...or "Excuse me, how much is a slice of Schadenfreude Pie?"

***

Amy’s Baking Company gets lawsuit threat, nixes conference

ETA: Loopywafflehead with some further updated links HERE!

Return of the ETA: The International Meanies are looking to deport Samy!

Revenge of the ETA!: Amy's Baking Company kicks us out after we find flies in the vodka (three times)

Amy and Samy Bouzgala, of Amy's Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro in Scottsdale, Arizona, appear on Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. Aside from the incredibly poor service and food, they lie about baking the cakes they sell, and most of the photos they use on their Facebook belong to other people. Even worse, they verbally abuse customers and staff, and they keep their employees’ tips for themselves. Ramsey gives up on them, saying, “After about 100 Kitchen Nightmares, I met two owners I could not help. It is because they are incapable of listening.”

The owners didn’t listen because they didn’t want help. They only wanted Ramsey's compliments and praise in order to show up the ‘haters’ and ‘bloggers’ on Yelp and Reddit who are obviously out to get them.

Of course, that didn’t happen and the owners had an epic meltdown on their company’s Facebook page.

( I am keeping note of all names here. We will be pursuing action against you legaly, and against reddit and yelp, for this plot you have come together on. )


The drama made it to Buzzfeed, where you can find plenty of screencaps in case their Facebook is taken down.

Amy has also been convicted of fraud for using someone else’s social security number and taking out a loan.

People swarm to their Yelp page after watching the episode but most of those reviews are removed. However, it’s easy to see from reviews left before the programme was aired that the owners have always behaved this way.

A poster on Reddit submits the theory that the whole place is actually a money laundering operation. [ETA: Post has since been deleted. I'll try to get it from my computer's cache but if anyone finds a screencap in the meantime, let me know. Found a copy of the text on another Reddit thread, copied to the comments here.]

The full episode can be found here on YouTube. This post on eater.com contains a summary as well as a couple of clips from the show.

And ONTD speculates on the most important issue: what Gordon Ramsey would be like in bed.

( Previous ETA's now under the cut )

ETAx5: This is the latest post on their Facebook:

Other Side of Amy’s Baking Company Controversy in Scottsdale To Soon Be Told

SCOTTSDALE, AZ. MAY 15, 2013 -- Amy’s Baking Company will host a Grand Re-Opening on Tuesday night, May 21, following unflattering portrayals on national television.

Customers will be able to decide who is correct: a famous celebrity chef or the marketplace that has supported the small, locally-owned business for six years.

When re-opened, a portion of proceeds will benefit a charity organized to bring awareness to cyber bullying.

Seating is limited. Reservations may be made by emailing sjones@rosemoserallynpr.com.

Diners will also have the opportunity to meet, and judge for themselves the character of owners Amy and Samy Bouzaglo, who have devoted their lives to and earn their living from their small restaurant. The Bouzaglos have been married for 10 years, after Sammy emigrated from Israel.

The owners will likely be holding a press conference before the Grand Re-Opening and answer falsehoods depicted on a reality television show, including assertions that the restaurant confiscates tips from servers.

In fact, wait staff is paid $8-$14 per hour, two and half to nearly five times the standard hourly wage for servers.

Questions will also be answered about what happened to their Facebook page.

Amy’s Baking Company was recently featured on the hit PBS show “Check Please” and has received A+ reports from CBS 5 for kitchen preparedness.

“We are very upset by what has taken place, apologize about the acrimony that has ensued but now must fight back to save our business. We hope and believe much good can result from what has transpired. We ask the public to keep an open mind as we begin to tell our side of the story,” Samy Bouzaglo said.

For more details, please contact Michael Saucier.

I can't decide whether I want Michael Saucier to be a real person or someone who is just leading them on.


In more pleasant news, Katy Cipriano, the waitress who was fired on the show, has participated in an AMA on Reddit. She does have other employment and is doing quite well.

ETAx6: Press conference is off, grand reopening is still on, and future updates can be found in this post.

NOTE: This should go without saying, but it doesn't, so: this is not intended to disparage anyone's spiritual practice. My own is so eccentric that I am hardly in any position to denigrate anyone else's! This is about the wanky squabble amongst certain Heathens who took it upon themselves to offer unsolicited advice to other Heathens about the One True Way [TM] to worship the Norse god Loki.

