Other web sites I like:
Of course everyone who has a web site has to have a links page so here's mine. These are sites either that I'm in the habit of visiting often or that I find useful.
Types: All News Blogs Books Columns Comics Gay Tech ReferenceVisited: All Daily Weekly Monthly Quarterly Infrequently Other
News
These are the sites I visit to learn about current events. Many of these sites also have good feature articles and commentaries.
The Daily Telegraph: Sure the New York Times or Washington Post may be the American papers of record, but I like getting a British perspective [D]
Dayton City Paper: Dayton's lucky enough to have an independent weekly newspaper, and this is it. The layout of the site is a bit weird, but you can read everything since they went online (unlike the Dayton Daily News). [W]
Dayton Daily News: An ugly, poorly-designed site with an annoying registration requirement, but worth visiting for me as a Daytonian because it covers Dayton (as does the Dayton City Paper). [D]
The Morning News: A New York-based online news magazine [W]
Queer Day: Blog or news site? Whatever you call it, it's updated daily with news from around the globe that affects gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders and allies (in other words, queers) [D]
The Raw Story: If you're a Republican who can't stand the New York Times or NPR for being too liberal, don't even bother to look at this site; try lucianne.com instead. [W]
Salon: Another web magazine, similar to Slate, but definitely independent (you have to watch a short commercial each day to get a pass to read the articles, but it's worth it if you're too cheap to subscribe [plus you can background that window, do something else and come back when the commercial is over) [D]
Slate Magazine: Yes, it's owned by Microsoft but it has good articles on issues in the news and about life in general [D]
The Village Voice: The Voice has good news coverage and interesting features (including Savage Love -- scroll down to find it). [D]
Wired News: News from a techno/geek perspective but about all issues [D]
Blogs
What counts as a blog? Perhaps self-identification is all that matters. At any rate, these are the blogs I find entertaining or interesting.
Andrew Sullivan: British ex-pat, former editor of The New Republic, current pundit and writer, alleged barebacker, Republican supporter and same sex marriage advocate. I don't always agree with what he writes, but he's almost always interesting. [D]
Blog of a Bookslut: Interesting bits about books, authors and also current events. [W]
Boing Boing: I think I came across this after reading a novel by Cory Doctorow, and he does post cool stuff here, but so do some of his friends, on items related to politics and technology, among other topics. [D]
Dallas' Journal: His complaints while he was in Europe were amusing [W]
The Gadgets Weblog: Updated daily with news and reviews about all the latest and greatest hi tech gadgets [D]
How was your day, Dan?: I watched Dan Renzi when he was the gay guy on Real World Miami, and I came across his site after he was busted for masturbating in an adult theater in Kansas City. His site's worth visiting once in a while. [W]
Kinja, the weblog guide: This cool site aggregates other sites, in this case gay weblogs, making it easy to find interesting stuff and sites. [D]
Queer Day: Blog or news site? Whatever you call it, it's updated daily with news from around the globe that affects gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders and allies (in other words, queers) [D]
This Modern World: This is the blog of Tom Tomorrow, the creator of the comic strip of the same name (which you can see on Mondays at Salon.) [W]
Today in Alternate History: I've enjoyed a few books about alternate histories and really enjoy this site, with Robbie Taylor's clever twists on people and events. [D]
Daniel's Manhattan Architecture: It was after seeing Azonick's site that I decided to give blogging a try myself. His various designs were very visually appealing, but unfortunately he's given up blogging, letting his azonick.com domain lapse, though his Manhattan Architecture pages are worth a visit. [O]
Isaac Stolzfuts' Journal: The blog of an 84 year old gay Amish artist who channels a gay man in an alternate reality. Strange, but entertaining once in a while. [I]
Nick's Place: I met Nick at Wright State, and although he no longer goes there, he e-mails me once in a while to tell me when I shouldn't being using JavaScript. He doesn't update his site every day, but I check it once in a while. [I]
The Only Juan: A friend of Azonick who also doesn't update his site every day but posts some interesting things [I]
Wil Wheaton's blog: I found his blog when I was first working on mine, and while I don't read it every day or even every week, I do visit it sometimes. [I]
Books
Right now I have only two links here, and their description is pertinent most to college students.
The College Store: If you're a student at Wright State and have to buy textbooks, come here first. They have a physical presence across from campus on Colonel Glenn, but you should check out the web site because it does what Wright State's ROX site should do, namely let you look up which text books are required for each class. [Q]
Amazon.com: I visit this site more than quarterly, coming whenever I want information on a particular book or to find books on a subject. However, each quarter once I know which textbooks I need to buy (visit The College Store for that), I go to Amazon to check prices. You can usually find them much more cheaply than even going to the College Store, and lots of people sell used books through Amazon. Yes, there are issues with Amazon, so if you prefer, find another source, but my point is that you can easily save money on your textbook purchases, all from the comfort of your own computer. [Q]
Columns
These columns are on various topics but worth reading.
