The 2009 TIME 100

Joel Stein Ranks the TIME 100

1. Lauren Zalaznick: Did anyone else on this list have breakfast with me once a month and guide me through TIME editors cancelling my column and pilots not getting picked up? Deciding to propose, move to L.A., have kids? Give me column ideas? Answer: No one else on the list has had breakfast with me even once. And I'm pretty sure that other than maybe the physicist guy, the Harvard doctor, Carlos Slim, Obama, Hilary Clinton, the economists and maybe on a good day Zac Efron, you're the smartest person on the list.

2. Twitter Guys: I have so much trouble forcing myself to write when other people are paying me, and yet I'll donate 140 characters to you for free. You have given me yet another narcissistic data point to gauge my popularity.

3. Jeff Bezos: I have not been to a mall in years. Telecommuting to shop is even better than telecommuting to work.

4. George Clooney: You came for dinner and, in an effort to stop a beeping alarm, entered my attic. Now I know I have an attic. Since I have never, and will never, go into my own attic, it's now officially referred in the house as the Clooney Attic. Also, I saw your picture on the New York Times website and learned something about Darfur, which I've since forgotten. But my attic thanks to you!

5. Nicholas Christakis: Your brilliant take on how the outbreak of peanut allergies is akin to Munchausen by proxy was so convincing, I wrote a column making the argument. Then all my friends with children with nut allergies yelled at me. Thanks, Nicholas Christakis!

6. Dan Barber: I ate at both your Manhattan restaurant and the one upstate. Not only were the meals great, but some dude came out with uncooked baby carrots to tell us all about how special they are. I use that schtick all the time at home now. It's hilarious!

7. Zac Efron: I interviewed you over coffee and though you didn't say anything that changed my life, I do go to that coffee place now when I'm in the Valley. Aroma has a killer chocolate chip bread pudding!

8. Alan Mulally: When we first moved to L.A., my wife bought a cool black Mustang with silver stripes that Starsky would have loved. Then she got paranoid that it would break down and traded it in for a Prius. Point is, Alan Mulally, if you made some commercials about how Mustangs never break down, I wouldn't have to be seen in a Prius.

9. Penelope Cruz: Every time I see you, you influence a certain part of my body.

10. Michelle Obama: I used to just do three sets of tri-s and bi-s. Now I make sure to hit the shoulders hard too.