Do you hulu?

I'm completely obsessed with Hulu, NBC's new video streaming site. But it's not just NBC shows. The site also hosts FOX series like House and Prison Break, USA network favorite Psych, and there are even clips from Bravo shows like The Real Housewives of New York. (Please oh please let them put up full episodes soon!) The episodes are free with only minor commercial interruptions, and the quality is fairly decent as far as streaming episodes go. It's not as good as ABC's site, but far superior to the WB's streaming technology. I might not be as in love with it if I had cable at the moment, but since I don't it's a godsend.

Not only do I get to watch the current season of Battlestar Galactica as it airs (lords of kobol have heard my prayers - how fantastic have these first three episodes been?!?!) but I've also been checking in with some shows I didn't get a chance to watch during the abbreviated fall season, like New Amsterdam, and Life (both of which I'm enjoying more than the reviews led me to expect.) And there are also full seasons of old favorites (Hart to Hart and, ahem, Remington Steele to name a few.) The site even has a decent selection of movies (Point Break for example). Now, if you have a big beautiful HD TV with 100 channels of cable, you might not feel like huluing as often as I do, but next time you're stuck traveling for work, and there's nothing on TV in the hotel? Pull out your laptop and check out Hulu. I guarantee you'll find something you're interested in.

"Baby Bump"

Very high on my list of things that I hate is the term "baby bump." Why, why, why does this term exist? It is constantly printed in publications like Us Weekly, on blogs like popsugar.com, and even on eonline.com and the Huffington Post. It's obviously a product of celebrity-obsession and its strange subgroup, celebrity pregnancy obsession, but it just sounds so stupid. I'm not sure who coined the term, but every time it is used I feel like the piece was written by a giggling teenager who got a 450 on the verbal portion of her SATs. (I realize I have dated myself in that last statement, because apparently the SATs are now graded on a scale of 2400, rather than 1600, but...oh well.)

Can't these publications add some variety (and maturity) their terminology? Perhaps we can look at a pregnant belly? Or maybe we can just say that someone is showing? Or that it appears they may be pregnant? Would that be so awful? Instead it's all baby bump this and "Bump Watch" that. Is it supposed to be cute? And if so, why? Why is pregnancy something that is supposed to be adorable? Is the term supposed to be witty? Because repeating an inane phrase in every pregnancy story you write is not the definition of wit. Are they just really big fans of Fergie and feel that because "baby bump" rhymes with "lady lump" they must use the term ad nauseum?

I realize that the target audience of these publications includes teens and pre-teens, but sites like popsugar and the Huffington Post are looking at my demographic as well, right? I know that I would never use the term "baby bump" in conversation, and I can't imagine anyone I know doing so. I understand that celebrity pregnancy is somehow trendy, but enough already. Trendy does not have to equal inane.

Of course, once that baby bump turns into an actual baby, the parents will be "over the moon." And you all know how I feel about that.

I think I need new reading material

I was reading the Us Weekly blog yesterday, and I saw the following headline:

EXCLUSIVE: The Hills' Audrina Patridge Becomes an Auntie!

This is news? A reality television star's SISTER has a baby, and it makes the Us Weekly headlines? Maybe this is an "exclusive" but I have to imagine that is because no other gossip magazine thought it was worth printing. Couldn't they have run a fifth story about Britney's hospitalization instead?

I will be really curious to see if this story makes the print version.

This isn't really her kid, right?

Holt pointed out to me that Us Weekly has posted a photo on their blog which they claim is Liz Hurley, her husband, Hugh Grant and Liz's five year old son, Damian.

A quick Google search confirms that Damian is, in fact, five years old.

But here's the thing--here is Damian's photo at his mother's wedding in March 2007:

And here is Damian now (eight months later):

So...the second picture isn't Damian after a growth spurt, is it? Because if so, that would be the biggest growth spurt ever and the largest five year old since Andre the Giant, right?

A sex change for Mr. Men?

As a child, I loved Roger Hargreaves' Mr. Men and Little Miss books. As an adult, I still love them. I'm such a fan that I own two Little Miss Bossy shirts (one purchased, one homemade), one Mr. Messy shirt (homemade), a Little Miss Chatterbox shirt (purchased), a Little Miss Stubborn shirt (purchased) and a pair of Little Miss Bossy pajama pants (purchased, and by now you have probably figured out who my favorite Little Miss was). I also bought my niece (9 months old) a Little Miss Naughty dress, which is totally adorable. Back in 2002, a friend and I wanted to buy the rights to Little Miss and Mr. Men so that we could sell tee-shirts with their likeness. We were convinced it would make a good amount of money. I guess we were right, because the company, Chorion, that did purchase said rights, now sells the apparel in Saks and Nordstrom.

But Chorion has also done something that I just can't abide. They are putting together a television show and in so doing have changed the look of some of the Mr. Men and Little Miss Characters. What's worse, although they had 83 characters to choose from and only took 25, they still managed to change the gender of a few!

The formerly excellent website, mrmen.com, now only features these 25 pseudo-characters, and you can see the changes for yourself. I warn any fan of the series: it's not pretty. Mr. Messy is wearing blue sneakers? Little Miss Naughty has hair?! (And pink hair, at that.) Luckily, there is a "classic" site available, but even it doesn't feature all of the characters. Where is Little Miss Bossy? Little Miss Scatterbrain? Little Miss Splendid? Terrible.

