LOL, emoticons, and other pet peeves?

I gotta admit, more than anything else, I do have a problem with "lol", I always have, and I don't even know why. I hate using it myself, and never do, I usually go for "ha ha" if i wanna express laughter. But never lol. I don't mind when other people use it, it's their choice. And in fact I get it a lot, cuz I usually try to make funny conversations, so I'm seeing "lol" all over the place, I guess people also use it when they insert a comment which is not meant to be insulting but funny, but since we don't have the advantage of tone and manner in written word, so that one word can, I guess, change the whole meaning of such a sentence. But I would still go with 'ha ha'. Smileys, well I just recently started using those, mainly because I like to comment on all of the responses I get in my discussions, but sometimes and that is very rare, if I had nothing to say I would say something very general and insert a happy smiley. Nothing wrong with that. I guess if we use them wisely and not over do it, they could really aid the written conversation. One smiley I did recently discover was the crying smiley. I've been wanting to use that one but haven't had a chance to yet. this one :'(