The Holy Grail of the Internet

Marvin, this post is dedicated to you.

StumbleUpon is, without a doubt, my absolute favorite website in the entirety of the World Wide Web.  Major snaps to whomever was ingenious enough to invent it.  What it is, is a website that directs you to other websites.  A simple enough concept with AMAZING results.

So basically what you do is go to StumbleUpon and check all of the little boxes that you like (mine include humor, rugby, scuba diving, travel, Australia, and bizarre/oddities, to name a few).  Then you click that yellow stumble button, sit back, and allow yourself to be entertained.  StumbleUpon always manages to bring up just what I am in the mood for, and receives a hearty dose of laughter in return.  How StumbleUpon manages this, I care not, all I know is that it's magic.

I have found a lot of what my future posts will be about on StumbleUpon (how do you think I came across FOUND?), and am on it probably everyday.  The one drawback:  it takes over my life.  While I am not up to the 55,000 Stumbles that my friend Ben has, I do waste way too much time on it when I should be reading our textbook, for example. (Not that I don't read our textbook, because I do.)  Nonetheless, if left unchecked, most people will fall victim to what I like to call SUDD (Stumble Upon Dependence Disorder).  Even while I write this entry, I am finding myself being lured away. Yep, just spent a good twenty minutes right there Stumbling.  Whoops.  It's strangely seductive.  I know many a person who has stayed up all night because during the prime studying hours of 8PM-11PM, they Stumbled instead of being a good student and getting all of their work done.  

In the words of my lovely roommate, Sam Mitchell, "StumbleUpon has broadened my internet experiences, and I am a better person for it.  It is a great procrastination tool."  So, please do yourself a favor, and Stumble every once in a while.

Lost and FOUND

FOUND Magazine was started by two dudes who randomly found a note stuck on their windshield.  They found it interesting, and then started asking their friends if they had ever found miscellaneous notes, lists, or pictures, and began a collection.  This collection was first published in a series of books, and then made it's way into a website.  The website includes not only the original found items, but people are encouraged to post things that they have found as well.

The original FOUND.

I love this website for many reasons.  First of all, it comes up on my StumbleUpon all the time, so I see it pretty regularly.  I also love it because of the posts which people find.  Some are funny, some are nonsensical, and some are very poignant.  My favorite in probably the original item of FOUND, and note accidentally stuck on the founder's windshield.  The note (pictured on right) is wonderful.  After ripping this guy, Mario, to shreds by accusing him of cheating on her, Amber turns right around and asks him to page her?  It is the epitome of relationships in the real world.  The fact that this note never made it into Mario's hands could have been crisis averted, or have just made Amber and Mario's relationship more convoluted.  (and seeing as she put in under the wrong car's windshield, which must have looked like Mario's car, was he ever a cheater in the first place?)  But the beauty of the situation is that we will never know.  I love to think of different situations of how the affects of these notes could have played out.  Are Mario and Amber still together?  Is he actually a scumbag cheater?  Is Amber just paranoid?  Who knows.

Not all of the notes are as dramatic as Amber's.  Just the other day I saw one from a young boy, Trevor, asking a girl, Molly, to be his valentine.  Others have been old family portraits from the early 1900's, and some are ads for a lost dog or pogo stick.  Each post always makes me wonder about the people who made them.  Did Molly accept Trevor's proposal?  Who are the people in the photo?  Was the dog/ pogo stick ever found?  I'll never know the answer to those questions, but I'll never stop asking.

The Giving Spirit

I was recently on www.heifer.org buying a friend a birthday present (she got ducks), and I was thinking about how easy it is to make somebody's life a little better, with practically no inconvenience on your part.  I am a Heiferaholic.  Whenever someone needs a gift, whether it be a birthday or Christmas or just because, Heifer.org in my go-to website.  I've given ducks, lambs, chickens, and honeybees to people all over the world.  None of my friends or family members need anymore material things, so I give a donation on their behalf.  They always appreciate it, and I'm sure the people on the receiving end do as well.

FreeRice.com is without a doubt one of the best websites I've have ever been on.  One of my middle school teachers introduced it to me, and I've been visiting it frequently ever since.  What you do it match words with their synonyms.  You are given a choice of four words or short phrases to make to the original word.  But what makes this website so good is that for each pairing you get correct, the website will donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations, who then gives it to an area in need.  So along with being great practice for when I was studying for my SATs, Freerice.com also does the world some good.

There are many websites like this, a favorite of mine being www.freepoverty.com, which donates cups of water as you locate cities all over the world.  A website that makes you smarter AND helps people in need?  What could be better?  And all it takes is a minute of two of your free time and brain power.  There are some many people in the world who don't have necessities like clean water, so why not do something to help them?  It's fun, easy, and will give you good karma points.

Introduction

As a college student with an unprecedented amount of free time, I have discovered the true marvels of the internet.  With the help of Facebook, Youtube, and the champion of time-wasting, StumbleUpon, I now have an unlimited supply of websites upon which I can procrastinate.  But what good would it be if I didn't share the gems I've found? Some are popular, some are not, but it doesn't really matter because you will love them all the same.  And you WILL love them.  I have a great taste in websites.  The internet has eaten many hours that should have been spent studying.  Oh well.  At least one good thing came out of my boredom: the inspiration for this blog (even if it is an assigned project for my class).  So brace yourselves, because once you start Stumbling, you never stop.

To kick off my internet extravaganza, I'm going to tell you guys about one of my all-time, favorite websites has got to be www.oddee.com.  'A Blog on Oddities,' it is basically a site full of lists of strange things.  With new lists posted daily, I am on this website every morning right after I open my Webmail and my Facebook.  Each new post is as entertaining as the one before, and none of them disappoint.  Some of my favorites include '18 Hilarious Photobombs' and '13 Coolest Airplane Paint Jobs.'  The entries range from so-cute-you'll-puke to Not Suitable For Work raunchy, but each entry is unique.  Another highlight of Oddee is the 'Weird News' section in between the lists, which are current odd news stories from around the world.  For example, today's headline is, "Teens Snorted Ashes of Man, 2 Dogs Mistaken For Cocaine."  (Yeah, that actually happened.)  It directs you to an outside website, often AOL News or Yahoo! News, and you can read to your little heart's content about stupid teenage thieves who snorted a poor woman's husband and her two Great Danes.