New favorite fruit alert: BLACKBERRIES.

Look into it!

Check out these “sizzling” behind-the-scenes videos of Conan O’Brien’s EW cover shoot.

Part 1: Conan’s Strike Tips
Part 2: Conan vs. Chimp
Part 3: Conan’s beard is so hot right now

I went to interview Conan O’Brien (and a chimp) two weeks ago on the set of his Entertainment Weekly photo shoot. It took place at what he called a “seedy warehouse” but was in reality a studio in Chelsea. I played with a chimp named Louie, watched Conan “show me fierce” (rest assured he is still in the running towards becoming America’s Next Top Model), and interviewed him — mostly about his gorgeous strike facial hair. It was by far the most awesome thing I’ve done for work… no, actually, in general. It’s all downhill from here, Purple Shirt!

The chimp, honestly, I could give or take. I was astonished to see myself kiss the chimp on the mouth (ewwwww.com) in Part 2 because I don’t remember doing that. I must have blacked out due to my irrational fear of animals.

Bearded wonder Conan O’Brien, though, I absolutely loved. He was so friendly, laid-back, and just effortlessly funny the whole time. I didn’t even want to talk during the interview because I knew everything he said would be funny and was afraid of cutting him off.

Before the cameras rolled he was jokingly complaining that his parents consider his brother the successful one because his brother’s a lawyer, while Conan just has this joke job in “entertainment.” I was like “Yeah, look at what you do…despicable.”

Conan O’Brien! I’m sitting next to him! What the hay-ul?

‘Cause that happened last night, and I’ve been sneezing all day. That’s probably not how allergies work, huh.

More on this later. It involved Conan O’Brien.

My Aunt Elly apparently saves everything, and this Thanksgiving she festively decorated her bathroom wall with this fictional menu I wrote as a child. (Who does that? And who is Golda?) No date on it, but I’m guessing I was around 7? I’m hoping? God, what if I was 17?

Allow me to count down a few highlights — sort of a Take 5 without those annoying audio/visual elements, if you will…

5. Jinjre Ale as a featured “Bevrage” Was this like a ganja-fied version of ginger ale? Sidenote: I’m completely impressed with my affiliation with Pepsi products instead of Coke at such a tender age.

4. Get the full slab! It’s cheaper! I love how it was important enough to me that my fictional customers might want to take advantage of a great deal on BBQ, should one be offered. Six bucks for a full slab, wow. It certainly was the ’80s! And Golda’s Cafe certainly must have been adjacent to a truck stop on a central Indiana highway, even though we lived in Illinois.

3. Pizza Plate (5 squares) Continuing with the low-class theme, it’s clear that I was tailoring this dream menu to be as close to my childlike tastes as possible. The insistence on “squares” suggests that the greatest type of pizza I knew of at the time came frozen and developed into its most gourmet state via a magical microwave. Sadly (although I’m pretty fine with it), these are still my tastes. I’d eat lunch every day at Golda’s Cafe if I could. Is there one in midtown?

2. “Five Hidden Cherries!” OMG so fun!!! But who exactly was doing the hiding? I’m almost certain it would have been me. Or maybe this “Golda,” but something tells me she wouldn’t have had very clean hands. Plus she never wore her hairnet. You just know it.

1. Becks Thanks to Barnacle Bill Barrett, probably the only name-brand beer I knew of besides Heineken. And there’s no way I was spelling that.

From Time.com’s Swampland blog:

The official reviews had not yet come in when the Barack Obama staffers started celebrating last night. And what better way to celebrate than a walk into the drive thru at McDonald’s? A function of audacity? Hope? Or maybe just change we can believe in.

(Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt, in the act of loving it.)

OH YES HE DIII-IIIIID.

I have never Ben prouder of my good friend and high school prom date (heeeey!), Ben fucking LaBolt. He shows up on the Internet all the time, but I never link to his mentions because frankly, they’re not consistent with my rather narrowly focused authorial agenda. Only after the ‘razzi catch him on a fast food joint WALK-THRU while sporting a shitgrin, cool jeans and coat, and attractive “I live on the bus” facial hair does LaBolt finally show up here. Look at him, hungry for that grease. 50,000 Big Macs could wallop that parking lot in a torrential hailstorm and not only would this guy make it safely onto the bus, he’d already be on his seventh fry.

Ben LaBolt, Diminishing Returns (finally) salutes you. And keep it up… a well-publicized Taco Bell visit will get you your own category.

GO TEAM.

1) It’s nowhere near chilly yet
B) I have a sweating problem!

So of course I’m going to wear my festive summer sleeveless “blouses” as long as I can, even if it becomes November. 60-70-degree temps are MY TIME TO SHINE in my summer tops, because it’s just chilly enough not to sweat buckets at a time while wearing them. People keep gaping at me on the street, horrified that I’m not following an unspoken rule that as soon as October hits, you’re supposed to dress in as many strategically tiered layers as possible. They’re like whoa, that chick can’t let go of summer. Dudes, it’s 75 degrees out. I have awesome fall clothes too! I just don’t want you to see my pit stains yet. We have the entire winter for that party! AND YOU’RE ALL INVITED.

