Everything is Overrated

Learning Foreign Languages - EXTREMELY OVERRATED

“A waste of $150″

Learning a foreign language is one of those things that sounds cool in theory, but is actually extremely overrated. There are basically only three reasons to learn a foreign language:

1) To impress women.

2) To be able to show off to other people.

3) To be able to go to a foreign country and trick other American tourists into thinking you’re a foreigner.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to learn a foreign language unless you’re under the age of 5, or you spend a long time abroad and are forced to speak the language. Otherwise, you will learn a small amount of the language, and then forget it within 3 months, thus wasting $150 on Rosetta Stone that would have been better spent on a Nintendo DS and Trauma Center: Under the Knife, and wasting time that would be better spent becoming a skilled video game surgeon.

Unless you live in LA or Southwest Texas, you will never be in a situation where you need to know a foreign language, ever.

Even worse are the people who force their kids to learn a language while they are still learning English. Ultimately, they end up raising kids who can’t speak either language well at all. Pretty steep price to pay to be able to brag to other parents that you’re raising a child who is “ready for the 21st Century”

Learning languages is a waste of time.

Malcolm Gladwell is a good writer, maybe even a really good one. His books are fairly interesting and have sold millions of copies, making him a minor celebrity. Even Bill Simmons (fairly rated) loves his books and articles. Unfortunately, Malcolm Gladwell is MILDLY OVERRATED.

“I am overrated”

The Tipping Point is the best example of why Malcolm Gladwell is overrated. He spends the entire book telling interesting stories and somehow concluding that they are proof that the “Tipping Point” is some sort of scientific law, rather than a catchy title made to sell mid-priced books for people of slightly above-average intelligence. Now, I have to endure listening to students arguing my ideas and then concluding with “See? It’s a Tipping Point!” and then smiling like Koko the gorilla (underrated, she rules) after she figured out how to trick humans into thinking she could communicate. I also read somewhere that you pretended to be a slacker and made up facts when you worked at the Washington Post, when you were actually relatively competent and a good co-worker. Sorry Malcolm, you are MILDLY OVERRATED.

Steve Nash - SOMEWHAT OVERRATED

“Look at me, I’m Steve Nash”

Steve Nash has two things going for him. He is a good basketball player, and his teams tend to win. Unfortunately, he is probably the most overrated player in the NBA. Why?

1. Assists - assists are the lamest stat in the NBA. I don’t get credit if can convince some other guy at work to do my work for me, so why should you, random point guard? If a team runs the offense through you, and you can’t get 6 or 7 a game, you don’t belong on a basketball court. Nash gets like 10 or 11, but the Suns are basically constantly running, so this is not impressive. Assists are lame and so are the people who earn them (unless they do other stuff like rebound or win NBA championships).

2. Journalists Love Him - Nash is completely unthreatening and does a lot of entertaining things that have nothing to do with basketball, so people love to follow him around, even if they are just watching him play tennis or tool on a bunch of random people in staged soccer “games”, as this extraordinarily lame Nike video shows.

I’m not even going to get onto the race issue. The truth is, the Suns will never win a championship, Nash deserved maybe 1/3 of an MVP, total, Kidd (slightly overrated) was way better in Phoenix, and Steve Nash is secretly overrated. Spurs in 5.

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month?! Me neither. It bothers me that something lame like poetry gets an entire month, when things that are way more awesome, like the original Ducktales game for the NES (NOT THE SEQUEL), don’t even get a day of their own (which we have 365 and sometimes even 366 of). The biggest problem is that poetry is overrated.

Poetry - VERY OVERRATED

Sir William Shakespeare - the least lame poet who ever lived

When it comes down to it, poetry is just a bunch of words. Unlike real writing, which almost always has a point, lots of poetry is just about lame things like emotions or nature. Even worse, some people spend their entire lives studying and/or writing poetry, which is a total waste of time. When it comes down to it, poetry can only not be lame if it meets one of the following requirements:

1) It rhymes in a cool-sounding way (meaning the rhymes have to be at least sort of close)

OR

2) It’s about war

Otherwise, it probably is boring and makes no sense.

Masters Programs - EXTREMELY OVERRATED

“Trust me, I have a MASTERS IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS”

I do not like NYU at all these days. Like some sort of evil dragon, it constantly swallows up more of the Village, building enormous high rise dorms for its 250,000 students and stealing professors from better schools. The most offensive thing about NYU, however, is its vast array of COMPLETELY USELESS Masters programs, like its Masters in “Global Affairs”, which takes two years of full-time study and $100,000 to complete. Unless this degree makes you into a secret agent (a legit one like james bond, not like the guys at the CIA whose job is to read foreign newspapers) and includes the hot BMW in the background, it is totally overrated. All of these lame masters degrees at NYU are like that. Do you think the Lakers will hire you to be their GM because you paid $100,000 for a MASTERS DEGREE in Sports Business? Will Donald Trump let you handle his latest joke of a real estate project because you got a MASTERS DEGREE in Real Estate? Didn’t think so. Other schools have joke masters programs too, but I just targeted NYU because they are annoying, expensive, and are an easy target. Masters degrees are lame and a waste of money.