I know that some of my fellow bloggers over on BloggingStocks love Chipotle as a stock, salivating at its growth potentional. However, here I'm writing about the food and presentation and ambience of the Chipotle experience, and frankly, I think it's very overrated.

I'll start with the ambience. Eating in a Chipotle is like grabbing lunch in a high school metal shop. The hard surfaces creates an echo chamber that makes table talk a hearing test. The chairs and tables, welded into place like a bus station cafeteria, are not conducive to fine dining. I suspect these attributes are all designed to keep the dining room turning over.

The food speaks well to the American penchant for huge portions of carbohydrates. The burrito, for example, brings three carbs together -- a shell of wheat stuffed with rice and beans. Add the meat of your choice (plop), salsa (plop), sour cream (plop), guacamole (plop) cheese (sprinkle) and lettuce (sprinkle), and you have a meal all wrapped up in a burrito the size of a bed and breakfast pillow.

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

So what do we have in this burrito, the ordinary lunch of Chipotle customers? We have 1,250 calories with 51 grams of fat. (A full stick of butter has only 91 grams of fat). You could have a Big Mac and fries and still consume almost 500 calories less.

I don't quibble that Chipotle's burritos are tasty, and of course a savvy diner could lower the calorie count by choosing options such as the Burrito Bowl. However, the menu is extremely limited; after a dozen meals there, I'm bored with the same old same old.

The price point is a 'tweener, too; not as cheap as Taco Bell, not as nice as a sit-down Mexican Restaurant where they wait on tables. Without a drive-up window, I see this chain as limited in a number of ways. But now Chipotle says it may raise prices, so that equation may change for the worse.

Lacking ambience, variety, or exceptional value, I think Chipotle is valarado excesivamente.

Having gone to my 20th high school reunion recently, followed by some reflecting about how my life has gone an adult, I admit to feeling a little weird and intimidated about the idea of suggesting that Angelina Jolie is overrated. After all, the 33-year-old actress and philanthropist is attractive, talented, intelligent, wealthy and famous... and who am I, or anyone who isn't a multi-millionaire world-renowned figure and successful beyond belief, to judge if she is overrated?

And yet, as a member of the film-watching, newspaper and magazine reading public, I know I'm right. You know I'm right. If Ms. Jolie happens to be reading this, she knows I'm right. After all, does anyone short of a world leader need this much media scrutiny?

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

I think just about everyone knows her personal story: that she is the daughter of actor Jon Voight, sports a lot of tattoos, used to be married to actor Billy Bob Thornton and carried around a vial of his blood, though in recent months she has said it was more of a "flower press," as she told Entertainment Weekly. "It was like from a slight cut on your finger, and you press your fingerprint in. It was kind of a sweet gesture."

The Wii is a pretty amazing piece of technology. Not only has it brought casual gamers of all ages together, but it did it in a way which disillusioned many hardcore gamers frustrated by the lack of many features we have come to expect from the current crop of video game consoles. For lack of a better analogy, the Wii is a lot like sex -- the more people you have to play with, the better, and, well, playing by yourself just feels...wrong.

Toss in the fact that online play is about as much fun as smacking your shins with a splintered 2x4, due to the lack of voice chat and the inability to create a friends list which spans all games, and you'll begin to see where I am coming from. Nintendo reasons that it doesn't support these features in order to make the system more family friendly, but its competitors have managed to provide these features while giving parents the ability to limit the use of voice chat. These factors have turned me off of the Wii even as it sits there taunting me with its pulsating blue light.

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

The final push over the edge into overrated for me comes from the lack of quality control, which has led to a slew of gimmicky games worth less than the plastic case they come in. Even Nintendo Fanboys admit that the lack of Nintendo's Seal of Quality has lead to an abundance of crap for the Wii. Unfortunately, other than Guitar Hero, games for the Wii without Mario or Luigi have, as a whole, been a disappointment. For every Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers, there are hundreds of games which could barely pass for a lame web game.