So on September 4th, a Lokean - a Pagan who reveres the Norse god Loki, not a Tom Hiddleston groupie - called w00lopt posted a photo of a dessert to zir tumblr with the caption:

Afternoon offering to Loki. Sponge cake, fresh strawberries and whipped cream.

necroticdoom, who has unsurprisingly deleted or renamed zir tumblr since this, replied:

um……what? Strawberry shortcake as an offering? to Loki??? WHAT? needless to say that is absolutely ridiculous in a myriad of ways. *bangs head*

Response was swift.
( Read more... )

Once upon a time, someone in facebook posted a "Why Geeks Make Better Boyfriends" list. Britney St. Patience felt the need to point out its inaccuracies. She prefaces it with "Sure there are geek guys out there who are great partners. But being a geek does not guarantee that a guy will be a great boyfriend."

It's a pretty standard 'Nice Guy' deconstruction.

The main highlights are:

Myth #3: Geeks are low maintenance
Supposedly geek guys make great boyfriends because they can subsist on pizza, Mt Dew, and your affection. Just wait until you meet one who will ONLY eat pizza and maybe 3-4 other foods, like some sort of overgrown five year old. It took me nearly a decade to get my computer programmer ex husband to eat salad. My Star Wars obsessed ex boyfriend could not be taken to nice restaurants because he refused to wear anything except ripped jeans and nerdy tees and would not eat anything he could not pronounce. LOW MAINTENANCE MY ASS.

and

Myth #6: Geeks appreciate women
This one is, by far, my favorite geek guy myth. The myth of the guy who spent all of high school playing D&D but secretly wanting someone to love and when he finally gets a girl he imprints on her and covers her in puppy-like devotion. OMG WHERE DO PEOPLE GET THIS SHIT? You know what really happens when guys don't get laid in high school or college and spend all their time reading coming books and filling their spank banks with Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic? They fill their little nerd brains with unrealistic expectations, waiting around for what one of my gamer friends calls a "magical pixie girl". An unattainably hot woman, who will love the nerd boy not in spite of his nerdiness but because of it and somehow his life will be transformed by her love. And he shall get a job. And he shall move out of his parents basement. And he shall cease to be whatever it is he dislikes about himself because the magical lady doth love him. But woe to any girl who does not live up to his fantasy. She will be treated with the same regard as yesterday's Mt Dew cans.

So, a little harsh, but all in all not a matter for anger, right? Wrong!
( And how! Also, an anorexia trigger warning because what starts out as a 'No One's Perfect' rant turns into a very strange argument over salad. )
What follows is an extended debate over whether asking your spouse to eat salad is controlling, an act of deepest love for your dearest one, or something in between. Over salad.

Small, but it just goes to show that creator entitlement and pomposity extends far beyond fandom.

Background: Sylvia's Enchilada Kitchen is a Mexican restaurant in Houston that gets critically lauded at every turn. Also, the Houston Chronicle runs a newspaper segment where people can air their grievances against a restaurant wherein they had a bad experience. Also also, the owner/operator of Sylvia's can't take criticism.

Hilarity ensues. (WARNING: There's some race!fail in the comments, so read at your own risk.)

( Sylvia's response to the complaint below )

Thanks to a mouse at wank_report for this!

VegNews is "an award-winning vegan magazine and website packed with recipes, travel, news, food, reviews, and so much more."

"So much more" apparently means stock photos of meat used to illustrate vegan recipes. Comments are posted, comments are deleted, and users are banned when they point out that using photos of meat (some of them poorly photoshopped to remove bones) seems contrary to the tenets of the magazine.

“Thank you for your interest in VegNews. However, your inappropriate and mean-spirited commenting has violated the policy of VegNews, and we have and will continue to remove any future comments. Please know that we welcome constructive criticism from all viewpoints, and rarely unpublish comments from readers. Should you have any constructive feedback, feel free to email me directly. I’d love to hear from you.”

People are extremely not happy. (But their wanking is done in the most non-violent, humane way possible.)

VegNews posts a non-apology. Surprise, surprise, it doesn't go over well.

(Gothamist's closing line about this debacle is priceless: "Should VegNews change its name to CarnNews, was their apology enough, or is this all just much tofu about nothing?")

Here's a collection of rather small but holiday appropriate wank. Enjoy.

It all starts over on cooking where ronin001 has some Jambalaya RAGE over some Jambalaya made with potatoes and radishes. In itself, it is pretty lulzy, but then it gets posted on domestic_snark where tingilya shows up to tell everyone about Mardi Gras and how only New Orleans can/knows how to celebrate it.

Then we make the leap to Cake Wrecks where the traditional Mardi Gras staple, King Cake, has been targeted and rage flies faster than beer soaked bead finds its way to exposed breasts.

