I love you, Mr. Coffee

We've been in the market for a new coffee maker for a while now, and this weekend we went out and finally bit the bullet. Our previous coffee pot looked something like this:
It made - gasp - only 4 cups, and it had one button: off or on. Your only choice: Do you want coffee or not? It took me less than a minute to make coffee in the morning, and since I only drink 2 cups, it was perfect for me. Not so perfect for the other coffee drinking person who lives in this house, or if we had more than 2 guests over. Whatever.

So off to Target we went in search of our new liquid crack machine. When we arrived in the designated aisle, I couldn't believe what I saw - What were all these shiny buttons? Is that a...clock? On a coffee pot? And get a load of this - did you know you can actually set a timer on your coffee maker and have it start making coffee before you even wake up??? And guys, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I didn't even know that they had permanent coffee filters. As you can probably tell, I've been drinking my coffee back in 1979 or something. But I had no problem with our little Mr. Coffee from back in the day. I think it's nice to keep things simple sometimes, you know?

Somehow, this is the one we ended up getting:


Ho. Lee. Shit. This coffee maker does not fuck around. It has a timer, a program feature, an alarm and you can select your brew strength. This mofo cranks out 12 cups of coffee in like, 3 minutes! It has a permanent filter (just doin' our part for mama earth, ya'll), a water filter and this crazy little knob that lets you select the temperature on the coffee plate. The only down side? It took me 5 minutes to figure out how to turn this bitch on today. I'm pretty sure I heard the smug laughter from the old coffee pot we shoved away under the counter. Jerk.

How to look like a self absorbed asshole

A few days ago, my boyfriend's copy of Wired magazine arrived in the mail, The How To Issue, to be exact, and right there on the cover next to a picture of Julia Allison's killer gams was the headline, "Get Internet Famous". Uhh...I've never heard of this chick before, but sure, I'll read it.

Summary of article: Julia Allison dated some Gawker people, then some IT dudes, blogged about every last detail, is/was mean, held a dance party in Manhattan and took lots of pictures with famous people? She's like the Paris Hilton for quasi-intellectuals, I suppose.

Anyway, the article got me thinking about blogging and my own experience. Even though I'm too lazy to use apostrophes correctly and I disregard style, I'm not new to writing. Before being betrayed by countless people (and thats a story for another time, folks) I kept paper journals for about 12 years. Before blogs were invented, I had an online diary back in the day (Gurl.com, Chickclick.com and Geocities.com - oh, the memories) complete with grrlgoddess webrings and guestbooks. And while at times I'm completely self-delusional, achieving fame due to my blog is laughable to me.

Just for kicks, here are some of Wired magazine's and Julia Allison's tips to becoming "Internet Famous", and their applications in my own life.

It's not who you know, its who you're next to
Hmm. Well, I wasnt invited couldn't attend the Blogher conference, so I missed my opportunity to be photographed next to Dooce or Maggie Mason. However, I'll be at the circus tonight, so maybe I'll try to get my picture snapped with Bello. Actually quite fitting for this blog, don't you think?

Dress against type
Well, since I've been broke as hell this year and haven't been able to update my wardrobe, I think I'm officially dressing against type. It hasn't got me any recognition other than sneers from the girls at Macy's when I go in occasionally to window shop. But if old Jules taught me anything, negative attention is good attention!

Embrace enigma
Merriam-Webster defines enigma as:
1 : an obscure speech or writing
2 : something hard to understand or explain
3 : an inscrutable or mysterious person

Well my blog does a good job of being obscure, is quite hard to understand at times and I wouldn't call myself mysterious, but I'm no Brangelina, either. I think I'm doing a good job at embracing the enigma so far.

Let your minion's fight your battles
Now I need some minions. How does one get minions, anyway? Google was no help, and Minions.com was a bust. Perhaps I'll put an add out in Craigslist?