Sure, playing the Wii is fun and it has even inspired three kids to get off their couch and lose weight. However, the novelty of swinging around a Wii 'mote to play a game wears off about the time your last party guest heads home. As a gamer who owns a Wii, I can't help but notice that the Wii seems to get the majority of its use when I haul it to a friend's or to my grandparents for Christmas. As a whole, the Wii is lacking in games, online support and single player fun, leading me to the conclusion that it is overrated.

Of the many things that I find overrated, the single most highly overrated item has to be the college grade point average (GPA). Yep, that two-digit number that we slave over for four years, carefully weighing which classes we can skip and which justify an all-nighter, is, in the long run, worth less than a meal in the student union. I suppose many of you are already up in arms because of my devaluation of a college GPA, but take a minute and write down your cumulative GPA. Then write down how many jobs you've gotten as a result of your GPA. Go ahead... I'll wait. If the sum of these two numbers is less than 6 then I'm sorry, but I believe my case is made.

I wouldn't expect you to take my opinion that college GPAs are overrated. A 2006 survey by Collegegrad.com found that only 6% of employers think that a job candidates GPA is the most important piece of information about an individual. The survey found that the interview and work experience were ranked higher than GPA when determining an applicant's aptitude.

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

Still not convinced that your GPA isn't the most important asset you picked up in college? Maybe Jon Morrow's account of why he wishes he didn't get straight A's in college will help you better understand why your GPA doesn't count for that much. In his experience, employers were far more concerned with what he did in school overall than just how well he did in the classroom.

Even though your college GPA is overrated, that doesn't mean you should necessarily skip college or zonk out in the classroom. If anything, this should serve as a wake up call to get involved in leadership roles on campus or to take internships in your field to make yourself more marketable. Don't kill yourself for a 3.3 GPA by memorizing formulas and definitions; instead, spend more time focusing on how the lessons you learn in class relate to real life. These actions will make finding a job after graduation easier for you than for Joe Schmo 4.0 with no experience!

Okay, call me crazy, but I'm sooooo over blogs and blogging.

The blogosphere is choking on itself. Blogoreah is the result of well over 100 million blogs out there in the vast cyber wasteland. With new blogs being created about every three minutes and mainstream publishers putting out their own blogs, aren't we just about finished riding this wave? Who has time to write and maintain a blog? But more importantly, who has time to read and comment on blogs?

Enough already...

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

There are blogs about popcorn, trash, orchids, cereal, toddlers, poetry and virtually any topic that comprises the daily arcana of life. Call them diaries and call the writers diarists or documentarians of the obscure. And well, who cares? Some blogs are started in a sudden and great burst of energy and sink into the abyss just as quickly, untended. Everyone's a writer, i.e, blogger. Everyone's a publisher.

But others, created and tended by big publishers like this here one called WalletPop, are considered a staple of online publishing, a source of advertising revenue and reader loyalty. Self-made blog stars can go up against the mainstream publishers or be acquired. Hint: It's all about the page views and rankings.

Blogs are just content in a different form, albeit a much more casual and topical form, where creators can interact directly and instantaneously with readers. They create conversations.

Ok. Ok.

If everyone's doing it, it must be ok. But if everyone's zigging, why not zag?

Blogs... they're overrated. They take up too much of people's leisure time that could be spent offline interacting in person. What do you think?

In 27 months without a car, I have saved thousands of dollars and become an entirely new person; happier, more balanced, and much more muscular. Though I spent decades of my life in love with the American car culture, and then happened into the decision to give it up without much forethought, I've learned that owning a car is highly over-rated. I'll tell you my story.

In the year 2000, I was young, sort of rich, and definitely single. Living in Northern Virginia and working in management for a dotcom startup I'd helped get off the ground, I was spoiled and spendthrift. I bought a brand-new Mercedes ML320.

Cut to June 2006. I'd finally paid the Mercedes off, but myriad mechanical issues (note to self: don't buy German cars manufactured in the American south), insurance and gas were costing me $300-500 a month. I had two little boys and an under-employed husband. Living in Portland, Oregon, I was becoming more and more concerned about our impact on the environment every day. Then I got a flat tire; it was unfixable, I'd have to replace all four tires to the tune of $650 (for the cheapie version).

