Published February 4, 2010

Every new year is supposed to be about doing away with all our bad habits of yore, starting fresh, and completing resolutions that… we’ll get to tomorrow. No, this weekend. Oh, it’s February already? If these sound familiar to you, don’t worry. The list below is specifically designed without regard to any of those things. Instead of being filled with dread and guilt, we hope this list of fun Web sites you’ll enjoy visiting in 2010 will make you feel relaxed, happy, and full of tech-savvy goodness.

1. Don’t buy your books

You know you’ll never open the book again once the class is finished, so don’t buy it! You don’t have to be a slave to the bookstore anymore, and neither does your bank account. Since most of us wait until we see the book creeping up in the syllabus to even think about getting it anyway, why not just rent them for the time needed? Chegg.com is a textbook rental sercvice that has a running tally of how much money they are saving students, currently the total is over $139 milion.

2. Set your Facebook page to the foreign language you study

Since you probably know the layout like the back of your hand, this is a good way to see how much you’ve learned, and pretending to be a rural European farmer on your Farmville might be entertaining for a while.

3. Reconnect with your favorite children’s shows

Having your head buried in all those college textbooks can be like a self-inflicted swirlie. But how many times has “Hey Arnold” or “Bill Nye the Science Guy” taught you resounding and useful information that you still use to this day? Did your first taste of playground politics come from the debonair TJ Detweiler of “Recess?” Do you remember when an animated Mr. Rogers made a guest appearance on “Arthur,” and the neighbors thought he was a burglar? If you’re feeling nostalgic right about now, use your Internet wiles to revisit your old favorites.

4. Be a savvy shopper, and visit woot.com

Every day, woot.com offers amazing deals on products for the savvy Internet shopper. The site offers one item a day, which is replaced at 12 a.m. central time. They also have more specific sites: kids.woot, shirt.woot, sellout.woot, and wine.woot, from which you can also buy a single daily product. You can feed, clothe and entertain yourself like you’re the king of Costco!

5. Don’t Give yourself the run around

If the thought of going to the gym is enough to make you break into a cold sweat, then you’ll be happy to know that your buring major calories without even stepping foot on a treadmill. Healthstatus.com has a detailed exercise calorie counter that tells you how many calories you’ve burned per specific activity, based on your weight and length of  time. Who would have known that a 140 pound girl burns 84 calories cooking for a half an hour! (Eating said cooking is not taken into consideration).

6. Help end world hunger

Set up in multiple choice format, freerice.com is a Web site which donates 10 grains of rice through the United Nations World Foods Program for every word you correctly define, in hopes of ending world hunger. It’s lighthearted and addicting, and as the Web site warns, “this game may make you smarter.”

7. Try a Miracle Berry

The berry, from the plant ‘Synsepalum dulcificum,’ masks your tongue’s ability to detect sourness or bitterness when taken before a meal. If there are still a few foods out there that your mom can’t make you eat, and no amount of watching your younger sibling’s “Veggie Tales” DVDs has made you change your mind, get brave with the Miracle Berry and tackle them head on. Everything you eat under the influence will taste impossibly sweet. A raw lemon is said to taste like lemonade and the flavor of naturally sweet foods will be magnified exponentially. For the adventurous, Amazon.com and thinkgeek.com both sell the berry in tablet form.

8. Learn to make grown-up drinks

Soon we’ll all be out of college and plunged into the world where holding a Natty Lite in your hands is no longer socially acceptable. Start preparing yourself now for drinks with coworkers by learning to make a few choice mixed drinks. Mixology.com features an ultra-classy “drink of the week.” This weeks poison of choice? The Chocolate Kiss, according to the site, it’s “heaven in a glass”.

9. Start a YouTube channel

In 2005, comedy team Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla, known together as Smosh, uploaded their video, “Pokemon Music Video” to the site. At the time, they were 18 years old. By April of 2006, it became Youtube’s “Most Viewed Video of All Time.” They currently have the third most subscribed channel of YouTube. Have some extra time on the weekend? This could be you!

10. Check out thesixtyone.com

This Web site makes music into an amazing interactive game. After you make an account, you get sent on quests based on genre that allow you to advance by level and earn points. Completing these quests, along with listening to popular songs earns you “reputation points,” which allow you to influence the songs that get played on the homepage, by “reviving” songs that you think deserve more attention. Artists upload their music to the Web site, and then music lovers get to vote on new music. For every song you like, the site builds up a library of artists and songs that might appeal to you, so the more you participate, the better your library gets.