Epinions Blows Dog: a new GameBoy Advance game!
by jkkelley

Pros: the dogs benefit from good head

Cons: it's illegal to give head to dogs; difficulty of establishing consent

The Bottom Line: Epinions is sexist because by blowing only male dogs, it leaves the neglected bitches out in the cold.

You know, my wife recently got a new GameBoy Advance, and normally in this space I'd be writing about it.

I'd tell you that there aren't that many interesting games for it yet. I'd probably go into a little vignette about the history of GameBoys, or GameGirls for that matter. I'd kvetch about the price (I'm still hemorrhaging at the wallet) and the lack of a backlit screen. I'd tell you that I think it's ridiculous, but if it makes her stop calling me a 'faecolith' and a 'shitbag', great.

And if I amde osme imstakes, or if I learn more about the product, or if my viewpoint changes for some reason, I should edit my review. Or, if it blows dog, I should delete it. If I find that I posted in the wrong category, or if a more appropriate category comes along, I should delete and repost it in the proper place.

Unfortunately, I can't do any of the above. Ym imstakes will have to stand. Epinions has, in the dead of night, taken away our ability to edit and delete our own reviews.

And why? Because they're cutting the pay from nothing to half nothing, and they were afraid we'd all go off half-cocked and delete all our work. With that one stroke, the management of Epinions placed its lips upon the canine organ, and confirmed that:

a) they have no business sense. One does not treat the people who work for one in such a fashion--not and expect any loyalty. It's incredibly bad business. Want to come work for my company? Great, welcome aboard. You will find out every month or so that I'm going to change the terms of your employment, cut your pay, cut your benefits, increase your hours, make little rules, and so forth. Doesn't that sound like a delightful workplace? Would you stay?

b) they have nothing to offer us to encourage us to stay (such as a kind word now and then), so they have to resort to hostage-taking. Remember the Berlin Wall? As you may recall, it was built to keep rapacious West Berliners from pouring into East Germany en masse to avail themselves of the benefits of Stalinist socialism as enforced by the infamous Stasi. Right? Ha. Epinions' new policy is the Berlin Wall of the site. Since they cannot encourage us to stay through incentives, they've put up the barbed wire.

c) Epinions is done. I doubt it will survive to Christmas. In fact, I don't particularly care if it does. I don't see how anything else can be the case. They've had three rounds of financing without ever, to my knowledge, showing their venture capitalists any sort of return. Their rent and payroll must surely, certainly, dwarf what they pay out to writers. The banner ad market is deceased, and without it, they can't make any money. The pay cuts, in my opinion, are simply an empty gesture to the venture caps to show that they're really serious about cutting costs.

I'm not going to single out members of Epinions management to insult or attack them personally, because I don't need to. They insult themselves through their actions. Saves me a lot of creative speech, I reckon. Plus, frankly, I don't have enough regard for them to expend good insults on them.

This isn't tolerated in any other walk of life. Let's take some for-instances:

1) You deposit your money in a bank. You know that banks have the right to change their terms at any time, etc. One day you go in to make a withdrawal and you find out that, four days ago, your bank changed its policy: no one may withdraw money anymore. Would you put up with that? Would anyone?

2) You go on a date with a handsome man. He pays for dinner, movie, etc., and things click, so you take him home. Both of you are naked and ready to fuck like animals in heat. He announces that he's changed his mind: you are required to wear real pasty makeup on your whole body, then soak in a cold bathtub for ten minutes, then pretend to be dead while he fucks you. Not only that, but he tells you that having come this far, you're obligated to fuck, and politely but firmly makes it clear that he won't let you leave until you put out. Would that be tolerable?

3) You join a new church. It's kind of a weird one: it's the First Church of Melanesian Frog Worship. You're a devout member and you stick around for a while, finding it life-enhancing. Ok, one Wednesday the Herpastor announces (worship is at 2 AM on Wednesdays, an hour sacred to amphibians) that from here on out, everyone's got to pony up 20% of their income to the church. Not only that, no one is allowed to leave any more. If you try, you'll be hunted down and made to eat flies as penance. Hallelujah, brothers and sisters!

It is time for me to offer Epinions a bit of a business lesson, and it is this: business is, ultimately, done between people because they prefer to do business with one another. I used to write a lot of reviews at Amazon; in fact, I attained a bit of prominence doing so. However, you couldn't edit or delete your reviews there, and I hated it. So I came to Epinions, attracted partly by the fact of being able to update, modify, delete, whatever. And I've used it. I've gone back to old reviews and made them better. I've moved reviews to better categories. I've corrected idiotic mistakes.

Now Epinions isn't attractive at all. It offers virtually no money. It seems hell-bent on destroying all sense of community. It lifts its leg and takes a long, slow, fragrant piss all over the people who have worked hard to make it attractive and fun as well as informative. It has no stability--it's down, or hosed, half the time. (Hey, don't knock it. It replaces important bodily fluids that you lose during a day's exertions. Gods above and below, how I wish Hard_To_Please was still with us to see that line. Mark, bro, we miss you.) There is no reason, none in the world, for me to want to do business there, or help them succeed.

For Epinions, I believe that the future holds:
--elimination of comments entirely
--elimination of profile pages
--a change from actual revenue paid to some sort of gift certificate system, so that you have to spend your Epiniobucks with a major Epinions advertiser
--other 'features' as poorly thought out as the MH rating: and how, pray tell, is this supposed to have any meaning if there is only one review? If there are a hundred? It was destined not to be used as designed from day one. (Anyone think I'm going too far when I criticize Epinions management as pretty dumb? Think about this one and tell me I don't have a clipful of reasons.)
--the actual sale of our material to other agencies, or at least the attempted sale, with us receiving some pittance as token compensation in a futile endeavour to keep the lawyers away.
--arbitrary marking of any review that in any way criticizes Epinions as 'Not Helpful', with that rating frozen in place and unaffected by reader ratings.
--Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

In other words, this place has no future.

Thinking of joining Epinions? Think again. I think you're nuts if you do. Unless, of course, you enjoy watching a dog being orally gratified.

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This review is part of Sordid-1's "Epinions Blows Dog" Writeoff. Under the old rules, this review was mine, and I took pride in trying to do well. However, I have no control over it once it's published, so it's not mine. It's Epinions'. I have therefore made sure that it its relevance and quality is commensurate with high standards of dog blowing.

Should Epinions see the imbecility of its ways and restore edit/delete functionality, my first act will be to delete this review in its entirety. I may never write for them again, but in accordance with the principles of the writeoff, this review will vanish.

Did you know, by the way, that dogs spooge consistently throughout sexual activity? Prosit, Epinions. Have a drink!


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For a time in October 2001, you could have read this review on http://www.epinions.com. It has been deleted from that site, but other writing by the author is still available there at jkkelley.