The Baconator

Today, on my way home to clean my house from top to bottom (It's pretty gross--exceptionally gross even. Ask me about my cat Toga and the "poop incident") before my weekend guests arrive, I stopped at Wendy's. When I'm feeling fat and happy and I head to Wendy's I splurge and get the Big Bacon Classic, sans ketchup. As I pulled up, the menu item on the super value menu usually reserved for my bacony delight was replaced with "The Baconator".

If you're not familiar with this artery clogging monster, it's described on Wendy's site as...

"Six bacon slices piled high atop two1/4 lb. fresh, never frozen, burger patties. Complete with American cheese and mayonnaise dressing on our signature premium bun. Go on, obsess a little."

Who needs that!!!!? I couldn't order that... It's called the Baconator. It's on the list of fast food items I'll never eat--with the Hardee's monstrosity burger. Six bacon slices... dear God.

Calories: 830
Grams of Fat: 51

If you ate this burger while taking that new diet pill Alli... you know, the one that doesn't let you absorb 1/3 of the fat in your food and can cause explosive diarrhea... you would shit your pants for sure.

I Love This

I'm a bit of tech geek. As I've previously mentioned, I have numerous gadgets--a GPS/heart rate monitor for running, a GPS for our car (a 1997 Buick which probably isn't worth much more than the GPS itself), and, of course, I heart my iPod.

So yeah, I'm one of those dorks that's jazzed about the iPhone, although I can't see myself spending $600 for one right away. Anyway, I thought this infograph from The Onion (via the Consumerist) highlighting "features" of the iPhone was pretty hilarious. My favorite feature: Comes with an iPhone hat, so people know you own an iPhone during the brief periods you're not using it.

When Google gets it right...

If you have Gmail, you probably get those weird little headlines at the top of the screen that the computer gremlins think you'll enjoy. For the first time, I clicked on one, and it was well worth it. The title: Narcissistic Blog Disorder and Other Conditions of Online Kookery.

I can't resist anything with the word "kookery" and to be quite frank, I'm probably a narcissistic blogger. After all, I am the coolest person I know.

Summer TV

I like warm weather and a little less stress at work, so I should probably be more excited about summer. But every year, I'm always a little disappointed when June rolls around because my normally packed TV schedule is wiped clean. As a person who has spent the last few years scheduling my life around my favorite television shows, I get pretty bored during hiatus.

To fill the void, I do a couple of things. One, I set my TiVo to record reruns of shows I missed or didn't check out during their regular run (although many of those have been displaced by original summer programming and reality shows).

I also TiVo reruns of good old standbys that play in reruns all year long, but that I typically miss because my TV schedule is jam-packed. My summer viewing schedule is pretty Law & Order heavy, obviously. Without A Trace is a good one, too, and nothing beats The Golden Girls. I'm also kind of ashamed to admit a burgeoing interest in Charmed.

This year, I'm excited to add Murder, She Wrote to my summer viewing. I used to watch MSW when I was young with my mom, and then as a teenager when reruns played on The USA Network. Now, the Hallmark Channel has been playing loads of Murder, She Wrote reruns, and the show's 12-year run means that it'll be awhile before I see them all. Now, I just need to get a network to start playing Quantum Leap and I'll be set.

Satisfaction

There's nothing better than a really great haircut.

That is all.

Here's your ticket to Washington

Ever since that Senator from Wyoming kicked the bucket (may he rest in peace), there's been a search for a new Republican Senator from Wyoming. The Wyoming GOP is taken a novel approach to finding representation for the nation's least populous state.

It's called the online application. Yes, you too can apply to be the new Senator from Wyoming, simply by visiting www.wygop.org.

I wish I was a fly on the wall as the party faithful sift through those applications.

Your tax dollars at work: The 'gay bomb'

Ok, so if you haven't heard about the most absurd piece of news floating around today, you are seriously missing out. It turns out that the Pentagon was developing a gay bomb. The purpose of this bomb is simple: cause enemy soldiers to be so sexually attracted to each other their ranks and effectiveness crumble.

Clearly there are still some idiots in government that really do think gays in the military will cause chaos, mass hysteria, and wild orgies on the battle field.

I'm sure we could make a list of at least 2 million less absurd ways to use time and money. Shall we start compiling it? I'll start:

How about Pringles that have super energizing powers and can make soldiers regenerate body parts?

Or, how about a hover craft and some rocket shoes?

Or, how about some body armor and decent protection -- if we're going to get serious.

More Personal Finance Fun

Yes, as I've mentioned in the past, I'm a bit of a personal finance nut. Does this mean that I always make wise financial decisions? No. I probably spend too much money on travel, and I recently brought out the plastic for a Memorial Day sale at Anthropologie. And I'm not into the whole "latte factor" thing, because, well, I really heart Starbucks.

But I do try to pay off my credit cards monthly, and do the best I can with the money I save. To that end, I'm a big fan of the online savings accounts, like ING and Emigrant Direct. They offer the high interest rates you find with CDs and money market accounts, but without the restrictions. And, for the most part, they're FDIC-insured, so it's not like the internet is going to run off with your money. The only downside is that it takes a couple of days to get the money out of the account, but that shouldn't be a problem if you're really trying to save it. And I always try to keep $100 or so in my WaMu savings account that's tied with my checking for true emergencies.

Anyway, all of my financial commentary is going somewhere here. Today, I saw this roundup of some of the online banks on smartmoney.com. It's pretty handy, and I kind of wish I had it last year when I was figuring out where to put my cash. For the record, I have two online savings accounts--I keep short-term savings (travel, car repairs, etc.) and money I save to pay freelance taxes in ING, which is super user-friendly and has a yield of 4.5 percent. I like ING because it's easy to create different categories for your savings. For long-term savings (basically money we're saving to buy a house) I use Emigrant Direct, which has a higher yield of 5.05 percent, but is one really ugly-ass website.

Basically, yay for high interest! And personal finance is edgy and fun!

Ooh....

Interesting L&O news.

R. Kelly...

...may be one of the sketchiest men alive, but four years after it was released, the remix to Ignition is still super catchy.