Every night I wake up at least three times and tend to Emory. During that time, I feed him, pump breastmilk, change diapers, or amuse the little man until he’s tired again. (He’s been really quite good about sleeping at night. There are hours where he’d rather be held and played with but overall, I can’t complain. He’s a good baby.)
During the wee hours of the night, I am usually online refreshing the same old sites over and over again looking for new articles to read. So, I’m looking for new ways to pass (and waste) time. I would turn on the TV but why wake TJ every time I’m awake? So the Internet seems like a much better option.
That said, anyone have any Web site suggestions? Preferably Web sites I can waste time on? (Blogs, gossip, messageboards, news, etc.) If you do, leave them in the comments section. If you fear commenting, email me! (sites @ mihow.com)
P.S. If your comment doesn’t show up right away, don’t worry! Akismet will ask me to approve it. Since some of the comments include links it may be marked as spam at first.
Do you know cityrag.com? And there’s always perezhilton.com, of course…
Well, when I have bouts of insomnia (every month or so), I end up digging through reddit. Wonkette is entertaining and sometimes even insightful. If I still can’t sleep, I’ll shamefully peek at tmz, which usually bewilders me into a daze, since I rarely know who/what they are talking about.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend to you my site’s entire archives. :-]
There’s always the old faithful “YouTube”! Great for watching old music videos, and missed episodes and re-runs of your favorite TV shows. This way you can still watch “TV” without disturbing anyone else in the house. You know, cause you can plug headphones into the computer, and a laptop is super portable!
http://scrabulous.com
you can play scrabble against people OR click on the solitare version and choose a robot ( there are online robots, but they fill up quickly, its easier playing against the robot yourself )
http://playbabble.com is fun too
I love milkandcookies.com
I like reading blogs. One of my favs is Sweet Juniper: http://www.sweet-juniper.com/
I just wish it were updated more often. sigh
Awesome! I haven’t heard of many of these!
I really love Jezebel these days. It’s a great distraction and I feel super up to date with gossipy stuff. I also love myspace, for which I’m way too old.
What do you do on MySpace? I get so flustered over there. I have no idea how it works or who is who and the blinking stuff gives me a seizure. I do have a page, however. And one friend, the guy who signs up with everyone.
I love this site, but I imagine you would need both hands free: http://www.imaginationcubed.com/LaunchPage
Also, is noise OK (or headphones)? You could go to the This American Life website and listen to old shows (you could podcast it too but they only give you the most recent): http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Archive.aspx
I LOVE TAL. I think I have a few more that I need to hear, but I cleared out their archives when I worked in Midtown. That was awesome. :] But the new stuff I am way behind on. Thank you!
Myspace is addictive. Most of my friends are people I know in real life: brother, sister-in-law, cousins, college friends, etc. I live far away from most of them so it’s fun to see their pictures and stuff. I have old friends on there too. My best friend from 7th grade found me! And it’s a good way to hear new music and see shows.
Perhaps I’ll give it another go. It’d be nice to find people on the other side of the globe, folks who are up at night.
You know what would rule? A Web site designed (messageboard) for new parents like us who are up all the time. :]
I’m currently addicted to Facebook. Much more user-friendly and nicer to look at than MySpace, plus it has fun add-ons. You can play Scrabulous AND bite chumps (via the Zombies! application).
My old standbys lately-and since I’m 36 weeks pregnant and not sleeping anymore they’ve been used often-are:
http://www.orisinal.com
-For the cutest games around.
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com
-For the voyeur inside us all.
http://www.aldaily.com
-Arts & Letters Daily, for a great collection of articles and essays.
http://www.etsy.com
-If you want to buy some handmade crafts online, this is where to go.
http://www.chaoskitty.com/webzen/
-Web Zen comes out every week or so with a new list of odd websites. The archives are great, kind of hit or miss, but there you go.
Do you read Ask Moxie? An absolute must for sane parenting advice, IMO.
http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/
Whatever you do, do not go to the Urbanbaby.com message boards! It will suck you in and really piss you off. I got addicted when I was home alone with my baby and looking for advice, it’s like a train wreck where you can’t stop looking but you really want to run away.
