Gimmicks... Schyeah!

So...

I'm a sucker for a good gimmick. You know, something that is completely unnecessary but seems like a great idea, something that you really need to have.

Since Nick at Nite is sucking these days, I find myself watching a good number of infomercials before bed time, and if I had unlimited cash flow, I would certainly be ordering more than my fair share of objects that are considered mostly worthless to people outside of the elderly, the stupid and the naive. So since I'm only twenty two, I guess that makes me stupid. I'm certainly not naive.

But you have to admit that gimmicks are fun. They are usually rather dumb, but your house, dorm, or apartment probably houses one gimmick right this very minute. If not, maybe you should lighten up and hit the "As Seen on TV" aisle at your local Walgreen's or Target.

For an idea of gimmicks that can broaden your horizons here are my top three:

1) The Snuggie:
This my friends is the granddaddy of all gimmicks. It's a blanket with sleeves. It's soft. It's cuddly. If you get too hot, you can lose the sleeves. You can eat in it, change channels, talk on the phone, all the while staying warm. I would highly suggest buying one of these babies now though, because with the scorching heat, I'm sure they are on sale. If it's possible to beat the normal price of two for $19.99 plus processing and handling fees. I have one and have napped in it nearly everyday since its arrival in early January. Good stuff people, good stuff.

https://www.asseenontv.com/offers_on_demand/sngie_ood_ontv.html

2) The Magic Bullet:
I don't actually have one of these, but if I had the bones to pay for it, I would. And somebody else would too because like most gimmicks, it's buy one, get one free. But seriously, this thing looks awesome. It comes with mugs that attach to the bullet itself so you can make individual fruity cocktails to drink in the hot sun and also differentiate between whose is whose with the variety of colored tops. You can make your own personal cup of chicken salad with just enough for one sandwich. I don't even like chicken salad, but this is one of those infomercials that makes me think I might if I had something so freaking cool to make it with. All in all, you get two sets of like 600 pieces for around sixty bucks. It's a hell of a deal, but I'm holding out for it to drop to two low payments of $14.95. And PS on the magic bullet: how awesome are those folks that do the advertisements! I mean I just really want to party with them.

http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/magic_bullet.html

3) The Topsy Turvy Tomato:
I want to grow my own tomatoes, but I don't want the plant to take up my walking space on my patio or porch. Solution: the Topsy Turvy Tomato. With this bad boy, you can let your tomato plant hang and grow upside down. Seems logical. And when you go to harvest your massive crop, they will be at about eye level as opposed to you blowing your knees or back out bending over to pick your fresh fruits. This will likely be the next gimmick I purchase. Nothing better than a good BLT with homegrown tomatoes and home cured bacon on a hot summer day. Well the funny looks the neighbors give me when I slaughter the pigs for the bacon are pretty great too.

https://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/top_tur_ontv.html?gid=

Honorable Mention) The Camel Crush:
This is not an "As Seen on TV" gimmick, but it is quite an idea. A cigarette that can be both regular and menthol. If you want your death stick to be menthol halfway through, crush the ball in the filter, and BAM!!! mentholicious,; if not, leave that sucker alone. These guys are usually on sale too, which helps with those stingy tobacco taxes popping up all over the nation.

http://www.smokerswelcome.com/CAM/dtclogin.jsp?brand=CAM


Now for the gimmicks which I would never recommend, ever:

1) The PedEgg:
What a piece of junk. An egg shaped device to scrape the dead skin off of your foot. Come on. Just watch the commercial and prepare to vomit as you see some nasty feet lose their rotting flesh. If you bathed regularly or put lotion on your dogs once a day, you probably wouldn't have the problem in the first place, but if you do have the problem, deal with it. I would much rather go to a girl's place and see she had dry feet than see flakes of old skin all over her floor. Dumb idea guys. If you have one already, do yourself a favor and throw that fella away. Preferably where nobody will ever find it.

http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/pdegg_ontv.html

2) The Strap Perfect:
Sweet. Not. An adjustable bra so you can wear all sorts of funky tops without anyone seeing the straps just seems like a bit much. If you really don't want people to see parts of your undergarments, buy something without straps at all. I think that there might even be something that just sticks on to provide support. Crazy I know, but much more useful than a cheap bra with adjustable straps. Ladies. Think about this one. You know I'm right.

https://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/strap_perfect_ood_ontv.html?gid=

