POUND EXCLAIM # !

Video games are for children. Everyone knows that. And losers. The real cool dudes are out there slamming beers and scamming on chicks. Well tell me this, Cool Dude: Did you ever save a beer can or a chick from twenty-four years ago and now it/she is worth $100,000? That's US Dollars! Oh, you did and you're married now? My bad, I had no idea. Congrats. Yeah the invite must've gotten lost in the mail.

Anyways. We were talking rare Nintendo games. There was this event that happened in 1990 called The Nintendo World Championship or something like that. Do you remember the hit 1989 movie, The Wizard? Yeah, it was exactly like that! Except probably without PowerGloves. Well Nintendo had to make special game cartridges for these events. The cartridges were specially programmed to play Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer, and Tetris. The players had a little over 6 minutes to play the three games and whoever had the highest score at the end of those 6 minutes was the winner (Fred Savage).

There were 1,200 gray game cartridges made for the championships, 90 of which were given to finalists as prizes (the others destroyed?). These are really rare now. Even more rare are the 26 gold cartridges that were made for a related but separate Nintendo Power promotion prize. These are considered the holy grail of Nintendo games--the rarest of the rare. The most desirable. The diamond in the rough.

Last week, one of the gray cartridges popped up on ebay. It wasn't even a good copy. The label was ripped off and someone had written on it. These normally sell for maybe a couple thousand, tops. This one sold for just under $100,000. Then, then!, after seeing the high prices this poor copy commanded, two other people decided to list their Nintendo World Championship cartridges on ebay. One is a gray copy in better condition. The other is a gold cartridge!

As of this writing, the gray copy is at $16,000 with 2 days of bidding left. The gold is at $100,000 with nearly 5 more days of bidding. These things always explode (figuratively) in the last moments of auction. This video game could seriously hit $200K. That's like a whole year's salary from one video game!

[Editor's note: in doing actual research for this next part, I discovered that two copies sold this past week. One at $99,902 and the other at $17,500. Hmm, I wonder why the massive discrepancy.]

Now let's have some numbers fun. Ebay is often lovingly called "Feebay" because they take a significant chunk of your sale. Then, if you pay with their preferred method of PayPal, you're going to lose some more money in fees. In my experience of much, much smaller sales, the final value fee is around 8% with another 3% from PayPal (shipping cost included). But I want to look up the actual fee for something like this.

We'll do the first example of the one that already sold. We'll also assume that the seller started the auction under a dollar and chose no additional listing options. Therefore, there are no fees yet until final sale. With a final sale price of $99,902 and free shipping, let's see...well, that doesn't seem right. Ebay's fee calculator is showing an estimated fee value of only $250.00. This guy/gal might have actually made some money off of this. Actually, the person who sold it for only $17000 also had to pay $250 in fees. That must be their maximum fee in the video game category.

I will assume, too, that they did not use PayPal, but instead some type of escrow service. And then the guy dropped the game in a yellow padded envelope and dropped it off at USPS First Class Mail, probably uninsured, no delivery confirmation. (lol?)

Okay, so I kept messing around with the Ebay fee calculator. It estimates 10% at every value up to $2,500.00 where it maxes out at $250. (I still don't believe it though). I'm just going to assume that ebay took a thousand of this guy's money.

Man, this article is losing momentum fast. The moral of the story is to keep your eyes open at the flea markets and to know what you're looking at because: money. Or alternately, spend your life hoarding, because something might be worth something someday and all of the "I told you so's" will be the delicious gravy on top of your money pile.

I can guess what you're thinking: "bbq pork at wendy's?" That is exactly what I thought too! But y'all know me. I had to try it. If you want to know more about this delightful southern sandwich served up by a popular middle-western fast food joint then keep on reading. We're going to take a short, sweet trip down barbeque  lane.

For the record, spell check wants me to spell it barbecue. Ergo, henceforward it shall be spelled bbq. I don't know what is right or wrong anymore.

Also for the record, this must be a special test-market sandwich because after a cursory search I cannot find any official media to use as the lead image. (Yay! Special!) That's where those adorable piglets enter the scene. Because nothing gets the stomach going like looking at the baby version of the animal you are about to eat / have just eaten.

