This post comes only minutes before I turn off my lights to observe Earth Hour (8:30 pm). Do you suppose it’s cheating to continue using the computer? If so, then I suppose I should turn off CNN, too. Ah, well, I’ll just have to pretend that I’m back at Wat Opot for an hour. Mr. Rat, geckos, demon wolves… ready? (Wow. I even miss the demon wolves.)
Meanwhile…
Being in the hospital is a perfect opportunity to spend hours wandering around the Internet looking for entertainment. In my case, the criteria for acceptable hospital web entertainment include not having to have Java or Flash installed, not needing a partner for any kind of virtual exchange, and not having to think too hard. I’m finding that I also have a weakness for unbridled, honest human expression… Below is a short selection of some of the sites I’ve stumbled upon in my wanderings.
- The Yarn Harlot -(http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/) – whether you’re into knitting or not, this blog is a refreshing place to visit for those of us who regret Erma Bombeck’s passing. Spend enough time reading, and you may end up having a sudden desire to run out and buy some knitting needles. Or you might decide that knitting is fraught with peril and NOT for you. At the very least, you’ll make your knitting relatives happy when you can tell them that you read it on “The Yarn Harlot’s blog.”
- I occasionally like reading The Onion (http://www.theonion.com/content/index), but only when I feel that I’m up on what’s going on in the world. It can be a bit dangerous for the expat who isn’t really in touch with the REAL news. Peter Sagal, on NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me…” (http://www.npr.org/programs/waitwait/) once mentioned the fact that a certain number of their listeners got ALL of their information on current events from the show… and how scary that was. Some weeks, I’m one of those listeners…
- Best of Craig’s List – (http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/all/) – not all of the posts are funny, or even necessarily interesting, but this is a great place to come if you’re looking for insight into human nature… of all kinds.
- The Halfbakery – (http://www.halfbakery.com/)- a surrealistic, collaborative repository for half-baked ideas. Very, very good for a walk on the creative wild side. It does, however, almost disqualify itself for this list (see “criteria”, above) because it mixes up the neurons in a most pleasing way.
- You’ll know when you’ve seen and read it all when you come to… http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm … the End of the Internet.
Yes, this knitting relative is happy that you’re reading the Harlot! She’s frequently very crazy, to say the least, but a wonderful person, and quite a worldwide yarn and pattern enabler. I speak from experience.
Can you see the darkness out your window?? Some of those high-rises should be lightless – 11 hours and we’ll be there, too. But I don’t think we’ll see any difference out our windows. Just a frozen lake and trees and trees and more trees, all non-electrified. Ten years ago a different story from our 19th floor windows in downtown Minneapolis!!
z
Not darkness, no; there are too many buildings with neon things on them. And it’s just past 9:30 anyway – I’ve been staring intently out the window to see if any lights would go back ON… I can’t really tell. But then again, 9:30 is pretty late in these parts, so anyone who turned off the lights at 8:30 is probably already asleep…
If you’re bored with the Vietnamese selection of television, you can always watch TV shows online at http://www.sidereel.com, http://www.surfthechannel.com, http://www.alluc.org, and a handful of others. These sites don’t require you to be in the US to watch (like ABC or FOX do) and don’t have anything to download. They link to other sites (mostly Chinese) that play the shows, often with subtitles. And you can watch anything from Friends or Seinfeld from the 90s to last week’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy!
Another
Another
Another site you might like is http://www.musicovery.com, where you put in your mood and the genres of music you like and creates a random playlist for you. There’s also http://www.stumbleupon.com, where you have to download a toolbar and enter your preferences (whether you like funny stuff, animals, politics, etc.). Then, a button appears on your browser and when you click it, it’ll take you to some random site it thinks you’ll like based on other users. Pretty cool. I hope this helps!
Take care,
Allison
Hey, dear. I’ve been waiting for ages to have an excuse to play with StumbleUpon, and I’ve finally installed it in my Firefox browser. The third site it led me to was musicovery.com! Thanks for the hints… I certainly can’t complain about being bored any more…
I think I found musicovery through stumbleupon too. It’s great for mood music while doing homework (I put in Dark and Calm)
And I can’t believe I forgot my favorite site… http://www.icanhascheezburger.com, which is pictures of cats with funny captions. There are affiliate sites with pictures of dogs, celebrities, politicians, and signs in terrible English which are also very funny. Of course, you might want to wait until your ribs are healed so it doesn’t hurt too much to laugh!!
Thinking of you!
A