Merry Christmas!

Holiday Shoe Shopping

So I'm still working on my holiday shopping. I've been a little bit more organized this year, but I've always been a procrastinator so at this point I've just accepted the fact that I'll always be doing Christmas shopping at the last minute. Thank goodness for online shopping and express shipping!

Today I'm shopping for shoes for my brother on Zappos.com. This is dangerous because Zappos happens to be one of my favorite shopping sites.  So shopping for him is taking twice as long because I keep getting distracted looking at stuff for myself. But I'm trying to focus.  He really likes Ecco shoes, but he's a student right now so he doesn't exactly have a huge shoe budget, so I thought that might make a nice gift. Now I'm just trying to decide exactly what to get. There are a lot of great men's styles to choose from.

Something like this is a good every day, versatile option that I think he would get a lot of use out of:

Or I could go with something more sporty from the Ecco Performance line:

Decisions, decisions.  And while I'm at it, it can't hurt to look at the women's shoes, right?  I love these Ecco boots:

It's so much easier to justify adding a little gift for myself when I'm ordering from Zappos - they have a great return policy and customer service, and shipping is always free.  And they're actually guaranteeing free shipping and delivery in time for Christmas for orders placed as late as the morning of the 23rd.  It's a procrastinator's dream! I think my holiday shopping just got easier.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The New Southwest Airlines Ads Confuse Me

Okay, I admit it. I don't get these new commercials for Southwest Airlines that I've been seeing lately.



I mean, obviously I understand what they're saying - you can only find Southwest fares on Southwest.com, not on any of the big travel sites like Orbitz, Travelocity, etc.  What I don't get is why this is supposed to be a good thing.  When I'm making travel plans I like to be able to go to sites like Orbitz and get fares (or hotel room rates or whatever it is) from a bunch of different airlines at once so that I can compare.  I might then go to a specific airline's website from there, but I think it's convenient to be able to go to one site and see a lot of options.  So the fact that Southwest fares aren't on those sites is better for me...how?

"You want to fly all over, you don't want to browse all over."  Well, yeah.  And if I have to go to Orbitz/Travelocity/Expedia/whatever to look at some airlines, and then go to Southwest.com to see how their fares compare, that is browsing all over.  If anything, it makes me less likely to fly Southwest, not more likely.

Is there something I'm missing with this?  Help me out here, people.

Auto Tech Support Returns

Last month I wrote about helping my cousin find an auto repair shop for her truck, even though I live all the way across the country, because everyone knows that I'm the internet addict of the family and can find a site for anything.  Well, I'm at it again.

This time I'm helping with a search for car insurance.  If you watch much TV you're likely to see at least one car insurance ad at every commercial break.  (I've seen two in the few minutes that I've been writing this.) Every company has its own gimmicky ad campaign to convince you that their insurance is the best, so it can be hard to figure out what to choose.

I found this site that has a lot of great resources for people looking for affordable car insurance.  (Or truck or motorcycle insurance, as the case may be.)  There's an instant form so you can get car insurance quotes quickly, but there's also some good information to help you get started with your research.  There's an article on insurance basics, info just for student drivers, explanations of how insurance regulations can differ by state, and other helpful stuff like that.  I also really like that they have a car insurance glossary that defines the basic terms that you'll need to know.  So if you're searching for insurance on your own for the first time, you can get a good handle on what you're looking for.

So I think I've got the car insurance dilemma solved.  I wonder what research assignment is in store for me next?

Online Marketing for Dummies

When you're a blogger and you spend time on Twitter and facebook and other social networking sites, you're sometimes amazed by how bad some people and companies are at this whole social media thing. Most bloggers  have gotten at least a handful of emails from people with blogs or websites trying to solicit a link exchange with your blog. Usually they claim that they've read your blog and really like it, and then further insist that their site is about a related topic, even if your blog is about cooking and their website sells bicycles or promotes travel to a random city that you've never visited.

When I get these types of emails I always wonder why these people and businesses never learn.  Does this strategy really work? I understand trying to boost your site's traffic for free, but I feel like if this is your strategy, it's worth bringing in some professionals to handle your SEO services. In the long run it'll be better for your business and site's reputation and save you a lot of time in sending out emails to bloggers who are just going to ignore them at best or mock them publicly at worst.  The same goes for other types of email solicitations - I've gotten emails from companies asking my to promote products and/or services on my blog.  Some of the offers are well-targeted and make sense, and some...really, really don't.  Sometimes professional list management can be worth it.