3) Bumpits:
Yeah girls, guys want a babe that looks like she has a huge knot on her head. Did you ever see Coneheads? It's not attractive. These wonderful products help girls make the perfect "poof" for their hair. The "poof" as people call it is just not that cool. And if you can't make one naturally and have to rely on a piece of plastic to make your head look bumpy, then you just might be a lost cause. Sorry. That's just the way it is.

https://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/bmpts_ood_ontv.html

Honorable Mention) Shoes Under:
Yes please. I want one of these. A box to put under my bed where I can keep my shoes. Whoever thought of this one should get whatever the opposite of a Nobel Prize is. Pretty sure most people can figure out what to do with their shoes without having to buy a box to organize them. Besides, this box can only hold certain sized shoes. What the heck am I supposed to do with my ice skates, boots, and snow shoes?

https://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/shs_und_ood_ontv.html


Anyway. Gimmicks can be great or, in most cases, really bad. But my advice is to pick one and love it with all your heart, kind of like a goldfish. Mine is the Snuggie. Make fun all you want, but next year when Ole Miss plays LSU and it's cold as all get out, I'll be warm in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium wearing my burgundy blanket with sleeves, embarrassing whomever might be sitting with me...

Small Business at its Best

Upon returning home to Memphis this past weekend, I was welcomed with open arms by quite a ferocious storm. Lasting no longer than ten minutes, it sent the city into a state of helplessness as it left over 100,000 without power. While having the air conditioner go out is quite a pain in the rear, at least one is able to access the internet and watch TV, but when the power goes out, that same person is left to read a book by a lantern or next to the window and sweat it out.

So fiddlesticks. The power's out. The air in the house is stagnant and smells of dog. What is a cute boy to do? Well, the only logical choice for this cute boy, was to consume mass amounts of buffalo wings with my friends as their power was out as well.

Even though Memphis is home to the world's best BBQ, I have heard it said recently that there are more hot wing restaurants than BBQ ones, so it seems our options were wide open as to where to get our savory dinner. Wrong. Think again. When it comes to Memphis wings there is only one choice. Ching's Wings on Getwell.

I could go on for hours about the goodness of the wings and the atmosphere, but I'll try to be brief. I'll give you three reasons why there is no other option for wings in the 901.

1) The wings are the best. Honey hot, honey gold, seasoned, mild, hot, x-hot, and suicide provide options for any wing eater to enjoy, and all are exquisite. I'm talking flavor here, not just heat. Any average Joe can load a wing up with hot sauce and think it's good because it makes grown men drop to their knees in gut wrenching pain and sob in their hands, but even the hottest at Ching's have flavor to enjoy. If I had to rate the wings, it would be best to quote my old pal Usher, or as I like to call him, Ursh-Daddy. "From a one to ten, they're a certified twenty." (Actual photo of Ching's. Accept no imitations.)

2) Clientele is unmatched. Even though Ching's is in a rough area of Memphis, it is worth it to mix and mingle with the customers. The first time I went to Ching's, I was greeted by a plethora of stares and jeers because my skin color wasn't quite the same as the typical Ching's-goer, but after a few visits, I was a regular. No more stares. No more hostility. Just good wings with good people. And when I say good people, it doesn't take long to figure out how good when you look on the walls and see hundreds of photos of various customers, many of these pictures featuring local heroes such as Derrick Rose, Rodney Carney, Chris Douglas-Roberts, and others from the Memphis Tigers basketball team. Even some pictures of he who must not be named anymore in Memphis (cough cough John Calipari cough) still adorn the walls.

Seriously though, Memphis is a city still divided by race, but when people find a common bond, walls are torn down, and even something as silly as hot wings can be a common bond. How great is that?

3) Three words: Orange Mound Punch. You think sweet tea is great? Well Orange Mound Punch is a wonderful concoction of red drink and orange drink and lots of sugar, a liquid cavity causer if you would. But it is the jam, no doubt. For more info on the name origin, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Mound,_Memphis.

So we got great wings, good people, and OMP, but I realized in the power outage, or the "Weekend from Hell" as I dubbed it, that Ching's is about pleasing the customer, a quality that has been lost recently in our society. Day in and day out I come across businesses that could care less about the patron and are only out to make the almighty dollar. While Ching's is a business and wants to make money, they ultimately want to see their customers leave with a smile on their face.

