Herein lie a number of portals to sites I have found amusing, informative, or useful in some fashion. Have fun.
To my knowledge, all links are valid and working, if any of them aren't, Or if you have a link to suggest please Tell me, and I'll look into it. Like everything else on this site, this page is a work in progress and should by no means be considered complete. I have a TON of bookmarked files, which will eventually wind up here.
(Note: Links will open in a new window.)
Link count: 264
Nature
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement "May we live long and die out" "Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth's biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense." Of course, this is common sense. Which is never very common, sadly. An idealistic prospect that is unlikely to succeed shy of the introduction of a new set of predators, or a flaming ball of rock colliding with us.
Sugar Glider Resource Center "Here you can find an information depository for sugar glider news, health, diets, habitats, enrichment, behavior, legalities, as well as links to other online and offline resources."
SunCoast Sugar Gliders SunCoast breeds gliders, provides a nutritional plan, has a store where they offer toys, cages, nutritional supplies, etc.
Other Creatures
Studying Grizzly Bears in the Wild Who says that man and bear cannot get along? This website details two naturalists who spend their time observing and researching grizzly bears, and who have even become so close to them as to be accepted as near family. The photo gallery is worth a definite look.
Out of Africa Wildlife park A wonderful park which has moved to Camp Verde, Arizona (Near Cottonwood and Sedona). They used to have wonderful shows, my favorite of which was the Tiger Splash, where they let unarmed humans and tigers chase each other and play. I haven't been to their new location since they were forced out of Scottsdale, but they have an admirable philosophy which I think other parks, and people in general, would do well to emulate.
Government Sites
USDA's Animal Care Home Page "AC provides leadership in establishing acceptable standards of humane animal care and treatment and to monitor and achieve compliance with the Animal Welfare Act through inspections, education, and cooperative efforts." If you plan on owning exotic pets of any variety, these are people you'll likely have contact with.
Ho-Ti Nursery Based in Hawaii, this nursery sells many exotic plants, such as salvia divinorum, orchids, bananas, ayahausca, and many other hawaiian and amazonan flora. Bought from them before, but my cuttings weren't suited to the arid climate of Arizona. Prompt service, affordable prices, will buy from them again.
Bonsai
Bonsai For Beginners This seems to be a good site for bonsai basics. I particularly enjoyed the Root-over-rock tutorial, being curious as to how they accomplished that feat.
The Art of Bonsai Project Artistic site dealing with the artistic side of bonsai, rather than the technical side. I particularly like a lot of the root-over-stuff styled bonsai, such as this gargoyle.
Wilderness Survival
Mother Earth News Although this website has little, relatively speaking, for the true wilderness survivalist (such as this article on edible wild plants), it contains a whole LOT of information on living organically, off the grid, and independently of consumeristic society if one bothers to look. Also it has some pretty cool articles on, for example, making your own drums.
SurvivalIQ - Wilderness Survival Handbook "As your personal survival handbook, SurvivalIQ provides information, resources, strategies and techniques you need to know whether you're preparing for a back country camping trip or the Green Berets."
Travel
Beast Riders Limited World's only designer and manufacturer of dog riding gear and seats for motorcycles. Pretty expensive, but can give one ideas for one's own projects.
Mystery Spots in the West Article on mystery spots, areas where physics don't work right, oddities and the Winchester mansion.
Rita Golden Gelman - Female Nomad "I am a modern-day nomad. I have no permanent address, no possessions except the ones I carry, and I rarely know where I'll be six months from now. I move through the world without a plan, guided by instinct, connecting through trust, and constantly watching for serendipitous opportunities."
Tools
Online Conversion Convert just about anything to anything else. Very useful when you don't know the metric system all that well, or your recipe's in another measurement.
Universal Currency Converter Converts between many different currencies using *live* market rates. Never wonder about the relative worth of Zambian Kwacha again.
Services
Airfare
AirTech Region to region space-available travel passes. To/from Europe, the Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii and Domestic USA.
Ryanair - The Low Fares Airline Dirt cheap inter-european reserved airfare. Sometimes run free tickets (You just pay the taxes). I've used them to fly from London Heathrow to Aarhus, Denmark for about $30 USD.
