tellhimfred.com

Hey Fredders!

Well, due to work, weather, a variety of half-baked excuses, and a plague of locusts, we didn’t get a Bookie up last week. BUT…this week, we have a doozy for you. Now, as you recall, the criteria for a Bookie is:

 –a great, useful website chock full o’ information/funny things/cool shit

–a website that maybe a lot of people don’t know about.

 And up until a couple of days ago, I would have THOUGHT that this week’s winner would have been disqualified on criterion #2. But after getting a bunch of “you looked it up on what?” responses this past week, I’ve decided that enough of you out there exist in darkness, and must be brought to the light. So without further adoes, this week’s Bookie goes to:

 YELP.COM

Remember Citysearch? Remember the days when you were like “oh, I don’t know where to go tonight, I’ll look it up on citysearch!” Those were salad days. Halcyon days, even.  I used to live in those days. Then one time me and my better, cleaner half decided to go out for dinner, and I decided I wanted award-winning barbecue. I found a place nearby on citysearch, and we went there.

 It was a disgusting hole. They weren’t serving dinner. It was a crappy bar. We left in confusion and haste.

Later, I realized that “sponsored results” pop up first – and all that means is that place paid Citysearch to have their craphole come up on a search. From that day on, I disdained Citysearch and its crappy editors, its bias and its stench of capitalism.

Well, Yelp.com is everything you wished Citysearch could have been and more! Populated by the same kinds of busybodies that make Wikipedia a valuable resource for knowledge, the reviewers on Yelp are all ordinary people like you and me, except they like to share their opinions with the interweb community. And share they do. Some of there folks have written upwards of 500 reviews. None of them receive compensation for their opinions, and so Yelp is truly an unbiased source of reviews of everything from restaurants and nightlife, to shopping, local services, phone companies, you name it! If you ever find yourself thinking “hmmm. I’d like to do _____ but I don’t know if _____ is a reputable _____,” then try looking it up on Yelp!

Alright, alright you caught me. I’ve written reviews on Yelp. No, I’m not telling you where to find them.

Thank you, Yelp.com, winner of this week’s Bookie!