Now admit it, there's a lot to be said for infomercials. Now they may not all represent the best and brightest products on the market, but you know you love 'em, and you know you've fallen for at least one of the "as seen on TV" gimmicks. Don't lie.

You know, deep down inside in places that you don't like to talk about at parties, you know that you bought that Miracle Mop. You know you did. You can deny it all you want, but I bet you remember trying to get that damn thing to wring out, twisting that little nob like its actually gonna work. Then I bet you got so pissed at the thing you got down on your hands and knees and wrung the thing out yourself, just to prove a point. What point, you ask? Good question.

Anyway, I'm not saying that the miracle mop, or the spray on hair, or the fat trapper weren't completely idiotic products that only a complete tool would invest in. I'm just saying that there are exceptions to the rule.

Like, for instance, the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie Oven and Barbeque. Now this product is a true gem. You just can't beat it. Chef tested, you just set it and forget it. I mean you can fit nine hamburgers in the thing. Or five whole salmon filets. Or an entire rack of lamb. A whole roast chicken. A king sized sofa bed. AND keep the veggies warm at the same time. How can you beat that? Plus you get the flavor injector, a book of coupons, a set of genuine rubber barbeque gloves...it'd be crazy not to buy. You hear me? Crazy.

Now trust me, I'm not being paid by Ron Popeil to advertise for the Showtime Rotisserie Oven. I'm just obsessed with the thing. The prepaid commercial programming just comes on, and there all this food, and you start salivating, drooling all over yourself. You just have to have it. Well I have to have it.

So I've been pining after the Showtime for a good six months now, and no one has really offered to buy me one or anything. I mean it's only as wide as a toaster oven...

Not that I can blame them. I mean, I have a bunch of cool toys that I kinda never use at all. Like the sandwich maker...you know, the one where you really just make a sandwich and then this ingenious device grills it and closes it together into a pocket? See the problem with that one is, once you close it into the pocket, you pretty much seal a whole lot of super heated gas into the pocket too, so if you're unfortunate enough to actually bite in to the pocket, your mouth becomes exposed to lots of molten cheese and meat and bread, and pretty much your entire face melts. So that's not much fun. I used it about once, and it's been sitting in the "hazardous to face" pile since then.

Then there was the Miracle Mixer. It was this little hand mixer that was supposed to be powerful enough to whip cream.

It turns out that the only thing it was able to do was to mix powdered ice tea into a quart of water, and even then it was grainy. It was supposed to come with a surgical steel blade...ours was like aluminum foil. It couldn't cut marshmellow.

Anyway, you might say I'm gullible. Or you might say I have an eye for shelf art.

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