Of course, it's hard to blame small companies and websites for getting this wrong when even huge corporations have been known to fail at it.  For example, I'm sure there were quite a few times in the past year when Nestle wished they had some professional Online Marketing help. It does seem like more and more businesses are starting to get a clue when it comes to social media, so hopefully we'll see fewer and fewer of these bad pitches as time goes by. And in the meantime, there's always public mocking to fall back on.

Wordless Wednesday: Changing Colors

Sappy Stacey Moment: My Grandma Is My Best Friend

This Humana commercial gets me every time.  It features lots of adorable little kids hanging out with their grandparents/best buddies.



I have no idea what they're advertising and I don't really care, but I love it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go call my grandma.

Wordless Wednesday: Tea Time

It's a Semi-Homemade Halloween!

It's that time of year again - time for Sandra Lee to do a semi-homemade Halloween like only she can. FN was nice enough to put together a special video about her past and present costume craziness.




Sandra also gave an interview to PopEater about this year's Halloween show.

"It is hilarious. It's good TV. You'll never know you're watching Food Network," Lee tells PopEater of her Halloween episode.

You're close, Sandra. The reaction is usually more like "I can't believe this is on the Food Network!"

We know that you love to make cocktails on 'Semi-Homemade,' so what's on your drink menu for Halloween?

My Crystal Ball martini and my Queen of the Fairies cocktail. They're great. But I have to say for moms that are going out with their kids trick or treating, I highly recommend you have one espresso martini.

Oh Sandra.

Sticking with good habits

Guest post written by Caroline Waters

I don't know why, but it seems like good habits are always the hardest ones to keep. But it's those really bad for you habits, like eating ice cream out of hte carton every night after dinner, that are so easy to keep that it's like clockwork.

I started running a couple of months ago during the summer but now that it's getting colder outside, it's harder for me to get myself out of bed in the morning and make myself run before I take a shower and head off to work. I was on Facebook with my DIRECTV internet bundle the other night complaining to one of my best friends about how hard this habit is to keep when she told me that she likes running in the morning even mroe during the winter because after it she doesn't even need a cup of coffee.

She's a caffeine addict so I had trouble believing that until I actually went running on my first cold morning. It really did wake me up like nothing else and I think that I may like it better too. I just hope that that will help me stick to my runner routine even more.

Food Network Magazine: October

I picked up the October issues of Food Network magazine awhile ago.  It's actually the first time that I've bought it - I'm more of a Bon Appetit, Food & Wine type of person, but I'd heard good things about it from a few friends so I decided to check it out.  It's actually not bad; there are some cute ideas and some recipes that I would try.  (There's a caramel apple cake in there that looks awesome.) I'll probably buy it again.

There was one thing that made me laugh.  One of the pages in the Table of Contents is called Star Search, and it lists all of the Food Network "stars" and which pages you can find them on in the magazine.  I noticed that Sandra Lee was only listed for one page, so of course I skipped ahead to that one to see what fabulous semi-homemade delights awaited me.

I was bitterly disappointed to discover that the page was a piece about a Food Network stars' pumpkin-carving contest.  The magazine gave out "awards" to each pumpkin, like Most Nostalgic for Aida Mollenkamp's Pac-Man ghost carving, and Best Use of Power Tools for Ted Allen's blowtorched creation.  So what was Sandra's award?  Best Update on a Classic for her pretty basic design, which made me laugh cause it seems to me like it was a case of "Best Totally Generic Looking Pumpkin That We Have To Give An Award To".

It was really funny to me that they didn't let Sandra do anything in this issue except carve a pumpkin, especially since she goes so over-the-top about Halloween on her show and surely thinks she's the Halloween Queen of the Food Network.  Like I said, I've never bought the magazine before, so I'm sure that other issues have included some of her recipes, but I thought it was pretty telling that she was almost completely left out of the October issue.

Wordless Wednesday: Halloween

Basketball Season!

If you've been reading this blog, you might have the impression that I watch nothing but the Food Network and other cooking and home shows, but that's actually not the case.  One of the other things that I love to watch is sports.  So I'm excited that basketball season is starting, especially since baseball season is coming to an end.