When I pulled into the parking lot on Friday evening, I noticed all the shops in the strip were closed. Looked like my friends and I would be enjoying Taco Bell instead of Ching's. But as I drove past Ching's and saw that the lights were out, I noticed the familiar face of the owner, Lafayette, approaching my window.

"Hey man. The power's out. But my cook still here. I'll get him to fix you and your boys some. Go tell him what you want. He'll get it out to you. Just tell him what you need. We'll get it for you," Lafayette told me in his typcial high-pitched, rushed way.

I walked into the store and saw the cook behind the counter, sweat dripping from his brow, but a smile on his face nonetheless. He took my order, got it ready in the dark, his only source of help, a small handheld flashlight, and gave my wings to me and my friends at a discount price. Of course we left to eat them someplace cool, but not before Lafayette sat down and chatted with us for twenty minutes or so. It's hard to get out of Ching's if he is working without talking to him for fifteen minutes or more, but it's worth the time. He cares about people and wants to see them happy. Some might call him an idealist, but in the world today, amidst economic turmoil and severe morality issues and violence and disease, it is refreshing to see someone who still cares about people, who wants to see someone beside himself happy.

As I went home that night and proceeded to try and fall sleep in a pool of my own sweat, I couldn't help but think about the people I personally know that are truly selfless. Sadly, only a handful came to mind. However, Lafayette was one of them. In a neighborhood plagued by crime and with a bad reputation amongst the people with whom I consort, Lafayette pushes on and tries to make the most of the situation all the while proving that there is still goodness in a broken world.

When I took my mother to Ching's to pick up food once, she cringed as we pulled into the parking lot.

"You come here on a regular basis? Are you nuts?" she asked me.

After she met Lafayette, she had no more questions...

On a completely unrelated note...
This week's sign of the apocalypse:


Lauren Conrad writes a novel. Not even kidding.

http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-sweet-bits-from-lauren-conrads-novel-la-candy/

Here's to you... Jimmy Fallon???

I know this will throw a lot of people off being that it is Monday and not Wednesday, but for any of you that read this, understand that this video is the most exciting thing that I have seen on the internet since Al Gore created it in 1988. Yes. It is even more incredible and awe inspiring than Sneezing Panda, The Star Wars Kid, and Scarlet Takes a Tumble combined. Take the nine minutes or so and enjoy the following. If for nothing else, do it for Mr. B. He's a huge loser in real life...




See y'all Wednesday.

The Bachelor-Bret

There are two things I know for certain at the moment. One is that I probably watch The Bachelorette more than most guys do. The second is that I'm sick of Brett Favre and the dramatic life he leads. So I'm going to do my best to tackle a comparison between the show I'm often forced to watch and my least favorite Mississippi athlete.

First, let's take a look at the TV phenomenon that is The Bachelor/Bachelorette. An eligible single man or woman is put on a show and asked to choose a potential partner from over twenty or more members of the opposite sex. This person is not obligated to marry the chosen one right away, but of course the title leads those watching (primarily single women between 13 and 78 and a pathetic unemployed blogger) to believe the winner and the star will live happily ever after. I know from tabloids at the grocery store that very few of these shows have ended in true love, but hey, who's to blame a guy for believing in fairy tales?

Any who, in the weeks that the competition takes place, the star of the show can take his or her suitors anywhere in the world and can do any number of things with certain individuals or small groups of those fighting for his or her love. I've really never watched any seasons of either show with any regularity until this summer's edition of The Bachelorette, but this season, Jillian and her boys have visited Vancouver and next week head to Whistler, Canada. Yeah... Canada, eh?

Good ole Jill is kind of like the Shania Twain of reality TV, kind of cute, very Canadian, but ultimately annoying and bitter about her past. You see she was jilted last season (I think.) on The Bachelor and since one guy didn't pick her out of thirty fine females, she feels she deserves to have her pick of thirty guys with more product in their hair than every person who has ever played Danny Zuko combined. Emphasis on ever.

So you might be asking, "Warn-dog. What's the big deal about a girl trying to find true love?" And my answer is, "Nothing. You just don't need a flipping TV show to do it. And if it's taken you two TV shows to do it, there is something very wrong with you."

