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:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can tell, the most ridiculous part about Yelp is the so-called "talk threads." As absurd and unhelpful as so many of the user-generated reviews are concerned, ok, at least I get them. In theory. Sort of? But the talking element? Yikes. As if people need more forums to complain about really, really boring shit.

For the most part I usually ignore the talking component of the site because, you know, I like to stay awake and stuff, but a recently proposed topic caught my eye. Drunk reviewing! It's like drunk dialing except, like, a thousand times nerdier and nobody ever gets laid. Oh, Yelp.

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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…

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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:

What's more tragic than a group of grown-ass women out in public wearing veils, plastic penis necklaces and "Suck for a buck" t-shirts while pounding lemon drop shots at some hideous club? Especially when you consider the fact that their husbands and boyfriends are at the bachelor party down the street getting hummers from hookers. Really, it just breaks my heart.

Well, at least this chick had fun at her FIRST time bachelorette party at Karma (wait, not just fun – crazily FUN!). So simple, yet…so very happy. Kinda like a puppy! A drunken Korean puppy…

all my friends know, I HATE smoking with passion..
I know.. I am a drunken Korean girl.. BUT smoking is not my fetish at all..

few weeks ago, I went Karma for a CRAZY bachelorette party..
I am telling you.. it was my FIRST time bachelorette party ever..
after swiping the ID through the bouncer's card reader, I couldn't see and breath inside.. the place was full of smoking cloud and smell.. but as I told u, it was my FIRST time bachelorette party.. and I was strangely curious about it...

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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…

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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?

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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!

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:

Admittedly, I have done a lot of stupid things in my lifetime (namely, my 22nd birthday, the infamous drunken sleepwalking incident of 2003, that time I ran naked into the edge of an otherwise frozen lake in February in Wisconsin on a dare, I could go on…), but perhaps none was more pointless than the night I exited the interstate and drove around random towns in Ohio in search of an Olive Garden while on an ill-advised road trip between New York and Chicago. I wasted about four hours of my life on this quest, since it was pretty hard to accept that there wasn't an O.G. around just about every corner in this otherwise perfect landscape of American wasteland.

In the end, much to our disbelief, my traveling companions and I just couldn't find an Olive Garden and wound up at Fazoli's, another staple of stoned Midwestern existence, only remarkable for their unlimited Diet Coke refills and five-dollar price tag. Alas! Who hasn't been to one of these chain restaurants? You're on the road, it's the only restaurant in your town, it's cheap…whatever the reason, there isn't a person alive who doesn't know exactly what to expect when they step through the doors of a national chain restaurant. And yet, amazingly, there are hundreds of "reviews"of these restaurants on Yelp. I spent about thirty seconds trying to figure out why anyone would take the time to do this, and then I got distracted by my television and made myself a sandwich.

Without further ado, onward to the dumbness!