Volunteer & Hosting
Global Citizens Network Offers a number of interesting volunteer opportunities. Only problem is that you have to pay to volunteer.
Servas - An International Host & Traveler Network of Peace Builders "Servas is an international network of hosts and travelers building peace by providing opportunities for personal contact between people of diverse cultures and backgrounds. Through mutually arranged individual visits, hosts and travelers share their lives, interests and concerns about social issues. These encounters help form the building blocks of peace in the spirit of mutual service and respect." Not a travel service, but could be interesting.
Workaway.info "Exchange work for food and accommodation throughout the world." Volunteer to help out as you travel around. Costs
Travel Guides
Digihitch Have you ever wondered what it might be like to hitchhike, especially for a longer trip? Wonder what posesses people to do such things in the first place? What about hitchhiking ettiquite? Where's the best place to stand, how do you know whether or not to get in a stranger's car?
Enter Digihitch, which hosts a number of helpful articles on such things and more, as well as a healthy forum where you can ask hitchhiking-related questions. Also includes tools to help one find cheap fares and other such things. Check it out.
Escape Artist - Living Overseas Although there's a lot of commercialism on this page, they do have a number of useful articles dealing with living overseas and breaking free of the chains one's national government seeks to tie one with. Ignore anything about investment (unless that's your bag) and instead look at, for example, Articles Listed By Category. It's interesting to view others' experiences living in foreign countries.
Hostels & Cheap Accommodations
Bakpak Travel Guides Has guides dealing with travel in different regions in the world, hostels, travel services, etc. Of particular use is the US & Canada section.
Emmigration
CIC - Skilled Worker Self-Assessment "This Self-Assessment tool will help you decide if you should apply to immigrate to Canada as a Skilled Worker." Fairly interesting if this is something you've considered.
Backpacking
Backpacker Magazine Full of useful articles, destination guides, and much more.
How to See the World: Art of Travel "Here in 25 chapters, 100,000 words, and 120 illustrations is How to See the World. Written by an independent traveler of 35 countries via eight economical tours, this complete online guide has tips, commentary, and humor for travelers of every kind. It contains no advertising or commercial contracts."
Culture
Feral Children "Feral children, also known as wild children or wolf children, are children who've grown up with minimal human contact, or even none at all. They may have been raised by animals (often wolves) or somehow survived on their own. In some cases, children are confined and denied normal social interaction with other people." Although fascinating, every tale is eventually sad as these children are hunted, caged, and forced into a lifestyle that is insane to begin with. Many children who were raised from a young age never learn to speak at all, and live out their days in an insane asylum or something similar, rather than running wild and free as they used to, simply because we view such a life as "inhumane" and "lowly".
NativeTech - Native American Technology & Art "An internet resource for indigenous ethno-technology focusing on the arts of Eastern Woodland Indian Peoples, providing historical & contemporary background with instructional how-to's & references." Includes quill art, beadwork, clay and pottery, etc.
Mythology
Aberdeen Bestiary Project Fascinating look into middle ages science and folklore. It's fascinating to see people describe mundane animals as far-off mythological beasts that spit fire or whatever.
Project Gutenberg A HUGE online library of thousands of free e-texts for download. It's where I've gotten a fair number of the stories and poems I've put on my site.
The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft All of H.P. Lovecraft's works online. Lovecraft's works are still under copyright, but since the sanctioned library dissapeared mysteriously, this is a good, albeit visually poor, replacement.
Introduction to Reading Music "Some people think trying to read music is hard and difficult. The following set of pages will try to introduce the most important topics in reading music in a very easy to understand way."
Noteworthy Composer "NoteWorthy Composer is a software music composition and notation processor for Windows. It allows you to create, record, edit, print and play back your own musical scores."
Silence! Silence of the Lambs: The Musical. Disturbingly humorous.
Whistle Tutor Free online lessons teaching one to play a C-key irish pennywhistle.
