Want to come out ahead in 2013? According to the Forbes.com article, "Ten Resolutions the Most Successful People Make and Then Keep," which is aimed at business goals but applicable for personal gain too, you should: • Spend more time on your not-to-do list

• Do what's essential first, then email second

Anti-resolutions showed up on Inc.com, which among other ideas suggested you: • Not make excuses • Not cheat • Not waste time Speaking of…

Jonathan Chait, a smart and incisive political reporter for New York Magazine, writes often and well about the important issues of the day, including the fiscal cliff, gun control and unemployment. Seeking, perhaps, a moment's peace before plunging into a whole new year of Washington dysfunction, Chait today offers readers a detailed analysisof the journalistic shortcomings of the Hill Valley Telegraph… Read More >>

Bernard Cornwell is a master of  combining a thumping good tale with a fascinating history lesson, a formula that tends to land him squarely on The New York Times bestseller list.  His newest action-packed  novel, 1356, comes out on January 8 and is, not surprisingly, about the year 1356. More specifically, it's about the Battle of Poitiers, which the London-born Cornwell claims was one of… Read More >>

As many of us recovered from a long weekend of merriment, friends, family—and, in many cases, too much alcohol—I wondered if champagne alone was really to blame for that oh-so-crummy feeling after New Year's Eve. Turns out it might not have been. As this Wall Street Journal articleexplains, booze is not the only thing that brings on killer hangovers. Researchers have found… Read More >>

When is wasting time watching cool videos not wasting time watching cool videos? When those cool videos come from the Smithsonian, my all-time favorite museum. Smithsonian.com recently posted their 10 most popular videos of 2012, and it is one fascinating lineup. The only existing footage of Mark Twain; an epic battle between T-Rex and Titanoboa (a 48-foot, one-ton prehistoric snake);… Read More >>

Even when you live and breathe food, certain things never seem to make it off of the Pinterest board and into happy stomachs. So perhaps it's no surprise that everyone's getting in on the New Year's resolution game—here are food-related goals from Food52, Buzzfeed, and Big Girls Small Kitchen. As for me, my own resolution is easy: Make these, eat, and repeat. 1. Homemade sushi.Here's a secret: My favorite thing to… Read More >>

Sure, I'm a little biased because I work at Reader's Digest and have seen my incredible co-worker Adrienne Farr shed over 60 pounds on the Digest Diet plan, but I was still amazed when I read this piece in the New York Post the other day. The newspaper challenged people to try different weight loss plans during the holidays to see which diet book led to the biggest success. From losing baby weight to kicking carb and caffeine cravings, The…came… Read More >>

Like Pinterest? Love cats? Have a bunch of friends that are sick of your compulsive need to share snapshots of your cat on social media? There's a home for you now. First brought to my attention by Kelly Faircloth on BetaBeat, a tech blog by the New York Observer, Catmoji is a one-stop shop for feline social networking. Why? To hear the site's designers explain it, "Because the Internet love cats and we want to make the… Read More >>

When I owned a dog, I was convinced that he and I could communicate. I thought that if I talked to him in a slow and reasonable manner, he would somehow suss out what I was trying to say, which was usually along the lines of “Please don’t pee on the carpet.” It turns out that my dog Phineas was not fluent in English. It wasn’t even a second… Read More >>

Though my interest in the latest Pixar flicks has diminished slightly since I first saw Toy Story in 1995, I still get a childlike kick out of their animated shorts (have you seenPartysaurus Rex?) and appreciate newer titles. Now, the film studio has outdone itself with Monsters University, a fictitious yet entirely believable college website created to promote the release of a Monsters, Inc. prequelthis summer. The… Read More >>