Be Smart

YouTube can be fun, and very occasionally brilliant, but a lot of its content is, let's face it, Amateur Hour. Not so Hulu.com, which just opened to the public. It features real TV shows and even movies. For free - so long as you're willing to watch ads too, of course. (Hulu estimates its ads at about 2 minutes per half-hour's entertainment, less than commercial television.)

I was one of Hulu's beta testers, but I didn't get the big head because there were 5 million of us. I only checked in a couple of times, partly because the selection was limited and partly because I'm spoiled by my fairly big TV screen - not to mention haunted by many hours of programming languishing unwatched on my DVR.

Some of Hulu's offerings are top-drawer. TV shows include "The Simpsons," "30 Rock," and "The Office" (US version). Among the movies are "Sideways," "Ice Age," and "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" - plus several golden oldies. There is, of course, also dreck. Exhibit A: "Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine." I can tell it's dreck without having watched a minute of it. Don't argue.