Art
Banksy Banksy is a bit of an enigma. He's responsible for sneaking his own art into several very prominant art galleries (for example, the Louvre, the Museum of Natural History), defacing public property with artistic, mind-expanding stencilwork, and generally creating art which makes people think and question the boundaries of the world around them. I would call him a guerilla surrealist, or an artistic terrorist, and I believe the world needs more, not less, of his ilk.
Burning Man What do you get when you take thousands of people, artists, musicians, geeks, outcasts, surrealists, costumers, pyrotechnicians, and other folk and put them in the middle of a Nevada desert? Burning Man is not so much art as it is an experience. Technically speaking, it's a week-long festival culminating in the burning of a wooden effagy of a man. But it's so much more than that. Check out their image gallery. I hope to go there someday.
DeviantArt - scissors-hands Fascinating quasi-abstract art seeming to focus on biology meeting technology. Makes great wallpapers.
Moss Graffiti Moss graffiti. "This simple yet effective concoction is an old favourite of gardeners trying to encourage moss growth and provides an excellent alternative to spray paint."
Digital Blasphemy Digital Blasphemy has stunningly beautiful high-res wallpapers. Unfortunately, only a relative handful are free.
Rowsby.com: 2d & 3d Animation, Modeling and Design Rowsby has worked on several tv shows and other projects, using programs such as Lightwave to create 3d models of characters. Check out his werebear and werewolf! Very cool.
Visual Paradox "Hi-res 3D desktop wallpaper and background screens for a variety of platforms."
Conceptart - The Nude Reference Thread NAKKIE PEOPLES!!1 No, really. Great set of links to nudes for muscle reference. Next best thing to having a live model. Don't click if you can't handle naked people.
Dragon Paint Tutorials Tutorials by the wonderful Jessica Peffer, including various fantasy creatures, humans, and features such as hair, talons, wings, etc.
Eatpoo.com - Forums Gobs of stuff here. Check out the Finished Works section to watch some really awesome art get torn to shreds via critique, and possibly learn a thing or two along the way.
Polykarbon: Tutorials! Provides some basic tutorials on human anatomy and accessories. Also some basic photoshop tutorials. One of the first tutorials I link beginning artists to.
DeviantArt - MarieCannabis Excellent grasp of color, anatomy, pose and composition. Some of it looks straight out of a highly detailed children's book. Mmm. Food-dragons.
Featherdust Studios (Art of Nambroth) Nambroth specializes in gryphons and photoshop, but also depicts other fantasy creatures. Her gryphons are quite gorgeous. Her newest works are uploaded to her DeviantArt.
NeonDragonArt.com - The Art of Jessica Peffer Art of Jessica Peffer, very well done in a pleasent, soft, semi-cartoonish style. Very well done. Check out her art pages. Also does the comic Timescapes and has some tutorials.
The Katurran Odyssey "Katook is a small but courageous young lemur who lives in the village of Kattakuk. He dares to enter a forbidden area on the island and witnesses a shocking secret; the outraged priests banish him from the island forever. Forced to journey across the vast sea in search of a new home, Katook encounters great perils and marvels on his quest, and undergoes profound tests of trust and friendship. At last, he finds the place where the secret of the Long Winter is revealed, and where he must summon all of his courage to confront his greatest fear if he is to save his family and his home. Life is forever changed on Bo-hibba..." The Katurran Odyssey is a graphical novel filled with stunning art. Check out the gallery.
Cat People - Figural Art Entirely different sort of anthropomorphic art here. This type involves cat people, people bodypainted to look like felines, placed in natural settings. WARNING: NUDITY!
Dragons in the Attic Ssthisto is one of the best dragon/saurian artists that I know of. She's a bit picky about her copyrights, which sadly limits the amount of her artwork out there (Her site doesn't have nearly all of it) but I might be picky about copyright if I were able to draw that well too.
Furry Illustrations by Heather Bruton Heather draws in a style reminiscent of Megan Giles. Very realistic anthropomorphs, and an extensive gallery. Some adult content and nudity. (No! my virgin eyes!)
Goldenwolfen.com Goldenwolf is a fairly famous furry/were artist. Her wolves are breathtaking.
