Things found while wasting time exploring

I was joking around earlier on my memes site about having magnetic hands, but it occurs to me that when one surfs around sometimes the things we stumble upon feel a bit like the debris picked up by magnets. Now, some of it's junk, clearly. But some of it is worth passing along. Unfortunately, like most situations in life, I don't always remember where I found this stuff.

• EveryBlock--only available in New York, SF, and Chicago now, but really cool. So, I searched SoHo in NYC and this is what came up: current photos, building violations, crime, news, business reviews, inpections... Kinda cool if you live in the right places.



• If you stay in hotels, you probably already know that the rooms are cleaned in a somewhat superficial way. Bedspreads are not washed that frequently, and dustballs accumulate, and so forth. However, I ran across and icky thing on Snopes about the glassware in hotel rooms. Gross. BYODrinking Cup from now on!!



• Thanks to Jed at Lorem Ipsum who did a lovely post on women in fiction and movies that really struck me as critically important for so many reasons. I love the so-called Bechdel Test: Does the work (1) contain two or more women, who (2) talk with each other, (3) about something other than a man? Yeah! This could be why I don't go to the movies very often....



• Now I'll whine: Why don't the forums on Wordsmith and Word Wizard have RSS feeds? I don't want to register anyplace, and I don't want to get more stuff sent to my email address. Gimme a feed!



• Speaking of words, have you played Free Rice lately? Why not?



• Using this wonderful setup, I can now access my computer at work from anywhere else with an internet connection. That means that, in theory, I could catalog from the comfort of my house. Hee.



• Another thing that I am absolutely LOVING is having access to Sparky's current grade situation. Our school system is using Home Access Center from SunGard to provide this info for parents (and students), and it is wonderful!

OK, I think that's all the useful debris I've picked up recently. Happy surfing.