After burning out several pans with my extreme scrambled egg habit, I added the OrGreenic frying pan to my family of As Seen on TV products. The commercial touts it as an environmentally-friendly alternative to the evils of Teflon.
CON: I was of course eager to use my new pan right away, but after opening the packaging I read that you have to "season" the pan before use. I didn't have oil on hand, so I sprayed it with canola spray and stuck it in the oven for an hour. Seems to have worked, but I was so hungry waiting for the pan that I ate my eggs raw.
PRO: The next day I finally got to try the pan out and it truly is non-stick. I suppose the same could be said for any non-stick pan when brand new, but this seems like the real deal. I placed a slice of cheddar cheese on the pan and fried it until it hardened and that sucker flew right off. (Dinner!)
CON: While the metal handle does not get hot, it's still uncomfortable to hold as compared to non-metal handles. This is especially true while the already-heavy pan is filled with food that you're trying to plate or when wielding the pan as a weapon.
TBD: We'll see if the green surface scratches or if the non-stick quality wears off over time. For now it's working fine.
FINAL VERDICT: Panties off! (But not literally -- please wear proper clothing when cooking with high heat.)
In case you missed it, check out my review of the Schticky. If you want to know my opinions about the Perfect Brownie Pan, Smooth Away, Pipe Snake, Pillow Pets, Shakeweight, SlapChop, Graty, or other ASOTV products, then you'll have to buy my book.
I'm not sure how to word this without sounding like a scammy spammer, but I want to boast about this Starbucks deal I stumbled upon that appears to be a mistake (not just low market value, like four-cent Philadelphia 76ers tickets).
Recently when buying a bottle of water at an airport Starbucks I picked up a spiced chocolate biscotti on a whim. I enjoyed the biscotti so much that I wanted to eat more of them -- but not so much that I would go to Starbucks to shell out $1.75 apiece for them.
I turned to Google to see if I could buy them in bulk or if they were sold at another retail outlet. I landed on a Starbucks.com page that looks like a defunct order page for the biscotti (no product image and a price of $0.01 for each biscotti). If you use the normal Starbucks navigation, the biscotti are nowhere to be found, so this appears to be a page that isn't supposed to be viewable to the public. But the page said the biscotti were in stock, so I added 12 to my cart. To my surprise, I was able to place the order and was charged $0.12 plus $4.95 shipping. A few days later, the dozen biscotti arrived at my door!
Needless to say, I immediately placed another (larger) order for which I'm now waiting. Perhaps other Starbucks products can be similarly ordered in this way, but I'm not seeking them out because I'd feel guilty putting a nice Mom & Pop shop like Starbucks out of business. For now I choose to believe that Starbucks just really wants me to have penny biscotti.
Quick question: have you ever watched porn with closed-captioning? Because I have:
In case you think this was just a one-time fluke, anyone who follows me on Twitter knows I've tweeted about this many times before. I also mentioned the porn in my Yelp review that I wrote back in 2010. I'm not linking to that because I don't want people to stalk me at my porn gym.
I'm a big fan of "as seen on TV" products, so I was ecschtatic when my sister told me she had ordered me the Schticky for my birthday. If you're not familiar with the Schticky, here's the video from prostitute-biter Vince Offer:
Hoo-boy, was I excited when this discreetly-marked box arrived at the crib! I tore it open to find the first negative:
(-) Non-gift packing slip: If my sister had indicated that this was a gift, then shame on Schticky for including a packing slip with prices on it. Luckily our family doesn't mind sharing gift prices... but holy crap sis, you paid $20.85 for shipping??
(+) Lots of extras: My sister had lamented that she could barely get off the Schticky website because they kept trying to pile more things into her order. (Pro tip: never purchase mail order products direct from the manufacturer -- order from Amazon or buy in the "as seen on TV" aisle of Walmart or Target.) Sucks for her, but I got myself a bevy of "wait there's more" stuff: all three sizes of the Schticky, a Slap Chop, and the cult favorite Graty. By the way, could they have used a creepier picture of Vince Offer on all the products?
Ok, time to put this sucker to work. I have a black carpet that clings to the white fuzz from my socks, even after vacuuming thoroughly with my never-loses-suction Dyson. I discovered a while ago that a lint roller does the trick, but who has $100 a year to spend on paper lint rollers? I unwrapped the medium Schticky and was surprised that it felt more slimy than sticky (but it doesn't leave a slime residue behind on your fingers).
(-) The doggone thing broke immediately: Oops, guess I was a little too excited to bring the pain on that carpet lint.
Take two: I put it back together and went back to the carpet with a little less aggression.
(+) It worked! Beautiful black carpet.
(-) Cleaning the Schticky is tricky: In the video, Vince runs it under water and the debris falls right off. Didn't quite happen like that IRL. In the instruction sheet, Schticky tells you to "use your fingers as a wiper" if this happens. This works, but is pretty gross. There's also the issue of which sink you want to do the deed in. I didn't want to clog up my bathroom sinks, but I wasn't thrilled about doing the dirty work in my kitchen sink where I prepare my food. I guess a little carpet lint down your sink's garbage disposal isn't the end of the world, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about cleaning off the Schticky after using it on cobwebs or my shedding p*ssy. I wanted to use it again right away of course, but it only works when dry, so I rolled it on a paper towel, which didn't work out well.