Definitely feeling a lot more like Mr. Grumpy than Little Miss Sunshine right about now.

Wouldn't a spectrum make more sense?

The people over at Pop Sugar have put together a little cheat sheet for the new fall television season. They have compiled a chart of the TV bloggers' rankings for many of the new shows. However, this chart has a major problem. A score of 1 is considered very bad, while a score of 5 is considered excellent. To see the chart in its full glory, click here.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the color-coding makes no sense. A show receiving a 1 gets a green-blue box, while a show receiving a 4 gets a blue-green box (and a show that a reviewer hasn't watched gets a regular green box). A 5 is an orange box, and a 2 is a red box. A 3 is a purple box.

Wouldn't it have made more sense to make a 1 blue-green, a 2 green-blue, a 3 purple, a 4 orange and a 5 red? Or used some other colors, but had the rankings follow along a typical ROYGBIV spectrum? So that when you looked at the chart, the general colors you saw would tell you whether a show was good or bad?

All this just tells me that I need to see Bailey's television preview as soon as possible.

Oh, and how could someone give Big Shots a five? Maybe they lost their scoring key and thought a 5 was really, really bad? Because you know how I felt about it.

Favorite Shopping Blogs

I was sharing some of my favorite recent finds from Etsy last night with Red Fraggle, and to my surprise she'd never heard of this site, which is an online community that allows artists and craftspeople to sell their wonderful work directly to the public. Red's woeful ignorance about Etsy prompted me to write this post, wherein I share my favorite shopping blogs (the ones that led me to all those great things on Etsy).

Despite starting this post with a bunch of specific beautiful things, what I'm about to share are not creaters of beautiful things, but great blogs that do all the culling of Etsy and other online retailers for you. They tell you what they've found and like and each of these sites have led me to a number of great products.

First, and the blog that introduced me to the world of shopping blogs is Sundry Buzz. This isn't really a shopping blog per se, in that the site's author, Linda, is aiming more to share her personal reviews and thoughts on products she actually uses. It's well written, fun, and every once in awhile I actually take her advice.

Perhaps my favorite shopping blog of all is Awesome! It's written by a consortium of very hip seeming young women (like one of my favorite bloggers, Wendy) about my age (30) and they post great finds of every possible description. Beauty products, clothes, jewelry, men's wear, household gadgets . . . it's all here and it's all well-edited. Their annual gift guides are particularly fabulous.

Then there's She's a Betty, which links to interesting vintage and independent fashion. Most of it isn't really stuff I'd ever buy, but I like seeing what she finds, and every once in a while I click through to something that's just unique and perfect.

Last but not least we come to Mighty Goods. This is a pretty bare bones shopping site, not a lot of commentary, they get right to the point with links and photos. Like Awesome, it's well edited, and covers just about any cool product you might buy online, from art prints to jeans to desk accessories.

I hope somebody finds something on one of these sites usefull, and if you have your own favorite shopping blogs, please share in the comments.

LiLo Admits She's Screwing Up Her Life by Acting Like a No-Talent Celebutard? Or . . . the Effort to Keep Lindsay Insurable Through PR Continues?

Um, that long ass title actually says most of what I wanted to say. On the heels of accepting a plea agreement on her two DUI charges, Lindsay Lohan released a statement admitting that she is, indeed, addicted to drugs and alcohol and it's actually messing her life up a little bit. Welcome to the real world Lohan's PR agent. Is this the first sign that Lohan may actually, for once, not be using rehab as a publicity stunt, but might truly want to stop partying like it's 1999? (Hello, I'm old.)

In other LiLo news, the Go Fug Girls do a nice fug of her Maxim cover. Gotta agree that she looks completely wasted and sad in that shot. Is this really what men think is hot?

Swapping books on Bookmooch

Has anyone ever heard of Bookmooch? It's a book-swapping website where you post books you want to get rid of and then browse for books you want. When you find a book you want you request it from the person who has it, who then sends it to you.

It's all totally free. You get points by posting books and by sending them to others, and then you use those points to get books from others. All you pay for is shipping when you send a book (and sending books is really cheap).

I signed up this weekend but haven't gotten any books yet. Someone actually has a Gladys Mitchell book which, according to Holt, are great mysteries and hard-to-find. The one this person has is called "Spotted Hemlock." I'm thinking it might be the first one I order. Anyone know if it is any good?

Unfortunately for me, the books I have posted are all relatively popular mysteries, which probably means not many people will want them.

Recaps

Remember last Friday when I was all, "oh woe is me, Television Without Pity why have you foresaken me" just because it was having server problems? Remember? Ungrateful wretch! I just clicked over to my favorite website (aside from this one of course) and what should I see but that they've started recapping the first season of The Wire. Consider this post the blog equivalent of scratching "I [heart] TWOP" in my desk in the back row of sophomore English. All is forgiven.

Wherefore art thou TWOP?

For the past few days, Television Without Pity has been mysteriously, intermittently, obnoxiously unavailable. I don't mind telling you that this has been a tragedy for me, most especially in the wake of Sunday's PHENOMENAL, mindblowing season finale of Battlestar Galactica after which I felt some small desire to read the TWOP boards. Because I'm a geek, and I'm not afraid to admit it, so shut up. Anyway, it appears to be back online and I'm oh oh so happy. Because my days have become rather simple of late, taking away this small pleasure was particularly cruel. Please don't let it happen again!