T N.

Who doesn't love ninjas? If you don't love ninjas, you might not be a human being with a soul. You might be soulless, and who wants that? If you want to find where your soul is, learn all you can about ninjas at realultimatepower.net. I actually showed this to one of my students long ago (bad judgement - don't teach your students about ninjas until they're of age) and my friend Nate, and they couldn't stop talking to each other about the real ultimate power of ninjas.

I laugh out loud at almost every single Maddox Best Page in the Universe entry. I love everything that comes out of this guy's mouth. Some of this stuff might be offensive, but most are just plain insightful (one thing that PC users can do that MAC users can't: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=macs_cant) and hilarious (95% of posts).

An Asian person who has not made fun of a family member's English has got to speak a little Engrish him/herself. Engrish.com is a site that compiles all of those strange, indecipherable, incomprehensible signs, food labels, company taglines, t-shirt designs, etc. that you can find in Asian countries, Chinatown stores or on the cards that your (asian) parents (if you have some) write you on your birthday. I get a huge kick out of a lot of these. Here are the most popular: http://www.engrish.com/most-popular/

I check foundmagazine.com both out of fear and for want of laughter. I fear that one day one of my old high school letters to friends will be found and then all of my silly childhood crushes will be revealed. I also check because I know that I'll get laughter or at least a nostalgia that's not even my own. Found Magazine is both a print magazine and a website dedicated to the things (pictures, letters, to-do lists, notes, etc.) that we might find stuffed in the corners of our movie seat cushions, hiding between page 97 and 98 of a library book, left behind on a store countertop or neglected and likely to be lost to street gutters. The idea is that people can send these items in to Found, and they publish one found item a day. It's an interesting glimpse into the lives of others and definitely worthy of a looksie.

Pointy Records is an independent music label based in London. I've bought a couple of Flotation Toy Warning and Clientele CDs from these guys. Sarah from Pointy Records was immediately responsive each time. The CDs came, shipped from England, quickly and were well-packaged. Sarah even included a hand-written note with the FTW album, saying thanks for the purchase.

I love my Dell laptop as well as how easy it was to find the laptop I needed on dell.com. However, what I didn't love was the fact that the shipping kept getting pushed back to the point where my laptop took over 3 weeks to arrive. However, everything was intact upon arrival. I do have to comment that Dell customer service has been incredible, the last few times I've had to use it with my older laptop. When that laptop had an issue, Dell sent me a new harddrive, no questions asked. That arrived quickly, and shipping to return the old harddrive was completely free.

I used the free online panda activescan 2.0 to get rid of one pretty nasty virus and a handful of fairly harmless but annoying bugs that other programs couldn't handle. It's thorough and fairly quick, though the one month trial of the full program was slightly irritating as I had issues with using some programs easily and getting access to my workplace server due to it. I wouldn't buy the global security program but will keep using the activescan.

Woot.com sells one item a day until that item sells out or until the day is over. Usually the former happens first because the things they sell are pretty neat and are sold at very cheap prices. I've had friends buy from here, and things always come as advertised and on time. The woot community is helpful, and the owners seem like honest, likable characters who report that they predict profitability by 2043.

The Baltimore Art Museum has this super fun and interactive site (http://www.artbma.org/flash/F_conekids.swf) where kids can go and explore more about Henri Matisse The site has historical facts presented in kid-friendly ways as well as games and activities that stimulate visual processing, problem solving, creativity, and learning about basic art concepts. It's the best one I've seen on Matisse for kids!

I love the New York Times, when I can get a moment to read it. They recently added an article skimmer interface that makes it easy for me to scan the articles in each section so I can know a little bit about everything that's happening.
http://prototype.nytimes.com/gst/articleSkimmer/

I've bought a number of ridiculous items from this website for babies of friends. One of those items included the peepee teepee (http://www.uncommongoods.com/item/item.jsp?itemId=*******; I have yet to find out if it really works). A lot of the products for babies are organic, colorful and/or old school (no flashing lights or buttons to push), and I just love sorting through that kind of stuff. I had absolutely no problems with the purchases, and my friends loved the goods.

Different Roads to Learning looks like it has some pretty useful materials for the teachers and classrooms that serve children with special needs. Advertised as a place for autism-friendly materials, these materials could be used for any child who needs extra support. The online catalog is divided into types of products (books, scheduling, visual supports, as examples) and topics (talking and conversation, getting along, nonverbal communication, etc.). I (my school) purchased a couple of Time Timers from Different Roads and received them all on time, well-wrapped and without a problem!

