teh Forum

So it is of course pretty common these days to start the day out with a little web surfing. Some would say it has replaced the by-gone routine of sitting down and reading the morning paper. I love to start the day with the paper. Although I haven't routinely in close to a year, this morning I grabbed a latte at the local independent coffee house and read the Seattle Times. If I have a subscription I sometimes get overwhelmed by a mounting pile of papers from a few day absence. It seems kinda all or nothing, I have to read the paper everyday or not at all.

Wow, where am I going with this. This isn't why I started this thread at all.

Anyway, I am interested in what sites you visit on a daily basis. I guess I have never really been able to follow a news site for the same reason. I get overwhelmed and feel like I have to read 10 days worth of news on 10 different sites...and then just say screw it. But I feel like if I had a routine I would just get the new news everyday. There are just so many good news sites/forums/blogs/etc out there.

My list of sites I go to nearly every day consists of two forums:
This forum and the Snow Japan forum.

There are other forums I check out regularly (phpBB, xbox-scene) but more as resources than communities.

So which are the best? What can you not start or get through the day without checking out?

http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/ Good source for weird stuff happening

http://snopes.com/info/whatsnew.asp Good urban legend page...this link takes you to the newest stuff...usually updated once a day

http://thefiretheft.com News on the new SDRE (minus Dan Hoerner) project. Pretty interesting forum under the community tab

http://enderzero.net Of course!

http://mitchhedburg.net/home.html Just checking to see if he'll be here soon!

that and seattletimes.com and seattlepi.com, independent.co.uk, cnn.com for my news sources...........

Mine consist of bands and clubs more than anything ..

http://seattlemetal.com
A one stop hit for what heavy music is coming to in seattle. A pretty Killer forum as well.

http://www.floateronline.com/
Well first off .. their official site aint got nuthinz .. I prefer this one.
Visit it daily I do.

http://blowmeuptom.com/
always some good links and witty banter to soak up. Changes/adds links
every 2-3 days.

http://alkaidiggins.com/
Only cuz they are the worst band on earth and I always like to leave posts
telling them just that. Also a daily occurence.

http://giantradio.com/
BADASS site full of northwest musicians. A top 20 list and a chance to keep up on what's happening around the area. This site I usually stay on for most the day cuz it's 100% free and there is ALOT to dig through.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/home/
I'll save my 50cents and just read it online.

http://www.thestranger.com/current/
I usually start here with planning the weekend events/shows to go see.

Snow Japan forum
I'm only productive for about 15 minutes a day because of this site...

This PowerHouse of the Web
This site also contributes quite a bit to my procrastination and time wasting

BoingBoing
Blog with great commentary, and a superstar cast of editors. They usually post the quirkier web-memes that go around, and tend to focus on tech-related phenomenon. Updated daily.

Geisha asobi blog
Blog run by a 20something japanese girl. Has alot of great "WTF only in Japan links," and other great off-beat stuff. Updated sporadically. Seems like once every 2 or 3 days.

MilkandCookies
I hit this up when I really feel like saying "fuck it" and flake out from work completely. Frequently updated blog of primarily web-games, and videos. Always fun stuff.

J-Walk Blog
Blog done by an ex-pat. Generally interesting stuff... Japan related links show up quite often...

IGN PC
This site is only worth looking at with an IGN insider pass which I snagged from a buddy of mine who got suckered into paying.... Pretty good game coverage, and great hi-res media.

DesignIsKinky
THE design blog. Links to the most innovative design online and off. These guys are always on top of the bleeding edge of whats going on in the design world.

the creatures in my head
My college buddy's website that features a new creature every day. He works for nickelodeon online yet still manages to find the time to do an illustration every day, make posters, T-shirts, and put out a book. He's one talented mofo.

WorkInJapan.com
JobsInJapan.com
CareerCross.co.jp
GaijinPot.com
JobDragon.com
Because I'm always looking for a new fuckin job.
Could score a sweet job back home... but.... damn you Japan.... damn you!!! Why can't I leave!?