I have no problem with entertaining TV, but this Jillian babe, a cute girl who could use a little rhinoplasty, is just a lost cause. She's had two full television seasons of limelight and I'm just ready for her fifteen minutes to be done. It appears that she loved the bachelor but couldn't land him and now is watching as what appear to be relatively decent, albeit greasy guys fight over her. These guys could be out there fulfilling the role of knight in shining armor to one of the girls lounging on the couch every Monday night longing for true love, but Jillian is just too selfish (perhaps incapable) of finding love without the help of a television show. So she plays coy and precious to these men while she leads them on. And when I say lead on, I mean sleeps with them all. And when I say sleeps with them all, I mean practically in front of the others' faces. Kind of twisted if you ask me.

But true love is true love. Who am I to stand in the way? Maybe after she marries and divorces one of these guys, I can be cast as the guy that's almost too old for "Jillian: The Cougar." You never know. Keep any eye peeled in five to ten years for that.

So The Bachelorette, Brett Favre, what the hell do they have to do with one another? She's from a place where people talk funny, Vancouver; he's from a place where people talk funny, Hattiesburg, MS. She's not very smart; he's been hit in the head a lot, therefore also not very smart. But the one thing that binds them together more than all of these are that they are cheating the rest of the world by taking its opportunities.

Brett Favre has been playing mind games with the NFL and all of its fans for the past several years. Retire? Come back? Who knows? But at this point everyone is growing tired of all the hoopla. The guy has played for nineteen years. He's won a Super Bowl. He holds most every QB record. He has millions of dollars and wicked sweet Wrangler Jean commercials. It's time to move on. The longer he sticks around, the more he tarnishes his own image. If he had retired two years ago after leading the Packers, the team he will forever be known for leading, to an incredible season, everyone would remember him as a hero. But all of this indecision just tends to piss people off. And it makes Sportscenter really terrible.

I understand it's probably hard to walk away from something you love so much, but there has to come a point where you understand it's time to let other people take over for you; it's time to give others a chance.

So here we have where Brett Favre and the Bachelorette come together like two really terrible puzzle pieces. One hogs the attention of the NFL while younger quarterbacks sit and wait for their turns. By the time he retires, his backups for his various teams will either have been traded or begun successful careers as car dealers, insurance salesman, or high school coaches. And Brett will never have thought twice about ruining any chances they would have ever had at making it big. The New York Jets kicked Chad Pennington to the curb without thinking twice to obtain Mr. Favre and what did he do in Miami? He led them to the playoffs after a dismal previous season. Aaron Rogers put up a heck of a fight in Green Bay after Favre left. But these are just two cases. Other guys deserve their shot at calling the plays, but with Brett Favre still in the picture, things look grim for the guys sitting behind Favre in the depth charts. So I hope he does these guys the favor of hanging it up so they can show their stuff.

It's way too late for people to look past this retire, not retire stuff. His reputation is shot. And that sucks, but that's what happens when you are too selfish to walk away while you are on top. Brett, take a lesson from Jerome Bettis and John Elway. It'd be a lot better for all involved if you did.

As for Jillian: She thinks so highly of herself that she believes she deserves to have guys fight over her on national TV. If you really think about the concept of the Bachelor (ette) long enough, you begin to feel sick, or at least I do. This woman has had two chances to find love on a show, but she just can't seem to get it right. Maybe it's because love isn't supposed to come via a reality show, but instead by natural attraction and organic means. So she takes away the chances these guys, contestants, whatever, have at finding normal love by leading them around on a leash that is television, messing with their heads and emotions, and then crushing all of them but one. And when that love doesn't work out, where will she turn? My guess is pornography of some sort, which in all seriousness is really sad. Hopefully these guys fighting over her won't be so screwed up by the whole experience that they can actually have a shot at living a normal life one day.

Brett, Jillian: please grow up. Thanks for entertaining us week in and week out, but it's time to do the right thing. Be normal. Understand that it's not all about you and that your decisions affect more than just yourselves. I hope that the people that follow your lives religiously don't feel like they have to be as selfish about their lives as you two are about yours.

Like assholes, everyone has an opinion. This is mine.

OMG! I'm in New York!!!

"Holy crap Janet. You'll never believe what I'm doing this summer."

"Becky are you f'ing around with me again? Last summer you said you were babysitting Helen Hunt's kids and that was a lie, so why should I buy into whatever you say you're doing this summer?"

"Janet! I'm going to New York!! Daddy got me an internship with some company and I leave tomorrow."

"No way..."

"Way."

"Well have fun. Go see Wicked. It's AWESOME!!!!! See you in August when we move into the Chi O House! Seniors!!!"

"Can't wait. LYLAS!!"