Getting The Sandwich

So several nights ago I was hungry for dinner and nothing in the house seemed appetizing or worth the effort. And I'm all, "I'm an adult. I can go eat fast food if I want. No one is forcing me to make some sort of poor person's jambalaya using rice, a can of tuna, and some frozen vegetables." Thusly empowered, I bundled up to brave the elements (it's been soooo cold lately, you guys) and make the trek to the promised land (Wendy's).

But you know how like you have to decide what you're hungry for before you decide where to drive? You see, at this point I have no idea that Wendy's has bbq pork. So I'm all set for spicy chicken. And when I'm there, I don't really notice the advertisement for bbq pork until after I've ordered. Instead of causing a scene and re-ordering (the teenager probably already pushed the button and doesn't know how to go back), or being a fatty and getting multiple sandwiches, I decide to make a return visit in the near future.

Fast forward to a couple days ago. I didn't pack my lunch for work (I normally pack). This would be a great opportunity to eat bbq pork, I think to myself. Off I go, back to the promised land (still Wendy's (in this story)).

Confronted With Conflict

I'm in the drive-thru. I beat the lunch rush. There's only one lady in front of me (apparently ordering a custom sandwich each for an entire kids soccer team?), but I can't read the menu from this far back. (Note to self: write an article about drive-thrus). When she finally moves her stupid trophy-wife Acura SUV out of the way, I pull up and confidently order...? I pause. Oh crap!

There are multiple bbq pulled pork options that I was not prepared for and I'm having a difficult time interpreting the sign. (Ambiguous language, awkward layout (plus I'm on the hot seat)) So I see that a regular bbq pulled pork sandwich is one of the options and I choose that. And wait! Confronted with conflict again...

As it turns out, there are three different sauce options. I totally missed this and had to make another on-the-spot call. This is not how I operate. When it comes to food, I only make carefully planned and meticulous decisions.

My stress is your payoff. I'm going to tell you about the different sandwich and sauce options so that you don't have to be nervous in line. (Or maybe you don't have crippling anxiety about food purchase decisions). You can't find this information on their website either, so, you're welcome. I'm not saying you owe me, but...you kinda owe me.

Food Options
-BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich
-Cheeseburger with BBQ Pulled Pork
-BBQ Pulled Pork Cheese Fries

Sauce Options
-Spicy
-Smoky
-Honey BBQ

And here it is:


Right away, you'll notice the "brioche" bun. Then soon afterward you'll see that there is slaw on the sandwich. They call it broccoli slaw. And then you'll ask yourself, "wait, you were taking pictures of your food at work? what if someone saw you? you're that guy." Well someone did see me and I am that guy. Man, the sacrifices I make. You guys really owe me.

So it's a little sloppy, but this kind of thing is supposed to be. I mean, it was spilling over the edge, yet the bottom of the bun wasn't soggy, which is important. Oh, beeteedubs, I chose "Smoky BBQ" sauce because I thought it would best represent the spirit of what this sandwich is supposed to be as a sandwich.

Mmm, delicious close up

Under the hood.

This is a pretty bold experiment for Wendy's. No one thinks "hey I want a bbq pork sandwich, let's go to Wendy's." In fact, there aren't really many places you can go. Sure, specialty bbq shacks or, like, City Barbeque if you have one around. But no consistent nationwide options. (Maybe? I don't really know for sure)

Eating It

One of the best websites around is imdb.com. The Internet Movie DataBase. It has it all. Actors, directors, runtime, critic reviews, user reviews, movie rating, and on and on and anything you could want to know about a movie or television show. (Note: the site has been owned by Amazon since 1998).

Another movie ratings site is rottentomatoes.com. It has most of the same information about the media. (Note: site owned by Time Warner). But you will notice a pretty substantial difference in the ratings. For starters, it differentiates between critic rating and user rating for the given movie/show. Whereas IMDB displays a conglomerate score (based mainly, I would assume, on user ratings).

