TresSugar

Buzz News Roundup, 6/6

BuzzSugar — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:45:20 PDT

Hayden Panettiere has signed a deal with Candie's in which the fashion brand will help promote the Heroes star's first single "Wake Up Call", Billboard reports.
According to Hollywood Reporter, Adam Sandler's production company Happy Madison will produce a thriller called Shortcut under the name Scary Madison.
The Associated Press has a report about this weekend's academic conference studying Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Variety has the news that Tucker Max's bestselling book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell will be adapted for the big screen.
Zap2it has Fox's updated Fall premiere dates, with shows now starting in September, not August.
Brittany Murphy and Thora Birch will star in an indie psychological thriller titled Deadline, ComingSoon reports.
Variety writes that F. Gary Gray will direct a biopic of Marvin Gaye called Marvin.
Van Halen brought in more than $93 million touring with David Lee Roth, Reuters reports.

Smartass Kitty Won't Get a Move On. . .

GiggleSugar — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 07:00:00 PST

I think we just found the counterpart to this lazy bum. A whole night of partying left both of them in a sluggish morning funk. But the cat below ain't gonna let a wake-up call get in the way of his hangover. No sirree, bird. And he has a few choice words for the dude who dared to wake him. . .

Geek Tip: Wake Up With the Web

GeekSugar — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:30:42 PST

While some people still rely on their giant digital alarm clocks for all their dreaded snooze interruptions, the serious geeks out there have turned to the internet for their wake-up calls. If you're looking to test out the web's wakey wakey services, I suggest iPing, which is a reminder hub that keeps track of your schedule and allows you to set notifications and calls to help you get out of bed, remember birthdays, or even take your medicine. The idea is similar to setting your smartphone calendar to remind you of events, but you receive an actual phone call.

I also like WakeUpLand, an online wake-up service that allows anyone with an ordinary touch-tone phone to set wake-up calls for a small fee, and Snoozester, which provides reminder calls. The Snoozester wake-up call service is touted as a "great way to stop oversleeping and start waking up on time" because it offers features such as repeating calls, a snooze button, fun Snoozester characters, and SecureAwake, a feature for heavy sleepers that calls you every three minutes (for up to 20 minutes) until you answer the phone to indicate that you are awake. You won't have any excuse to keep the carpool waiting.

Butt In Face Wake Up Call

GiggleSugar — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:59:03 PDT

This girl who's being woken up by her friend's grinding, be-thonged butt in her face is remarkably good-natured. A couple observations: 1) The girl in the thong is enjoying this a little too much and 2) Please notice the big bottle of vodka by the bedside.

Gear Review: Lark Silent Alarm Clock

Leta Shy — Sun, 13 May 2012 16:48:00 PDT

You can count me as one of the 30 percent of people who don't get enough sleep every night, so when Lark sent me its silent alarm clock ($100) to test a couple months ago, I was all about it. Since then, I've been using it pretty regularly, here's what I think of the alarm clock.

First, here's what it is: The Lark is part app (compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad only at the moment, but an Android version seems imminent), part motion-sensing wristband that vibrates to wake you up and tracks your sleep quality throughout the night. It promises to both help you wake up more naturally and without disturbing your bedmate and change your personality from sleep-deprived night owl to well-rested morning lark. Included in the package is the Lark sensor, wristband, and charging dock where you plug your wristband into when you wake up - both to shut off the vibrating alarm and ensure that your wristband has enough juice to monitor your sleeping stats for the next night. The charging dock includes a USB port to connect your iPhone charger to it, so you don't have to use two sockets for each.

Who it's for: The Lark is useful if you have a partner and you both wake up at different times. Since it's a silent alarm clock, it rouses you with a series of vibrations through your wristband, so if your normal wake-up call is earlier than your bedmate's, your partner can snooze away without being disturbed. That may or may not be valuable enough for you to justify the $100 price tag, but it is an effective solution. Besides the alarm clock portion, the Lark app tracks several sleeping stats: how many hours you slept as well as how many times you woke up during the night and how long it took you to fall asleep (both based on your movements).

Keep reading for my thoughts on the Lark alarm clock.

9 Freegan Tips to Save Money and the Earth

Emily Co — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:00:53 PDT

Although most of us associate freeganism with dumpster diving, freegans actually do advocate much more than sifting through garbage for food.

Madeline Nelson from freegan.info shared with me the ideology behind their lifestyle. She says, "Not all freegans are dumpster divers and not all dumpster divers are freegans. Freegans' focus is much broader and much more political - how to throw a cog in the corporate profit machine, help alleviate social injustice and ecological destruction, and create ways to live more independently of the giant corporations that now rule the word with the sole aim of profit for their owners and top managers."

Rummaging through trash receptacles is only for the bold, so for those of you who still want to do some good and save money at the same time, Madeline shares some easy tips you can implement in your everyday lifestyle.

Pick Your Produce With Care: Don't buy factory farmed animal products! There are so many reasons, from not ingesting the antibiotics and hormones still in the products, to the cruelty of factory farm conditions to animals and workers alike, to the 70 pounds of high quality vegetable protein wasted to produce a single pound of beef.
Support Local Farmers: Eat as local as you can afford to do; use farmers markets and CSAs if you can. By reducing the distance your food travels (these days, often 1000s of miles) you reduce your carbon footprint and opt out of the exploitation of tenant farmers whose kids are picking baby vegetables for the USA when they should be able to go to school.
Grow Your Own: The most local you can go is to grow your own fruits and veggies. Got a yard? Turn it into a pea patch. Don't? Join a community garden, make new friends, and learn relaxing new skills.
Dumpster Dive: Feeling brave? Try seeing what your local supermarkets are throwing out every day. Dumpster diving is often fun and always a wake-up call to waste being perpetrated in our names - we, who supposedly wouldn't buy an odd shaped potato or a nearly ripe banana. And it is economically much more viable than working a low wage job to earn enough to buy the same stuff.