I've been a basketball fan since I was a kid, and the Knicks are my team, so it's been a challenging few years.  It got to the point where I actually started to feel bad for those scalpers who hang around outside Madison Square Garden offering up New York Knicks tickets.  For the past few years I've felt like my money was better spent on concerts tickets or some other sport, but this season I'm feeling like maybe it's time to get out there and support my team again.

Maybe it's the whole LeBron James thing.  I'm sure that Miami Heat tickets are selling fast thanks to LeBron and company, but something about that whole thing just feels off to me.  Of course as a Knicks fan I'm already biased against the Heat, but I feel like in the end it's going to end up being a good thing that LeBron didn't end up on the Knicks.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  And I wonder how sales of Denver Nuggets tickets are doing with all of the Carmelo Anthony trade rumors swirling around.  If the Knicks do end up getting him it could definitely be an interesting year.

And while I'm at it with the whole rooting for the underdogs thing, maybe I'll even pop for some New Jersey Nets tickets.  Even though I've been a Knicks fan for years I've always had a soft spot for the Nets, and they could definitely use a little support after the, um, disappointing year they had last year. And if things don't work out...well, there's always football.

Wordless Wednesday: Cozy Coffee

5 Hour Energy for Busy Moms?

I've been seeing this commercial for 5 Hour Energy a lot lately.




So this mom needs 5 Hour Energy to get her through the day because she works so hard, both at her day job and her second job of taking care of the kids and the house.  She tells us this as she struggles in the door in her work clothes with two big grocery bags while the kids run around her, and then she tells us that 5 Hour Energy was suggested to her by her husband, who they show sitting around on the sofa reading a magazine.

I can't be the only one who saw this commercial and thought, "Hmm.  Maybe if her husband would put the magazine down, get off his butt and help her out a little, she wouldn't need an energy drink in the first place!"  Maybe I'm overanalyzing, but it seems a bit tone deaf to make a commercial targeted to busy working moms and include a not-at-all-busy-just-chilling-on-the-couch-with-a-magazine dad in there as the person who recommended the product in the first place.  "Hey, this stuff will give my wife more energy to do everything so that I don't have to get up and help!"

Of course, the main reason I've never tried 5 Hour Energy is not their advertising, but the fact that I've heard that the product tastes like cough syrup.  But ads like these don't really put me in a hurry to find out for myself.    

Wordless Wednesday: Autumn Leaves

Early Holiday Shopping (For Once)

When it comes to holiday shopping, I have always been a big procrastinator. I'm always the one paying an arm and a leg for express shipping to get stuff on time, and I consider it a triumph if I'm not at the mall on Christmas Eve. (December 23rd is totally acceptable though.) I'll admit that part of me enjoys the last minute chaos, but every year I have a hurried and frustrated moment when I promise myself that next year I'll start my shopping earlier.

Okay, so usually I don't keep that promise to myself, but this year I'm giving it a try. My dad is really hard to shop for, so I'm starting with him. I'm thinking of getting him a new watch this year. Watches aren't the most unique gift ever, so I've been looking online to see if I can find some options that are distinctive. (And of course a good value would be nice too.) I've been using Become.com because it's great for comparison shopping. I think my front-runner right now is this Nixon The Quatro watch:

Of course I got distracted in the middle of my watch shopping and started looking at jewelry. After a few minutes I forced myself to at least stop looking at stuff for myself and get back to the early holiday shopping mission.  My mom has tons of jewelry, so anytime that I decide to buy her some I know that I have to find something different and unique for her.

I'm not normally into floral jewelry but there's something that I like about these flower hoop earrings:

I also like these gold leaf teardrops. I think black and gold is a really sophisticated combination:

I'm also looking at charms - my best friend's daughter has a charm bracelet and she loves getting new charms.    Since jewelry with keys on it is so trendy now, I'm thinking this cute little charm might work:

See? I'm totally making progress. I'm sure that I'll still be at the mall on December 23rd, but by doing some of my research and shopping ahead of time, at least it'll be a less stressful and more festive experience.

Auto Repair Tech Support

Most of my family knows that I'm a huge Internet addict who is online all the time.  As a result, I'm usually the go to person for questions about online shopping, social media, the ever popular "hey, is this email forward true?" questions, the most useful websites, and things like that.  That's how I recently found myself researching the best San Diego auto repair shops despite the fact that I live all the way across the country.

