A Bloy and his Blog

My creative energies have been in a bit of a diminished state lately. Why? Probably because it’s the busiest time of the year at work and I am getting increasingly eager for spring and warmer weather to be here on a more permanent basis.

That brings up the question, how do you give those creative energies a boost? One of things I find useful is browsing the web (okay, that’s no big surprise). With that in mind, there are a few new links that I’ve recently added to my page of web sites I visit on a regular basis. First, the css Zen Garden and the CSS Vault are collections of standards-based web sites and designs that have been accumulated specifically to inspire creativity.

read the rest of: Better creativity through web surfing

Yesterday I got an email from someone who enjoys the wilderness as much as I do. After reading some of the things I have here, he thought I might be interested in the web sites of Sigurd Olson (a nature writer and conservationist) and the Listening Point Foundation which strives to promote Sigurd’s philosophy and build upon his wilderness education legacy.

Those sites are definitely worth a visit if the wilderness and conservation are as important to you as they are to me.

I signed up with a new ISP the other day. It felt a little weird as I’ve had the same ISP for seven years. Unfortunately, because of corporate buy-outs which led to bad service at inflated prices I was ready to leave. It’s a real shame. Long before the Internet was available to the mass public I was a member of Exec-PC BBS (a computer Bulletin Board Service). Even though the Internet has Flash animations, fancy graphics and a global community, somehow it was more fun reading simple text only messages and exchanging files with a local community of users. I think it was around eight years ago, they began to offer Internet service and it had the same high quality as the BBS. Five years later Exec-PC became the largest ISP in the midwest and the owner decided to sell his company (a good decision, I would have done the same). Service has been on a steady decline since. I am especially pleased about one thing though — all the sleazy, scum-sucking spammers have yet another dead e-mail address in their databases.

I definitely have not been paying enough attention to my blog lately. Sorry about that. In order to keep you thinking and out of trouble, here are some links to interesting things I’ve seen on the web recently.

First and foremost, Why you should fall to your knees and worship a librarian.

I must admit I do own a few albums from One Hundred Albums You Should Remove from Your Music Collection Immediately. Although I do disagree with a few of their removal selections (especially The Joshua Tree and Sgt. Peppers), reading this is worth it for the writer’s wit alone.

Did you know you can search Google using different languages, including Pig Latin, Klingon and my personal favorite Elmer Fudd?

Finally for those of you that aren’t easily offended, The Onion’s Anti-Spam Legislation Opposed By Powerful Penis-Enlargement Lobby is a real hoot.

Rock and roll can change your life. Thanks to the band Wilco (and a link on their site) I recently discovered Glorious Noise. A site that “contains some essays, stories and rants about how rock and roll can change your life.”

They also keep good current links to commentaries, news and other stuff on the net. Well worth a spot in your rock and roll bookmarks.

Snow Update: I guess it helps to whine a little. After my previous post about a lack of winter here in Wisconsin, yesterday we got 3 inches of snow. Not enough to snowshoe in, but it’s a start. Keep it up, Old Man Winter.

In addition to time teaching all things (see my New Year’s entry) I guess time takes its toll on us as well. Today I went to the optician because I was having problems with my new eyeglasses. He told me that one of the problems I was having is an indication that someday I’ll need to get bifocals. Yikes! Proof that yes, the calendar is correct, I am getting older.

I also discovered a cool link today, Google Zeitgeist. It’s a look at the most popular search terms used on Google in 2001. Be sure and check out the timeline for a snapshot of searches people made throughout the year.

I recently discovered bookmarklets. What are they? Small sections of JavaScript that you can use as a bookmark (or favorite). There are all kinds of bookmarklets around and if you know how to code JavaScript you can even create your own. What are some of the things they can do? Help you search faster, calculate or convert figures, view web pages differently (like change the font or background color)… the possibilities are endless.

I have a bookmarklet parked on my personal toolbar to search Google, which I use all the time. You can find a copy of it (tailored for your browser) here. The Bookmarklets Home Page also has quite a few more to get you started.