N-Vision - The Art of Cristina Penescu Starfinder's anthros are pretty damn impressive, she's got a spot-on grasp of realism and fur texturing - before she's even graduated High School! She also used to have some excellent tutorials on eyes and fur, but these seem to be under re-construction.
The Art of Synnabar Realistic critters, ranging from furries to monsters and back. Mmm, fangs. Also has a DeviantArt site.
VCL - Cara Mitten Lots of wonderful stuff here. Not only furry art but fantasy, realism, and a plethora of other things.
VCL - Erin Schmidt Erin Schmidt does a lot of highly detailed, realistic anthros. Fairly diverse species, too.
VCL - Karabiner/Den Quasi-realistic anime styled furries. I love the attention to detail and the highlights are to die for.
VCL - Laura Westrate Laura specializes in canines and rats. She's quite good at showing expression in animal faces, and portraying the animal's character. Style varies from mildly cartoony to realistic.
VCL - Nduli Beautifully done furs, especially canines, in a semi-realistic style. Rivals some of the more better known artists.
VCL - Poofy-Wolf Mix of funny, cartoon images dealing with bizzare and sometimes disgusting subjects, and serious, well-done dark stuff.
Xian Jaguar's Lair XianJaguar is a great furry artist who draws in a whimsical style, similar to what you'd see in a children's book.
Yerf Squeaky-clean furry art archive. No adult content allowed.
Sculpture
Patricia Piccinini Wonderful sculpture involving bizzare materials to create realistic end results. Check out her galleries over here. Especially check out "The Young Family" for her scarily realistic dogpeople. Here are some other photos from the We Are Family exhibit.
Belief
Philosophy and Religion
Church of Satan "We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose."
Before you ask, No, I'm not a Satanist.
Universal Life Church Ever had that itching to become an ordained minister but haven't felt like leaving the house or joining a religion to do it? You can become one from the comfort of your own chair at ULC. It's good that there are non-denominational churches. The church has two tenets: the absolute right of freedom of religion and to do that which is right. Anything else within the law is allowed.
Paranormal/Supernatural
Shapeshifter Myths in Contemporary Fiction Site detailing and comparing facets of shapeshifting from 3 major "fictional universes", the World of Darkness, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Anita Blake. Compares these with facets of more traditional werewolf lore.
The Shape of Things to Come An interview with John Perkins, founder of the Dream Change Coalition, and author of several books on shapeshifting, regarding the subject of shapeshifting and how to affect it.
The Werewolf and Shapeshifters Codex Interesting and detailed look at what it means to be a werecreature or shapeshifter, and personal accounts from real shifters. This thing keeps disappearing and reappearing again, I will probably be mirroring a version of this site on my page at some point.
Magick/Occult
Lucky Mojo Hoodoo, Magic, Mojo Hands, Occult Shop, Sacred Sex, Amulets, Books, etc. Loads of interesting information. Also check out their Lucky W Amulet Archive.
P.S.I.P.O.G. "P.s.i.P.o.g. stands for Psychic Students In Pursuit Of Guidance and is here to help anyone who wants it with original and reliable information." Interesting exercises and first-hand accounts of experiences. Psi balls, oh my.
Real Magick and Occult Archives Random magickal articles, including some stuff on enochian. Seems to mostly be highly structured/traditional stuff, Hermeticism, Qabalah, correspondances, etc, etc.
Simon's Necronomicon Ever read Lovecraft? Perhaps the Necronomicon isn't ancient, but that doesn't make it any less of an interesting read. It's long. Simon's is only one variety of it too. It's interesting, if only for entertaining reading.
Spiral Nature Contains essays and info on philosophy, spirituality, and magick (Including chaos magick, runes, shamanism, gnosis, etc) Useful for assisting understanding of different types of magick and different points of view. LOT of stuff here.
Witchcraft from the Ground Up Tutorial that'll get one started with the basics of energy manipulation. Interesting stuff, even for the nonbeliever.
Chaos Magick
#Thee_Vortex Channel Page Check their logs page for some interesting discussions on various aspects of chaos magick and magick in general. Also, I'd bet that if you're looking for more information, these would be the people to ask.
Autonomatrix Very useful site. Check out the Corpus For a whole bunch of rites and rituals.