However, the ratings on Rotten Tomatoes are difficult to interpret. The site skews toward (wannabe) elitist-movie-snob. So a movie with a 58% rating might actually be a really great movie. IMDB, on the other hand, paints a ratings picture with a broader brush stroke. If a movie is 5.8/10, I know it won't be very good but I probably won't regret putting the time in. The point is that I, personally, have set my movie score barometer to IMDB. I can look at the rating and immediately have a pretty good impression of the quality of the film or show.

Also, I think Rotten Tomatoes users will not watch a movie based on the RottenTomatoes score. It's like saying, "uh, I only drink 18-year single barrel scotch and this is a 12-year blend." It's something about the attitude that bothers me.

Anyways, this has all been a tangent. The real point is about rating things. We--as a society--have to quantify everything. How tall are you? How much do you weigh? Am I hotornot(.com)? You can't say "you see how tall I am" or "what, are you going to lift me?" or "meh, like 6ish."

Wait, I'm straying from my main question again. Which hasn't even been presented! And I will now present to you the point of this article:

Why isn't there a good ratings site for books?

Whenever I experience the all-encompassing awesomeness of IMDB for movies, I think, "there should be a site like this for books." IBDB. And there isn't. Nothing as comprehensive, complete, and accurate, at least. But movies have been around for, like, less than a hundred years basically. The written word, conversely, has been around since, like, whenever your mom was born. What is that, like 2000 years ago? She's old, man. Your mama so old, she collects on dust. Anyways, so here is where we talk about:

Goodreads.com

This website has the most potential to be the IMDB of books. In fact, it was acquired by Amazon in early 2013. And I think that company knows a thing or two about stuff. I signed up for it a couple years ago, but then quit because it was useless and kept emailing me about things I didn't care about and wanting me to connect to friends and junk. I signed-down, or un-signed-up, or whatever, but it still knows who I am and still sends me emails and wants me to connect! Staaahp!

You know what, though? I still use it to read reviews on books. How do you choose what to read next? You either get a recommendation from someone, have a pre-made list you're trying to tackle, pick up something randomly at the store/library, or [other]. But if you're not sure you want to read something and want to get some feedback on whether or not it will be worth your time, where do you go? Who do you trust?

A movie is a small investment. Maybe 90-150 minutes of your life. Even if it's not good, you stay until the end and then tell all your friends about how double-plus-un-good it was (for instance, all of the LOTR movies). A book, though, that can average anywhere from 4-20 hours of your life. And for what? You could stop, sure, but what if it gets good later?

So you could ask a friend if they've read it and what they think. Or you could read the user reviews on websites that sell the book. Or maybe google or wikipedia has some information for you. However, there isn't really a wam-bam-thankyou-ma'am quick rating and synopsis website yet.

Goodreads is getting there. It tells me how many pages, gives a brief synopsis, and gives a star rating (out of five), among some other things. What more could a boy wish for?

This is where we get back into the "ratings barometer" part of the discussion. Good reads is skewed. And in this case, it is skewed not toward the high-brow elitists, but toward the lowest common denominator. Think about the time investment in books. That alone is going to make you rate something higher for the simple fact that you finished it and want to believe that it was a good use of your time. Plus you only get to rate it out of five. Where is the allocation for nuance?

Also, just finishing a book is a huge accomplishment for some people. Therefore, they're more likely to rate it higher because each book they read is the best book they've read recently. Also, think about who is more likely to rate a book on a website. Yeah, teenage girls. Let's get into some examples.

Twilight. Goodreads rating: 3.57/5 stars. The movie adaptation scored 49% on RT, and 5.2/10 on IMDB. Either the book was way better (like, duh) or there is a ratings bias. I started reading the book: terrible.

The Great Gatsby. GR rating 3.82/5. Most recent movie scored RT: 49% (wow, tough crowd) and IMDB: 7.3/10. One of the greatest literary works scored only .25% higher than Twilight.

The highest rated movie on IMDB is Shawshank Redemption (9.3/10). The highest rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes is Toy Story 2 (100%). The highest rated book on GoodReads is, well, they haven't quite made it possible to search like that yet, but the highest I found is The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (4.8/5). I guess you can't really argue with that.

