All stories about "The Week In Yelp"
The Week in Yelp: Bad Service Leads to "Displeasingness"
From the people who brought you The Week in Craig, one of the all time great uses of the internet, comes The Week in Yelp, wherein Amy Blair takes aim at the ridiculousness that is the world of Yelp. Her intrepid Yelp-surfing, and words, follow:
Despite having had just about every other crappy job on the planet (telemarketer, newspaper deliverer, dish washer, um, dog counter), I have somehow never been a waitress. This is a little odd, since just about everyone else I know has put in some time waiting tables, and it's exactly the kind of thankless labor I pretty much seem destined to do. Anyway, I may never have been a waitress but I do have some restaurant experience. Many years ago, my brother used to work in the kitchen at Outback Steakhouse. And in college, when I would come home for winter vacations I used to work there during the daytime while the restaurant was otherwise closed for business, selling gift certificates to desperate Christmas shoppers. It was an awesome gig. Nobody was there besides the kitchen prep guys, and all I had to do was sit in the dining room all day reading a book, occasionally selling a gift certificate when someone wandered in. The kitchen would make me anything I wanted for lunch, always off the menu, and I mostly just sat around drinking Diet Cokes and getting paid a better hourly wage than I got at any of my other crappy jobs. Oh, and one other thing I had to do was answer the phone at the hostess station whenever it rang. "G'day mate, Outback Steakhouse, this is Amy, how may I help you?" was the standard greeting. Which is maybe the most humiliating thing I've ever been forced to say. And this is what I remember every time I tip my server, whether they were good or bad, I tip for every ridiculous "G'day mate" I was forced to utter.
Onto the whiners, bitching about bad service…
I'll take my business to another piano bar, ahead.>>
The Week in Yelp: The Weird World of Bar Bathrooms
From the people who brought you The Week in Craig, one of the all time great uses of the internet, comes The Week in Yelp, wherein Amy Blair takes aim at the ridiculousness that is the world of Yelp. Her intrepid Yelp-surfing, and words, follow:
So, I'm probably totally revealing myself as an Old by posing this question, but does anyone else remember how back in the day practically no bar bathrooms in New York had the luxury of…toilet seats? And a lot of times, if they actually had toilet seats they would actually be chained to the tank. Anyone else remember this? Anyone? Now obviously I'm not talking about expensive clubs or fancy lounges. But in the crappy Lower East Side joints where I wasted my youth (s-s-s-sigh) a toilet seat was a rare commodity. I asked several bartenders and bouncers why and always received the same answer; when drunk people get into fights, they grab the toilet seat and use it as a weapon. Now, I don't know about you, but over the years I have personally witnessed a drunken bar fight or two break out, and not once have I seen someone rush into the bathroom and smack their opponent upside the head with a toilet seat. But man I wish I had.
The Week in Yelp: God Bless Birthdays
From the people who brought you The Week in Craig, one of the all time great uses of the internet, comes Eater's newest feature: The Week in Yelp, wherein Amy Blair takes aim at the ridiculousness that is the world of Yelp. Her intrepid Yelp-surfing, and words, follow:
Because it's my mom, there is a soccer ball in my parents' house that was autographed by Pope John Paul II. The exact origins of this mysterious bit of Catholic weirdness are hazy to me (she talks, I drift off to sleep), but I am pretty sure that it involves a distant relative who works for the Vatican, a visiting soccer team, and possibly someone from Scotland delivering the ball to my mother (your guess is as good as mine). Neither a soccer fan nor a particularly avid Catholic, I'm not entirely sure why this specific gift was sent her way. However, I am fairly certain that this is the only piece of Pope-autographed athletic equipment my mother owns. Anywho! There's a new Pope in town, and I hear that Ol' Popey is celebrating his birthday this week during his first trip to America as Grand Poobah. I don't know for sure but I'm just guessing that he probablyyy celebrated with a lap dance contest at Lucky Cheng's. I dunno. Just guessing…
The Week in Yelp: Obsessed With Pickles
From the people who brought you The Week in Craig, one of the all time great uses of the internet, comes Eater's newest feature: The Week in Yelp, wherein Amy Blair takes aim at the ridiculousness that is the world of Yelp. Her intrepid Yelp-surfing, and words, follow:
Awkward confession alert! When I was a child, because I loved them so much, if I was upset my mother would comfort me by giving me a cucumber to fall asleep holding like a teddy bear. (Explains a lot, huh?). Eventually my love of cucumbers morphed into a full-on pickle obsession, and if you open my refrigerator right now you won't find much beyond a Brita water filter, some soggy asparagus, a bottle of ketchup and of course, a jar of pickles. When I quit my last job, my coworkers sent me off with a subscription to the Pickle-of-the-Month Club. My beloved childhood cat (and brother from another mother), Doozer, even ate pickles. A cat! Who ate pickles! In high school for multicultural food day, when asked to make a favorite dish that represented one's cultural background to share with the class, I brought in twenty-five pickle sandwiches. In my delusional little fantasy world, I own a cucumber farm, and all I do is make pickles all day long which I sell at a stand on the side of the road. Seriously, this is what I daydream about.
