:-\

What the hell is up with :-\ ? What emotion is it supposed to be conveying? Can anybody actually make that face?

A Real Life Text Conversation (Typos preserved)

Unknown Cincinnati Number: Wats up wat u doin
Me: Not much who is this?
Unknown: Rasean im sorry i might have the wrong number is this shortie from class
Me: Sorry man I live in Chicago
Rasean: Right ok
Rasean: You like the bulls
Me: Actually grew up a nuggets fan but I've been rootin for the bulls during the playoffs
Rasean: Lakers west cavs east
Me: You like that scrub lebron?
Rasean: I mean the kids all right he just got to work on that out side shot and out side vision cause teams force him be hind the 3 point lin where he is less agressive

Dont Like The Count of Monte Cristo? You're In Good Company!

I don't even feel bad for the people that cheated themselves by watching The Count of Monte Cristo on DVD before reading the book. These people missed out on the one and only chance to fully experience the development of the single hardest character ever to walk the streets of classic, modern, and future literature.

That being said, the bigger sins are committed by those that are too dumb, young, or blind to read the book and fail to appreciate all that Alexandre Dumas has done for the world by writing it. Join me on my Tour de Ignorance, as we examine some of the (very, very few) one star ratings given to this perfect work of literature on Amazon.com.

TOUR DE IGNORANCE

Kim L Arnett writes:

"Story has good twists, but there are too many French places and people which makes the audio confusing."

You know what, Kim? You're right. Dumas was French and all, but I think he should have catered to your demographic and changed the setting to contemporary America. Let me rephrase your review for you: "Good story, but my decision to cut a corner and listen to the audio version turned out to be a bad one as I was born without a short term memory" Having a one star memory doesn't make it a one star story.

"A Customer" writes:

"As I read this book in english class, I found this novel way too long and bombasic. But then I found out why it was so long. The author was paid for each chapter that he wrote. If anyone is stupid enough to actually buy and read this work of verbose crap on their spare time, I pity that person. Much of the stuff that happens in the middle of the book has nothing to do with the plot."

Maybe if "A Customer" had paid more attention in English class, she would have capitalized the "E" in "English" and included a "t" in the word "bombasic." Instead, she served the Amazon community with a healthy dose of irony and ignorance. Whatever Dumas was paid per chapter, it wasn't enough. It's not his fault that a lifetime of romance novels and Sex in the City hasn't provided you with the comprehension skills necessary to understand a plot that requires, oh, I dont know, paying attention. "A Customer," your parents should have given a second thought to putting you in Honors English.

Chris Willett (cwillett@math.uiuc.edu) writes:

"The text is long, but is an easy read. The characters are all flat, with the exception being one of the villians. There is the occasional bright spot, but these are usually separated by two or three hundred pages. I would only recommend this novel to people whose age is counted using a single digit."

Completely vague review concluded with a marginally coherent sentence. I would expect nothing less from someone with an e-mail address containing the word "math."

"A Customer" writes:

"I have to read this book for school, and it is boring, dull, puts you to sleep after 2 pages.....exc.....exc....exc....... Dantes need to fugure out who he is....he must be 6 peple in his story.....but it did bite that he got arrested for that letter though..... Those guys were jerks.."

Where to begin? Since when was "exc" an abbreviation for (presumably) "et cetera"? "fugure out"? "peple"? I never realized how much credence "borderline literacy" lends to literature reviews. The fact that "A Customer" can't read or write makes it hard to believe that he ever got past the first two pages. "A Customer," Edmond Dantes appreciates your sympathy, but I think you're an asshole.

"A Customer" writes:

"i never liked classics and i don't like this one "

Here's an idea: stop reading them.


Well this concludes the tour, I hope you found it as infuriating as I did. And remember: If you don't like The Count of Monte Cristo, you're a one star human being just like the morons that wrote these reviews.

84 Bands I'm Not All That Stoked About Seeing This Summer

Depeche Mode
Tool
The Killers
Jane's Addiction
Beastie Boys
Kings of Leon
Lou Reed
Ben Harper and Relentless7
Thievery Corporation
Snoop Dogg
Rise Against
Andrew Bird
TV on the Radio
Vampire Weekend
The Decemberists
Neko Case
STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9)
Animal Collective
Band of Horses
Of Montreal
Arctic Monkeys
Coheed and Cambria
Ben Folds
Fleet Foxes
Silversun Pickups
Kaiser Chiefs
Crystal Castles
Bon Iver
Santigold
Atmosphere
Dan Auerbach
Cold War Kids
Deerhunter
Lykke Li
Robert Earl Keen
Peter Bjorn and John
Heartless Bastards
Gomez
Glasvegas
Federico Aubele
Dan Deacon
Passion Pit
Zap Mama
The Raveonettes
The Gaslight Anthem
The Airborne Toxic Event
White Lies
Ra Ra Riot
No Age
Asher Roth
Los Campesinos!
Bat For Lashes
Chairlift
Gang Gang Dance
The Virgins
Amazing Baby
Portugal. The Man
The Knux
Ida Maria
Delta Spirit
Friendly Fires
Manchester Orchestra
Constantines
Ezra Furman & The Harpoons
Hockey
Miike Snow
Alberta Cross
Hey Champ
Sam Roberts Band
The Henry Clay People
Davy Knowles and Back Door Slam
Cage the Elephant
Living Things
The Low Anthem
Blind Pilot
Langhorne Slim
Other Lives
The Builders and The Butchers
Eric Church
Joe Pug
Kevin Devine
The Greencards
Carney
Thenewno2

You know somebody is lying on Craigslist when...

The title of their post is:

yamaha p85 digital piano for trade roland D-70 or cash - $450

but when you send them an e-mail saying you'll only go as high as $400, they reply "That's fine, but I can't go any lower because I'm selling this to pay off a debt."

What, does your debtor only accept US Dollars or Roland D-70's as payment?

Its Been a While

I got a job over a month ago and I moved. So, although I have still been getting a decent amount of Chipotle (landed a gift card for Christmas), I haven't had much time to write about it.

The job is great except for the fact that they pay for lunch 4 days a week at select restaurants. Chipotle is not one of them. Sadly this reduces my visits to roughly once a week. It's bad, I know.

I Am Going to Die

Today I broke new ground and ripped more tortillas than ever before. I went to Chipotle for dinner (which turned out to be my only meal of the day, and may turn out to be my only meal for the week) and got a Chipotle 2.1 burrito (2 wraps, rice, both beans, barbacoa, plenty of hot sauce, corn, sour cream, cheese, a little lettuce... some day I will make a post and timeline the various burritos I went through and who influenced them).

I am never eating again.

The amount of rice and beans was OBSCENE, and BOTH wraps ripped while they were putting it all together, a historic event in my personal Chipotle history! They had to pull out an extra sheet of tin foil to cover the entire thing.

Of course, I rose to the occasion and slammed the entire thing, and now I am paying the price. I'm going to take a nap now and wake up with a vicious Chipotle hangover (a phenomenon that I will, unfortunately, also have to discuss in another post as I am feeling myself slipping into a food coma at this very moment).