You’ve probably seen this one… http://www.laineygossip.com and also the bulletin boards on http://www.babycenter.com? I always cruise those ones-there are certain ones for babies born each month, ie. Aug 2007 babies, and more specific ones too.
I haven’t heard of that, Wendy! Also, Jen, what are you thinking?!! You don’t tell someone NOT to go to a Web site! Now, I’m intrigued! heh.
re: Moxie I found her last night on accident! I looked up “My baby went from pooping every day to every other or every three days. Is this normal?” and found her site! heh OK, so it wasn’t exactly that, but close.
Y’all rule. Feel free to pimp your own sites, too.
Elisa, haven’t heard of many of those! Thank you! (Also, sorry about the delay in getting your comment pushed live. I was away for a bit.
When I’m up in the middle of the night feeding kittens, I’ve thought of you ‘cross the BQE and wondered if you were up too feeding your kitt… I mean kid! I got addicted to VideoSift when I needed a place to just zone out. It’s a site where members submit videos they’ve “sifted” from all the many video hosts. Everyone votes and if it gets enough it gets”sifted”. Lots of amazing animated shorts, vintage clips along with the regular stuff. Murray’s there too : http://www.videosift.com/video/Lisacats-kitten-Choggie
I too hate myspace and those awful backrounds and graphics. I keep trying to disable the dreadful audio player, but it keeps coming baaaack! Maybe I’m just too “vintage” :D
omg, you rule! I love me some Murray. Can’t have too much Murray. gonna check that out pronto.
hey Michele,
my tend to be food related:
http://www.chocolateandzucchini.com
blog.ruhlman.com
saucissonmac.blogspot.com
brownstoner.com
justlisted.com (real estate is addictive)
enjoy!
http://www.fark.com which i’m sure you already know about
http://weboggle.shackworks.com/ for boggle online.
http://ingliseast.typepad.com/ hmmm, may not be a good one right now but she’s a great writer.
http://www.finnstyle.com/ for shopping
http://www.zillow.com/ as someone else said, real estate CAN be addictive. check out the maps.
the discussions (recent as well as archived) at http://www.washingtonpost.com
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ see how far you walk
i’m getting some new ideas from this post too! love it.
If you want a message board designed for new parents, check out the forums at altdotlife: http://www.altdotlife.com/forum/
You have to register to see all of the forums. There is enough there to keep you busy for days and lots of people just dying to talk about baby poop. Go to the alt.mama section and then babies and kids and it is broken down into chats by age group (4th Tri for Emory since he is younger than 3 mos). The groups tend to stick together and are very supportive.
I second the Jezebel suggestion. Very entertaining site.
http://www.themorningnews.org. Their galleries are always staggeringly good, as well as the mp3, video and book digests.
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com I can waste tons of time looking at how other folks live… And they’ve got quite a number of sites (for NY, SF, etc)… And you might like their site for all things nursery and babies!
You all are the greatest people alive! I now have added dozens of Web sites to my NetNewsWire feed! Yeeehaw!
I seriously thought CNN, I Can Has Cheeseburger, and Twitter were going to block my IP for being too punchy with the refresh button. Oh, and iVillage too. Yowsa, I abuse that site too.
Comics Curmudgeon! http://www.joshreads.com
Here’s some I visit daily:
My favorite blogs –
http://www.freakgirl.com/blog
http://www.michaelengle.blogspot.com
gofugyourself.typepad.com
http://www.dooce.com
mindyephron.blogspot.com
http://www.waiterrant.net
postsecret.blogspot.com
Shopping –
mightygoods.com
uncommongoods.com
Thought of a few more.
Fake Steve Jobs is fun: http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/
Merlin Mann’s tumblog: http://www.kungfugrippe.com/
Rex’s link site: http://www.fimoculous.com/
And this guy is SO funny. And he’s cute and adorable and has wonderful and enchanting children and his words will enthrall you: http://ransom-note-typography.com/
Wait… that last one was me again. (I have zero shame… :-])
PerezHilton.com, Pinkisthenewblog.com… I loooove me some celebrity gossip!
