Category Archives: Guilty Pleasures

(no, not THOSE kind of guilty pleasures on the internet)

I work in a small office and while we are often super busy, there are times when all the work is done and I am here by myself and so I surf the world wide web… sometimes I even feel like I have reached the end of it, on days when there are no new blog updates and everyone is off doing something fun so they aren’t updating their Facebook status’ (statuses?). But there are a few places I can always go to help pass the time.

1. Television Without Pity | If you are looking for snarky recaps of your favorite shows, this is the place to go. The site is now “Powered by Bravo” but I started reading it when the staff was small and the reviews were at their snarkiest (totally a word). Back it the Dawson’s Creek and Felicity days, it was so fun to go to the site the next day and read a quick review (the longer, detailed review come later in the week) and remember things I missed. I [heart] television and so do these people, that is why they share their sarcasm and insights with the rest of us. The best were the recaps of The West Wing. On a serious note, this site let me to one of the only personal recounts I’ve ever read of September 11, 2001 by one of the founders of the site, Sara Bunting (a.k.a., Sars).
2. Faded Youth Blog | I don’t actually go to the site because I subscribe to their RSS feed with Google Reader, but I love my daily dose of celebrity sitings and gossip. It’s like the Star Tracks section of People magazine which was always my favorite part. Yes, I know, I’m totally buying in to the celebrity thing but I don’t care, I love reading about what the stars are buying and eating and who they are (or are not) dating.
3. FontFace.com | Part of my job involves graphic design (the rest of it is running the business and editing, which are much less “glamorous”) and I love looking at new fonts and thinking of what sort of projects I can use them for. But fonts can be expensive, but not when you find them on FontFace.com, then they are free. You are welcome. (Yes, I’m a little but computer geeky, I also like to look at color palettes here.)
4. etsy AND/OR craigslist | I love looking for crafty inspiration on etsy (or finding great birthday gifts). And my post popular search on Craigslist is for refinished furniture. What I’m really looking for is a sidetable like this (though it will have to wait until after Jack grows up a few more years otherwise I’d have to bungee cord something to it):
   
5. Give Me Neither | Because I am a Dutch girl at heart and thus money-saving runs through my veins, I have this blog on my feed reader and I get quite gleeful when I can sign up and get free samples or find ways to buy groceries and save 50% or more during a shopping trip. Just ask Simon, I love to tell him how much I saved and how much I actually spent. It’s always awesome when the savings are more than the total. Equally awesome is opening your mailbox and finding samples or coupons (less awesome is when your husband gets the mail before you and opens things first).
6. Word Twist and Bejeweled on Facebook… and sometimes Farkle. Consider yourself warned, they are highly addictive.

I know we all have guilty pleasures but what’s the fun in having them if you can’t share your shame with others?

The WB and CW teenage dramas | I have watched them all from Dawson’s Creek and Felicity to Gossip Girl and The Vampire Diaries. When The WB first came on the air, I was within the age demographic for viewership but over time, I’ve gotten older and the former WB/now CW has definitely not (though it could be argued that the actors are closer to my age then the ages of the characters they play). What was normal viewing has morphed into a guilty pleasure and I’m pretty okay with that. Some people read romance novels (nothing wrong with that) and I watch teen dramas with hunky actors. My husband even got me a Vampire Diaries first season blue-ray set for Christmas – he speaks my love language. [Note: Can I just say how much I miss Felicity and Dawson’s Creek?]

Real World/Road Rules/Challenges on MTV | I’m pretty certain I’ve seen every episode of the first 6-10 seasons of these shows thanks to the all-day marathons MTV is so fond of and while I’ve missed a great deal of the newer versions (if you’ve seen one season, you’ve pretty much seen them all), I have seen most of the Challenges/Gauntlets/[insert name of something competitive and *hard*] as my husband is a great lover of any kind of competition (his new favorites are food related like Top Chef and Chopped). These shows really make you question the intelligence of the human race, I feel like I ought to listen to 3 hours of NPR for every 30 minutes I watch of stupid, past-their-prime former quarterbacks/cheerleaders/emo musicians/pseudo intellectuals compete for fame, fortune and hangovers. And yet I watch.

General Hospital | Unlike many of my friends, my mom did not watch soaps growing up (she was too busy cleaning) so I got a late introduction to the genre. My college roomie (love you, Kara) loved General Hospital and we would watch it pretty regularly along with the other girls on our floor (love you girls, too). Anytime I’m home alone in the afternoons, which pretty much NEVER happens, I find myself drawn to the TV at 3 to watch an episode. The good news is, I’m pretty caught up on the story line(s) within that viewing time; this is also the bad news. I’m amazed that while children age years within weeks on soap operas, nothing else actually happens or gets resolved with any speed. But like spending time with a good friend you haven’t seen in ages, watching General Hospital is quite comforting.

Chelsea Lately | I’ve never been one to watch late-night talk shows but then along came Chelsea Handler and her gang of comedians and I cannot quit that show. Simon usually gets home right before or as this show is coming on so it’s the one thing we watch together (the rest of our viewing is done separately and then on weekends we go through the DVRed shows and agree on which ones we can delete). She is hilarious and her interviews are so unlike the rest because she gives people crap for things and doesn’t hold back – she says the things I’m thinking. I don’t know why I’d qualify this as a guilty pleasure, perhaps because the show can be crass sometimes or fairly useless in the grand scheme of things, but really, there isn’t much on TV that isn’t one of those things, at least not much that I watch ;). I also love The Soup, which is also on E! and equally as useless and entertaining.

Honorable mentions: Top Gear – UK version, Law & Order, CSI: Miami and Morning Express with Robin Meade, Yo Gabba, Gabba! (though I am loath to admit it since I have formerly professed my skepticism about the show).

I’d love to hear about your television-related guilty pleasures…