Snapfish makes it easy to store your photos online. Uploading photos is really quite easy, and sharing your albums is also just as easy. I've made over 20 albums since 2007 to share with families of students; in a way, my (the school's) Snapfish account has a running history of the school for which I work. I have also ordered prints from Snapfish, and the photos come as I requested them, on time and without any issues along the way.

Absolutely freaking brilliant. Ridiculous happiness is what take-away shows brings me. Take-away shows is the brainchild of French independent filmmaker Vincent Moon and La Blogotheque, a French music website. Bands are invited to perform on the streets of various cities, primarily Paris, but also Belfort, New York, Seattle, L. A., etc. and Moon (and other directors in later shows) brilliantly films them doing what they do best, making good music.

These are performers who don't need crazy dance moves or wacky autotuning to sound good. Everything from Xiu Xiu and Architecture in Helsinki to Jens Lekman and Beirut to Lampchop and David Bazan, everything that I love and a lot that I have yet to love, or hate. Take-away shows presents music in its purest form - just the artists and their instruments - unadulterated and so lovely it can bring tears to my eyes. One good take-away show could make me extremely happy for the rest of the day.

Cuteoverload. Let me tell you, this is no misnomer. You might explode when you see how much cuteness there is on this website. From kittens and puppies to hamsters and ferrets to owlettes and ducklings, all cute cute cute. I'm a big fan of kittens, not necessarily having them as pets, but more so looking at their round, funny and furry bottoms. The furrier, the better. The pinker the cast, the more the overload (http://cuteoverload.com/2008/12/28/owche/). Cuteoverload makes for a great replacement for a pet kitten or baby hedgehog. It doesn't need to go for walks, you don't need to feed it or clean its litterbox, and it never grows up.

Any person who loves short films should know about Martin Pickles. Pickles is a sometimes-surrealist, all-the-time eccentric British filmmaker. I fell in love with his work starting with his End of the Century film, which was featured in a Microcinema series. I haven't seen a film of his that hasn't been, in the very least, entertaining and humorous (though at times pretty dark), but most are thought-provoking and sometimes reminiscent of the brilliant Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel's work. On Pickles's website gmfilm.co.uk, you can check out most of his short films.

Some people call Pitchfork Media elitist and pretentious, but all I know is that it's still the best source, for me, of discovering new music that I'm sure to like and of being updated on my favorite bands. Living in Guatemala, I'm unable to see live shows or to talk to like-minded folks about the stuff I like, but Pitchfork.com keeps me feeling in the loop.

Pitchfork was the only place that covered U. K. band Flotation Toy Warning months after some friends and I heard it used by Martin Pickle in a short film. It's the only place where I can find out about a possible Camera Obscura/M. Ward collaboration, watch Weezer covering MGMT's Kids, listen to some good tracks, and wait excitedly for a new Broken Social Scene album. Of course I like Pitchfork most of all because I agree with almost everything they say as well. If only Pitchfork came in the form of a skinny, faux-hipster with a job so that I could fall in love with it in person.

Someecards.com makes me laugh out loud. A friend of mine mentioned that it comes from the writers of The Onion, and that makes total sense. Someecards is a simply brilliant alternative to those annoying ecards, the ones that catch you unawares with gawdy graphics and obnoxious music. In contrast, someecards are witty, sarcastic ecards, quiet in their hilarity. Quiet in that there are no outlandish graphics or sounds. Hilarity in that they are hilarious. After having seen X-Men Origins, I had to laugh at this one: http://www.someecards.com/upload/movies/i_dont_see_whats_so_gay.html

Iomoi.com is one of my favorite places for simple stationary and cards. Their designs are clean and inoffensive, great for sending to the relatives or friends. Living in a place where mail is not easy to send and receive, I use iomoi's online stationary to send to friends when occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, etc. arise. The cost is about $15 a year, which is worth it as I don't have to sit on the internet searching through ridiculous e-cards.

Yousendit.com is a great website to use for sending those large, unwieldy files that are too large to send through gmail or yahoo mail. You can send files up to 100MB easily. Uploads and downloads are quick, and even if the files aren't so huge, it saves me the time of waiting for my email client to get it done.