Houzz – Did you get a chance to visit our blogs page? If you haven’t, it’s a one-stop place for many great blogs in various categories such as architecture, style, design, finance and many others. Even though we spent a lot of time creating this page, we might have missed out on some excellent blogs, and this is exactly where you come in – we want to hear your suggestions. I am telling you this because it was through a user’s suggestion that we learned of Houzz. Adi Tatarko, a Houzz contributor, contacted us and filled us in on an excellent architecture blog site. From our very first dive into Houzz we fell in love with it and decided to give it a Weekly spot. In addition, we’ve added it to the architecture faveline on the Blogs page, as well as to the architecture minipage.

So what is Houzz anyway? It’s “a place where you can find inspiration, information and moral support from other home design fanatics. Browse photos, get ideas from hundreds of designers from around the world, and save it all in your virtual idea book. It’s the online version of cutting pages out of magazines and stuffing them in a folder, which makes it much easier to search, save, and share.” I am not an architecture freak myself but I can nevertheless appreciate good quality when I see it. Houzz has it. A lot of it actually. I especially enjoyed these two articles, Houzz Interview: Jennifer’s Old Painted Cottage and Unique Color Combinations: Purple + Yellow. Below are my favorite designs, found in the posts mentioned above.

EpiCute – Not all ‘cute’ sites are created equal. The majority of such sites are, indeed, cute (see Cute Overload and The Cute Project for example, both focused on animals). EpiCute is also cute, but in a different way; it’s “a blog about cute food. It’s run by an anxious twentysomething who spends her day sneaking pictures of cupcakes, bento lunches & the occasional guinea pig to relax.” Is it as fun as watching cute creatures? It depends on who you are asking. Are you an animal person or a food person? But that doesn’t really matter; the important thing is that everyone loves cute things. Start with the ones below.

We Interrupt – Last week I mentioned the Optimist, a site that deals with good news. We Interrupt has a different concept, quite a 180 from the former. It takes unfortunate events and emphasizes the specific details that render the big picture ironic as hell. It’s “an independent online community newspaper that focuses on the bizarre, absurd, interesting, humorous and sometimes inane events.” I must admit. I had the bizarre realization that I enjoy both kinds of news stories… So what made me giggle? Floor Of Weight Watchers Meeting Collapsed Under Weight Of Occupants, Oops: School Staff Given Insulin Instead Of Swine Flu Vaccination and the great video below.

Sweet Station – Sweet Station is an eclectic blog, and according to their about us it is “a place for our thoughts and ramblings in the fields of paintings, illustrating, advertising, photography, product design, architecture, installation design, graphic arts and well, pretty much anything we want to talk about.” As you can see it has a bit of everything that relates to creativity. Below are pic accompanying the posts I was inspired the most by. Click on them to read the full story. By the way, if you’re keen on discovering more sensually eclectic blogs in the creative realm, check our Design page.

Another cool section worth exploring in Sweet Station is the Stickers page. It presents pictures people took with the Sweet Station logo in various places in the world. Want your photo to be featured as well? No problem – click here, send them an email and the stickers will be sent to you. I already did my part and now I’m waiting for the stickers to arrive…

Damm Birds 2 – What do the statues of the past, present, and future have in common? Winged demons which have become a nice resting spot for birds’… hum… poo. Now it is time for the statutes for revenge, and they mean business! The birds are going down. This game reminded me of yep, you guessed it: The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock. If you want to be updated with the latest games, why not join our AllMyGames facebook fan page?

WebMii – Yesterday I saw an episode of The Bachelor, and one of the female contestants knew everything about the handsome protagonist. Her knowledge was apparently so in-depth that even the other female contestants were amazed and asked her “how do you know so much about him?” She answered: “before joining the show I Googled him.”