See, my cousin lives in San Diego, and she asked me to help her find a place when her Ford F-150 started acting up.  It still cracks me up to think of her driving a big truck truck like that, cause I'm not a big car person at all.  Her husband was the one who picked it out - but no jokes about women drivers here, she handles it just as well as he does.  That's actually part of the reason why she was looking for a new auto shop - at the place she was using before, let's just say that some of the men who worked there were having a hard time grasping the concept that a woman might actually be a really good driver and know a little something about cars.

So, even though I'm personally not that knowledgeable about car issues (I know enough to know when something's wrong and not to ignore the check engine light and stuff like that, but I'm not an expert), I was able to get online and help her out by finding a site with a directory of auto shops along with customer reviews and a lot of basic car info to help the car challenged among us understand more about what's going on before we make the trip to one of those auto shops.  Just call me auto repair tech support.

I'm A Coffee-Addicted Dork

I got my Starbucks Rewards gold card in the mail the other day and I'm way too excited about it.  What can I say?  I'm addicted.  And if I need my caffeine fix anyway, I figure I might as well be getting discounts and earning points towards some free drinks at the same time, right?

I'm also happy that pumpkin spice lattes are back; I have to go and get my first one of the season soon.  (Now I'm just looking forward to the day when Thanksgiving Blend makes its first appearance because that's a favorite of mine.) I'm also tempted to try the new toffee mocha, but I'm not totally sure.  I love toffee, but I feel like this is the type of drink that will either be amazingly perfect and awesome or buttery and cloying and weird and gross.  Has anyone out there tried it? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought!  I need to take my new gold card for a spin.

Wordless Wednesday: Pumpkin

Who else hates the new Burger King breakfast ads?

If unfunny and grating is what Burger King was going for with these commercials, I think they succeeded:



I don't think I'll be downloading the BK Breakfast March for my ipod any time soon. I never thought I'd miss the ads with the creepy king. And of course the only woman who is prominently featured in the ad is the stereotypical hot chick who causes the guys to fall all over themselves. Sexism: it's what's for breakfast.

Wordless Wednesday: Tomatoes

Random Link: Eat Sleep Draw

Eat Sleep Draw is an online art community that posts art from contributors all over the globe.  Since anyone can submit it's a great mix of styles and themes.  

Image from Eat Sleep Draw via http://dorodotdoubleu.tumblr.com/

Wordless Wednesday: Plum

Semi-Homemade Wordless Wednesday: Broccoli Pie

Okay, I lied, I do have one word...WHY?!

[Photo from Food Network Humor]

Wordless Wednesday: Apples

Cooking Show Classic: Two Fat Ladies Afternoon Tea

I adore the Two Fat Ladies.  I watched it religiously when it was on and I never get tired of looking at their cookbooks and watching old clips.  Here's one of some yummy desserts for an afternoon tea.

Wordless Wednesday: Pasta Paradise

Wordless Wednesday: Colorful Cocktails

Paula Deen's Lasagna Sandwich

Oh, Paula.

Wordless Wednesday: Peach

Sappy Stacey Moment: Subaru's Baby Driver

Another daddy/daughter commercial.  I think this little girl is totally freaking adorable.

Wordless Wednesday: Pink

Semi-Homemade Moment: Baked Potato Ice Cream

Let's all watch as Sandra Lee makes her Baked Potato Ice Cream.



"If you've ever wondered what to do with the top of your butter dish...".  Actually I never have wondered about that, Sandra.  Silly me, I always just thought that the top of my butter dish was meant to cover my butter.  Thanks for showing me the light.

This recipe is classic semi-homemade.  I'll actually give Sandra a few points here - it's a cute idea, the final product doesn't look that bad, and kids probably would get a kick out of it.  But as usual, the problems pop up when you start to think about how someone would actually eat this.  First of all, that's a LOT of cocoa powder dusted over that potato, and I can't imaging that would taste too good after a couple of bites.  I get that she wanted it to be brown on the outside and white inside like a real potato, but maybe chocolate ice cream would have been a better choice.

