posted 03-14-2002 01:43 AM               

I usually have my home page set to my Yahoo! settings just like Dave, but recently I switched to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for a little variety. It’s a great site set up by the BBC, where registered visitors can post information on just about anything in the universe.

I check Corona’s Coming Attractions just about every day. Content director Patrick Sauriol is a fountain of fun information on movies currently in development, and not a bad writer to boot – unlike his contemporary, whose name I’m not about to mention, but who gets a lot more attention. Sauriol and his team of scoopers and reporters do a bang-up job of telling readers how much credence to give to a particular piece of information, unlike certain other movie websites, whose content editors just post every piece of questionable information that finds its way onto their Mallomar-cluttered desks.

I’ve recently added The White House to my folder full of humor sites. No, it’s not the real White House, though plenty of people mistake it for such, according to the email the site gets. It’s a parody site – possibly the best since The Onion. For those of us who think George W. Bush is an evil megalomaniac bent on little else but world domination, and who also think that John Ashcroft is quite literally insane, it’s a spectacularly funny site. Their vicious, tasteless attacks on First Lady Laura Bush are especially appreciated.

I use Rotten Tomatoes to search for movie reviews. I also look to Fark for a great variety of quirky news items, and usually end up playing follow-the-link until I’ve gotten so far away from my point of origin I can’t remember what it was. I go to AlterNet for points of view I’m not likely to find on the major networks.

posted 03-14-2002 01:45 AM               

Yahoo! – I also use a personalized Yahoo! page as my homepage. I have headlines in various subject areas as well as a local weather link. Yahoo! also sets up this nifty personalized pregnancy calendar for you on your homepage that gives you a different message about your baby’s development each day leading up to your due date. For example, on February 7th, it read “baby comforts himself by sucking thumb. Grasp is well developed and he may even grasp the umbilical cord at times.” As you get closer to your due date, it advises you to pack you hospital bag or assemble of a list of phone numbers of the people you’ll want to call when the baby arrives. Believe me, when you’re as tired and brain-dead as I am these days, those reminders help. Using this feature has lead to some comical moments, though. One day I was particularly worn out, so much that I could barely sit up. Convinced that some high-octane baby-building was going on, I logged on to check my calendar. Of course, that was the day that Yahoo! told me that the baby was developing toenails!

Amazon.com – Even though I’ve tried to curtail my spending in recent months, I still visit Amazon on a regular basis to read reviews, update my wish list, research baby products (thanks to their partnership with Toys R Us and Babies R Us,) etc. Lately, I’ve been simply researching books on Amazon, then heading to the library to check them out. Yeah, I know I’m not exactly bolstering our economy but have you seen how much baby products cost? Amazon’s wish list feature is a gift from the gods. It makes the gift buying I do for my family a snap. And, thanks to the affiliate program, I help out Not News at the same time. (Hint, hint.)

CNN – One of my first stops when I do my morning newsscan. How much time I spend here can vary and sometimes I prefer to read the day’s top stories first from my Yahoo! links to AP and Reuters, but I do like a couple of things here. For example, Paul Tautara’s movie reviews in the Entertainment section are not to be missed. No one can filet a movie and/or an actor quite like he can. I don’t always agree with him but I do respect his opinions – they’re usually very well-thought out. The business section is also decent if you’re in a hurry and just want the top news stories in a given industry. I definitely prefer CNN’s layout to MSNBC.

Bankrate.com – Since I work in financial services, hitting this site several times a week is essential. These guys survey rates from all over the country for just about every service you might need – loans, deposit accounts, credit cards. You can get overnight averages, nationwide averages, or a breakdown of the best rates in your city. Aside from rates, Bankrate.com also has a huge archive of well-written articles on just bout every personal finance topic imaginable – and they’re actually easy to understand. Much of the content from its now-defunct sister site thewhiz.com, which I touted last year on the boards, has been transferred over.

Epicurious.com – I love to cook and even though I don’t have the time or the energy to prepare many of the recipes on this web site, which is the online home of Gourmet and Bon Appetit, magazines, I really love reading about them. What sets this apart from many other cooking sites is that it allows users to rate the recipes they’ve tried and comment on any changes they feel need to be made. So, if you’re baking their recipe for “Chocolate Chunk Muffins”, for example, you can find out from other users if the recipe’s baking time is too long or if substituting milk chocolate chunks for the semisweet makes a difference. My first quibble is that there are a lot of elitist user/cooks who like to disparage any recipe that doesn’t sound like it came off the menu at a five-start restaurant. Fights on the message boards are common, and very tedious. My second quibble is about the ads. If pop-ups drive you nuts, don’t come to this site. They are constant. I guess because this place attracts such a lucrative demographic (one very similar to its magazine readership), parent company CondeNast just can’t pass up a single cent of potential ad revenue.

posted 03-14-2002 02:21 AM               

AtariAge - it reassures me to know that there are people other than myself who still have the Atari on hot standby. This is also the #1 spot to find out about "homebrew games," which are newly-programmed concoctions that people much brighter than myself with much more time on their hands turn out. Quite an addictive and dangerous place.

Film Score Monthly - the web home of Film Score Monthly magazine. If you like soundtracks, this is an interesting site, though its editors can frequently take on a bit of a pompous, self-important air; truthfully, and I hate saying this because they put a lot of effort into it and they're turning out a lot of new officially sanctioned CDs of very rare movie scores, you're better off saving your dough and just reading the website to minimize the aforementioned pomposity.

DoctorWhoNews.com - perhaps even more frightening than AtariAge, a glimpse at the startlingly active and ever-opinionated world of Doctor Who fandom. The Star Trek franchise would be lucky to have such a vocal following 12 years after it finally gets the axe.

Retrogaming Roundtable - another message board to which I make frequent (and frequently odd and disturbing) contributions. Again, more classic gaming goodness, though not limited to any one system or era; they even talk Xbox and PS2 there.

Hazardous Weather Outlook: National Weather Service, Tulsa Oklahoma - it's almost that time of year when checking this site out first thing in the morning and last thing at night is a potentially lifesaving necessity. A vital signpost on my continuing adventures in the middle of Tornado Alley; check it out and see how likely it is that my home will be laid to waste on a given day! I worry more about tornado warnings than I do about Tom Ridge's red alerts.

posted 03-19-2002 03:12 PM               

If you want a laugh, try anything over at Damn Hell Ass Kings. I love portals because they save me space on my bookmarks list.

I love me some Google, but you may also want to try Northern Light. It's got this cool way of organizing searches into folders that's helpful when searching large topics.