Bake for granted

As many of my loyal readers know I have recently moved into a new apartment, that I love, but there is one thing that escaped my attention until last night; I don't have a microwave. Now, in theory, that should be fine because I have a stove (which heats the whole apartment for hours after using, but I digress) to cook food in, but in today's age of culinary instant gratification, one forgets how many products aren't oven-compatible. You can't even attempt to make popcorn, but that's okay, I'll just reserve that treat for when I go to the movies.

More importantly, it severely affects re-heating food. As a New Yorker I have adopted Whole Foods as my "neighborhood" store and while they stock their shelves with the same food that every supermarket does, they have a wide-array of pre-made foods that are yummy! But the thing Whole Foods REALLY needs to work on is creating cooking directions for these pre-made delicacies. How does someone, who has never prepared Coconut crusted chicken begin to imagine how to re-heat it. Same story with Chicken Parm--yes, I know how to cook it, but I don't know what temperature to put an already cooked piece of chicken in for, to properly re-heat the chicken while not burning the cheese on the outside. Ditto for lasagna. And then my Whole Foods favorite, the Mac & Cheese. How do you even begin to re-heat Mac & Cheese without a microwave?!?! It's a daunting task.

So I have begun using "air" as my microwave. If I know I am going to eat something that I normally need the microwave for, I Just make sure to leave it sitting out for 30 minutes before I plan to eat it. Basically, my swanky new apartment has turned me into a caveman!

So, to this end, I will be accepting donations to the "Buy Jarett a Microwave" fund--please send all financial contributions with an additional self-addressed stamp envelope so once I purchase the microwave, I can send you a photo of me enjoying my nuked goodness.

"Puzzle" is an understatement

You're probably thinking to yourself, "ooh, what a pretty desk" and you know what, you're right. The "Puzzle Desk" from Crate & barrel is very lovely....but if you purchase and try to assemble this beast, you will come to find out why it was named "Puzzle" because trying to assemble it is on-par with trying to solve a Rubiks Cube if you're color blind!

This desk will taunt you and your inability to assemble it at every turn. It will mock you by not having its parts clearly labeled and, even worse, the desk is in cahoots with the instructions. The how-to diagrams are misleading at best and they tell you to insert wooden dowels where there is no place to insert said dowels.

It was all, "one step forward, three steps back" with this bitch and after three hours of slamming our fingers in drawers, flipping the desk over and around to try and make it line up with the diagram and one small mistake on my part of sliding a drawer side into a slot too early, we finally got 80% of the desk assembled--but the worst part? We still have 20% of that desk to put together and the entire other side, which you see in the diagram is the piece on the right.....oh bother.

And I Will Always Love Yooooooooou

Melrose Place will forever be imbedded in my mind as one of the GREATEST guilty pleasures ever to grace television.

Aaron Spelling, the creator of MP and other Jarett obsessions; 90210 and Charmed, passed away this weekend, surrounded by his "I heart gift wrapping rooms" Wife, Candy, his "I wasn't cast on 90210 because my daddy was the producer" daughter, Tori and "I CLEARLY was cast on 90210 because my daddy was the producer" son, Randy.

Had it not been for Aaron, here are some things that would have never become part of TV history:

1. Sideburns are not only cool, but mandatory for brooding


















2. Even on TV, 30-year-old women don't look like High Schoolers!












3. Rose McGowan is a perfectly acceptable replacement for Shannen Doherty--in fact, in some ways, she's better!






















4. In California, black people and southerners can dissapear (snap your fingers) Just like that!



5. The early work of Jessica Alba and Hilary Swank on 90210--sidenote: Hilary was tot fired from the show.....but Tori remained!



6. Holly Marie Combs is the #1 most underrated actress on television!!!!!! Able to not only cry on cue, but make you feel every ounce of her pain--Put this woman in another TV show STAT!



7. Scenario: You're a virgin about to be raped, the rapist has a knife to your throat when your boyfriend comes to the door to see if you're okay--simply call him by some other version of his name ie: David becomes Dave, for example--and he will know something is wrong, bust down the door and save the day.....and you'll still wait 4 more years to give him your cherry!


8. The Best Ad Slogan in the history of TV



9. The Best Battle Cry in the history of TV




10. And finally, the moment of TV that will haunt my dreams until the end of time--the best twist EVER! the best reveal EVER! the best character EVER!


So thank you Aaron, you will be sorely missed--and one last thank you--thank you for redefining the term, "jumping the shark" you didn't just jump the bitch, but you blew it to smithereens and then temporarily blinded the bitch!

