantern pile of teeth in her mouth.

43. Second Life

Wouldn’t “No Life” be a better name? Well, to be fair, this cyber-reality site is the most realistic simulation of furry sex and flocks of flying penises the Internet has ever seen.

42. Windows Vista

Why is it that operating systems always seem to get more resource-hungry and wasteful as they get “better”? I’m fully convinced Microsoft is in bed with the RAM industry.

41. Muslim extremists

When Salman Rushdie and a teddy bear are the biggest threats to your religion, it’s time to rethink things.

40. Shrek the Third

At least it wasn’t hard to come up with a review headline that rhymed with the title.

39. 50 Cent

His share of Vitamin Water nets him over $400 million, and he vows never to make another CD if he’s outsold by Kanye West. This is like Warren Buffet threatening to quit his paper route.

38. Carrie Underwood

The country-pop star is the only woman whose real-life complexion still looks as if it’s been airbrushed.

37. Alec Baldwin’s daughter

That inconsiderate pig has no manners at all. When I ask you to tell your mother to go fuck herself, you’d better pass that message on! Kids these days.

36. Hip-hop hoodies

Since when did sweatshirts that look like MC Hammer’s wrapping paper qualify as cool?

35. Tina Fey’s husband

He’s a lying, cheating jerk, and says mean things about the 30 Rock starlet behind her back. Are you reading this, Tina? Call me!

34. Steve Fossett

Not satisfied with his numerous aviation records, he had to go and break Amelia Earhart’s, too.

33. Fred Goldman

Honors his dead son by publishing O.J.’s “imaginary” account of the murder. Look, I’m all for bankrupting Simpson, but suing him to get the recyclables out of his trash is going too far. Also, Fred, that style of ’stache looked dated even on Geppetto.

32. David Beckham

The L.A. Galaxy’s plan to revitalize American soccer by having Becks sit on a bench failed miserably.

31. VH1’s I Love New York

Just imagine the improvements we could make to America’s gene pool by assassinating the cast of this show. Oh, OK, maybe that’s a little harsh. So how about we just rename it? I Love Chlamydia?

30. The Eagles

In 2004, Don Henley complained about big chains squeezing out small record stores. Then, to help, he made the new Eagles CD a Wal-Mart exclusive. Look for Henley to help end racism next year with a KKK-sponsored concert tour.

29. American Idol

If a nationwide best-singer competition gives us Sanjaya and Chris Sligh as finalists, well, it’s hard to know which is more doomed—our nation, or music in general.

28. Two Girls One Cup

I may never eat Wendy’s chocolate Frosties again. Kudos to those ladies for teaching kids to share, though.

27. Cavemen

Well, the writer’s strike was good for something.

26. Michael Vick

Hopefully his prison sentence is in dog years.

25. Jay-Z’s song intros

His annoying preludes are the pop-up ads of the music world. Do we really need to hear “Yo, Yo … this is Rihanna” on a song after we already bought her CD?

24. The Washington Generals

They haven’t won a game in 30 years and still can’t get a good draft pick. What’s annoying about ’em, though, is that they still might beat the Sacramento Kings.

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23. The Amazon Kindle

The groundbreaking electronic book reader is supposed to save on newspaper consumption, but lining the bottom of your birdcage with these things is pretty damn wasteful, too.

21. HBO

They pull the cord on Deadwood to give us a canceled season of John from Cincinnati. Thanks for nothing, ya loopy &*$#s!

20. Misuse of apostrophe’s

It never ceases to amaze me how many business’es can’t figure out how to use them correctly.

19. People who e-mail me …

… telling me how stupid I am for being an “apostrophe hypocrite.”

18. T-Pain

His latest CD features songs bragging both about how much money he has and about the free drinks he gets for dating a bartender. Listen for radio rotation of his new single, “Bonin’ The Hot Dog on a Stick™ Hos for Free Corn Dogs,” soon.

17. Missing white girls

From Baby Maddie to Natalee Holloway, we clearly have a problem. You never see kidnapped minority kids on TV.

16. Amy Winehouse

You expect Britney Spears to fall apart, but it’s a damn shame to see Winehouse spiral downward, with all the great talent she has. And hats off to Amy for supporting tattoo artists with Parkinson’s Disease.

15. Britney Spears fan Chris Crocker

Thousands of years from now, aliens will explore Earth’s wreckage, find the video of Chris crying “Leave Britney alone!” and put laser guns in their mouths and vaporize their brains.

14. Santa Claus

Why does he keep giving so many toys to rich kids, and leaving the poor ones scrambling for donated knock-off Barbies from the 99-cent store? Apparently the Polar Express doesn’t run through the bad neighborhoods.

13. Gordon Ramsay

I’m just waiting for the episode of Hell’s Kitchen where the fed-up chefs cut him up to bits and serve him as a pot pie.

12. A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila

You know you’re trashy when you make Flavor Flav’s dating show look classy by comparison. It’s true, though: Everyone certainly will need a shot, of some sort, once they leave the set.

11. Bodies Revealed

If you want to see a bunch of bodies in numerous states of evisceration, save yourself some dough and just check out my basement.

10. The Sopranos finale

The fill-in-the-blanks ending with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” under Tony and family in a diner, followed by a jump to black, was more of a cop-out than clever. Still, short of that Russian from the “Pine Barrens” rushing in with Furio and the floating head of Ralphie, nobody could have been satisfied, anyway.

9. Al Sharpton and Don Imus

How far has the civil-rights movement fallen when these two have become the respective spokespersons for black and white America?

8. Larry Birkhead

Somehow Anna Nicole Smith managed to breed with the one human being more evolutionarily challenged than her. Poor Danielynn would actually be better off being raised by Kevin Federline.

7. China

Years after getting past the devastating “pee-pee in your Coke” scandals of the ’70s, China is back in trouble with lead-painted toys. Of course, you have to love the outraged parents who are so concerned about the safety of the playthings in Chicken McNugget Happy Meals.

6. Hugo Chavez

At least Venezuelans had the common sense to not give him constitutional power to make himself king of the universe forever plus infinity. What they should do is let Chavez face North Korea’s Kim Jong Il and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a Pay-Per-View “Crazy-Off.”

5. “Crank That (Soulja Boy)”

The incomprehensible lyrics in this song suggest it was written with one of those magnetic poetry sets. I never thought I’d yearn for the more hardcore days of hip-hop songs like “Chicken Noodle Soup” and “Laffy Taffy.”

4. God

Gotta blame somebody for Republicans and Veggie Tales.

3. Bee Movie hype

I could swear I saw Jerry Seinfeld in the Zapruder film plugging his damn Bee Movie.

2. Senator Larry Craig

Forget all the claims of hot gay airport bathroom sex; the real scandal is that this asshole never puts the seat back down when he’s through.

1. Britney Spears coverage

Do we need 50 photographers documenting every time she wipes her ass? Of course, Britney doesn’t help much when she’s using her kids to wipe it with.