Blog Posts by Daily Shot

Are you tired? Probably. Roughly one-third of working Americans are sleep deprived, according to a CDC report. But there are some important tweaks you should make in your sleep habits and coffee consumption that can help. Jihan Thompson, Health Editor at O, The Oprah Magazine stopped by Daily Shot to share a few of them.

Stress

First, look at the big picture. Work drama, relationships, financial anxiety all cause stress, and stress disrupts sleep. “Being chronically stressed is eventually going to wear you out,” says Jihan. “Get out and do something you enjoy, and that’s going to bring your anxiety levels down, and that means when you get in bed, you’re going to be able to sleep far more soundly.”

Insomnia

When people find themselves awake in the middle of the night, they tend to toss and turn and wait for sleep to come. Instead, “try a memory game, or a math equation, or counting back from 300 by threes,” Jihan suggests. When you’re doing basic math you cant think of anything

Read More »from Don’t ‘catch up on sleep’ over the weekend

On a recent visit, the wonderful Mr. Tim Gunn stopped by to talk with Ali about fashion mistakes. (It's a topic he RARELY addresses, choosing to focus on the positive as much as possible.)

That said, talk turned to the White House Correspondents dinner, which Ali attends most every year. Tim called it, "The worst [dressed] big event I've ever been to in my life." In honor of this year's White House Correspondent's dinner, happening Saturday night, we give you this delicious conversational nugget which previously ended up on the cutting room floor. To hear what Ali and Tim have to say about "bad taffeta," and "antebellum gowns with hoop skirts," please check out the video!

Read More »from Ali and Tim Gunn on Fashion's Worst Event

Anna Chlumsky stopped by to talk about playing Amy Brookheimer, the Vice President’s Chief of Staff on the HBO series VEEP.

Anna says that she actually got a lot of pointers on the job from Barbara Boxer’s Chief of Staff. Ali, who grew up in DC, said Anna’s portrayal of the character is spot-on, “Constantly on the blackberry, a little frenetic, and your life is gone.”

Ali also asked about Anna’s background as a child actor, and while you may think “My Girl” was her first role, she actually scored her first job—a modeling gig--at ten months old. In the years after her hit movie, she went to college and then tried some non-acting gigs. She worked in an entry-level job for Zagat guides, which, “was really a step above telemarketing,” and then worked as an editorial assistant in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy division of Harper Collins, where she says she developed her geeky side. “Reading about princesses and mages…the wizardly cover art, it’s pretty fun for a 9-5 job."

Ali also asked six-month

Read More »from Anna Chlumsky on VEEP and Being Pregnant

In a special edition of Daily Shot, we tackle personal finance. Did you know that, according to a recent study, only 66 percent of women, compared with 89 percent of men, said they have general investment knowledge regarding stocks, bonds, and mutual funds? So we decided to do our part to even out the knowledge gap. Basic investing is a hard thing to grasp if you, like us, find numbers boring. So we figured that the best way to illustrate the concept was to have three attractive, shirtless men help us explain it.

We also asked Lauren Lyster, co-host of The Daily Ticker on Yahoo! Finance to help us bring you a segment called ‘Stocks & Bods.’

First, a simple explanation of some of the basic components of investing: the aforementioned stocks, bonds, and mutual funds…represented in the video above by three attractive, shirtless bachelors.

See fun behind-the-scenes pics of our Finance Bachelors here!

STOCKS:

Stocks have a long history of outperforming most other investments. But stocks

Read More »from Stocks and Bods

If you think you spoil your pet just because you have matching sweaters… think again. Unless you take your pet pig to a 5-star spa or have a Bark Mitzvah for your dog…YOUR pet is NOT pampered.

Beth Stern, host of the new Nat Geo Wild show “Spoiled Rotten Pets,” stopped by to show Ali what real pet pampering looks like.

On her show, Beth visited a couple with two huge pigs named Wilma and Pebbles. Beth told Ali how ‘the girls’ sleep in bed with their owners, they are fed gourmet meals, and they use their snouts to hit a bell when they need to go outside. “I gotta say, their girls were their kids.”

Beth and her husband, Howard Stern, feel the same way about their pets. “Women fall in love with their husbands when they see them as fathers,” she said. “When I see him with our pets, I fall in love with him even more.”

Howard gives her plenty of opportunities to fall more in love ever since Walter, the Sterns' rescue cat, came into their lives. One revealing habit, Beth says, is that Read More »from Beth Stern on 'Spoiled Rotten Pets' and life with Howard

You know Kandi Burruss from Real Housewives of Atlanta, where she handles the drama with such class and sass that Bravo gave her her very own show. Kandi stopped by Daily Shot to tell Ali about The Kandi Factory, which “is all about me taking people who have always wanted to sing or perform and helping them achieve their dream.”

Kandi knows what she’s doing when it comes to music. She wrote the 1999 hit, "No Scrubs," by TLC, which won the 2000 Grammy Award for Best R&B Song. She also wrote "Bills, Bills, Bills" for Destiny's Child and "There You Go" for Pink.

On her show, she takes two hopefuls each week, and does her very best to turn them into star material. “We change their image, we give them a full choreographed show, and at the end of five days, they have to perform in front of a live audience”

So how well does it work?

“It wouldn’t be a great show if you didn’t have a little hot mess on there,” Kandi says.

In her spare time, Kandi also runs a highly successful

Read More »from Everybody Loves Kandi

Jen Kirkman does not want kids. She's a stand-up comedian with a lot of good gigs on her plate—she appears on Chelsea Lately, makes the late night talk show rounds, and has released two successful comedy albums.

She's a busy lady, ok? But so many people asked her, "How could you NOT want to have kids?" that she actually had to write an entire book explaining the reasons why not. The book is called, "I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales from a Happy Life Without Kids."

Ali asked Jen what the biggest misconception was about women without kids. “It’s that I have all this free time,” said Jen. “That we don’t have enough stuff to fill our time with or that we’re not busy.”

Another annoying misconception? That people who don’t have kids are selfish. “To me, selfish just means you do what you want. So if you wanna have kids you do that, and if you don’t, you do that. So everyone’s selfish.”

Jen says she learned the hard way that having kids DOESN’T guarantee you won’t

Read More »from Stop Telling Me To Have Kids!

It's hard enough getting a first date, and if you want to make it to the second date, relationship expert Matthew Hussey from NBC’s ‘Ready for Love’ has five easy tips.

First, he says don’t overprepare for a date because you’ll just be self-conscious and uncomfortable. “Sometimes going straight from work is good.”

Once you get there, be tactile immediately. Reach out and touch their shoulder or say hello with a kiss on the cheek. That lets your date know that this is not just an awkward business meeting.

And once you sit down, don’t do the obvious ‘sit across the table from one another’ thing. Sit side-by-side, because that creates a more intimate vibe.

In conversation, don’t try to be everything all at once. Matthew says, “Don’t be like, ‘I’m indoorsy but also outdoorsy. I’m a guy’s girl and also a girls’ girl.’ It looks like you’re trying too hard to please.” Be honest about what you’re actually interested in.

Who does Matthew say should pay on the first date?

Read More »from Five Tips For A Successful First Date