Note to self: buy Shamwow towel to dry my Schticky.
(+) Works on some coins: My sister specifically requested that I try it out on pennies, as demonstrated in the video, because stray pennies are apparently a big problem in her household. It does work on pennies and dimes. It doesn't work on quarters. Nickels are a crap-shoot, so proceed with caution.
(-) Missing brush attachment for the big Schticky: The video shows a brush attachment and a longer handle that were missing in my shipment. Normally I would call to ask that the missing items be shipped to me, but I'm afraid to get on the phone with these people because:
(-) Aggressive up-sell: A few days after my sister had ordered me the Schticky I got a call from the Schticky people letting me know that due to "overwhelming demand" I'd be getting my Schticky in two to three weeks. Fine. Then the dude launched into some spiel about coupons for free gas and such. I was at work and wasn't really paying attention, so I told him I had to get off the phone. He said no problem -- they would just charge my Visa after 30 days if I wanted to keep getting the coupons. Wait, what? It wasn't even my Visa card they had on file -- so basically they would start charging my sister for some random coupon subscription that I would forget to cancel 30 days after not really ordering it in the first place? I made a big enough stink that I think I managed to get the coupon crap removed from the order, but it's definitely dangerous to make direct contact with these people. I think I'll do without my big Schticky brush attachment rather than risk saddling my sister's credit card with some timeshare in Boca Raton or something.
(+) Overall: I'm pleased with the Schticky because it works on my problematic carpet and it will be a fun conversation piece to bring out at house parties now that my Shake Weight has become somewhat passé. I'm also really excited to try the Slap Chop and Graty, so I welcome them all into my family of "as seen on TV" products.
Today is my first day as Executive Producer for SFGate.com, the Bay Area's best portal site and online home of the San Francisco Chronicle (part of Hearst Corporation). Although I'm still sad to have left all the great folks at Yardbarker and FOXSports, I'm very excited to be joining such a well-respected and large website. And those who know me know I never really knew anything about sports anyway -- now I can pretend to know something about news, politics, and all sorts of other things too. Big ups to the folks at Hearst for taking a chance on a basement-dwelling digital-type like myself. When I was in law school and got my first digital gig posting NBA cartoons on AOL's FanHouse, I never would have guessed that I'd eventually end up in a position like this. I will do my very best to make my new employers proud (no more rape jokes for now, I guess... I'm working on my Twitter cred). Thanks everyone for all the kind messages this past week since I left YB. In the words of American poet Nicki Minaj: "I win, thrive, soar, higher, higher, higher, more fire!"
At first I thought maybe the "Similar to @alana_g" profiles were just loosely based on a general interest category like "sports." But apparently there is an algorithm that determines the profiles, and I doubt the algorithm would recommend me for any kind of legitimate editorial job. Let's hope my business cards at the new job won't include my Twitter handle like my Yardbarker ones did!
Big thanks to LadyBallers for giving me 15 minutes on the soapbox as part of their Female Sports Professionals series. Please head over to LadyBallers to check out the full interview (including all my unsolicited career advice for anyone trying to break into the sports industry) but here's an excerpt about how I ended up at Yardbarker:
Please give us a little background on how you got to your current role:
I ended up at Yardbarker through networking. In 2007 I got an email from Pete Vlastelica (then CEO of Yardbarker) who had seen a Greg Oden video interview I’d done for FanHouse and wanted to meet me. We kept in touch and he hooked me up with video interviews with Yardbarker athletes here and there. Over a year later when I was looking to make a job move I reached out to Pete and I was fortunate that he gave me an opportunity to work full-time with Yardbarker’s athletes. As the company evolved over the next few years I tried to involve myself in new areas and I now manage our editorial group and wear various other hats.
And check out the rest of their Female Sports Professionals series -- tons of fascinating experiences and perspectives!
My friends Jennifer and Onye are big fans of the actor Don Cheadle... or maybe not, I have no idea. But anyway, I decided I would do something generous and spend my own money ($15 each) to have Don Cheadle call them at their offices and jazz up their boring lawyer lives for two minutes.
I have to say, Don Cheadle is an amazing actor, because in the movies he doesn't even seem to have much of an accent.
This was easily the best $30 I ever spent -- and I consider it an investment, because I'm pretty sure Jennifer and Onye will both be buying me more than $30 worth of drinks and gifts to thank me for their incredible experiences. I don't think they've had this much fun since that one night in law school...
You too can buy Cheadle calls for all your friends (they range in price from $2 to $20 each). When you checkout, please note that you were referred by Alana G. I don't think it will get you any kind of discount, but it might increase my chances of getting a date with Don Cheadle.
You can also pay to have Don Cheadle call your friend and pretend to be a turtle, which is what I did for my old pal John:
Personally I think if you're going to pay for Don Cheadle to make a call though, why waste your money on him pretending to be a turtle.
Oh wait, I think this was just the red carpet of GQ's Super Bowl party, not the set of American Idol. Rats.
My Yardbarker colleague Jeff and I were in Dallas for the week before Super Bowl and produced 14 videos for our sponsor T.G.I. Friday's. You can see all of them on our T.G.I. Sunday blog. I highly recommend the ones that feature Randy Jackson, the best red carpet interview of all time:
