Best Sour Grapes

Someone once said that it pays to be nice. Someone was full of crapola.

You might expect Buzz to say this, seeing how we're well compensated for being not nice, but this week we have extra cause to be peevish. Thank you, Premiere Video.

The store, a nearly perennial Dallas Observer critics' pick as Best Video Store, didn't win this year. Blockbuster did. But even in the Blockbuster entry we praised Premiere for having the best, most eclectic selection; we also gave it "Best Place for a Cinephile With Loose Change." We said we love the place. It's just that there is only one Premiere and somewhere in the neighborhood of 135,000 Blockbusters in town. Convenience, we said, counts for something.

The result: Premiere temporarily closed accounts of some of our staffers and removed the Observer's rack from the store. They threatened to pull advertising. (An employee at the store denied any cards were canceled, but declined to comment.)

Big babies.

Even Brian Loncar, the tank-driving attorney of TV-ad fame, sometimes advertises with us, and we once pressed criminal charges against that guy for pinching papers from our racks. At the time, 1997, he wasn't happy with a story we wrote that suggested his practice was a lawsuit mill. Not that we care about the ads here in the editorial department--we just appreciate his attitude.

But some people just can't take a compliment, which is one reason why the Observer only gives them once a year, in the Best of Dallas edition. OK, there's also the fact that being nice gives us stress headaches, and for that we need to relax with a good stiff drink. Guess we'll just check out the ol' Best of Dallas issue for recommendations for a good watering hole. We hear the Cockpit is a nice, friendly little neighborhood bar (see Letters). Maybe if we tell them we're from the Observer, they'll run us a tab.

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Glass houses: Buzz freely admits that what passes for hip humor here is frequently, sadly, lame. Yet whenever we're feeling that a career change--to ditch-digging, say--is in order, we turn to The Dallas Morning News' "watercooler tip sheet," a listing of "the week's hot topics to make you hip around the office watercooler."

One of this week's hot tips: The Yankees and Diamondbacks are out of the World Series race, "bringing to mind the phrase 'a whole new ball game.'"

Which brings to our mind the phrase: "Kill me now."

We're not sure exactly where this watercooler they're talking about is--a retirement home, maybe--but the break-room conversations we enjoy generally begin with, "Damn, I got so drunk at Baby Dolls last night."

Here's a tip, DMN, that's "hip" as in au courant, not "hip-replacement surgery."