Yelp Obituaries: Famed Yelp Reviewer Dies At 27, Will Never Come Back

Life lost a customer forever yesterday when it failed to provide oxygen to Alex Darren upon request. Darren, known for his uber-popular Yelp reviews of over 107 local pubs, gastropubs, food trucks, and “dives,” was 27. Y.O.L.O. 

He had over 260K followers on the popular review site, with over 7 million confirmed stars rating his reviews. Yelp users found him extremely helpful. One of his most popular reviews of Izakaya Ba-Ka in Menlo Park, titled What kind of a Japanese place doesn’t have Teriyaki?, is excerpted below:

Fuck this place. The service was TERRIBLE. And they overcharge for all these little plates of food. I wanted to get a regular teriyaki burger with organic greens, they seemed to not know what I was talking about. Then I asked if they had gluten-free items on their menu, but it was like they’d never heard of the word, “gluten.” The sake came to my table COLD. The owner doesn’t even speak English. Plus, it was dirty. I’d rather tear my own eyeballs out than ever go to that joint again. See ya, I’ll take my business to a reliable Japanese dive, like Sushi Boat. 

Cosplay Karaoke: A Mah Manifesto

Here are some major problems in the world that #CosplayKaraoke solves:

1. Most superhero, science-fiction & fantasy films are NOT musicals.
2. Conversely, most musicals do not have superheroes in them. Some do.
3. Spider-Man: The Musical needed to be a lot more fun than it was.



4. Superheroes need to karaoke, too.

10 Easy Ways to Support Unpopular Youtube Artists Without Spending $ or Time

This question comes up now and then, so I thought it'd be useful to have a cheat sheet. We're in a time of financial calamity but people still make art, and in the social media age there are ways for fans to help/validate/enable artists which are quick and free and essential to your favorite-but-struggling videomaker/musician/writer/cat photographer continuing on their path and being able to make more art, which is what this is all kinda about, que no? 

In descending order from MOST GENEROUSLY HELPFUL to JUST SORTA HELPFUL. 

1. Give them money or gigs. (Okay, this one is not free. The rest are. But venmo'ing @dominic-mah-1 is a thing.)

2. SUBSCRIBE to their Youtube channel. Or whatever their official channel is. Subscribing should be easy for anyone who has a Youtube or Google account. Every Youtube video's got a red SUBSCRIBE button next to it if you haven't subscribed already. Subscribing is extremely helpful because when producers or hiring folk look at an artist's Youtube page, they like to see that the page has a healthy regular following. And the best part is, subscribing obligates you to nothing, you don't even have to actually follow the artist, or have deeply considered all of their videos -- but by subscribing you've helped them a LOT. Subscribing means you might get an extra email from Youtube once in a while, big deal, you can get out of that on your preferences page. All the benefits of being a working artist who can pay some bills with their Youtube stuff (people do do this) lie in the direction of having LOTS OF SUBSCRIBERS. And it takes, like, 30 seconds at most.

Golden Girls/Nick's Lounge

This is very #LetsJustGoToNicks inside-jokey, but it's also out of love for The Golden Girls theme song. Please subscribe to my youtube channel regardless! And thank you for being a friend.

Dom's Favorite And Least Favorite Songs To Hear In A Karaoke Bar

This list will be updated periodically, you may use your vouchers for 2 GA tickets depending on availability, yadda yadda yadda....

FAVORITE K-BAR SONGS TO LISTEN TO (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)
Umbrella
Dancing On My Own
Super Bass
Chandelier
A Little Respect, also anything Erasure
Anything by Stevie Wonder
Almost anything by Prince
Most things by Michael Jackson or the Jackson 5
Fake Plastic Trees
Beast of Burden
Crazy For You
Untouchable Face
anything from Les Miserables
Cabaret from Cabaret
anything from Rent, Tommy or West Side Story, and one of those two Hedwig songs, but not both in the same night, jeezus they take forever

20 Thoughts On Rewatching BATMAN V SUPERMAN By Myself

1) JESUS CHRIST, MY CHILDHOOD, MY INNOCENCE. WHAT DID I GIVE IT TO? THIS ATROCITY, THIS GROTESQUE ORGY OF INFANTILE MASCULINE POSTURING? COMIC BOOKS ARE HELLA STUPID.

2) Okay, dude, it's just a movie. 