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

I parked the Mercedes, still rocking its "donut" spare tire, let the insurance expire, bought some bus tickets and fixed up my mountain bike.

Once you eliminate serial killers, rapists and dictators, it's hard to think of a less likable person than Donald Trump -- and yet he's the poster boy for flamboyant wealth. Forbes ranks him at number 368 on its list of the world's billionaires, with a net worth of $3 billion. New York Times Sunday business editor Timothy O'Brien claimed in a book that Trump is actually worth less than $250 million, and Trump is suing him.

Why is Trump suing him? Here's what's so despicable: Trump's ability to make money is entirely dependent on the public's perception of him as a billionaire. He charges $1.5 million per speaking appearance at Learning Annex events and, according to Forbes, "Now other builders pay him millions to license 'Trump' brand." Indeed one of the central claims in O'Brien's book, which I highly recommend, is that most of the buildings bearing the Trump logo are not even owned by The Donald.

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

Indeed, the Trump Empire appears to be little more than an elaborate shell game: kid is born to very rich family, inherits a ton of money, proceeds to lose it all in the 1990 real estate crash, narrowly skirts bankruptcy, and then rebuilds his career as a mogul, convincing legions of gullible people through flagrant self-promotion that he is a major success. If people clue in to the fact that Trump's empire is a house of cards, the whole facade will fall apart.

Meanwhile, the one publicly traded piece of the "Trump empire" is flailing. Trump Entertainment Resorts (NASDAQ: TRMP), which controls the Atlantic City casino resorts bearing his name, is trading at $1.15 per share. It began 2007 at over $18. But don't feel too bad: Trump still milked the company for $2 million in compensation for chairing the company's board of directors in 2007, on top of $498 thousand spent on Donald Trump water (Trump Ice), for which he presumably receives a royalty. Hey Donald: given that shareholders have seen their stock lose 90% of its value in less than 2 years, don't you think you could throw in the water?

But in a way, you have to admire Trump. He's overrated because of his own shameless bragging, and now he's using that status to make millions.

Anytime that something is nationally recognized as "The American Dream", there's a good chance that it's overrated.

In the midst of record foreclosures, and plummeting home values leaving people upside down on their mortgages (i.e. they owe more than the home is currently worth), the American Dream has turned into the American Nightmare for too many families.

But let's not write the elegy for homeownership just yet: the reality is that a home is the best investment most people will ever make and, according to a 2004 Federal Reserve study, the average renter had a net worth of $4,000 while the average homeowner's net worth was $184,000 -- homeowners are 46 times richer than renters.

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

It's likely that that gap is smaller because of widespread declines in home values but, long-term, most people who want to be financially secure should look into owning their own homes. But in order for a home to be a good investment, it has to make sense. Here's how you can tell if it makes sense:

• Is it cheaper, or at least comparable to, renting? Add up monthly mortgage costs, taxes and other expenses on a home you're considering buying. If it ends up costing a lot more than you could rent something comparable for, there's a good chance you'll be better off continuing to rent and investing that extra cash. Don't forget to factor in the mortgage interest tax deduction.
• Will you be staying there long enough to justify the expenditure of funds on closing costs and then commissions when you sell?

Homeownership is a wonderful thing, but it's not the free lunch that it was sold as in recent years.

Is Charlotte the worst city in America? Of course not, but the "Queen City" seems to have taken on a near mythical status, particularly on the East Coast, where it is portrayed as a place where home prices always go up, the job market is strong and youl have all the amenities of a major city, with none of the negatives. Riiight.

According to Forbes' Most Miserable Cities list, Charlotte (#9) has the worst ranking for violent crime of any of the cities surveyed. According to the Charlotte Observer, property crime is up 3.8 percent and violent crime is up 2.3 percent in the past year. Some citizens have even begun hiring private security to protect their neighborhoods. So that's what the HOA fees go to!

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

One of the reasons crime may be on the rise is the weakening local economy. Three of the major employers (Wachovia, Bank of America and Lowe's) have been hurt by the credit crisis and housing crunch. While home prices have remained much stronger in Charlotte than other cities, that trend seems likely to change.