I'm not kidding. As I was studying one day for finals I glanced over at the computer screen next to mine and saw that conversation verbatim on some girl's g-chat account.

OK. So maybe I didn't see it at all; maybe I didn't even study in the library, but you know the story that would follow when our heroines Becky and Janet are reunited in the confines of the sorority house in the fall, the story of Becky's wonderful Big Apple adventure. It might look something like this:

Becky and Dad get to the airport after a long, tearful goodbye with the mother/wife. Becky in her baggiest frat tee and her $200 designer jeans, Dad in his Armani suit. Becky armed with the newest US Weekly and People, Dad with the WSJ (Wall Street Journal). As they board the private plane that belongs to the father's company they begin to discuss exactly what Becks will be doing. Her father informs her she will be an intern for a financial group in Manhattan and her only real duties will be to toast bagels and pour coffee. Later in the summer she might get to brew the coffee, but that's still up in the air. It really will depend on her performance. Of course Becky won't be getting paid for this very important work, but she doesn't need to worry according to her father. He and her mother will be taking care of things for her. They just want her to have a cultural experience in the world's culture Mecca, you know a real summer living on her own, finding herself, learning responsibility.

Upon their arrival to her summer digs, Becky is shocked to find out she will be living in a dorm room at NYU... with a roommate. WTF?!?! But her dad promised her that she could move out and into a new room if she and roomie couldn't get along. So all is poised to go well for the summer. Her room is super cute. She thinks she'll get along with the roommate, Amy. And now there is no need for Dad anymore, so he heads home.

As Becky finds her way along the subways of NYC, she discovers that she just LOVES people watching. So much so that she misses her stop four out of five times the first week. But with her million dollar smile and her great big... "eyes," none of the executives really seem to mind that she's been habitually late those first few days. Oh and they know they aren't paying her and her duties and wonderfully worthless. So as far as Becky knows she's on pace to be intern of the year and just smiles as she pours half in half in the bland, black coffee she prepares day in and day out. I mean some of the financial advisers are really hot so she can at least look past the monotony of the daily grind by enjoying the eye candy. Maybe one of them might take a liking to her and she'll be set for life, just like her mom.

As the summer presses on, Becky becomes absolute besties with Amy. They do everything together. Amy's parents and Becky's knew each other from Vanderbilt and wanted their daughters to finally meet since they ended up not rooming with one another at school, and just as they expected their baby girls hit it off spectacularly. Certainly they'll be maids of honor in each others weddings. If you spend a summer with someone, you just tend to form a bond that can never be broken. They even started one of those weird girl/girl facebook relationships. LOL.

One night Becks and Ames, as they lovingly call one another, happened to run into those two guys that are on the Hills every now and then and ended up going back to their hotel for a few drinks. Well, from there, only Becks and Ames know what happened, but I bet it was saucy. Those boys are just so dreamy, so you can imagine how great it might've been to have a little summer loving with them. They'll never watch the Hills the same way again...

But enough of the romance. Let's talk about BROADWAY! How amazing. One show a week on the parents' tab was just too much for ole Becky and Amy to handle. Wicked, Phantom, Grease, RENT! A girl's dream come true. And those five-star meals beforehand where the pinot grigio flowed like water just made Broadway Night that much more of the weekly highlight.

So, seriously. I know you've had enough of Becky at this point. I have too. I can't write anymore about her adventure despite how much fun I'm having living vicariously through her.

Isn't it crazy that thousands of girls live this life every summer? They go to New York, Chicago, LA, Boston or even London or Paris on their parents' nickel and spend three months working for a company doing something that will probably in no way benefit them and they call it finding themselves or learning to be independent. They eat like king's, shop like queens and act like court jesters (That line was terrible. Apologies.). Drunken nights abound at ritzy bars and clubs. Broadway shows are seen en masse. It's silly. I mean you can't even go see Carson Daly anymore on TRL so what's the point?

But in reality, I'm jealous. I wish I could spend three months in a big city having the time of my life, but I decided learning responsibility by earning money and hitting the grind elsewhere was a more logical choice. A summer vacation with an unlimited allowance doesn't seem like the best way to figure your self out.

So here's to you New York intern princesses. Enjoy your summer there. Read Twilight for the third time. Drink a lot of expensive wine and eat a lot of fancy salads. I wish I could be there with you, but instead I sit unemployed and bitch and moan about something else, at my desk, again...