3) Hans Zimmer almost saves the day with a cohesive score combining the Batman and Man of Steel themes and introducing a bracing, percussion-heavy theme for Wonder Woman/The Trinity (which slightly recalls the theme music to both the '60s Batman TV show and the Wonder Woman TV show). 

The Star-Sword-Superhero Nerd Trifecta

So I was on a podcast with Keith of Nerds Of Color, debating the Nerdiest Asian Actor In The Universe.

The Karaoke Social Contract (12 Principles)

1.  All people are entitled to sing a song once in a while.

2.  In a public social atmosphere, all people are obligated to be aware of their surroundings.

3.  If the karaoke is a free service provided in a bar, you are obligated to get a drink if you want to participate in the free service.

4.  Time is finite and songs take up time. If you don't get to sing a song because of the queue being particularly long, the proper attitude is, "Well hey, at least I'm still not involved in a civil war in Central Africa."

Avengers Texting 2.0. (also X-Men, Watchmen, Batpeople, etc.)

Dazzler texts at ComicCon 2015.

Due to no popular demand whatsoever, here is a Best-Of from my Instagram series about cosplayers texting (with CONSENT!), tindering, and otherwise messing with their phones. From WonderCon and ComicCon 2014-2015. #AvengersTexting #XMenTexting #AvXTexting

Twitter: @ThorHulkCritic / @dommah IG: dommah

Facebook: ThorHulkCritic      Fun Karaoke Web Show: karaokerhapsody.com

Thor and Captain America.

10 Reasons I Sort Of Wanted To Punch You In The Face On Sunday

1. I like your face, but it was attached to other faces, so I sort of wanted to punch all the faces.
2. I don't "do" "that."
3. It recalled those other times I stood on the periphery of a multi-face makeout session, except now am older.
4. The thinking goes, "one can join in the kissyface if one adopts the appropriate attitude; but it's already figured-out that you don't care to kiss me under normal circumstances, so the joiner impulse feels egotistic and not affectionate, intrusive and not welcomed, and anyway, consolation-prize kissyface is not what it's all about."
5. People who secretly want to kiss each other are usually just waiting for the right moment.
6. I woke up that morning mad at you and didn't want to end the day madder at you. 
7. It was the end of a real shitty weekend.
8. I won't even get into the racial thing because no one gets that part.
9. Completely fouled up the first plan for tricking self into sleep. Instead laid there thinking unending thoughts like, "if there was no gross, would there still be cute?" as opposed to, "that was a worthwhile trip to the bar in the effort to forget Saturday."
10. The smiles you all had afterwards, the obvious smile from warmth and accomplishment, the smile one would have. 

Karaoke Rhapsody

This is a web series that I do about karaoke culture, watch it if you please.

August 2014.

Sleep.

Warmth.

Eyes and hands. Neck and nose. Big features, small head.

What is it? This.

Sleep.
Darkness.

Music.

Shoulders. Temples. The soft spot under the ears.

Back of the knees. Feet. Weightless.

Sleep.

Shudders. Talking soft, laughing at language.
Movements are not how you meant them to be,
or what you're used to.

Warmth. 

Learning. Still searching. Missing the point. Wondering.

Waiting and waiting and waiting.

Asking and answering.

Eyes and hands.

Warmth.

Sleep.

17 Horrible Things That People Say Because We All Want Love But Are Idiots

Don't say these horrible stupid things. Ever. Don't text them either.

1. "I love women." What the hell does that even mean? Everyone loves women. How could you love all women? You think it's some sort of strange condition that you love women? You think it's an interesting thing about you? It is not, because loving women is a very common thing. What you mean is you are pathologically interested in having sex with as many women as possible, but for some reason you say this other thing. 

2. "He looks lonely." He does not look lonely. You have no idea what a lonely person looks like. You want to go talk to the tall hottie who is brooding in a corner, playing the I'm-complicated-and-hard-to-get game that he learned from a Pickup Artist technique book. You're walking away from an actually lonely person to go talk to a player. Fine. Say that. Don't tell me that he looks lonely and you're going to go fix that because you're such a nice person you solve all the problems of the lonely people in the world. Fuck that. If you care so much about people being lonely, stay here with me. "Didn't think so." - Louis C.K.

3. "..., period." What, you ended all human communication with that period? That period means you are right? All your preceding words are empirical truth because you said "period"? "Cats are avocados, period." Um, still not true. Period.