Google is indeed one of the best searching tools out there, but where should you go if you want to know exactly what details are out there about you or someone you know (or want to know)? WebMii offers exactly that sort of information, both in organized and accurate manner. Try it for (and on) yourself, your friends, a celebrity you admire or detest, etc. If you don’t find this service worthwhile you can always try another one called Pipl, previously featured on AllMyFaves. If you are still dissatisfied, there’s always good ol’ Google.

infoMania – infoMania is “a half-hour satirical news show that airs on Current TV. The show puts a comedic spin on the 24-hour chaos and information overload brought about by the constant bombardment of the media.” The show airs on Thursdays at 10 pm Eastern and Pacific Times, and is also available on YouTube. If you are a big satire fan why not become an infoMania facebook follower?

To get you started, check out this video (see also below) or see their recap on the events of the week of January 14th. And if you didn’t end up completely hooked on infoMania’s beautiful and innovative news casting angle, check out some of Current’s other shows such as Vanguard Journalism, Embedded, SuperNews, The Rotten Tomatoes Show and Max and Jason: Still Up. I am sure you will find something interesting (and hopefully funny as well).

The Optimist – In 2009 we featured on our Weekly Faves two optimism-oriented news sites: Good News Now and Happy News. As the names of these suggest, both deal with good news worth knowing. The initiative of creating such sites is indeed blessed and appreciated, but to tell you the truth, neither of these offers a well-executed solid source for good news in my view (in terms of content and appearance).

The Optimist however is a different story. Its design is simply superb; starting with a cute lovable logo and on with the site’s overall look and feel that is fun and enjoyable to navigate through. In addition, the content is excellent and engaging. I found myself spending quite a lot of time browsing through the various sections and enjoying consuming the goodness in hefty amounts. I especially enjoyed the Optimist TV, which offers a list of many (smiley) videos. My favorites were 4 Laughing Babies and God is a DJ.

Black and WTF – Some sites can be explained in one sentence, and that is exactly the case here with Black and WTF: “a photoblog of really strange black & white photos.” Are there enough black and white photos for constant updates? Apparently yes, and you will be happy to hear the site updates quite frequently. I enjoyed going through its various photos, and below are some of my favorites.

Civilization Wars – Choose one of three races and lead your nation -after the fallen star- to find the secret force and to victory over the land invaders. Use the mouse cursor to select and order your troops. By the way, while searching for information on this game I stumbled upon War Before Civilization, which is a book with an interesting concept. It “deals with warfare conducted throughout human history by societies with little technology. In the book, Keeley aims to stop the apparent trend in seeing civilization as bad.” So I guess this means that civilization is great… For more intriguing games, click here.

9 GAG – 9 GAG is “a one stop deadliest handy micro-blog which collects any funny stuffs you find or create. It is your best time-killer and happy-pill.” This manifesto is hardly news. The Web is inundated with blogs that offer funny pictures, videos and textual content. So how come 9GAG scored the first spot on our Weekly Faves? For us at All My Faves the answer is obvious; excellent content combined with a simple and appealing interface is our bread and butter. Give it a try, I guarantee you will fall in love with 9GAG. For fast navigation make sure you check out their keyboard shortcuts, J, K and L. Below are some of the images I especially enjoyed. By the way, I strongly recommend following their updates via twitter. Have Fun!

TVDeck – My assumption is that one day we will watch TV shows, sport events, movies, music videos etc, exclusively on the Web. When will that happen? I guess that by 2030 or so no one will be subscribed to cable television service providers any more. Back to present day and brand new 2010, there is a certain concrete form of the futuristic forecast I made above, available today. Stop by TVDeck and tune into hours of marvelous content and videos on the net, with the huge added bonus of not having to search for them online. Sure, Hulu offers a similar service, but it focuses only on TV shows and movies…

TVDeck offers “a one-stop destination for the best programming online. It’s like a channel guide on satellite TV, but for online content.” If good quality video content is circulating in the Web somewhere, rest assured, TVDeck has it listed. Intrigued? I recommend starting with the Good Stuff channel or, if you are into sports, try out the NBA and NFL channels.