I call bullshit on premature autumnal layering!

Oooh — In conjunction with this lame-ass post, my arms are flyin’ high in that “user photo” at the top right, as if to say, “Check out the totally dry underarm regions of my shirt!”

It might!

That “omelet” looks like pretend food, like it should be plasticized and play an integral role in an important sculpture or board game. DD obviously can’t make omelets on the spot so those things are pre-mixed, pre-shaped, etc. Ew. I’d eat the yellow stuff if it constituted some form of cake. Even if it looked like that — as long as it tasted like cake I’d be fine. Or even if it tasted like an English muffin with colorful herbs. I just can’t believe that mass is supposed to be eggs.

Whoa… Do I not like eggs? I just ate eggs!

Nice football in the background. Who’s up for some sports!

DR readers are perhaps the only Peeps (R) who will truly appreciate the inclusion of my board game “Eat It!” in this weekend’s Take 5.

Do I always look this disgusted? Naturally? What a gift!

These studs are the cast of Vh1’s Mission: Man Band, which premiered last night. They (Bryan Abrams from Color Me Badd, Jeff Timmons from 98 Degrees, Rich Cronin from LFO, and Chris Kirkpatrick from ‘N Sync) stopped by EW.com to get an exclusive tutorial on what it’s like to work in a cubicle. The answer: YouTube-centric, peanut butter-banana-y, and — see above — often filled with dread.

I know we make fun of turtlenecks in the video but I could use one right now. This heat blows. Please let it be January so I can wear the same stretched-out huggable wooly black one with the hole in the left armpit every day. I miss sending people the message with my eyes that there is a totally different shirt underneath the turtleneck than the one I wore the previous day. Of course there is. I didn’t just pull on the same 1-2 shirt combo straight out of the shower. That would be gross. Also, really cozy.

I took this pic in February but it still applies.

Am I the only person who finds Altoid mints disgusting? Like, chew a piece of gum. Eat a Tic-Tac. Drink coffee, even. Just get those things away from me because if you happen to lift the top of that totally pretentious tin, I might accidentally take a whiff and die. Altoids are universally rank. Also, jank.

So there’s clearly no way I’m interested in seeing/tasting Altoids’ “chocolate balls,” which is a shame, because I am obsessed with chocolate balls of the non-Altoid variety. The concept of the CB is beautiful to me. It’s the perfect example of an essential household item. Of course the specimen should consist of chocolate, and of course it should form a sphere. I really don’t see what other type of household item you would want.

I grew up subsisting 30% on Fannie May chocolate balls that Dee left in little crystal dishes around the house. The CBs were individually wrapped in bright-colored foil that made an awesome sound when I crinkled it right next to my ear verrrry slowwwwwwly, because even when wee, I was completely insane. (I still do the ear-crinkle today, and even ask other people for their discarded foil wrapping… as if they had any use for it whatsoever. Sick!) Dee’s fancy dishes were a nice touch; who wants to pluck a CB from a plastic bowl? Pass!

(Who would store her CBs loosely on her crumb-y coffee table, like wayward marbles, if she had them in her own apartment? Me, but I believe we were scrutinizing Dee’s household, not mine.)

I don’t even know what the point of this was; I’m just trying to get rid of all my “drafts”. You lose, no refunds, refer to title of website, etc.

It’s not that I don’t like you if you like Altoids. I just don’t like Altoids. Swim around in that puzzle at your own risk. WARNING: No lifeguard on duty!!!

This post is totally gonna get hits from people looking for porn. Also, because I just said “porn.”

Previously, on Yahoo!…

Chesh sent me this screengrab because, he said, “I couldn’t believe something so perfectly suited for you was on my screen!” Awww. It really is unrealistically perfect. I especially enjoy how the very question posed by the Top Story — “Is this for real?” — is negated by the fourth link below it, presumably a link to the same exact story as the big tout. I know words like “tout.”

But then inexplicably, the story had vanished from Yahoo! It appears someone didn’t do his/her reporting to find out that according to Wikipedia, the Luther Burger, named that because it was something Luther Vandross liked to eat, originated in Decateur, GA and has been around for years.

What I find even more ridiculous than Yahoo! taking the story down is that it was even a story in the first place. Don’t get me wrong — it’s definitely my idea of breaking news — but the fact that it was featured so prominently on the site, if only for a few minutes, is truly puzzling. It’s as if someone who really wanted to get fired from Yahoo! went and messed around in the backend for his/her own enjoyment. Annie Barrett’s separated-at-birth twin, are you having a laugh?

We couldn’t let the issue go…

Remember said puncture? Ahhhhh, the puncture.

WTF, Yahoo!?

My mom, Dee, and I got this cookie last week at the Jersey Sub Shop, which is obviously located in Michigan.

The JSS is amazing on all levels including “has giant Shrek outside for no reason” (see much less ambitious post, below). But come on. WHAT is this design?

We didn’t quite grasp the extent of its mind-numbing quandary when we first ordered it. At point of sale, it was basically like “We need to get a big-ass cookie, end of story.” Then we got home and, post-subs, just kept staring at the cookie for entire minutes. We checked out different angles, adjusted the lighting… at one point I deliberately walked off in a huff, like “I’ve HAD it with that cookie” and then of course walked right back to see if a whiplashed, fake-first impression would do the trick. It totally did not.

