Hello, my name is Anna and I’m a serial series watcher.

I get REALLY HOOKED on a show, usually after it’s already either 1) well into the the season, or a 2nd or 3rd, etc., or 2) it’s already off the air. So what I do is find a way to watch them online. For a long time this meant having to download them using not so very legal means. Just about a month ago I deleted all six seasons of Sex and The City of my desktop’s hard drive. Right after the end of the last season I suddenly realized it was THE BEST SHOW EVER and then downloaded all six seasons and watched them in order and cried like a baby at the end. I still haven’t gone to see the movie because I’m worried about the emotional damage it might do.

And I don’t know if you remember that time that both Ben and I got somewhat COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY OBSESSED with 24 after it had been on the air for three seasons already? And we watched three seasons in a few weeks by watching it every single night and I actually blogged about possibly needing methadone and counseling when it was over.

Then last February we decided we should check out this LOST show that everybody keeps yammering about and: INSTANTLY HOOKED. We watched the first two seasons on DVD from Netflix when Season three had already started so we DVR’d the third season then watched them when we were done with one and two. Then we died from embarrassment and shame.

Then, dear internet, then about two weeks ago I finally took the time to take a look at Hulu and it was like I hit the mother load. Bones, Fringe, Nip/Tuck… all shows I never really took the time to watch before and now I’ve caught up on all of them… while at work. heh

But the best, BEST, OMGBEST!!!! They have all 14 original episodes of Firefly in the correct order. *swoon* I had never really gotten the chance to watch the show properly and after seeing Serenity (LOVE that movie and it still gets the most play on my iPhone) then watching some of the shows out of order, it was really confusing. But not anymore! I watched all 14 episodes in TWO DAYS, then started watching them AGAIN today because: HEART

I can’t believe this show was taken off the air. Given the massive fan base of the TV show, then the movie, it’s just a SHAME. After I finished the season I did more reading about it and Joss Whedon originally planned for it to be a seven year series and my poor broken heart aches to know what WOULD have happened. How long would it have taken them to realize River’s full potential? When were Mal and Inara FINALLY going to stop being stubborn and just DO IT ALREADY? What was the real deal with Shepherd Book and why DOES he know so much about crime and it’s major players? These are questions that I’ll never get answered! NEVER! How am I supposed to go on with no resolution!? No ENDING!? No Mal and Inara DOING IT?!

Anyway, in case you’re, like, into that kinda stuff, you can follow all my obsessing via my hulu feed. But I warn you, if you intend to be the least bit productive, DO NOT CHECK IT OUT AT WORK.

Testing

I had a really cool first post from the new WordPress iPhone app all typed out and then the save button disappeared and the app ate it.

Now all you get is this sad little post instead.

Tweet or Feed?

Okay, so there has been this debate of sorts going around the tech/geek community for the last week or more basically paring twitter vs FriendFeed. And like I said on iJustine’s blog about it, I think the entire debate is null because it’s like comparing apples to an entire fruit salad. Twitter is micro blogging and FriendFeed is an aggregate for 41 different applications, including Twitter, with other features like commenting. You really just can’t compare them other than to say that they are both social networking sites but so are MySpace and Facebook and look how different they are. (In case you don’t get how they are different: MySpace sucks balls and Facebook doesn’t. IF YOU LEARN NOTHING ELSE FROM THIS BLOG POST, LEARN THAT!)

The debate is also questioning which one will become mainstream first, if either ever will. My opinion? I don’t really see it happening. When I try and explain the concept of twitter to non-geek folk, they just look at me with a blank stare and inevitably the same response: But, why? They just don’t get the micro blogging community as a whole. Now, compare it to a MySpace bulletin and eyes light up and lights come on and angels sing and THERE IT IS! There’s UNDERSTANDING in the eyes, they get it! Then you say, well just cut out all the spammy shit and do it in less then 140 characters. And THERE IT IS AGAIN, the blank stare.

I think that realistically, twitter stands more of a chance to become mainstream just because FriendFeed has SO MUCH of Teh Geek linked to it. Walk up to your mom, aunt or dentist and ask them what Vimeo is. Or brightkite. Or del.icio.us. Or hell, even Digg. Chance are if you are reading this blog you’ve heard of all or most of those but I bet you that your “mainstream” friends have NO CLUE. So how are they supposed to ever really grasp FriendFeed, which is just an aggregate of all those services?

Anyway, this post was originally going somewhere else and ended up here. So with that I’ll ask your opinion! What are your favorite Social Networking tools? I updated my FriendFeed accout today to include most of them that I use and there are SEVENTEEN accounts.

My FriendFeed account links to:

1. twitter
2. Facebook
3. brightkite
4. del.icio.us
5. Digg
6. Flickr
7. GoogleReader shared items
8. GoogleTalk status changes
9. Intense Debate
10. LinkedIn
11. Pownce
12. StumbleUpon
13. Tumblr
14. Vimeo
15. YouTube
16. Zooomr
17. Aflux’s RSS feed

And that’s just where I got to before I got tired of adding them to FriendFeed. Add me to any or all or none. I’m just kind of interested to see how many of these ACTUALLY get used because on some of them I’ve signed up to secure the name, played with them a bit, then completely forgotten about them. I’m going to pay attention to FriendFeed for the next few days and see how much any of them actually get used and based on your answers to which you use more, see if maybe twitter isn’t as popular as some of these debates would have you think… but I’m skeptical. I get a lot of twitter traffic.

Dear Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb,

It pains me to write this because I really liked Hoda before today but: What the fuck were you thinking?

Seriously.