Fun times on Fat Tuesday. \o/

Since tetradecimal took the bullet for me, AND my finals are over, I bring you beautiful, wonderful, lovely Cinnabon wank.

Over on Bad Service unbrokenwings posts a recent story about running into a debit card minimum at Cinnabon while purchasing a drink. She works under hot lights and gets thirsty, and Cinnabon has the biggest, cheapest drinks. unbrokenwings usually only purchases drinks there because she has a wheat allergy and cinnamon buns make her want to hurl. Fair enough, right?

Well, sjaustin is not going to let that stand! How dare unbrokenwings go into a place that sells products she finds nauseating to buy other products she likes! Even after unbrokenwings says she finds most other places that sell food to have the same effect on her, sjaustin is still unrepentant!

I'm arguing with you because you're contradicting yourself all over the place. Slow day? No, it's called "lunch." Most people who work those cushy office jobs get a whole hour in the middle of the day to do with as we please.

Gosh, you would think the food at every place being nauseating would be more motivation for you to bring your own drinks. Maybe you're exaggerating just a bit?

darsynia tries to use logic, but it is of no use!

Dear God this is so beautiful, I think I might cry.

And then, to add a beautiful wank topping to the wank-cake, the wank is posted to SF_Drama and sjaustin shows up in the comments!

And then I dance around in circles because I know a wank like this mean CINNAMON BUN RECIPES IN THE COMMENTS AND ALSO I GOT 20 OUT OF 19 ON MY ENGLISH FINAL YAY!!!!

I came across this on twitter, thanks to John Scalzi.

Back in 2005, Monica Gaudio wrote an Ice Dragon (? I don't know what this is.) entry called A Tale of Two Tarts that appeared on the Godecookery website. It is copyrighted and on a web-domain that Monica herself owns.

Last week, a friend contacted her, asking her how she had gotten published! Monica's answer "I... didn't?"

Turns out, she had. The magazine Cooks Source (Facebook here, they are also a paper publication.) had lifted her article from the Godecookery site and put it in their magazine.

She contacts the magazine via phone and then through the "Contact Us" link on the website, and exchanges emails with them. Finally, they ask her "what she wants." She replies that she wants an apology on Facebook, a printed apology in the magazine, and $130 donated to the Columbia School of Journalism.

What she got in response was this (quoted from her post):

Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was "my bad" indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.

But honestly Monica, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me... ALWAYS for free!

Monica is rightfully mad.

nihilistic_kid on LJ has a post about it here as well. And Scalzi posted on his blog as well.

And John Scalzi linked to his recipe for Schadenfreude Pie on the Cooks Resource Facebook wall here, with a plea that they "don't steal it." Bwah!

EDIT: The Smart Bitches have picked it up.

Also, people are looking. And unshockingly, this isn't the first time this has happened. This Pancetta and Green Onion Tart? Is copyright to Giada deLaurentiis, and appears on the Food Network website under her name.

EDIT of "Oh Fuck, The Internet is Here" - The cookssource.com website is down. Dear Author and Gawker have both picked it up.

EDIT the Heidipology: This is the last one from me, anything else will have to go into the comments, cause I'm going out and having me a drink from a non-plagiarized source. Judith Griggs has "apologised" via the wall of the Facebook account. Facebook is linked up above. Marvel, will you? (Screencap here in case she takes it down.)

Seattleite killthief is disappointed in Seattle's lack of chain restaurants.

seattle is disappointed in her lack of taste; her appalling lack of taste.

An afternoon snack in miniwank form from customers_suck, courtesy of a mousie from wank_report , from whom the writeup is copypasta'd because journalfen ate the writeup I was working on. There's pedantry here to rival the Buttercream wank from awhile back. Thanks, mousie!

Over at Customers_Suck, haine_otomiya86 posts about a particularly irate customer who - among other things - was unclear about whether he needed a "McDouble," which costs $1.00, and a "Double Cheese Burger," which costs $1.19. The story goes on to describe how the poster had to double check which one the customer actually wanted, as well as a quick mention as to what the difference between these two sandwiches are. Answer: the $1.00 one contains two patties and one slice of cheese, and the $1.19 contains two patties and two slices of cheese.

However, for one magickcat, bothering a customer for clarification is apparently unacceptable.

