Channeling Your Inner Gadget Gidget

Hello my lovelies!

Two blogs in a week!  I'm on a roll! One day when I grow up, I wanna be just like me.

But anyway, this is Sunday night.  You know what that means, right?

TEEVEE NIGHT!

On this holiests of teevee nights, I have a plethora of shows to watch and if I play my cards right, I can watch my shows back to back to back.  Starting with "The Amazing Race." It's being tied up by some golf game or whatever but then again, you can never tell what causes CBS to go over time on a sporting event. Whether or not the Race comes on at 8:00 (it probably won't) is of no concern.  As much as I love the show, at 9:00, "Game of Thrones" comes on and I don't have a DVR and even when I did, I never used it.  Nothing will stop GoT at 9:00 so I'll have to catch the results of the Race online.  Sorry Phil, that's just how the cookie crumbles.

I used to watch "The Walking Dead" on AMC, but I had a real adverse reaction to that. I loved horror movies growing up (see blog called, "The Fascination with the Zombie Apocalypse") but for some reason, the show generated nightmares for me. It would always be me and my daughter trying to outrun zombies and me trying to decide whether or not I should kill her then myself, or if we could make it to a boat to make it to an island. At the end, I decided I needed to stop watching.

A quagmire to this teevee viewing is "Real Housewives of Atlanta," which comes on at 8:00 just as I'm about to settle in for a whole lot of teevee today, but no worries - it replays at midnight tonight so I'm good to go. Shaddap!  I love RHOA. Stop acting like you don't watch it.  I hope the story of Porsha going H.A.M on Kenya is true. That lunatic deserves to get dragged.

The reason for this blog is because of the enormous amount of teevee viewing, it's Pina Colada Night!  Time to hook up the blender, get the mix, the pineapples, the ice and start whipping them bad boys up!

Oh yeah, I know...but I don't drink so no rum.  Yeah I know...bummer to be a teetotaler but what can I say?  I hate the taste of alcohol.

As I hook up my little blender and, still pissed about my Ninja blender (will get to that one soon), I wonder how many gadgets I have.  I love gadgets! I just love them.  To date, I have three different waffle irons, four hand mixers, three toasters, a bagel toaster, two toaster ovens, three crock pots, a hand mixer, a juicer, two food processors, a pannini maker, three coffee makers, an espresso maker, an electric broom, a steam cleaner, two vacuum cleaners, a quesadilla maker, a Fry Daddy, two Foreman grills, a popcorn maker, and a deep fryer.

Um, that doesn't count the numerous "As Seen On TV" gadgets I have, including the Ov Glov, Stone Waves, EZ Pockets, the Chop Wizard, Microwave Egg Maker, the Pasta Boat, Salad Spinner, Showtime Rotisserie, the Bacon Bowl and the Soda Caddy 2.  I don't even drink soda.

Dear Abby:  I'm a Gadget Gidget.

I would love to blame this on the fact that my daughter Charlene can't cook worth a hot dirty damn, but that I aint it. I'm just twisted.  It all started when I wanted to get things to make my life easier. In the last 15 years, it just took on a life of its own.  I now have so many I can't unbox them. The only things I use are the blender (because breakfast is yogurt smoothie and a boiled egg), the waffle iron, the toaster, the can opener, the one crock pot, the one coffee maker, a Foreman grill and the hand mixer.

...okay, sometimes I use the pannini maker and a toaster oven...and one of the food processors.

I struggle to understand this.  I don't even use all of these things.  I managed to curb my shoe addiction and now here I am knee deep in kitchen appliances.  I try not to go down the appliance aisles in stores because I always walk away with something.  I went through this phase where I had to have all white appliances, then all black appliances, then all silver and now I'm on the all red appliances.  I do, however, have enough sense to not get an expensive appliance.  To pay more than $200 bucks for something that I'll only use once is ridiculous.  I learned that mistake when I bought a pair of shoes for $600 schemolians and wore them once. Then I hated them and now they're horribly out of style and look stupid. I ended up sending them to Goodwill.  That was a ridiculous waste of money.

So I try to keep it under control by spending under $50.  I thought this would be a better thing, but it actually drove me to the As Seen On TV thingy, which created another type of gadget addiction. It's all good though...my daughter uses most of them and the Stone Wave is actually pretty useful.  At least she's not burning my pots and pans anymore.

Seriously though, how easier does these things make our lives? If I had to do without using an appliance, it would probably be the microwave.  I only use it to defrost most of the times. I know I can't live without my blender or my Foreman Grill.  Now with my heart condition, fried foods are pretty much a no-no for me, so the grill is good for cooking my meats.The food processor is handy too, except I usually just hand chop veggies, making the processor utterly useless. 