You know something that’s really quite weird? I didn’t give a rat’s butt about celebrities before getting pregnant. Now? I can’t get enough of it! I am not sure why or how that happened. Weird. Anyway, yeah, I have to admit, I haven’t been to PerezHilton before. I have seen it used on shows like 20/20 but never went. Now it’s bookmarked!
This is going to be awesome. I gotta tell you, you’re going to make one happy sleepy mommy tonight. :]
Oh, and for the record, I freaking LOVE Boggle. I’m obsessed with that game! I love Scrabble, too, but I suck at it.
cynical-c.com
planetdan.net
thingamababy.com
toomuchfreetime.net
I second apartment therapy and the morning news. In fact, I was going to link to Andrew Womack’s album list commentary on my own site, except I forgot all about it until now. This is why post-it notes are necessary.
For political commentary that’s easy to digest, I like the two sides of the coin at Matt Yglesias and Megan McArdle. (She has recently, inexplicably been getting the shit beat of her.) Bless The Atlantic Monthly for hosting both of them.
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/
You will also likely enjoy Donna Bowman, a super-smart university professor theologian mom:
http://uniontrueheart.blogspot.com/
As for YouTube, surely I’m not the only one who finds myself flitting from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force- Mastodon clip (be considerate of others or I will bite your torso!) to classical music videos (holy shit! Horowitz in Russia in 1986! I watched that on Sunday morning tv with my dad!) to Debbie Gibson (Electric Youth!), right?
Blog from a 20 something bartender in Manhatten
http://barmaidblog.livejournal.com
Anandtech’s Off Topic forums are usually amusing
http://forums.anandtech.com/categories.aspx?catid=38&forumid=1
The eGullet forums cover everything in the kitchen from tools to recipes, seriously EVERYTHING!
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=idx
I have some more, but I don’t think you’d like some of them….oh, and this one is interesting
http://www.mihow.com , :)
it’s funny, I stumbled upon your site when googling about aluminum in antiperspirant but found out I was ok since I use old spice deodorant and have been reading ever since….that was about 2 months ago, haha
ooops almost forgot these two:
I’m pretty sure you have headphones (I think that’s what’s on your head when you’re giving NY the finger), and these two are good for head phones:
YouTube for sure
http://www.pandora.com
I love Apartment Therapy too. I am a big fan of decorating sites. Others for decorating: http://www.decor8.blogspot.com and http://www.thenestmaker.com. Domino Magazine has a pretty good site too: http://www.dominomag.com. Thursday is Home and Garden day in NYT, LA Times, and Washington Post. Always fun to look at the slide shows online.
For recipes, I like browsing http://www.epicurious.com
For baby info, there is a site called http://www.babytv.com but I don’t know much about the message boards other than they have them.
I found it through a link on http://www.poshcravings.com.
As for shopping, I could list for days. Here are a few favorites for baby things…
http://www.twogirlsandaboy.com (It’s in VA. I know one of the owners. Fantastic store. Fantastic lady. Order stuff!)
http://www.modmama.com (See Kai Run shoes and Tea Clothes, etc)
http://www.moderntots.com (Bedding, toys, furniture, etc)
http://www.kitsel.com (mainly funny baby t-shirts)
http://www.bugsandblossoms.com (clothes)
http://www.modernessentials.com (this is where Shep’s bed linens came from)
http://www.modernnursery.com (gear, toys, furniture)
http://www.giggle.com (everything baby and modern)
http://www.oompa.com (My favorite place to order toys)
I started using Old Spice for that very reason! Well, Toms didn’t quite work for me especially while dieting (south beach made me smell like onions. Sure, blame the diet). Anyway, yeah, Old Spice rules. I love smelling like a man. :]
Thanks for the links! You all should see my feed now.
probably no new ones here, but everyday reads for me are http://www.neatorama.com, http://www.cuteoverload.com, http://www.boingboing.net.
