They say the first step to overcoming addiction is admitting that you have a problem. Well, I have a problem, but I have no desire to overcome it. There are few things in this world that can capture my attention for hours on end. The kind of things that envelope and engross you to the point that you look up and two hours have flown by. So what is it? Booze? Pills? Streaming porn? Not even close... I'm addicted to Yelp and Google Earth. There, I said it. Sometimes I use them both together, at the same time; like an internet speed-ball. Let's face it, if these vices were physically harmful I'd have been dead long ago.
Let's start with Google Earth. It's zoomable pictures of the entire world, people! I mean are you kidding me?!? Anywhere you want to go, anything you want to see, punch it up and there it is! Blows my mind. Then they added the street view feature so that you can actually see how shitty your old neighborhood looks now from right in front of the curb. No plane ticket, no driving, just zoom on in. If I'm driving somewhere new, I'll actually go to Google Earth and look at the path/turns/directions whatever, so that when I'm coming up on a turn I already know what to look for. Does this make me a loser? No, but it definitely means I have too much time on my hands, and that brings me to my next obsession: Yelp.
Now Yelp's been around for a long time and maybe you've already heard about it or used it, but I'm telling you that the Yelp concept is the greatest thing that's happened to dining in the last 5 years. Yeah, you can check out a bunch of other crap on Yelp, but this site (and the people who support it) are all about the food! When you're on the road in a strange town, do you want to archive some bullshit online review from a blowhard food columnist who got a free meal AND a free bottle of wine in exchange for an ass-kissing review of an otherwise overpriced and overrated restaurant. Of course not! You want real, honest reviews, from people like you.
This is why I love Yelp. For the most part, the people posting reviews are average Joe's who know what's good and what sucks, and they're not afraid to tell you about it. I have a personal success story involving Yelp that lets me know that the owners of restaurants also read the reviews and care about the image of their business.
After our third less than stellar meal at a nearby upscale restaurant, I wrote a scathing review on Yelp, bitching and moaning in great detail. Low and behold, a week later I received an email from the owner explaining that he was sorry to hear of my bad experiences and would I please provide my address so that he could send me a gift card for $100 as a way to try to win my business back.
Now being the cynic that I am, I smelled this dirty dog a mile away. No way in hell was I giving out my address so that this guy's buddies could leave a flaming bag of dog shit on my porch for me to stomp out on a warm summer evening. So I did what any of you would have done, and I gave him my in-laws address just in case there was a surprise coming my way. Just kidding...I gave him my work address. Two weeks later, the $100 gift card arrived and the next weekend my wife and I went to dinner on the owner. And do you know what I discovered? A free meal tastes a hell of a lot better than one you pay for!
So, do something good for your community and become a Yelper! Try new places, write reviews, and be a voice for the average Joe! Then get on Google Earth and look for other nearby places that you can visit and Yelp about. You'll be speed-balling in no time, trust me...I'm an addict.
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