Like any Southern city, the summers are hot and humid, with an average temperature of 90 in July. But getting out of town is not as easy as it once was. While U.S. Airways uses Charlotte as a hub, the days of cheap flights are over. According to USA Today, a direct round trip flight from Charlotte to Fort Myers was recently as high as $809, while one-stop flights on other airlines were more than $500 less. Driving to the beach or the mountains isn't as cheap or easy as it once was, with rising gas prices, traffic and sprawl.

Finally, while the editor's at Southern Living noted Charlotte's "emerging" restaurant scene, some locals say there are too many chain eateries and the few local hot spots are overpriced or overrated.

In short, while Charlotte's housing prices may seem like a breath of fresh air to Yankees giving up on what the Northeast has to offer, this NASCAR-fueled boomtown may be headed for a wreck in the near future.

The parents in my Brooklyn neighborhood are known collectively as the "stroller mafia" and around these parts we take our strollers pretty seriously. We may live in an outer borough, but it's still pretty urban and gritty, and strollers take a beating around here. We use ours every day for walks to daycare that run about a half mile each way, plus weekend expeditions. We go up and down stairs, in and out of the car and fold and unfold all day long. That's the reason a lot of my neighbors spend a bundle on the latest in baby-carrying mechanisms. And what do I mean by a bundle? North of $400 in most cases, with many price tags in the $800 range. Giggle, a high-end online retailer, is selling a Stokke Explorer Complete for $1,200.

The rationale is that any extra comfort one can achieve for this kind of daily use is worth an extra couple hundred dollars, especially amortized over the course of three or four years (or three or four kids). This is how most people in my neck of the woods now justify the purchase of the $400-$600 Phil &Ted's suite, which can turn from a jogging-type stroller to a double stroller (which affixes underneath for a London double-decker bus approach).

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

Also popular are the $500+ Quinny, which has a strange triangular look that makes a child look like he's about to fall out; the $400 BOB, which is just a huge, heavy jogging stroller; the Stokke Explorer, which perches the baby up precariously high and facing backwards, and the $900 MBUD (the Mountain Buggy Urban Double), which is just a huge double jogging stroller. These are all making $300 Maclaren's, which used to be all the rage, look downright puny. Some models come with iPod holders, and all have a variety of extras like rain gear, matching cup holders and stroller bags that are not interchangeable.

But I counter any big-purchase rationalization with this: Any kid item that is going to be pooped on, spit up on, have Cheerios ground into it or suffer the indignation of daily kid wear is only worth the lowest going price. Hand-me-down is best. Buying used is the next-best option. And when buying retail, you only buy as much stroller as you need. There are plenty of decent, light strollers on the market for $100.

The first iPhone was able to bring iTunes integration and all parts of the Internet* to the mobile arena, to the delight of millions. When it was followed up with the App store and the iPhone 3G, millions more were once again enthralled by the ability to surf the Internet, read their email and play games on the go. From the way that the Internet and the mainstream media have reacted, you'd have thought that the iPhone was the second coming of Christ.

It's hard to imagine how we got by without the ability to do these cool tasks for all those years -- Oh wait, I forgot -- the same tasks that the iPhone can do, Windows Mobile users have been doing for years. On top of these shared tasks, Windows Mobile also lets users install any program they want without the need for it to pass through Apple's vetting and censorship process. Unfortunately, loading iPhones with Apple-vetted applications via the App Store has caused many an iPhone to crash. Those who choose to load other software must first jailbreak their iPhone, thereby voiding the warranty.

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

The iPhone looks cool and maybe it even makes you feel cool (in the same way cigarettes do for 14-year-olds), but in the end it is still just a phone. While it has aesthetic beauty, the usefulness of the phone has been overrated by many, helped in part due to the cult of Apple followers who lined city blocks just to shell out for a new phone. Seriously, how good can a phone with all of these features be if making full use of it requires users to break its warranty. Did I mention the iPhone can't copy and paste?

Platinum is a particularly useful metal; over a third of the annual world production goes for catalytic converters, and new fuel cell technology depends on it as well. However, when it comes to jewelry, I think platinum is overrated.