My procrastination rotation (besides mihow!):
dooce.com
mightygirl.net (also a new mom) & mightygoods.com
themorningnews.org
tomatonation.com
helenjane.com
sarahhepola.com
queserasera.org
food-related:
orangette.blogspot.com
smittenkitchen.com
101cookbooks.com
elise.com/recipes
seriouseats.com
hilarious people making fun of celebrity outfits:
gofugyourself.typepad.com
fun fashion:
fashionbinge.com
fantastic daily dog photo:
http://textism.com/oliver/daily/
book-related:
goodreads.com
bookslut.com
maudnewton.com
I second the weboggle recommendation. I’m also a big fan of doing the NY Times crossword on line, though you do have to pay a nominal fee for that. (Like $5/month, I think.)
I think I just realized exactly how much time I spend on the internet…
Anyway, hope this helps!
hey you should check out the blogday-posts to find new sites: http://technorati.com/posts/tag/BlogDay2007
this is mine with my suggestions: http://www.notcrazyunwell.com/?p=449
have fun :) also, shouldn’t you be sleeping?
Thanks, guys! First night with the new links. I am SO grateful! Didn’t hit CNN once. That’s a good thing! I have new ways to waste time. Y’all are awesome.
I am yet another poor soul addicted to myspace! I can’t tell you the umber of elementary school friends (and other long lost friends that I have always wondered about) that I have tracked down through there. It seems to be the only way that I can keep in touch with people these days (because I hate phones), and of course EVERYONE has it, so every person you would ever need to talk to is just a click away. It’s like a giant phone book for the entire world, complete with the soundtrack and background to your entire life. Also, it’s a good way to see what your new internet friends (like us) are all about.
Oh and here;s another site I am addicted to:
http://www.spoofee.com
(lots of cool deals, and tons of FREEBIES!
—no, it’s not spam, it’s the real deal— I have a closet full of lotion, and shampoo samples, T-shirts and god knows how many tiny boxes of sample cereals, and coffee, energy drinks, free coupons, oatmeal, etc.)All the links and freebies are safe, and tested by the sites. Most are promotions from the companies themselves trying to promote their new products: (kellogs, oil of olay, dove, sunsilk, Kashi, etc).
I know that I don’t “need” any of it, but I am compulsive when it comes to stuff that’s free…
If you like photo blogs, this is an awesome one. And he uses a D200. Of course the D300 is out in November. I want one of those!
Photo Blog
Link to digital photography camera reviews and forums. You could spend hours reading those.
Digital Photography Review
celeb gossip –
http://www.tmz.com (Gordon Ramsey burned his balls?!?)
http://www.eonline.com
mindless way to pass time – jigsaw puzzles
http://www.jigzone.com
steer clear of the mommy boards…there are some seriously bitter and mean mommies out there. think heathers grown up with babies and lurking behind the anonymity of the internet.
ha! you know, since getting pregnant and having a baby, I have received more ‘hateful’ email than I ever did before. I have never stumbled into such a judgmental group of people before! Although, there are some really awesome folks too. So I can’t complain. Hell, i never would have gotten through the last month medication free had it not been for a lot of the folks who wrote me.
Probably steer clear of most boards indeed.
Thanks, slummymummy!
late to the game here, but my 2nd favorite daily site to check (mihow is 1st, duh!) is Design Sponge:
http://designsponge.blogspot.com/
and the onion still cracks me up:
http://www.theonion.com/content/index
i use to check Project RunGay daily… [i hear a new season of the Bravo show will be starting this fall]:
http://projectrungay.blogspot.com/
oh yeah, and then there are podcasts…
Fresh Air
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=13
Radio Lab
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/
Flight of the Conchords
http://www.hbo.com/conchords/video/index.html
The Ricky Gervais Show
http://www.rickygervais.com/podcasts2.php
NBC lets you stream full episodes of many shows for free, like Friday Night Lights and 30 rock. I like being able to watch the first couple of episodes of different shows.
http://www.43things.com/
just what you wanted, more tv!
http://www.getmiro.com/download/