Reviews
So many books, so little time...
So how does one know what books to read, what shows to watch, what movies to see, without wasting your time and money? Why, you ask the opinion of someone else who has already encountered the work in question. Fortunately on the 'net there are plenty of opinions. Here are some of mine, terribly miscellaneous, merely those reviews and reactions that I've posted or compiled over the years that I haven't deleted in the meantime...
Sid & Nancy scale: Some of the reviews use the "Sid & Nancy" scale, as used in the aus.sf newsgroup. Rather than attempt to quantify one's reaction to a work with numbers, this is a subjective allegorical rating, evocative rather than proscriptive. For example, "a glass of cold water on a hot day" could be used to describe a book that someone found really refreshing, clean, pure, and pretty great.
Why "Sid & Nancy"? I think it has something to do with the first person ever to use this scale, liking the movie "Sid & Nancy" a lot, and thus using that as a comparison. But I am unsure of the true etomology of the phrase.