We flat-out refused to eat the cookie until we figured out what was supposed to be on top of it, then gave up and ate it anyway. Among our guesses: Snowflake (all me), [confused look] (Dee), simulation of Spirograph (all me), [exasperated look] (Dee), variation on the Burger King crown featuring squiggly lines representative of what happens inside after you eat Burger King (all me). I thought snowflake was pretty spot-on, but Dee gave a final [ENRAGED LOOK] that ran a close second.

You will note that this cookie is roughly four times the circumference of a modestly sized glass of Diet Dr. Pepper. I’m all about the SCALE these days.

I had one more guess and basically nothing to do for the rest of the day, so I drove back to the JSS to confront the guy at the counter head-on about the puzzling design. It was weird.

ANNIE: Hi.

DECORATOR: Oh, hello!

ANNIE: (awkwardly, unnecessarily) I’m back!

DECORATOR: [blank stare]

ANNIE: Did you, like, decorate those cookies? [points at others]

DECORATOR: Yeah! I decided to give it a shot today.

ANNIE: Was the usual decorator not around?

DECORATOR: Right.

ANNIE: Oh, that’s really cool of you. [?!] I have to ask. What exactly were you going for, here? My mom and I have been debating it for half an hour. We’re so confused. I mean, I’m all about artistic expression and doing your own thing [?!], and since this is clearly “your own thing,” [air quotes] I love it just for being itself and… existing. But… what did you have in mind when you set out to do these? TELL ME YOUR FUCKING VISION, MAN.

DECORATOR: [thinks for a long time]

ANNIE: [thinks about leaving because this is SO AWFUL]

DECORATOR: You know what? I have no idea.

ANNIE: I think I know what it was. [gingerly extends a printout of the following image]

ANNIE: It was Queen Frostine’s wand from Candy Land. It’s been on your mind for decades and you’re just now coming to terms with it.

DECORATOR: Holy shit.

ANNIE: [smirks]

DECORATOR: I think you’re RIGHT!

ANNIE: You… like… Candy Land?

STEVE HOLT: No. … I LOVE it!

—

True or false: The above did not actually happen, because I’m way too lazy to re-leave the house.

Same with clothes.

This is DR’s “colleague” Michael Slezak, trying to ignore the somewhat jarring Bolton’s window display at his right. I wouldn’t use this photo, but I’m positive he’ll never see it, so it doesn’t matter. Consider this a test to see if he knows I have a blog.

He is perhaps reaching for a gun?

I’m wondering if anyone has ever been inside a Bolton’s. This is a store I know I’ve seen 100s of times and in different NYC locations, but never once have I acknowledged it as a store I might enter. Why? It’s not this window display’s fault — I find the warped attempt at a sweeping social statement bizarrely endearing. I think it’s that the fancy script in the logo reminds me of Lord & Taylor, and judging by the shit in the window or lack thereof, Bolton’s is nowhere near L&T. Why am I suddenly pro-L&T? I haven’t been there in seven years. I bought earrings that I lost the next night.

This font is so much kookier!
“Heeeeeeeeey girlie girl, I’m Lord & Taylor, shop me up, holla!”

The “W” in the Bolton’s photo is part of “LATE SHOW.”

PERSPECTIVE, what up?

—

UPDATE: In honor of my surprising triumph with this post (thanks to Slezak having a google alert for his OWN NAME), DR proudly presents its first installment of Listen2This:

Calling All Boys — The Flirts

This one’s a bopper!

I still don’t know!

See also: How orange crayons are made, courtesy of Sesame Street.

Help!

I was so sick of reading about how gross it was that Britney Spears doesn’t wear underwear that I decided to sort of stick up for her.

I’m going to interview the winner of Top Model next week! Yay! What should I ask?!?! I’d almost rather interview the loser so my first question could be “Will you conspire with me to murder Tyra?”

“I don’t need to see that!”

Specifically, I don’t need to see 20-inch dioramas of gum disease at the dentist’s. I think dentists position atrocities like this so you can see them right when the hygenist prods the swirly thingie directly into your most sensitive gum area and says “Looks like someone needs to floss more.”

She should have said “Looks like someone needs to floss for the third time in her life.” Then I’d have perked up. As it was, I couldn’t stop focusing on how much the “infected area” looked like an uneven squirt of spicy mustard.

Denny the Dentist totally caught me photographing the gingivitis model on his way in to check for cavities. “Hey, you like that thing?” Sure do!

I should have asked for a freebie to put in our bathroom so it could inspire fear daily. I know what I’d do, though. I’d peer at the gingivitis extensively for at least 45 seconds — longer than it would take to floss — and then proceed to not floss.

I much preferred this little guy in the dentist’s bathroom:

Only because I’d just found out I had no cavities.

See? It’s all good. Sweet Tooth and I are on the same side, battling against gingivitis, veggies, sugar-free gum and diet soda every single day. Let’s do this, Sweet Tooth. Midwestern August-style eating, here we come.