Then there's the frozen icing "butter".  She freezes an entire butter dish top full of icing just to use only one slice?  Do I smoosh the rest back into the icing container, or just keep it in the freezer for the next time I decide to serve ice cream potatoes?  And Sandra doesn't say how many this is supposed to serve, but because it's just one big potato, I'm guessing that some people are going to get end pieces that are extra cocoa powdered, and one or two people are going to get the whole "butter" slice to themselves.  Not that I'm that excited about the idea of eating a big slab of frozen lemon icing, but I feel like it might have been better to make some smaller individual potatoes instead of one big one.  Or maybe make use caramel or some other light colored sauce and call it melted butter, just to add more flavor.  I guess that wouldn't be "super simple" enough for our Sandy.

And finally, how truly sad is it that she refers to Reddi-wip as "the fancy spray stuff".  Oh, Sandra.

Wordless Wednesday: Black

Random Link: Inspire Me Now

Inspire Me Now is Szymon Błaszczyk's "inspiration log". It's full of cool images, from products to art to advertising.

Wordless Wednesday: White

Cooking Show Classic: Galloping Gourmet

I love Graham Kerr. I've been watching his cooking shows since I was a kid. Here's a classic moment from his iconic show The Galloping Gourmet.

Wordless Wednesday: Violet

Wordless Wednesday: Indigo

Semi-Homemade Moment: Brave Recipe Tester

Sometimes people who aren't that familiar with Sandra Lee and her semi-homemade cooking approach wonder why she's so hated by so many people. One of the biggest reasons is that most of her recipes just don't seem to be very good. And the frustrating thing is that with some of them, a couple of simple tweaks would improve the quality by a lot, which leaves people wondering if these recipes are the result of ignorance of laziness or both.

Here's some proof - a very brave person from EvilShenanigans.com tried out Sandra's recipes for cherry pie and king cake.  Her shocking conclusion was that they are not good at all.

Wordless Wednesday: Blue

Happy 4th of July!

Wordless Wednesday: Green

Semi-Homemade Moment: It's Delicious!

This video compilation captures the essence of Sandra Lee in about two minutes. Make yourself a cocktail and enjoy.

Wordless Wednesday: Yellow

Cooking Show Classic: Julia Child on Lobsters

Julia Child takes on some live lobsters in this classic clip from The French Chef.



Side note - I really love The French Chef theme song. It's so cheerful that hearing it just makes me happy. I know I'm a dork.

Wordless Wednesday: Orange

Sappy Stacey Moment: Just for Men Commercial

I know I'm a total dork, but I think these father/daughter commercials for Just for Men  hair color are cute.



There's another one where the dad is going on a job interview instead of a date, but I couldn't find that one on YouTube.

Now, do I think that the dad in this commercial really needed to dye his hair to make himself more of a "nice catch"?  Of course not.  But I still 'awww' at these ads every time I see them.  Like I said, total dork.

Wordless Wednesday: Red

Some of My Favorite Sites Right Now

Here are ten sites that are favorites of mine right now.  This list should give you some idea of the topics that I'll probably be blogging about a lot.

1. Food Network Humor - I love to cook and watch cooking shows, but I also think the Food Network can be pretty ridiculous sometimes, so I spend a lot of time checking out Food Network Humor.
2. Design*Sponge- This is "a daily website dedicated to home and product design". I could spend hours looking through all of the cool stuff that the Design Sponge team posts every day.
3. Decor8 - Founder Holly Becker says, "I created decor8 to catalog beautiful finds and to inspire others."  Mission accomplished.
4. Orangette - Food blog written by Molly Wizenberg.  I love her column in Bon Appetit and I love this blog. Wonderful recipes, beautiful photos, and great food writing.
5. Cake Wrecks - Yeah, I know, who doesn't love Cake Wrecks?  But that's because it's hilarious.
6. Regretsy - Where DIY Meets WTF
7. Fred Flare - I could spend so much money shopping this site.  Cute clothes and extra super cute home accessories.  How have I lived without an ice cream cone lamp and a cheeseburger phone?
8. Coconut & Lime - Another awesome food blog.
9. The Semi-Homemade Cooking forums on TWoP - Sandra Lee's Food Network show tops my "love to hate" list, so reading this forum is like hanging out with a bunch of like-minded (and hilarious) friends.
10. Better Living Through Design - Features a wide variety of cool, interesting, and sometimes just plain wacky items.  Fun and inspiring.

Hello!

Welcome to my new blog! I hope you enjoy it.