As GoodReads is still in its infancy with Amazon, it could still turn out to be great. But until they get a better UI, smarter database, and a better review system, it will suffer as the ultimate books ratings catalog. They will also have to find a better way to handle duplicity (same book, different publication edition, translation, etc). You guys, just make it happen already! I need quantified data, generalized for easy consumption.

So, read anything good lately?

Or is it Year-End Review? Either way, we generally don't like these last minute look-backs. They're mostly good at making people go "ugh, shut up about that already" on the topics that were over-saturated in the media or "that was this year?" about most of the things that happened in the first half of the year.

Well, let's jump right in. Let's start off on a low note and list all of the notable people that died this year. As it turns out, quite a bit of people made this list. Since The New York Post has already done all of the heavy lifting, I'll just link to their article about all of the 2013 deaths.

Okay, that's out of the way, what else happened this year?

Footballer Manti Te'o had a fake girlfriend.
Edward Snowden. And...
We found out that the NSA spys on everything we do at all times.
Drones.
China landed on the moon.
The legless Olympian Oscar Pistorious murdered his wife.
A crazy man pretended to do sign language 3 feet from USA President Obama.
Kim Jong Un is BFFs with Dennis "The Worm" Rodman
Some meteors came close to earth, one landed in Chelyabinsk.
The pope resigned.
The new pope is pretty progressive, for a pope.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is a habitual crack user and is still mayor.
Some jerks bombed a race in Boston.
There was snow in Egypt.
A handful of school/mall/place shootings.
Horsemeat.
Sharknado.
Duck Dynasty.
Bitcoin.
Dogecoin.
Twerking.
A crazy man kept 3 women prisoner in his house for a decade.
Kanye West.
YOLO.
What does the fox say?
Marriage equality.
Marijuana.
Government shutdown (US).
iPhone 5s.
healthcare.gov
Twitter IPO
Mars rover.
XBoxOne/PS4

You guys, just so many things happened. Can't we forget about them all already, and try again next year? Have a safe and happy black-out-drunk tonight and best of luck in 2014!

The latest gourmet monstrosity out of the popular authentic Mexican restaurant, Taco Bell, carries a title so enticing, provocative, and distinguished that many people may wonder, "Is this food item for me, or is it reserved for powerful Mexican politicians and celebrities?" In this edition of fast food review, we take on the behemoth:

Taco Bell Triple Steak Stack

Haha, more like "Triple Mistake Stack of Regrets." But we'll get to that part later. The first thing you'll notice is that this unit of food is a "stack." Unlike tacos, burritos, quesadillas, and such, this wad of food has no existing culinary equivalent of which to be a poor American-fast-food-imitation. This was probably invented by the same powerful minds at YUM! Brands HQ that brought us KFC's Double Down--which you'll recall is a sandwich with fried chicken where the bread should be and bacon and cheese in between. This time they were all "Ah screw it, just fold it inside a thingy and call it a stack of meat. They'll eat it."

Regular diners of TheBell will already know that there are no stacks with any quantity of meat other than triple. Which is odd, because there had to be a single meat at one time to arrive at the ratio of 3x the meat. I even Ctrl+F'd the Taco Bell website just to make sure there wasn't a Single or Double Meat Stack. Maybe it's just called a Steak Fold. That sounds gross. Although, by doing this I did discover that there is also a Triple Chicken Stack (for all you vegans out there).

This abomination has been on my "to do" list ever since it first came out (much like many limited-time-only fast foods). I can't help it. It's my chronic FOMO flaring up again. Let's talk about the food in the next section, aptly called:

Eating It

Earlier today while at work I thought I smelled a Taco Bell Crunchy Taco Supreme. I don't know what caused that, possibly a minor stroke, but it firmly planted the idea into my brain that I needed to eat a crunchy taco supreme at some point today. Not until I pulled into the drive through did I remember that what my electrolytes really craved was actually a stack of meat on meat on meat. Here's a pic of my 3x beef fold:

Just like the promo picture!

