Remember when the internet was just a place for reading and discovering things when you were bored? (Okay, you don’t need to remember: It still is.) Here are my picks for the best places to waste away an hour or so.

Neatorama. This is my favorite, and one of my staple bookmarka for finding neat stuff. A lot of genre-related stuff I find here will find its way to CJ or @clubjade.

NOTCOT. This one is more focused on art and design, but a lot of neat stuff will show up here. Plus, pictures!

Metafilter and Kottke. Going old school with some of the staples that are still kicking. I actually really enjoy AskMeFi and could browse it for hours.

Design*Sponge is one of the best blogs around for anyone interested in modern interior design. Apartment Therapy is also fun.

Newcomers. Here are a few blogs I’ve discovered only recently: Eat Me Daily, Idsgn, and World Famous Design Junkies, all great places to whittle away time.

By Kate Miller-Heidke:

And Amanda Palmer:

• Psychotic Letters from Men. Hilarious and yet so very, very disturbing.

• I kind of want to see The September Issue. Clearly I have watched The Devil Wears Prada one too many times.
• Awful library books, a new blog highlighting the fruits of weeding. It’s like shelf reading without the boring!
• Swearing enables one to tolerate pain better, fancy neuroscientists say. Fuck yeah!

Naturally Adobe discontinues Homesite the week I finally buckle down and buy an iMac. It was one of only two programs that I missed the first time I switched to a Mac, back in 1999, and thus one of the few I was happy to see again when circumstances forced me back to a PC. Of course, I was going to take this opportunity to look for something new anyway. (I went back to BBEdit on my Macbook, but it’s never been ideal: I basically use it as a scratchpad anyway. A coding pal has recommended Smultron and Coda.)

I still use Homesite daily at work, though not to the extent I used to, but our tech guys have spoken of replacing it…

So, I posted a tweet today about how disgusted I am that I know who Adam Lambert is. (I have a deep and abiding hatred of American Idol.) A half hour later? @lambertfans is following @clubjade. Uh, no.

Yes, it came out years before GM decided to use Pontiac as a sacrifice to the reorganization gods, but I can tell you that the design aesthetic began by the Aztek is the reason why I wouldn’t even touch the damn things when my ‘93 Grand Am started to be more trouble than it was worth. I mean, I grew up with Pontiacs (and Chryslers.) I can’t recall a serious problem that wasn’t the result of regular wear and tear. But with the Aztek, it was all over: I replaced my Pontiac with a Toyota. Even my parents defected to Mazda.

I know, it may seem petty. But I almost crashed that Grand Am on I-94 the first time I saw one of those things in the wild. It was just that ugly. And it’s only in the last few years that they’ve recovered… But I guess it was too late. Stupid Aztek.

Judge Reinhold in Fast Times at Ridgemont Hight and Jason Segel in Freaks and Geeks… SEPARATED AT BIRTH? (Not the best picture of Segel, but I’m watching Ridgemont and I can’t unsee it.)

The McGangBang, an unholy union of fast food sandwiches. Ahh, America. (via)

My first record (RECORD!) was Cyndi Lauper’s ‘She’s So Unusual.’ We were a record family: My mother (who was/is a music person) didn’t really buy a lot of tapes. She held onto records until the bitter end and then gleefully switched to CDs.

(My father is not a music person. I think he owned two records when they got married, one of which was ‘The Sound of Music’ soundtrack. He now owns Blue Man Group CDs. We shall not speak of it.)

I’m sure I had a first tape, but I don’t remember that so well. That would have been the New Kids era anyway, and who the hell cares?

My first CD was a single: ‘Cannonball’ by The Breeders, aka the hottest track of my freshmen year. Not really embarrassing, just kind of typical.

So the other day I had the radio on, and some Smashing Pumpkins song came on. I was never really a Pumpkins ‘fan’ per say, but I do believe they were a damn fine radio band. To be honest, that’s most of how I experienced music throughout the 90’s – via the radio. I’m just not a music person: I bought few CDs as a teenager, but not much really noteworthy. My only musical obsession was – wait for it – Tori Amos, with a side of Sarah McLachlan and that one year of Alanis and ‘Jagged Little Pill.’ Sure, I knew all the lyrics on ‘Under the Pink,’ but music, to put it lightly, was not my thing. I listened to the same mixtape on my Walkman, which I used EVERY DAY, for the entirety of freshmen year. It was all very sad and pathetic.

(Oh, and Tori? Was actually discovered by my MOM. I was just. that. cool. I got better after discovering Napster: I still can’t say I’m on the forefront of music, but at least I can make playlists entirely devoid of Tori Amos songs.)

So. The radio band. Best enjoyed in small doses. You don’t buy their CDs, or go to their concerts, or buy magazines just because they’re on the cover. You just hear them, every once and a while, on the radio. That’s what Smashing Pumpkins were to me. And they did a damn fine job of it. (SUCK IT, NICKLEBACK.) And now they’re the soundtrack to a Visa commercial. Yes Jezebel, I am indeed old. Thanks for the reminder.

Though, come to think of it, I did own ‘Siamese Dream.’ On cassette. Huh.