Palpitations

Rachel McAdams, Evangeline Lilly, Elisha Cuthbert and Natalie Portman better make room because there's a new lady in town.
Her name is Camille Guaty

She had a role on Prison Break last season as the fiancee of Sucre, she was the reason he was breaking out of prison--and a damn fine reason at that!!!! I mean, couldn't you just move in to those dimples!!!!!

This September she will star in The Nine, which is in my humble opinion the BEST NEW SHOW THIS SEASON. It deals with nine people who are held hostage during a 56-hour bank robbery. You don't see the robbery in the first episode. just the after effects and then the viewer will see 10-minutes of the robbery in each following episode. It's brilliant, it's bold and it's on ABC so you better watch.

That's enough John Mayer

Granted, I own one of his CD's, but I think John Mayer needs to be stopped. And just like Chris Griffin said, "That's Enough, John Mayer"

An excerpt from his new interview in Elle:

JOHN MAYER insists that he isn't taken seriously in the music world because he is too good looking, much like legendary rocker JIMI HENDRIX. The YOU'RE BODY IS A WONDERLAND singer believes his predominantly female fan base automatically turns potential male fans off. He explains, "I would love it if my fans were women and men, 50/50. I'd even
settle for 60/40. "Think of Jimi Hendrix. He was huge with women. It's part of the reason he never really got accepted into the black community. It's the same with me! "It's the reason I haven't been accepted fully into the musical super-credibility community - the second they see throngs of young women screaming your name, it says, 'You're out, you're out, you're out!'"

No one who used to diddle Jennifer Love Hewitt or writes songs talking mostly comprised of metaphors for diddling women (your body buzzes just like neon, etc...) should EVER complain that their female fan base turns off any possible men from listening. you're actively courting the female gender--you have no songs like, "i love to watch football and get drunk" and until you do, don't expect the men to come running. And on another note to future emo acoustic rockers: Don't compare yourself to Jimi Hendrix, it doesn't make you look cool. But playing a guitar will DEFINITELY help you score chicks--which is why John Mayer probably picked one up in the first place.

Watch out, they spit

So my office manager decided that the office was getting too fat on account of all the birthday cakes we were eating, so she came up with the idea of having only one birthday party a month and added the fun of a staff trivia game to the party. Basically everyone sent in weird facts about themselves and the birthday celebrants have to guess who is being talked about. While this isn't interesting, one fact that came out during today's game made me laugh so hard I started to cry:

"Which staff member was almost sold for 6 camels at a Turkish Bazzar?"

WTF!?!?! I almost peed my pants!!!

Our team is, BOOM, dynamite

That headline was definitely inapprop, but this commercial is anything but. Produced for the U.S. but never aired, it's goal (sorry, couldn't help myself) is to obtain aid for the UN's anti-landmine organization.
If you feel like donating time or money, follow these links:
http://www.landmines.org/
http://www.stoplandmines.org/slm/index.html

Inbred much?

For once I am SO down with Fox News and its anchor, Julie Banderas. good for you Julie!

Go White Boy! Go White Boy! GO!

The Jar-Man Cometh

After a too-long break from blogging, I come roaring back today after much outcry for a new post (I'm talking to you hell's kitchen station domination)

Well, as previously stated, I have migrated West, just like my ancestors, but luckily I didn't have to cross a desert, part a sea and chisel 10 commandments into a stone tablet

HOWEVER, I had a very uncomfortable encounter with a member of the Roach family in my new apartment. And no, I don't mean that all-girl singing group my father always used to play in the car


Nor do I mean the remains of a marijuana cigarette


But IN FACT the small insect: Genus; cock, Family; roach--looking a bit like this


Which was startling to say the least, but thank g-d for small favors that it didn't resemble my toilet bug from Costa Rica!


Well after smooshing the cockroach, which I did feel bad about, you know, you think, "does this have a mother? is this the mother? have I left a gaggle of cockroach babies without a teet to suckle from???" I also realize that the majority of this last sentence proves that I, in fact, know nothing about how cockroaches are born, bred and brought up, although I would imagine that it's VERY similar to that movie ANTZ where they all live in a colony and all the women sound like Sharon Stone.

But I love the apt, love my neighbors and love the cookie monster stuffed animal that someone carelessly left behind when they moved out....oh no, what if that belonged to the dead baby cockroach that I killed and the mama roach couldn't bare to be reminded of her son by carrying around his fav stuffed animal as they migrated to a new home because the big black reef sandal kept killing them at 357 W 54th street?!?!?!?!?!