Listosaurus Rex

You want lists?  I got a headache just looking at the titles for all of the lists that have been featured on Wikipedia’s home page.

Want to know what members of the Arkansas Razorbacks have gone to the NFL?  A list of the major events in  British philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft’s life?  How about a list of schools in Marlborough, New Zealand?

Then Wikipedia’s the place for you.  Those are a few of the obscure ones, but a bunch of them are useful, if still pretty specific.  You can look up the discographies of a whole bunch of bands and learn all about how the Redskins have performed historically every year since the franchise was formed. 

So, in summary, if you want to waste hours and hours looking at a learning a lot about niche topics through vaguely interesting lists, the Wikipedia featured list section is for you.

Time Magazine has outdone itself and brought you a whopping FIFTY top ten lists to recap 2008.  Wowza.

Here are topics covered:

Albums

Animal Stories

Awkward Moments

Best Biz Deals

Best Performances

Breakups

Buzzwords

Campaign Gaffes

Campaign Video Moments

Children’s Books

Crime Stories

Editorial Cartoons

Election Photos

Fashion Moments

Fashion Faux Pas

Fiction Books

Financial Collapses

Fleeting Celebrities

Food Trends

Gadgets

Green Ideas

iPhone Apps

Late Night Jokes

Magazine Covers

Medical Breakthroughs

Movies

Museum Exhibits

News Stories

Non-fiction Books

Oddball News Stories

Olympic Moments

Open Mike Moments

Outrageous Earmarks

Photos

Plays and Musicals

Political Lines

Quotes

Religion Stories

Scandals

Scientific Discoveries

Songs

Sports Moments

T-shirt Worthy Slogans

TV Ads

TV Episodes

TV Series

Underreported Stories

Video Games

Viral Videos

Worst Biz Deals

Each one of the ten entries for each of these fifty categories has a little paragraph or two to accompany it.

This is almost bewildering for me.  It’s just about too much to process.  Of course, I devoured the ones important to me (Albums, Movies, TV Series, Video Games, Sports Moments, etc.), but most I only had time to give a cursory glance.  It doesn’t help that you have to click through to a new page for each item of each list.  I wouldn’t mind having a few of these lists scrapped and had a new and improved interface implemented.

 Top 10 Outrageous Earmarks?  Top 10 Breakups?  I dunno if these should be mixed in with the big hitters.  But, hey, if a magazine is going to go all-out on something, at least it’s something easy to read, organized, and logical, like lists!

Overall, though, I would NOT recommend this list set for two reasons: 1) Dark Knight not mentioned as one of the top 10 movies of the year. 2) The Office not mentioned as one of the top 10 TV shows of the year. WTF!?!

Just kidding, these are definitely worth a look.  Pick out the ones that look most interesting you and you’ll probably get a lot out of it.