I am straight-up obsessed with pickles. It's crazy nerdy, yes, but I just don't give a shit. Pickles rule.
Lousy little pickles, flippin pickles and giant pickle mascots, NEXT >>The Week in Yelp: Buffets Are Nothing But Trouble
From the people who brought you The Week in Craig, one of the all time great uses of the internet, comes Eater's newest feature: The Week in Yelp, wherein Amy Blair takes aim at the ridiculousness that is the world of Yelp. Her intrepid Yelp-surfing, and words, follow:
I definitely don't have one of those insane, debilitating germ phobias, but I do know that there are certain disgusting things that I'm going to do my best to avoid. For one, classrooms full of children. They are disease factories, and should be steered clear of at all costs. Also, garbage cans. It kind of amazes me how often I see otherwise clean enough looking people taking newspapers out of filthy garbage cans to read. Finally, buffets. Soggy food, heat lamps, sneeze guards. None of these things particularly work up an appetite for me. Instead I find myself thinking about grubby fingers, E. Coli, and spending the next four hours with my toilet. But, to each his own. I guess some people are willing to sacrifice hygiene for the opportunity to stuff themselves full of all-you-can-eat macaroni and cheese served up with a side of bacterial infection. Buffets — yum!
The Week in Yelp: On the Finer Points of Indian Dining
From the people who brought you The Week in Craig, one of the all time great uses of the internet, comes Eater's newest feature: The Week in Yelp, wherein Amy Blair takes aim at the ridiculousness that is the world of Yelp. Her intrepid Yelp-surfing, and words, follow:
After about three thousand drinks and no food, I stumbled boozily into one of those Indian restaurants on 6th Street in Manhattan with a couple of my lady friends. They were just about to close but they seated us nonetheless. The restaurant was empty, and the otherwise bored waiters seemed amused by this unexpected turn of events and subsequently began plying us with free wine. After an hour, the waiters were sitting at our table with us, my friends and I were pretty well tanked, they had locked the front doors…and yet I was somehow completely surprised when the waiters brought out a big pile of hashish and invited us to smoke it with them. You know, when I decided to write this column about Indian food, I tossed around a couple of options to tie the whole thing together. "24 Hours in the Life of a Samosa"? "Indian Food: It Sure Ain't Pakistani!"? Nothing seemed quite right. In the end the only explanation I could come up with was "These People MUST Have Gotten High With Their Waiters." Hey, it happens!
The Week in Yelp: Chocolate Brings Out the Crazies
From the people who brought you The Week in Craig, one of the all time great uses of the internet, comes Eater's newest feature: The Week in Yelp, wherein Amy Blair takes aim at the ridiculousness that is the world of Yelp. Her intrepid Yelp-surfing, and words, follow:
Many years ago I received a very thoughtful and practical gift of chocolate body paint from someone who obviously thought that I both owned a set of rubber bed sheets and was the type of person who would ornament my lover in candy artwork (it actually came with a paintbrush which for some reason I found to be the most utterly ridiculous part). Needless to say, my inner sexual Picasso never came out, and the chocolate body paint remained unused at the bottom of the bedside table drawer. Then one night in an act of utter PMS-induced lunacy, a former roommate and I were desperately rifling through the kitchen cabinets in a pathetic search for chocolate. The house was seemingly chocolate-less, but if you have ever had PMS you understand that failure was not an option. Suddenly I had an idea; the chocolate body paint! This might be good smeared on bread, a la Nutella, I suggested. My friend thought that we should dip pretzels in it. We could even eat it by the spoonful. With disproportionate glee I ripped open the plastic packaging only to discover that the body paint was beyond its expiration date and a layer of mold was visible across the top of the jar. Damn ye chocolate gods! I could have cried. And that is the story of how I came to realize just how little my dignity is worth in the face of chocolate. The end.