As a news/political junkie studying international law, I hit most of these daily:

Indy news:
http://www.alternet.org/
http://www.indymedia.org/
http://www.tompaine.com/

Liberal news:
http://www.buzzflash.com/

Conservative news:
http://www.drudgereport.com/ (sometimes like reading news off the bathroom wall)

Foreign news:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/ (amazing that Brit coverage of US events is better than US press)
http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/home/index.html
http://www.wnnetwork.com/ (you can read the news from any country/topic here - amazing)

I also read the NYTimes, SeattleTimes, Salon.com, and BBCnews on my PalmPilot most every day. So basically I am a friggin geek!

shit to make you think (not that anyone really has any time)
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
http://www.edwardsaid.org/
http://abuss.narod.ru/Biblio/WS/ws-history_intro.htm
http://www.soc.qc.edu/gramsci/
http://www.cwu.edu/~millerj/nietzsche/
http://foucault.info/

Damnation that is too much! I'm going to read some comics
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/
and smut, but everyone knows those links already!

Oh... that reminds me... along political lines... this site is always a good read:

The Progressive

My most frequent visits are to this site, the aforementioned SnowJapan, ESPN.com, New York Times online, The Onion, Homestar Runner, etc.
Other than that, I figure everybody already knows these, but I also check these sporadically:

http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/home.html
Home of "My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable" and "Get Yer War On" (I'm not a big fan of the newer "My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable" though)

Fucked Gaijin
http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/portal.php?page=1
Pretty much only useful for the Japan-based folks.

Engrish
http://www.engrish.com/
Collection of mostly Japanese mis-use of English grammar, spelling, context, etc.

Jockey Slut
http://www.jockeyslut.com/
Good music mag from England. Sometimes hard to find the hardcopy edition in Tokyo, so I have to resort to the slimmed-down on-line version. Has some interesting links updated each month.

thassabout it...

enderzero wrote: I get overwhelmed and feel like I have to read 10 days worth of news on 10 different sites...and then just say screw it.

Dyamn! You wanna talk about being overwhemed? This list we got goin here is daunting.

another one fo' dat azz........


http://www.wikipedia.org/

Wikipedia is a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia. We started in January 2001 and are currently working on 146430 articles in the English version. Visit the help page and experiment in the sandbox to learn how you can edit any article.


I haven't checked it out too much so far, but the premise is cool! Worth checking out for sure.......


This one is daunting all by it's lonesome

I forgot this little useful gem:

http://world.altavista.com/ (this is the Babel Fish translator, yes like in "Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy." Just cut and paste to translate, pretty handy.)

Goemon listed http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/home.html and I must say that "Get Yer War On" is awesome. The guy who draws it owns Confounded Books in Sea-Town.

I saw a piece about that Wikipedia project on the news just the other night; pretty weird communal effort there. The news piece was calling it a kind of "open source encyclopedia" drawing comparisons with Linux. I wonder if that kind of project is susceptible to "attacks" by like-minded groups of people hell-bent on influencing the encyclopedia to reflect their particular world-view? Like, what if a bunch of Jeebus-lovers tried to make the Wikipedia all about him?

Yeah, SpeedCricket! "Operation Enduring Freedom" is in the motherfucking house!

G-mon - fuckedgaijin is a good one.... haven't seen that one yet. Are you on their forum at all? How's the quality of discussion?

Mr. S: I don't post on the fucked forum at all, but I sometimes lurk to pluck out a gem or two of useful info. The participants seem to vary from cool inside bits to typical Japan Today posters complaining about every little thing.

Oh man... JapanToday takes the cake for worst forum. I was on there a little bit in its early days, but jeebus... that forum was a downward spiral from day one.