For more freegan tips, read on.

The Vampire Diaries "Before Sunset": The Good, The Bad, and The Bloody

Shannon Vestal — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:56:52 PDT

I didn't really expect things to get that crazy on The Vampire Diaries until next week's season finale, but wow, this week is full of intensity. There are a few big fights, a little bit of vampire torture, and though Alaric is the villain of the episode, the group is victorious in taking down another of their foes amid the chaos. Bonnie gets to use her witchy skills, but she's not the only lady who's channeling her girl power this week; Elena gets pretty tough, not just relying on a Salvatore brother to save her this time.

We're gearing up for next week's finale, and though there's some obvious setup for the next episode, there's a pretty big event that happens this week. And as usual, there's also an ample amount of great moments and funny lines. So, to get to the good, the bad, and the bloody, just keep reading.

Should There Be a War on Makeup For Little Girls?

BabyCenter — Wed, 02 May 2012 10:57:47 PDT

Here's a post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we bring you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post from Betsy Shaw about kids and makeup.

Hope Perlman survived the moment of mothering girls I dread. In her post for NY Times' Motherlode, she relays the day her 13-year-old daughter begged to be allowed to wear makeup to a party.

After much soul searching – Perlman occasionally wears makeup herself – and lecturing, she said yes. She describes her rationale here:

"I wanted her to fit in, because I know fitting in is what middle school is about. But what, exactly, was she starting to fit into? The role of the teenager tortured by her failure to live up to a magazine picture? I'd been that teenager, with a picture of a model taped to my bedroom mirror. It wasn't what I wanted for my child."

So she acquiesced. But not before letting her know exactly what she thought about the message, so aggressively delivered by a male-dominated advertising industry, that girls and women need to paint themselves, cover their skin with lotions and potions, to be beautiful and feminine.

"So that's how I allowed my daughter to start wearing makeup," Perlman says at the end of her essay, "I gave her permission - along with a large and cumbersome bag of guilt. The personal is political. Better remember that. Here's your mascara, honey. And your burden of awareness. Enjoy!"

I relate to Perlman’s story: When my daughter first sensed I had "issues" with makeup, she was about four years old. She asked me to get her a makeup kit, like the one her little friend Hanna got for being a flower girl, and I refused.

"Why not?" she pouted.

Instead of simply saying "because I said so," I treated her to a verbal tirade of stinging righteousness that came from an apparently conflicted place inside of me.

Keep reading for more of the story.

Everything You Need to Know About Retirement

LearnVest — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:02:28 PDT

Does the topic of retirement make you scratch your head? LearnVest breaks it down for you in simple terms.

You know what’s awesome?

Retirement.

No, really. Imagine it: Waking up every day to head to your favorite yoga/art/synchronized swimming class. Catching up with friends daily. Starting (and finishing) every book or movie that catches your eye.

It’s the ultimate extended vacation, and the best part is, by the time you get there, you’ve already paid for it. You know how that happened? You started today.

No, really, today. There’s an important deadline you need to know: April 17th. This year, it’s the deadline to contribute money to a Roth or traditional IRA for 2011-in other words, if you didn’t get around to saving the maximum you could for retirement last year, you still have this window to do so. (The maximum contribution for 2011 is $5,000-unless you’re over age 50, in which case you may contribute up to $6,000.)

Now that you know that, want to make sure you’re on the right track for retirement? Don’t worry, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know, right here and now.

So go ahead, start stocking up on sketchbooks.

Your Options

To set the stage, let’s refresh our memories about the main types of retirement accounts available to us. There are three: the 401(k), the traditional IRA and the Roth IRA.

401(k)

A 401(k) is a free retirement account you can only get through an employer, and it holds money taken directly from your paycheck. Sometimes, said employer also contributes money to your retirement fund-that’s called “matching.” Traditional 401(k) plans grow tax-deferred, meaning that you’ll pay taxes when you take the money out, not when you put the money in.

Read on for more.

3 Reasons to Increase the Incline on Your Treadmill

Leta Shy — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:00:52 PDT

Whether or not you love the treadmill incline as much as Jennifer Aniston does, increasing it is an efficient and smart way to get the most out of your run. Here are three important reasons to up the incline on your treadmill.

Calorie burn: Upping the incline, even just a little bit, will help you burn a few extra calories with just a little more effort. Going from a zero-percent incline to five-percent incline burns over 100 more calories when running for 30 minutes, no matter your pace. Check out our chart to see just how many calories running on an incline burns. You might be pleasantly motivated.

Bikini bum: Kill two birds with one stone by working your lower body while raising your heartbeat, just in time to show off all your hard work on the beach. Just like running hills or hiking, running on the treadmill is a great exercise for toning your glutes and quads.

Better runner: If you've never run outside before, hopping off the treadmill and onto the road can be a wake-up call, since running outside isn't as easy as running on a flat, consistent treadmill. But if you increase the incline whenever you run inside, you'll be amazed at how much better your endurance and stamina become.

Of course, you'll really feel it when you start upping the incline more than a few percentages (it'll affect your pace as well, so take it slower if needed), but you'll be glad you did. Ready to start? Here's an under-20-minute incline treadmill workout if you're pressed for time, or try this rolling hills treadmill workout instead.