Listing badly

 The Blob doesn't generally get exercised about stuff like lists, because most of them are silly and One Man's (Or Woman’s) Opinion, besides, and we all know the old saw about opinions. Something about how they're like a certain part of the anatomy, everyone's got one.

But occasionally there comes a list that's so ridiculous, so upside-down and just clearly  wrong, it bears mentioning.

Let me begin today's discussion of one such list with a tangent: I once spent a week one night in Champaign-Urbana, Ill.

Actually, it was a Pizza Hut where a bunch of Indiana media wound up that night after covering a Hoosiers-Illinois basketball game. This is because it was the only place open  in Fun City. And that's because it was after midnight, and all the bars closed at midnight.

On a Saturday night. 

In a college town.

Which didn't stop some outfit called Clever.com from slotting Champaign-Urbana No. 2 on its last of best Big Ten college towns.

I'm sorry, what?

Clever.com's No. 1, Ann Arbor, probably is right where it should be. But after that, the list gets all sorts of wacky.

Bloomington, In., for instance, the home of Indiana University, is nearly always mentioned as one of the top college towns in America on most lists. It's 10th in the Big Ten according to this one.

And Purdue?

Look, it's nice a campus. And I'm sure West Lafayette has all the amenities. But it's not the first place you think of when people talk about great college towns.

Clever.com lists it as No. 3 in the Big Ten.

On the other hand, Madison, Wis., is way down there at No. 8. Right behind Iowa City, but ahead of Columbus, O. -- the home of Ohio State, which is next-to-last on the list, right behind New Brunswick, N.J. (Rutgers).

Now, I don't know what the criteria was for this list. Maybe they factored in Harry's Chocolate Shop and the burgers at Triple XXX when they considered West Lafayette. Which would be two pretty awesome points in its favor.

But as lists go, this one's listing worse than the Titanic post-iceberg. 

Another One Man's Opinion.