Okay, seriously?
The customer was a jackass, I will give you that.
HOWEVER, your fussiness here about the McDouble/Double Cheeseburger thing is beyond ridiculous.
I don't mean in dealing with this guy- you did the best you could with an idiot like that, but for YEARS there was a dollar menu double cheeseburger.
Just because they took out one slice of cheese last year and decided to call it a "McDouble" doesn't mean that you shouldn't know what the heck someone is talking about when they specifty the "dollar menu double cheeseburger" which is EXACTLY WHAT A MCDOUBLE IS. There is a bun, there are two burgers, and there is cheese. I don't care how much you charge for it, its a freaking double cheeseburger. When someone specifies the "dollar menu double cheeseburger", if you don't know what they are talking about, well.... yeah.

As the thread unfolds, the reason for such an outburst is soon explained... magickcat is in fact a Cheeseburger Master!

I understand the math of the cheese, I really do.
What I am saying in that it is still a double cheeseburger, because it is...get this... two burgers.. WITH CHEESE.
I don't eat at fast food restaurants, as a general rule, and we don't have In & Outs here, so your reference means nothing to me. It certainly isn't rocket science. I know a few rocket scientists, and they know that a sandwich with 2 burgers and cheese is a double cheeseburger. ;)

"I understand the math of the cheese" may be my new favorite phrase.

Cue rabid dogpiling and unsuccessful attempts to reason with Earth Logic and first grade math. Unfortunately it is all for naught as even magickcat does not seem to know what exactly the point of the argument is. Depending on which thread you visit, it waffles from "they're both cheeseburgers; it's all the same" "Oh, you misunderstood: I wasn't talking about this customer at all, only a theoretical situation where everything was described perfectly," to the cost difference is all a conspiracy by McDonalds":

NO, it costs more because McDonalds saw a way to make more money by adding another burger. They are all "meat"burgers, if you can legally call whatever they put in those things "meat"... I know damn well what is in each one because it was in the news and whatnot about what the change would be. My case is correct, and it stands.

And the arguments just keep coming...

You guys like food wank right? How about some Olive Oil wank? That's what I call a well lubed wank.

lovethatlovage posts a picture of their stovetop on picturing food. sjaustin then comments on their olive oil storage method and it devolves. As if that's not fun enough, lovethatlovage then drags the issue over to stupid_free where sjaustin gets in the first comment. Calls of grudgewank ensue and people start discussing their favorite food wanks of the past.

What's your favorite/most delicious food wank?

Hey! It was Earth day not too long ago! Yay! In celebration of Earth Day, Jen over at Cake Wrecks decides to post about Earth Day related cakes gone horribly wrong.

Jen includes a cake intended to be Spaceship Earth (ETA: that she made, by the way) and makes a joke about it. Fortunately Jen's readership is ready and willing to let her know that the cake is actually Epcot, about 200 times. The comments are wanky, hilarious, and generous amounts of ass kissing towards the end.

This does not bode well with Jen's inner Disney child, and she amends her post with the following:

" To the scores of you telling me this is supposed to be Disney's Epcot Center: Um, yeah, I know. See, the ball at Epcot is called Spaceship Earth, NOT Epcot. Give a Diz Geek a little credit, eh?"

Unfortunately her inner Disney child is still smarting as the next post is provided by her husband, his explanation being...

"Hey everybody. This is john (the hubby of Jen) taking on today's post since Jen is...um...busy. Yeah. So how 'bout that post yesterday, huh? It's like one minute everything's all hunky-dory, and then next thing I know Jen's threatening to strike over something to do with a Disney font. Last I saw, she was on the couch in her memory foam slippers with a pint of Chunky Monkey and watching SGA reruns. I believe her exact words to me were, "YOU write it!!!" And I see the facial tic is back. Greeeaaat."

This, of course, starts a game of finger pointing.

And cake was had by all!

ETA 2: If two posts of butthurt wasn't enough for you, Jen also likes to tweet about it!

Relevant tweets:

# I love you guys. Really, I do. But if ONE MORE PERSON tells me the cake today is the ball from Epcot, so help me, I will not post tomorrow.9:04 AM Apr 28th from web

# No really, for fun, go count how often I'm told you can tell it's Epcot by the Disney font: http://tinyurl.com/d3zrn7 (*headdesk* & repeat!)9:05 AM Apr 28th from web

# In case some of you thought I was making idle threats yesterday: http://tinyurl.com/cgm6fk (Hats off to John for stepping up!)10:03 AM Apr 29th from web

# The comments today are nearly as entertaining as yesterday's. Still, y'all be nice: nobody's an idiot OR a moron, k? Can't we all get along?10:09 AM Apr 29th from web


ETA 3: As pointed out by willywanka, apparently Blogger is responsible for bahleeted comments on Cake Wrecks.

franticallysimple puts it best, "Does this mysterious comment deletion have anything to do with the Epcot Center, now owned by Disney?"

