ann arbor is overrated.

Leopold Brothers, touted just months ago as the site of A2’s supposedly growing rock scene, has decided to stop booking live acts altogether. The owners cite noise complaints followed by an incredibly well-timed city inspection that reduced the club’s legal capacity. So be heartened as you sit in your poorly insulated apartment with leaky roof and rotted-out porch - Leopold Brothers may now have only 300 customers at a time. Tree Town USA cares.

In our recent posting malaise, prompted by computer problems at home, we missed this Ann Arbor News story about the “small towns around Ann Arbor.”

As you may have but probably didn’t notice, we weren’t in Boston last weekend like we were supposed to be. That’s okay - things have been rather exciting around here. At least judging from Craigslist’s Missed Connections. One man vents his anger at “lots-of-excitement dudes like the ones who cook at Mongolian BBQ” - they “have been stealing all [his] girlfriends.” In his experience, women consistently prefer to date “fucking dudes named Kelly who wear Tevas all year.”

But another post suggests that Zingerman’s employees may actually be the ones to watch out for. One poster “[has] a huge crush on” a Zingerman’s employee who “look[s] like one of my exes when he used to be hot.”

This is starting to read like the Zagat’s Guide of Ann Arbor restaurant employee attractiveness. Anyone have any other listings?

Goodspeed Update links to an Ann Arbor News story about two students and one recent alum running for City Council. We can’t believe we missed the filing deadline - our “I’d Rather Be Anywhere But Ann Arbor” campaign signs will have to go into storage until next year.

If still-continuing Art Fair coverage on CTN doesn’t meet the requirements for surreality that successful public-access television demands, tune into the Ann Arbor schools’ bus safety presentation, which should be on every day for the next four months if their normal schedule is any indication. Featuring helpful tips that appear on the screen in a font right off a 1980s iron-on shirt (or those “I fucked [name of celebrity]” shirts that are currently passe on Gawker and will therefore become a hit in A2 in approximately eighteen months), this short film tells you everything you’ll ever need to know about riding the school bus. “YELLING: can hurt others’ ears,” reads the screen in a segment about how it’s okay to talk quietly to one’s neighbor. A bus is the equivalent of four cars; “[a picture of four cars] = [a picture of a bus]” illustrates this point. A plastic bus that speaks in a voice that sounds remarkably like that of the narrator speaking in a falsetto brings home the main points of the film in a hard-hitting final sequence.

Writes a reader who shall remain nameless:

Why do you spend your time on such a thing, for some attention? Could it be that you’re surprised and jealous that we all have so much love for our hometown? Or could it be that you are longing to be accepted here, and no one likes a cocky, self-conscious, twenty-something brought up in the superficial/materialistic east coast social-status club?

Our south-Chicago-’burbs-raised head is spinning from the irony. We’re actually a neurotic, status-obsessed East Coast wannabe, but we’re willing to accept being mistaken for the real thing.

Goodspeed Update links to an interesting article about a British court case in which BAMN members, inexplicably, are involved. The best part is the headline he gives it, though: “RWL/BAMN … in the U.K.” Sing to the tune of “R-O-C-K in the USA.” No?