Having this many appliances can be useful, although if we lose power because of the Zombie Apocalypse, none of them would be of any use.  Except as a weapon to bash a zombie to death; then things might get interesting.

So here's the issue with my Ninja Blender.  It was to be the flagship of my gadgets.  I actually got it from BrandsMart when I bought Charlene a new flat screen teevee.  It was $99.95 (I love their .95 pricing) and figured this was a really good price.  Hey, I use my blenders constantly so it wouldn't just languish in boxed up/under cabinet hell.  I bought it, got it home and after dinner, I went to make some fruit smoothies.  Oh, you should have seen it - I had fresh pineapples, strawberries, chipped ice, fruit juice and I got started.

Except the damn thing didn't blend.  Perturbed, I kept hitting the start button. The little red button was flashing but it didn't work.  I got the manual (yeah - shoulda read it first but it's a BLENDER for fudge buddy's sake!) and saw that the flashing light is a safety mechanism. If the jar, blades and the lid aren't properly lined up, it won't work.  I emptied the blender, made sure the blade was lined up perfectly, made sure the jar clicked when I put it on and refilled it.  I made sure the little lid "clicked," closed the handle and hit the button.

SURPRISE! The red light stayed on.  The smoothies were chopped up pretty damn good, so the Cheetah Diva was pleased.

That is...until a few days later.  As I said earlier, I like yogurt smoothies for breakfast so I followed the procedure again.  Except this time, it didn't work.  I had done the check before; jar, lid, clicking handle...nothing.  After about twenty minutes, I headed out to work. I aint got time for this fuckery.  I figured I hadn't done something right, when I got home from work that evening, I set about making fruit smoothies.  This time it worked so I just brushed this off, although I was irritated.

Then...later that week, I tried to make Pina Coladas after dinner and seriously spent two of the longest freaking hours of my life trying to get this damn blender to work.  I finally gave up, contacted Ninja on Fakebook and ranted about their product.  I now have to send that sumbitch back (paying for shipping of course and a restocking fee). Whatever. What a waste of a product.

Anyway, I actually thought about having a yard sale to get rid of all of the gadgets but when that day came, I just couldn't part with any of it.  What if I wanted a pannini?  What if my microwave broke? What if I want to boil an egg but not want to peel it?  How could I part with anything?

Charlene can have the Oster Flip Waffle Maker, though. No matter how little batter you fill it with, it always bubbles over and the clean up of that thing made it immediately unattractive and believe me, she's more than happy to take it. Anything to keep her from burning shit is always good. Dammit, she's never getting married.

I've come to accept the gidgetness of my gadgets. I could have worse addictions and besides, my gadgets play some useful at some point in my life.  Why, just about two years ago, I decided I wanted roterrisie chicken and look! I had the means to make it!  Of course, I could have gone down to the many chicken shacks in my area but that's not the point.  I had the means of making my own so yay me!  It's okay to have a ridiculous amount of gadgets to make your life easier.  That's what they're there for. This is what I tell myself, anyway.  Does it make us lazier? Yes. Are they a pain in the ass to clean? Sure, some of them, but we're in the richest country in the world.  If I had to go back to a primitive way of living, I think I'd starve.  True, I can use the weight loss, but that's not the point.  It is my right as a Diva to have as many gadgets as I possibly can. 

There are certain advantages of owning so many gadgets.  If the need for making large amounts of food to take to parties come up, I can just whip something up and keep it warm in one of my crock pots.  I always have something for something; to do something, to make something, to take something somewhere. Why, on a whim (cuz somebody always brings one), I took my salad spinner to a get together and one girl was chopping up a salad and trying to mix it.  I ran out to the truck, pulled my spinner out and proceeded to mix that bitch like I was Doug E. Fresh.  It's psychotic but again, I could have worse addictions. 

As I wait for The Amazing Race (seems like it's gonna be on time tonight), I'm looking at my new, cheaper blender and hope that it works for me tonight. I'll be incredibly pissed if I get to Game of Thrones and haven't had nam damn drink.  How am I gonna get my Purple Wedding on?

Looking at a really good juicer now...it's about $300 bucks...but it's a good investment.

*smirk*

Ciao!

nnb

Programming note - "Kurai Utopia Book Two - Ignition" will be delayed for about a month. Recently diagnosed health issues has forced this delay. Since I have no editor, I have to take my time so it's going to take longer. Hopefully, I'll get it done before the end of May but we'll see.