Deb Price: Views from an openly lesbian columnist (scroll down the page to find her) [W]
Miss Manners: I just love Judith Martin's sense of humor. You can also find her column at The Buffalo News, the Chicago Tribune and The San Diego Union-Tribune, in case you need a new fix and the Post doesn't have the latest. [W]
New York Times Magazine: Two columns in particular, "The Ethicist" by Randy Cohen, and "On Language" by William Safire [W]
Savage Love: Dan Savage is gay but he'll answer questions about sex from anyone -- gay, straight, bi or otherwise. The Stranger is his home, but he's also in The Village Voice, and he has a special gay version of his column at gay.com. [W]
Comics
I used to spend some time each day reading the comics page when I subscribed to the local newspaper. I could still read most of those strips online, but I care about only a few. Also, some of the best comics aren't printed in a paper.
Dilbert: Still going strong (and probably will be as long as there are Induhviduals) [D]
Kyle's Bed & Breakfast: A soap-operaish, yet still funny, comic strip about a group of hunky gay guys [M]
Satan's Salvation: Bob has a good point with this series of cartoons, namely what kind of games is the God that most Christians believe in playing? Most of those people would probably shit bricks if they knew that I consider myself Christian yet find these cartoons hilariously funny! [I]
User Friendly: Perhaps not the first comic strip about computer geeks you'd think of but perhaps even better [D]
Gay
Why do we need special sites? Because we're gay! Get used to it.
CRVBOY: Lots of fun short stories, usually serialized with chapters uploaded as they're written, many of which deal with same sex relationships. We could all benefit from the diversion of a romance novel once in a while, couldn't we? [I]
Gay Porn Blog: Perhaps this should go under blogs as well, but I just visit this site to look at pics of cute porn stars. [W]
Kinja, the weblog guide: This cool site aggregates other sites, in this case gay weblogs, making it easy to find interesting stuff and sites. [D]
Kyle's Bed & Breakfast: A soap-operaish, yet still funny, comic strip about a group of hunky gay guys [M]
Queer Day: Blog or news site? Whatever you call it, it's updated daily with news from around the globe that affects gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders and allies (in other words, queers) [D]
RandyXboy: A Cincinnati-area guy who likes to post naked self pics [I]
Tottyland: Totty is some Briticism for cute person, usually girl, I assume, but this blog is about links to pics of hot guys, mixed in with some links to newsworthy items. [W]
Tech
If you have no geek tendencies, you might not care about any of these sites.
Browser ID Strings: This is a good site for figuring out which browser corresponds to a particular user agent string. [W]
Pocket PC Passion: Not updated as frequently as Pocket PC Thoughts, although he sometimes scoops his competition [M]
Pocket PC Thoughts: I have a Compaq iPaq 3955 Pocket PC which I find extremely useful. Not only does it keep all my contact and calendar information but I take all my class notes on it (using a Targus Stowaway Portable Keyboard). I read e-Books and listen to audiobooks on it. It even does wifi with a SanDisk SD Wi-Fi Card. I'm not doing too badly when it comes to keeping current with technology, though I can't afford to be absolutely cutting edge. Yet when I want to hear about the latest thing related to Pocket PC, this site is where I go. [W]
Style Master CSS tutorial: If you don't know anything about CSS, this is a very good tutorial that will quickly teach you the basics. They want to see you their stylesheet editor, but you can follow their tutorial just using a text editor. [O]
Reference
It's hard to comprehend how difficult getting information used to be. Even if you were lucky enough to own the particular book that had the information, you had to put down everything you were doing to find the book and flip through it. Some information, such as how to pronounce a word, just wasn't available in a user-friendly format. What's more amazing today though is how many Internet users don't know what's available to them.
Merriam-Webster Online: A very useful site if you don't know what a word means but even better if you don't know how to pronounce a word -- you can listen to it being spoken [O]
LEO English-German dictionary: Great for making the right word choice if you're working on something in German and now with sound files for German pronunciation (did they get that idea from m-w.com?) [O]
Dayton Metro Library premium services: The library has subscriptions to many premium online services that we get to use for free, just by having a library card [O]
Ohio Public Library Information Network: Even more reference databases (Were you upset when Encyclopedia Britannica started charging? It's free here!) [O]