Every time I have popped on to the JT forum has been an exercise in forehead slapping. What is wrong with those people? It is so diametrically opposed to the SJ forum...granted with all the new punks on SJ it isn't as good as it was in the glory days of 2002 . But seriously, it is pretty hard to find a forum like SJ that has good discussion, a manageable amount of posts, and for the most part such a cool bunch of people.

"Operation Enduring Our Freedom To Bomb The Living Fuck Out Of You" is in the motherfucking house!

fave get yer war on:

x: I'm a little confused. Are US citizens allowed to killed suspected terrorists now?
y: I think so. But you have to be really, really sure the person is a suspected terrorist! So be super-double sure that they make you feel nervous!
x: Well, this dude standing by my desk is wearing a really fucked up jacket - can I cap him?

One of my favorite "Get Yer War On":



And this gem:
"I can't believe Jesus and Allah are fighting again! Someone's gonna get their eye poked out!"

Mr *, what handle were you using on the JT forum?

I posted a shitload on there as Ocean11 right from Day 1 of JT, but got sick of the unrelenting spleen and predictability of many of the posters. I haven't been there for several years now.

I'm going to wait for some snow before bothering with SnowJapan again.

There's an English language bookshop in Matsuyama, so I'm having a wallow in paper-based text at the moment. Wallow, wallow.

Ocean - I wasn't on the JT forum until it was, i guess, re-opened last year. I used to post under the name Che, but I stopped posting about a month or so after I started. For some reason, the dredges of morons living in Japan gravitate towards that forum. It's idiocy like this that's all too common there.

Whoa! Sophisticated stuff...

I'd forgotten to mention the When I Am King webcomic:
http://www.demian5.com

The original story is still available for free viewing at the top of the page; looks like the artist is adding a "pay-per-view" subscription section with new stories later this month. I may actually pay for that since the first story was so good.

G - That was really cool. Slightly disturbing, but amazing concept and design....

Peep this pretty amazing johnny walker commercial. Incredible how much money those guys spend on advertising...

I hate this thread!

The original point was to just come up with a few sites I could work into a routine and not feel like I was missing all kinds of stuff because I was too overwhelemed.

...damn, if I had a job I could just surf the damn web (or chat )all day I am sure I would have plenty of time to read 6 million sites regularly.

Naaa I am just kiddin - this is a good thread. Just a bit ":shock:" . Keep em comin.

only 23% evil.... we all have to try much harder....

Enter a URL, and "The Gematriculator" will determine the percentages of good and evil.

I thought it was working when it analyzed the Vatican homepage as 1% evil and 99% good
(http://www.vatican.va/)

But somehow the Church of Satan is only 48% evil?
http://www.churchofsatan.com/

And the so-called "Portal of Evil" is 50/50???
http://www.portalofevil.com/

maybe it's just that "the portal of evil" and the "church of satan" are only poseur evil....

I've found that it's fairly accurate:

http://www.whitehouse.gov
is 63% evil, 37% good

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com is
95% evil, 5% good

http://www.falwell.com is
77% evil, 23% good

http://www.starbucks.com is
48% evil, 52% good

Just thought I'd throw that one in there for ya Ender & Seattle folks

The score for the Church of Satan can be explained by the fact that they've got it nearly half right.

My business website is 66% evil and 34% good, which is about right too. I'm quite impressed with this function.

However, when we use the tool to analyze Asian-themed porn sites, we 'see through a glass but darkly'.
http://www.100asians.com/pictures/index.php, which has very little in the way of annoying pop-ups and generally quite a good selection of my favourite amateurs gets a 52% evil, 48% good rating. Whereas http://www.kikos-asian-thumbs.com/ which increasingly favours giving you the runaround, scores 19% evil, 81% good.

Could it be that the good Lord doesn't approve of Asian-themed porn sites and is not pleased with those sites that make access to it easy? I shall have to ask Him tonight when I say my prayers.

Ocean: When trying to contact God, please understand that he may not be able to take your call as he is currently pre-occupied with extricating his son from a chicken basket.
(Holy Damn! That's a god-damned long run-on, by Jesus!).