The Cow Goes Moola
And now we bring you a history lesson as imagined by the Guru…
Maybe we were meant to fight our way through, struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can’t stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums.
–Captain James Tiberius Kirk
Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
–The Bible, Matthew 7:13-14
In the beginning human life crawled out of the primordial ooze and was horny. But, even before that, it was hungry. Foods, it thought. We need foods.
How They’re Gaming Yelp
Never underestimate the human desire to game systems. Why expend actual effort when you can “win” by cheating? Because, to the victor go the spoils. Today I’d like to explain one way that business owners go about gaming their reviews.
So there’s this thing called Yelp. They claim to be generally positive system but the dictionary definition of the word “yelp” is: “a short sharp cry, esp. of pain or alarm.” Yeah, baby. Those are my kind of reviews. Let’s go negative and keep it that way. Don’t believe me? Look it up in your own dictionary.
I went to the trendy meat cafe and they served me an elk burger that was oozing blood. That’s how I earned “connoisseur of raw elk meat” on my Twitter profile! And, oh yeah, you better believe I yelped it as soon as I got home.
My understanding is that Yelp frowns on business owners asking for reviews. That’s bad form in a reputation system that’s supposedly driven from a wellspring of organic experiences from normal people like you and me. Normal! Yeah, right.
Here’s how the gaming works:
You place an order on a website. A few days or weeks later you receive a survey request. “How did we do on your recent order?” and what not.
You’ll likely be given the ability to enter some comments and provide a rating. If you give them a good rating, they’ll say thanks and provide a clickable link to the Yelp website where you can enter a review. If you give a bad rating, they only say thanks. No linky for you.
Voila! It’s as simple as that. The system just got gamed. The preliminary survey is nothing more than a sieve to sort the good eggs from the bad. The good eggs are passed along to Yelp and the bad eggs go down the chute. You might think that businesses appreciate negative feedback most of all because that’s vital information to help them improve. You’d be wrong. Why waste time on that shit when you can be gaming the system instead?
This is just one small example of gaming. People in the world of business spend more time thinking about stuff like this than they do on actual products and services. And they’re really good at it. That’s ingenuity.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to nosh on some raw elk. RAWR!
Sneaky Meat
Sure, we can live through an occasional vegetarian meal every now and again. But what if they become too frequent? What happens then?
Worry no longer!
Thanks to an amazing breakthrough by Abyss scientists you’ll never have to find out. Introducing the product that hungry carnivores have yearned for since the dawn of time. Sneaky Meat!
Using our patented Meat Miniaturization Molecularization Methods (MMMM) everyday proteins are hydrogenated, dehydrated, folded, spindlatated and mutilated into delicious stealthy particlized food bits. Perfect for sneak attacks on that next vegetarian meal!
Outflank flavor while maintaining robust, juicy mouthfeel with real meat.
Continue reading →
¡ Yo Fear-O Taco Bell !
I just had a filler enema!
I am not a foodie. (If you have to paint me in a box go with trekkie.) I know I’ve written about food a lot lately. It’s just this naive bleef that we have a right to know what we eat. And that increasingly the people who make food are seemingly at cross-purposes to that deceptively simple objective. (And sometimes cross-porpoises but that’s another story.)
Take Taco Bell, for example. (Figuratively, not literally, I hope.) A while back there was a hubbub that Taco Bell’s “seasoned beef” was rumored to be 35% beef and 65% other stuff. (Taco Bell eschews the word “filler.”)
Well, Taco Bell wants you to know the truth. They are proud to announced that their “seasoned beef” product is a whopping 88% beef and only 12% other stuff.
Forget about the daily grind, it’s time for an afternoon party! 88% is pretty damn good! Hot mess good. If only we could achieve that standard for everything in life.
Continue reading →
Meat Me in Montana
Hey! What are you doing? Are you checking out my marbling? Well cut that out! I’m not a piece of … well, you get the idea.
Big Bird has been pondering what new career opportunities might present themselves if his funding gets cut. Let’s put it like this: He doesn’t want to end up at Chick-Fil-A.
So, at his urging, it’s time for a post about your friend and mine. This post will explore a few randomized thoughts about meat. Some will be deadly serious and no joking matter. Some will be as frivolous as what you’ve come to expect from the likes of me. Some will be philosophical. And at least one will be a reveal of a personal nature. I hope you’ll find this post to be a cut above the rest.
Does this post have anything to do with Montana? Not really, if you get the cut of my jib.
Make the jump for the first cut-scene.
Continue reading →
All You Can Meat
Close-up view of Pete's colon. Tagline: Just when you thought a colon would stop at 41 pounds of processed meat...
What happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas. It got pooped out in my home town…
I know this guy. And no, just this once, that isn’t code for talking about myself. Let us call him Pete.
Continue reading →
Skewered – The Meat Supremacy
Screw the figgy pudding!
This is a true story. No embellishment. No histrionics.
Now the goose is on the table
And the pudding made of fig
And the blue and silver candles
That would just have matched the hair in grandma’s wig
Every great story has meat on a stick. This story is no exception. I love skewers.
Long story short, I’ve known my wife for seven years now. For most of those years we have traveled to her uncle’s for Christmas. The first time there we stayed in a Super 8 motel. Directly across the street was a strip mall with a restaurant excitingly labeled “Kabobs.”
I wanted to go. Bad.
Alas, my wishes were vetoed and quashed by She Who Must Be Obeyed. She said no. I think her exact words were something along the lines of, “We’re here to spend time with family. Not to eat damn kabobs.” Thus, it was decided. We didn’t go.
Continue reading →
Shouts from the Abyss 
Recent Comments