This food item comes in an unmarked sheath of foil. It is reminiscent of a sad, flat, floppy Chipotle burrito. Then you open it up and see the mark of the beast printed all over the foil, instantly realizing why your burrito seemed so sad and floppy. Normally I would also show you a picture of the meat and insides while lifting up the flap. However, in this particular instance my gut feeling was that if I was going to eat this I should not examine it any more closely. (Current self to past self: good call) 

It is the tenth of December. So we thought it would be a good time to review the book, Tenth of December, by George Saunders. It is a collection of short stories written by the MacArthur Foundation "genius" Fellow, who is a professor of creative writing at Syracuse University.

Back in January, a book reviewer on an NPR program declared Tenth of December as "the best book you will read this year." That's a pretty bold claim for so early in the year. Yet, because of my crippling FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), I immediately rushed out and bought a copy. On Amazon. No one goes to Barnes&Nobles unless they are trying to kill time or just want to browse magazines without buying them. After all, YOLO.

It is a good thing that this book was not released two years ago, because that is the year that I read the Hunger Games trilogy (well, 2011-2012). And the year is not yet over, so I might just read Divergent or some other YA dystopian thriller.

Hyperbolic claims aside, it really is a great amalgam of short stories. Saunders shows his gift for creating engaging narratives with complex characters and resolving conflicts within a limited framework of a couple-few dozen pages. Not all stories need to be novels. Short stories are an art form unto themselves. And Saunders proves this with each tale.

With a full range of emotion, Saunders explores the human condition with a biting--if not withdrawn--humor and bleakness. The beautifully written stories are the kind that will coat the walls of your mind and drip into your daily thoughts still days after reading. 

Even months later, now, from having originally read the stories, they exist as echoes in my mind like some familiar memory. Aren't they a common experience that all minds have shared? I wish it were so. 

Many of the stories (all?) have been previously published independently; mostly for the New Yorker magazine. In fact, all of the stories in the book still exist in their original context and may be read online for free. So if you can't make it to a library or Amazon, I still highly recommend reading these stories. Here are the links: 

• The Semplica-Girl Diaries * - New Yorker, October 2012
• Tenth of December * – New Yorker, October 2011
• The Red Bow  – Esquire, April 2009
• Puppy * – New Yorker, May 2007
• CommComm – New Yorker, August 2005
• Bohemians – New Yorker, January 2004
• Adams – New Yorker, August 2004
• Jon – New Yorker, January 2003
• Sea Oak – Barcelona Review, 2000
• A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room – Northwest Review, 1986

The first Google Image result for "beguiling charm." Incidentally, this card appears to use Radiant Orchid. Coincidence? Conspiracy? God? Prescience? Plagiarism?

You guys! We're not even done with New Era Year 13 yet and Pantone is already announcing which color will be the color of the year next year. If you'll recall, this is the year of 17-5641 Emerald. Yeah, you know, the same color as that pillow you bought on a whim at the discount store--to add a splash of color (something different and bold)--to your otherwise beige life.

Look forward to buying accent fabrics/accessories in 2014 in the daring color of...

    18-3224      
 Radiant Orchid 

Radiant Orchid blooms with confidence and magical warmth that intrigues the eye and sparks the imagination. It is an expressive, creative and embracing purple--one that draws you in with its beguiling charm. A captivating harmony of fuchsia, purple and pink undertones, Radiant Orchid emanates great joy, love and health.

(Their words, not mine) All of those words mean things, but strung together as they are in that paragraph they aren't really cohesive. The marketing team picked feelings that they wanted the new color to evoke (or whatever), and then fiddled with sentence structure until the squiggly green lines went away. Also, they don't use an Oxford comma. It's punctuationally acceptable, but it pisses me off. I need that separation!

If you want to read more of their nonsensical blabber, the full press release is here.

Based on my knowledge of the fashion industry (all of which I learned from The Devil Wears Prada movie) it may take a while for this color to trickle down to us common folk. Or it's already been in high fashion and the good folks at Pantone are letting us plebeians know that it's en vogue. Either way, expect to see a lot of Grimaces in 2014.

(Click the Grimace link before reading this:) beguiling charm. What has two thumbs on the space bar and is drawn in (to that)? T hi s   gu y.