Okay, this is small, but full of delicious WTF. It's also entirely in Polish - luckily for you all, it's my native language, and thus I can offer you a full translation!

A bit of background: I'm moving to Scotland this summer, my fiance will be attending the University of Dundee, so we're hoping to get a small place together. Last time I was in Scotland for longer than a month, I started really missing Polish-style bread, so I'm wondering if there's anywhere I could get that while I'm in Dundee without having to resort to my family mailing me some.

A quick Google search brings me to Emito.net, a community website for Polish immigrants in the UK. From there, a search for "dundee bakery" finds me this discussion thread.

All smallcaps and giant leaps of logic were faithfully preserved from the original.

( looking for confectionery or bakery in dundee )

And so, that baffling aside done, the rest of the thread proceeds on the original topic, someone recommends a Polish baker who does cakes on demand, and I find out that apparently Polish bread can be found in most large supermarkets in Dundee. Score!

This shit is bananas!

(Edit: first icon in replies is NSFW, might be others too; otherwise it's just bizarre threads on food consumption.)

So, hourglasscreate makes a post to the cooking community which includes a recipe for "Easy Fettucine Alfredo" which she supposedly got off of a Campbell's Soup can. This does not go over well.

ETA: Aaaand the second link has gone bye-bye. Now how will I find a recipe for boiled water? ;_;

ANOTHER ETA: She's wanking it up again in a whole new post! This time, it's about "sloppy joes".

The members of trashy_eats have had it with these motherfucking bacon rolls on their motherfucking LJ community.

angieobsessed would like us all to know that microwaving butter in order to melt it is a crime against humanity.

This has been a public service announcement.

Over in cooking, health-conscious user changeopresto has a bone to pick. You see, the United States is currently being ravaged by an obesity epidemic, and she has made it her personal mission to change that. Thus, she humbly requests that all "non-healthy" recipes be placed behind a cut.

Other users quickly point out that she is in a general cooking community that accepts all types of recipes, and that it can be hard to objectively define what is and isn't healthy. And of course, she is not a mod and should just use the scroll button.

The wank takes a turn for the truly bizarre in that last thread. ladyartemisa points out that what is healthy varies from person to person - for example, her husband has hypertension and must cut down on salt, while she is pregnant with low blood pressure and must load up on salt.

changeopresto is confused. "Ok well I don't know what doctor is prescribing a low salt diet for hypertension. I thought they gave people riddalin for that."

obfuscate brings the snark which immediately leads to changeopresto uttering the comment of a million lulz. Protip: The 'H' is ADHD does not stand for hypertension.

Bonus lulz: Pastry is not real. Also, butter.

400+ comments, so there's plenty more wank to be found. And of course, changeopresto edits the original post with the mandatory, "GET A LIFE PEOPLE!!!"

ETA: If you find something through otf_wank you really should resist replying.

dracunculus directed my attention to this prime wank. This woman posts to her blog about the fun she has packing Japanese-style bento lunches for her kid. The first few comments are people saying, How cute, how fun.

Then at comment #6, some troll named Sarah makes a nasty remark about how cutting your kid's sandwiches into animal shapes will make him a laughingstock and stunt his imagination. Other people tell her to shut up and let them enjoy themselves. She continues to cuss them out, meanwhile suggesting that they try Xanax to get rid of their rage.

Someone named Victoria made the most patient responses to Sarah's spleen, inspiring someone else to announce, "Victoria, I always thought that Lesbians were mean, vindictive bitches, and you proved that for me. Is it because about 95% of the country thinks your life style is sick and that is why you all are so defensive on other issues too." I wondered if maybe Victoria's website, linked on her comment, identified her as a Lesbian, so I followed the link and found no mention of homosexuality, but at least two mentions of her husband.

Sarah has informed the blogger that she ought to erase her blog and devote her time in future to pursuits meeting with Sarah's approval. After a bit more of other people telling her where she could go, she declared this evening:

"While I stand by my original statement that this is over the top, I think it is hilarious that other people cannot allow someone else to have a differing opinion. It has been highly amusing to watch some people freak out in several places; nobody started a petition to ban food cut-outs. An opinion differing from yours was expressed and some people can’t handle it. Public blogs are going to get some different points of view, but this blog owner allowed them to be expressed and debated, which is highly commendable. You handled this in a way that most people wouldn’t, and I am very impressed. It’s refreshing that the blog owner has enough self esteem not to be upset or hurt by a differing opinion. Wendy, go on with your bad self and those cut-outs. You rock."

She's standing up for her non-sandwich-cutting principles!