I'm not questioning the rap your local jeweler may have laid on you in an attempt to upsell you into a platinum setting for your diamond. The metal does wear better than gold, holds a polish better, and would be worth more in a distress sale. I just don't think the difference between platinum and white gold is worth the price.

Platinum is currently selling for about $1,350 a Troy ounce, 69% higher than gold. The difference in jewelry price is even higher; while a 14-carat gold is only 62.5% gold, the balance less expensive metals, a good platinum ring is usually 95% high-cost platinum.

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

While white gold is not as durable as platinum, it is still very durable, and millions of people have lived their lifetimes quite content with white gold. For the difference in price, you could afford to have your ring repronged once or twice during your lifetime, with enough left over to splurge on some knockout earrings.

Thanks to television shows such as "Flip This House," many Americans have caught fix-up-and-flip fever, buying foreclosures and attempting to resell them after minimal improvement for big bucks. The reality of this strategy wasn't great before the housing bust, and for the unsavvy investor it can be suicide now.

Buying a foreclosed home isn't like shopping Sunday open houses. The homes often go up to bid without inspection, clear title or even vacancy; squatters could be cooking meth even as the gavel falls. The family who has lost the house might even still be living there, forcing you, Simon Legree, to evict them. They often take revenge on the house before they leave, too.

Financing a foreclosure purchase is even dicier. The selling bank wants its money immediately, and finding deep pockets willing to loan against a foreclosure is very difficult in a falling market.

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

Yes, some shrewd investors still make money flipping or renting foreclosures, but some people also win at roulette. That doesn't mean that putting your life saving on red to win makes sense for most of us.

If you are determined to make money on the foreclosure industry, the safer bet is to write a book, start a web site or offer workshops on how to make money on foreclosures. That industry is still thriving, proof that there is still a sucker customer born every minute.

For a counter view by WalletPop's Brett Widness, read The price is right.

I can't afford to be a wine snob, but let's pretend for a moment that I could. The first bit of snobbery you'd see from me would be the banishing of all but the most famous merlot varietal wines from my cellar. I'm right there with Miles in the movie Sideways when he says, "If anyone orders a f****** Merlot, I'm leaving."

Understand that I'm not referring to the Merlots of the Pomerol region such as Chateau Petrus, the priciest wine in the world. (No, I've never been able to afford a Petrus. Yet.) I'm referring to those grapes strip-mined in the vineyards of California, Chile and other bulk producing countries.

Those Merlot grapes are not a cinch to grow, as they have thin skins, are susceptible to rot, mildew and various maladies, and are intolerant of extreme weather. However, the wines mature quickly and, though a bit insipid, have a hint of Cab's variety of bouquets, enough so that many producers have deluded themselves into producing 100% Merlot wines.

Don't miss the rest of our series on Overrated people, places and things!

Merlot blends well with superior grapes such as cabernet sauvignon for some great wines such as Chateau Lafite Rothschild. As a varietal, however, I find the reasonably priced bottles lack complexity and depth, while the bottom tier reminds me of unsweetened cranberry juice. Other critics use words such as "thin, acidic, and green."

That's what I'd write about Merlot, if I were a wine snob. Don't agree? Perhaps a glass of Chateau Petrus would sway my opinion... A guy can dream, can't he?

Just because those with higher education have lower death rates doesn't mean that bachelor's degrees are all they are cracked up to be either. In an column for the Chronicle of Higher Education Marty Nemko, a college consultant and author, shares his view that the bachelor's degree may be the most overrated product in America. Marty cites many factors and studies in reaching this conclusion but the key factor seems to be under-prepared students. Thankfully Nemko provides more than a headline by linking to supporting facts and most importantly offering suggestions to fix the problem!

Doesn't the under-preperation of students for college speak more about the job high schools are able to do than the job that colleges are doing? Not that I can blame the high schools who have to spend a significant chunk of time on standardized test taking rather than instilling knowledge in children. Sadly even a high percentage of students who are prepared coming out of high school won't make enough in the long run to justify the cost of a bachelor's degree. Another one of the facts Nemko cites is that the literacy rate amongst college graduates is currently declining. Take a second to absorb that; the number of illiterate college graduates is rising!