I always liked to believe that reporters were given a bad rap. That when people claimed they were taking things out of context, or that practically no background work had been done prior to a segment, that they were just over exaggerating or being whiny jackasses. But today you pretty much proved that the douchebag reporting reputation that has developed on network television is 117% true. You get an extra 17% because seriously, Kathy Lee Gifford? Whoever thought THAT was a good idea deserves an extra 17% of COMPLETE FAIL.

When you interviewed Heather Armstrong today on your show it was clear to me from the very beginning that both of these common failings were true. First Hoda mentioned a passage from one of Heather’s blog posts saying:

Hoda: “You wrote on your blog that you worry that your daughter will resent you because all of her business being put out there…”
Kathy: “Potty training and all those things that are kind of private.”

Well Hoda and Kathy, had you taken time to ACTUALLY READ THAT BLOG POST you’d have quite possibly also mentioned the rest of the passage that explains EXACTLY how Heather feels about it and, in fact, thinks in the long run that Leta will CHERISH all those stories.

From furniture Elhovothat dooce post:

You will resent me for your curfew and the fact that I will not let you leave the house in that mini-skirt. You will resent me for showing up to your school in my pajama bottoms and for raising my hand in a PTA meeting when I hadn’t brushed my hair. You will text message your friends to tell them that I am the most horrible person on the planet because I’m forcing you to study for your exam in the morning. You are going to think that I cannot possibly understand what you are going through, and you will slam the door in my face.

Will you resent me for this website? Absolutely. And I have spent hours and days and months of my life considering this, weighing your resentment against the good that can come from being open and honest about what it’s like to be your mother, the good for you, the good for me, and the good for other women who read what I write here and walk away feeling less alone. And I have every reason to believe that one day you will look at the thousands of pages I have written about my love for you, the thousands of pages other women have written about their own children, and you’re going to be so proud that we were brave enough to do this. We are an army of educated mothers who have finally stood up and said pay attention, this is important work, this is hard, frustrating work and we’re not going to sit around on our hands waiting for permission to do so. We have declared that our voices matter.

If that doesn’t profess the exact opposite of what Kathy Lee was trying not-so-eloquently to imply, that how dare you think about writing about your daughter online and *gasp* POSTING HER PICTURE, I don’t know what could possibly GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD short of getting in your face and shouting it through a blow horn.

Had Kathy taken FIFTEEN minutes of her time to ACTUALLY RESEARCH the topic and the person who she was interviewing she might have actually walked away from the interview without looking like the stereotypical, uneducated, assumptive “reporter” that she’s trying to play on TV. And if I had a dollar for every time that I was at my grandmothers and was forced to listen to Kathy talk about her sweet, precious Cody on NATIONAL TELEVISION I too could quit my day job and find something else to pass my time. Like publicly slamming other mothers from my make believe pedestal way up there. *points up*

Both of you are mothers and today you failed your fellow mothers across the nation. You could have turned that segment into a resounding statement about the exploding growth of a community of beautiful, powerful, motivated and brilliant women bloggers. Fellow mothers banding together to form a wave of support for complete strangers, for the mother down the street, for the mother sitting silently on the park bench, for the mother quietly suffering from postpartum depression, for the mother who’s so confused and upset and doesn’t know who to turn to… but instead you chose to go the sensational route.

Seriously. Shame on both of you.

-Anna (proud mommy blogger) Hirsch

If writers stopped writing about what happened to them, then there would be a lot of empty pages.

I am really bad about meme-ing. I hardly ever do them when I’ve been tagged because I can never just give a one word answer, everything requires explanation! And the pressure of having to write is something that seriously feels suffocating to me sometimes. This one has been cool though because it’s only four and the DVR and food questions have been fun to read.

So I catually DID IT! YAY!

Amanda tagged me with this meme…

The meme consists of four questions requiring four answers, and then the tagging of four people.

4 Jobs I’ve Had in My Life:
- Gift wrapper at Sneads! Man, Stephaine and I could even make wrapping boxes in a small cramped room fun.
- Carmel corn bagger/sales associate (HA!) at the great Kern County Fair.
- Computer Sales rep at Best Buy. Please buy the warranty. Please.
- Professional blogger. I think since I’m making money off this site and others now, I can add that to my job list!

4 Shows I DVR
- Big Brother 9
- Lost
- House
- Family Guy

4 Places I’ve Been
(It was hard to pick only FOUR because I was lucky enough to have a Grandma growing up that took us all over the country, literally, when we were growing up. So I picked some of my favorite places.)
- Fombell, PA. I lived there in second grade with my Aunt Cathy, Uncle Larry and cousin Stefanie. Some of my best childhood memories were there. It was like my second home and I miss it dearly sometimes.
- Maui <3
- Washington DC. TWICE! And I can't wait to go back again and getting to take Cassidy with us.
- Mackinac Island, Michigan. I absolutely plan on going back there and staying at the Grand Hotel. It’s on my bucket list.

4 Favorite Foods
- Garlic Chicken Calzone DELUXE from Frugatti’s in Bakersfield
- Any souffle from Bella Vista in the Bay Area
- Clam chowder in a bread bowl from Spash Cafe in Pismo
- Mom: home made fettucini alfredo, Dad: rosemary (fresh of his plant) potatoes and turkey noodle soup (he makes the noodles too).

4 People I Tag
You, you, you and YOU! And Jenn MUST DO IT!! Like, every blogger IN THE WORLD has been tagged with this in the last week. If you aren’t one of them, TAG! You’re it!

*Title Quote: Elaine Liner: We Got Naked, Now What, SXSW 2006