I’ll start off with a few that have perplexed me for years:
Smoking. Okay, let’s pretend that there’s no social stigma and no restrictions…oh yeah, and no danger of dying, either. Granted all that, why smoke in the first place (other than already being addicted)? For that matter, taking the health risks into consideration, what does smoking offer that can’t be achieved by safer, cheaper means?
Mountain climbing. Man, where to begin? Spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to garner the necessary equipment and travel to highly remote and often undeveloped, if not uninhabited, parts of the world. Make camp in a home base which almost invariably has meager facilities. (If you have to stop in a local town along the way, lord help you…sanitation is still a foreign concept in may parts of the world.) Set inviolable start and stop times for the various parts of the climb, with a good chance that you won’t reach the top (especially if there are a lot of other climbers on the mountain). All along the way, you have to take care of all your needs, including the, ahem, sanitary ones. If it’s a high mountain, you also have to deal with the threats of frostbite and high altitude enema, both of which can kill in a matter of hours (not to mention falling, which is even faster :)). Plus you breathe so hard due to the thin atmosphere that you need far more water than normal, plus you can hardly eat anything since that requires oxygen, leading to loss of muscle mass (up to three pounds a day). And all this doesn’t even consider the social consequences (mountaineering has wrecked more than a few marriages). Know what the worst part is? There are hardly any records anymore. Everest has long since been conquered, taking the Seven Summits is far from uncommon, and even the 8000-meter challenge has been met by more than a dozen climbers. Sheesh, you couldn’t pay me to do this!
Golf. “A good walk spoiled” is being generous. How can anyone enjoy a game that’s not only outrageously expensive (you can equip an entire softball team for the cost of one set of clubs) and requires an inordinate amount of land, but is absolutely hellbent on punishing and penalizing its players from start to finish? (Whose noodle-noggined idea was it to put bunkers in the freaking fairway??) And don’t even get me started on the official rules, which are the most ludicrous, counterintuitive piece of crap I’ve ever seen this side of the child tax credit laws. Need I even mention that this game is friggin’ hard? Just about anyone, with enough practice, can sink a 3-point basket or bowl two strikes in a row. In golf, making par is pretty much the domain of the elite.
Dog shows. One question…what exactly do these dogs do? They’re called man’s best friend for a reason, you know. Even dressage horses have to go through various motions and obey the rider’s commands; it’s not just standing around and looking pretty.
Day trading. You know, if I’m going to spend the whole day looking over a bunch of numbers on a computer, making phone calls, making dozens of deals on the fly, and generally getting my underwear in a complete wad, it will not be for a pursuit where there’s even the SLIGHTEST chance that I will not make money out of it, let alone a pretty good chance that I’ll actually lose money.
Pencil-and-paper roleplaying games. After setting a good time for all the players and the DM (or its equivalent), getting all the necessary equipment, and getting all the rules memorized and clarified…it boils down to one person who has complete, utter control of the game and can run it in the most petty, sadistic, exasperating manner imaginable. (From the RPG discussions I’ve seen on this board, that certainly seems to be the case.) Really, now, I hate to be rude, but I must ask, what kind of idiot would willingly put up with this?
Tekken. This series makes Mortal Kombat look like Hip Hop Mania. Yes, it really is that bad.