food network chef gets fired

uh oh spaghettios!!! looks like robert irvine is the latest to be filing for unemployment. the food network star of dinner: impossible was just released from his contract by the network.

his credentials have come under fire after it was proven that he ‘ahem‘ inflated his resume. irvine, having nothing to back it up to the food network, struck a compromise by removing the listing of the famous people he supposedly had worked for from the opening credits to his show.

not long after tmz reports that he has been officially released from his contract and that they are looking for a replacement. you can read more here about what he did. also of note that hsn has dropped his knives from their roster of products.

taste test: trader joe’s fiberful fruit bar

after a recent stop into tj’s the other day to get some organic sugar i was looking to try something different. after perusing the fresh fruits and veggies i saw a bushel filled with bars of fruit ‘leather’ type foods. i picked through a few of the available flavors: boysenberry, strawberry, apricot and stumbled on one that piqued my interest: fiberful mixed berry. the cost was nice too: only $.39. i really had nothing to lose.

toast-a-meal:laziness and stupidty in one small package

just when i thought my kitchen couldn’t possibly use another product made of “space age polymer” i saw this nifty little gem in a commercial on food network. it’s called toast-a-meal and it tops the current running list of stupid infomercial products, at least in my book.

here’s what the bag purports to do: create a crispy delicious meal from your toaster, toaster oven without all the ‘mess’ of making things like grilled cheese or chicken nuggets (which upon viewing the website is spelled wrong) (actual screen shot)

honestly i know what nougat is and if it was chicken flavored i would puke.

i would have thought that perhaps i was having a flashback to my days of psychadelics but i wasn’t. some idiot created this thing and is pitching it to unsuspecting buyers. they are selling 4 of these goddamn bags for $20 plus s&h. they are also throwing in a toaster too, that’s how desperate they are to sell these things.

i implore the reading public: are we still fooled by verbiage like “space-age polymer”? how awful will this really be that they are giving a toaster too? i beg you, don’t buy this crap. don’t buy any crap that’s available for purchase via a 1-800 number. but if you really are curious check it out here.

in search of the perfect coffee cup

i love my caffeine, i really do. long before my most recent addiction to red bull and monster (which i am convinced cause impotence, not a first hand account though) i was and still am addicted to coffee. most specifically dunkin donuts coffee. i am not alone in that i hate starbucks coffee, see here and here, but that’s not what this search is about.

woo hoo, free diarrhea!!

in case you haven’t seen it, mcdonalds is offering a free* mcskillet burrito this thursday and friday. free, as usual, isn’t really free. you need to purchase a medium or large drink in order to get it and it’s only valid for the sausage burrito.

i won’t be partaking in the festivities as i was not a fan of the mcskillet the first time around. does anyone realize that the beverages are the highest profit margin items on the menu? just a thought.

first seeds placed in ‘doomsday’ seed vault

does this look like it will save the world in the event of a massive holocaust?

aside from polar bears, the small arctic island of svalbard near the arctic circle off norway has a new resident: seeds. it’s buried deep in a fjord near the arctic circle and it’s being called the ‘noah’s ark’ of the 21st century.

here’s the gist of it: because the place is so goddamn cold and desolate they have dug deep (over 400 feet) underground and created a vault that will house seeds from all over the world for as many plants and crops as they can find. the idea being that once we undo ourselves (and at this point it’s only a matter of time) and the bomb drops killing many things including crops; the seeds from these crops are retrievable thanks to this underground vault. if it is a known crop, they are getting the seeds. the very first seeds were placed in the vault today kicking off what is quite possibly one of the most important acts of preparation ever.

i for one think this is a massively brilliant idea. you can read more here.

update: how to delete my facebook account

wow. okay that was way more difficult than it needed to be. apparently the privacy at facebook dot com email address is the one you need to use to get through. after the initial email spelling out my intentions my inbox greeted me with the following message:

Hi trixareforkids,

If you deactivate your account, your profile and all information associated with it are immediately made inaccessible to other Facebook users. What this means is that you effectively disappear from the Facebook service. However, we do save your profile information (friends, photos, interests, etc.), so if you want to reactivate at some point, your account will look just the way it did when you deactivated. Many users deactivate their accounts for temporary reasons and expect their information to be there when they return to the service.

If you do not think you will use Facebook again and would like your account deleted, let us know, and we will take care of this for you. Keep in mind that you will not be able to reactivate your account or retrieve any of the content or information you have added.

what did you not get from my first email? did my title, permanent account deletion request, confuse you? how much more transparent can i make myself. i don’t give a shit what others users do and that they expect their information to be there when they return. seriously? people do that?

ah, wonderfully today i my inbox greeted me with a notification from the people at facebook telling me that my profile had been deleted and my email was removed from the login database. success. i am free. to mark fuckerberg: i will sleep better at night knowing that i contributed to undermining your $15b valuation.

*the author of this post is not one of those bullshit armchair quarterbacks who hates on the people who create technology because deep down inside they are pissed at themselves because they couldn’t come up with it on their own. i just don’t like how hard it was to do something that should be easy. and the use of capital letters is only from a cut and paste of the email. later bitches.

cutting the cord: how to delete my facebook account

subtitle: kiss my ass mark zuckerberg!!!

i’ve grown bored of facebook. i have. realistically let’s face it, social networking has a limited lifespan. after the thrill of catching up with some high school people you were acquaintances with (really, if you were friends you would still talk to them), sharing mild laughs with people you actually talk to, spying on a few exes, wasting a lot of time taking bullshit surveys or playing bullshit games like scrabulous there is really little left to do otherwise. i’m bored. at first i thought it would drive more traffic to my blog, but no luck, i guess people just don’t like me.

anywho, this is no easy task. while it’s my information and i technically own it, i really don’t own it (or at least that’s how facebook sees it). they are “kind enough” to keep things like your profile and wall entries on the site after you ‘attempt’ to delete your account in the hopes that one day you will come back. fuck you!! if i want out, i want out. i know i accepted these terms in the eula (end user license agreement) but i really don’t care. i’m done with you. so here’s a clue for those of you out there that want to do what i did and that’s get rid of your account completely - sack up because this takes some time if you have done a lot on the site:

i’m cheating on my girlfriend

it’s true. there’s a love in my life that is now moving in on her territory. i’m cheating on my girl with: pastrami. yes dear readers, it’s pastrami. that delicious variant of corned beef (which oddly enough after a lifetime of hating i am starting to enjoy). i’ve had a love affair with pastrami for some time now but only now is it really creating a stronger food-hold on my heart. oh i could profess my love for pastrami endlessly but i will share a brief foray into the factory store of a popular meat business instead.

shitty tippers beware

thank you bitterwaitress for finally doing what many of us in the food industry all these years have longed to do: create a central repository to track all sorts of shitty customers.

here’s the deal: the person’s name is listed on the site along with the number of people in their party, the date they were in, the name of the restaurant in question, city and state of said restaurant, and the best two: the amount of the check and the tip left for the server. you seriously better watch your back. if more servers and bartenders know this is out there they will hurt you bad. if you click on the name and the server has included it you will get a full rundown of the offending scenario.

people, it’s not hard. pony up for good service or don’t go out. plain and simple. consider yourself warned.