The New Year 2007 is almost here. But let ‘s look back for a moment. This is my list of five most annoying things of 2006.

1. The batteries. There ‘s gotta be a way to seriously extend the life of the batteries on my laptop and cell phone. Can someone take care of this in the 21st century?

2. The Internet is sloooooow. You can call it broadband, cable modem, DSL, you can give us as many fixed benchmarks you like, but it ‘s slooooow. There is a hope though – Verizon offers optical connection in some areas, and Chinese made a discovery .

3. Commute. Typically, I spend a little more than three hours a day commuting to/from work. I found my ways to make it a little less annoying by using my laptop (see annoyance #1 above) with the broadband Internet (see annoyance #2 above) on the bus. But why do I have to physically be there every day? I can and should work from home. Do you think that if you let me do this I ‘ll be taking care of some personal stuff during business hours? I ‘ll do it anyway, but I personally work more when I work from home

4. Junk mail. I casually delete tons of junk mails every day. Guys and gals, I do not need any loans, viagra or stocks. They won ‘t listen…

5. Firewalls. They make the annoyance #2 even more annoying.

Other than these five little unavoidable realities of life – no complains.

What annoys you the most (other than this blog)?

Update: when I came home tonight, I found a Fedex envelope and realized that I forgot to mention one more annoying thing – peeing in the cup. As a consultant working for financial companies, I ‘m going through a drug test third time during the last 12 months. This Fedex had special forms and a list of the closest labs where I can do this…