First up, Mignon Chocolate…
Cookie whores, chocoholics and orgasmic brothers, right this way >>The Week In Yelp: On Hookers and Spam Puzzles
From the people who brought you The Week in Craig, one of the all time great uses of the internet, comes Eater's newest feature: The Week in Yelp, wherein Amy Blair takes aim at the ridiculousness that is the world of Yelp. Her intrepid Yelp-surfing, and words, follow:
Thanks to Governor Eliot Spitzer, everywhere I go people are talking about hookers (it's kind of awesome). When the scandal first broke, a friend of mine admitted that she just didn't get what the big deal was. I think I responded with something typically idiotic like "uh, he hired a hooker?" It turns out that she had forgotten that prostitution was illegal. Really? And then again, yeah, kinda. Another friend was surprised that his wife didn't notice the money disappearing. I thought, would you notice if your husband spent two dollars on a slice of pizza? Because sadly, that's probably the equivalent. A former co-worker was shocked that Spitzer, of all politicians, would do something so low. Oh, honey. What amazed me was that he basically went to the most expensive, high-profile hooker he could find. Had it just been an affair with no blatant exchange of currency, it would have been ugly, but eventually it could have been fixed (see Clinton, Giuliani). Or had he gotten a ten dollar hummer from a lifelong pro, probably nobody would have ever been the wiser (as long as he didn't do it in a Minneapolis airport bathroom). Instead he used a pimp that offered online shopping (progress!). He blew eighty grand. He was arrogant enough to think that his entourage would turn the other cheek to his indiscretions (and believe me, they knew).
So, with all this prostitution talk these days, I've got just one question. Where's a nice place to bring a hooker these days?
Hookers and hand jobs coming up.>>The Week in Yelp: On Douchebags and Jackasses
From the people who brought you The Week in Craig, one of the all time great uses of the internet, comes Eater's newest feature: The Week in Yelp, wherein Amy Blair takes aim at the ridiculousness that is the world of Yelp. Her intrepid Yelp-surfing, and words, follow:
I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon for a little mini-vacation with a married and thoroughly knocked-up friend of mine. And you know what that means…total slut weekend!!! (Or, um, not).
Seriously, though, the best thing about being friends with a preggo is that annoying dudes totally leave you alone when you are out to dinner with a pregnant woman. The expectant friend is poison to the prowling douchebag, and that's alright with me. Because there is nothing – NOTHING – I hate more, whether single or unavailable, than getting hit on by some sniveling, uninvited frat boy nightmare. So here's to friends who bareback it; they're keeping nights out safe for you and me from jackasses like these.
Case in point…the dude who thinks it's his job to not only "charm" his waitress all night (read: annoy), but also feels the need to canvass the place (in this case, a German restaurant and beer garden) in search of the one girl who is actually drunk enough to not be completely annoyed by his insecure obsession with impressing his friends with his supposedly beer-goggled conquests.
The Week in Yelp Black Thursday Special
From the people who brought you The Week in Craig, one of the all time great uses of the internet, comes Eater's newest feature: The Week in Yelp, wherein Amy Blair takes aim at the ridiculousness that is the world of Yelp. Her intrepid Yelp-surfing, and words, follow:
It's Valentine's Day, the most romantic, wonderful, beautiful day of the year!!! In honor of the occasion, I'm dressed head to toe in red, I've got on my fancy Snoopy-and-hearts underwear, and tonight my honey bunny and I shall drink an entire bottle of champagne … which is about the one thing that will differentiate this particular night from every other Thursday in which we stay home and watch Lost. Well, that and the fact that we are bursting with love and affection for each other, because it is Valentine's Day, and, well, isn't love just so divine?! (Swoon).
Anyway, if you are hankering to ruin an otherwise excellent night of television-watching with some Valentinesy Schmalentinesy type stuff, the kids on Yelp are just full of wonderful suggestions about where you should (or should not) propose to your lady friend this evening. But don't say I didn't warn you; only an idiot wants to be proposed to in some crowded restaurant on friggin' Valentine's Day (cliché, ho hum, yawn). Then again, even idiots need love, too. Just look at me and my honey bunny. That's amore!
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