Seems to be under construction?
Chaos Matrix HUGE resource of texts on the different parts of Chaos magick, Sigils and Servitors, and lots more. There's alot here for the interested.
Dreams
World Dream Bank "A library of 2000 dream texts and images, sorted by topic--whether you want funny, sexy, spiritual, scary, or lucid dreams, we got 'em. Dreams are uncensored, but potentially offensive entries have warnings. Dream well! -- Chris Wayan, 2004" Interesting dreams.
Science
Eating Fossil Fuels "As Peak Oil and its effects become a raging national controversy it's time everyone reads the story that puts the most serious implications of Peak Oil and Gas into perspective. Your biggest problem is not that your SUV might go hungry, it's that you and your children might go hungry." Follows the energy chain to show just how our food is dependent on fossil fuels.
Life After The Oil Crash "Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected geologists, physicists, and investment bankers in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global 'Peak Oil.'" Pretty frightening stuff.
The Tesseract: A 4-Dimensional Cube I don't claim to understand the math that goes on to create a hypercube like this, but it sure is fun to play with.
United Nuclear Scientific Equipment & Supplies. A pyrophilic's wet dream. Fireworks, colored fire additives, chemistry supplies, etc. They also sell uranium.
Roleplay
Bad Apps! Bit of roleplaying humor. GarouMUSH's bad applications. Some of these are horrible. "SPANKED into a 2 week coma!"
On Creating an Earthlike Planet "This page is intended to help role-players and authors of sci-fi and fantasy to, as the title suggests, create a world which resembles the Earth - that is, a world in which humans could live and develop societies similar to those with which we are familiar." Covers Astronomy, Geology, Maps, Climate, Flora and Fauna, Culture, Languages, etc.
Speculative Vision Science Fiction and Fantasy Primarily a writer's resource, these forums also deal with the "what ifs" and are a great place to look for links, or answers to questions similar to your own. More of a scifi feel to it than fantasy, both are nonetheless discussed.
Dimar The home of the Dimar dragons and project. "Dimar is a world that is owned by everyone, copyrighted to no one - like the legends of King Arthur. But, unlike legends and myths, it's a science fiction world created recently to meet the needs of interactive online writers and game players who want to create stories together without the legal baggage of property ownership and copyright."
Imperia "Imperia is an Advanced MFFRP (Medieval Free Form Role Play) group using an originally developed setting and storyline that features several detailed worlds, many different nations, and hundreds of complex characters and people. Imperia doesn't focus on drawing in huge numbers of players. Instead we focus on quality role players and we welcome any and all. With a plotline and setting that could fill many books and role play that immerses your characters into an ever changing world Imperia is for the advanced player who prefers a realistic and complex setting where the lines between good and evil are blurred, where sometimes the hero don't always win and where nations and people are at each other's throats in an eternal contest of supremacy and survival."
White Wolf Online White wolf created the Original World of Darkness (Werewolf: The Apocolypse, Vampire: The Masquerade, etc) in which most of my online freeform roleplay is (roughly) based. Their books are great, I enjoy them even when not directly using them as a resource. However, since they killed off the Original World of Darkness, and I am not fond of their New World of Darkness/WTF line (I have heard nothing but bad things), I am unsure of how much worthwhile content remains here.
Baby Names of Ireland Guess what this site's about. Lots of names in the original gaelic, english versions, and what they mean.
Chris Pound's Name Generation Page A page full of random name generators, available in different linguistic styles. Perfect for coming up with names for characters.
Seventh Sanctum Generators for every occasion. Whether you're looking for detailed dragon descriptions, furries, names for your magic spells or evil minions, this is the place to go.
The Language Construction Kit "This set of webpages is intended for anyone who wants to create artificial languages-- for a fantasy or an alien world, as a hobby, as an interlanguage. It presents linguistically sound methods for creating naturalistic languages-- which can be reversed to create non-naturalistic languages. It suggests further reading for those who want to know more, and shortcuts for those who want to know less."
Computer-Related
DSL Reports "The 'bible' for Information on DSL, Cable and Other High Speed Internet Services" Compares how competing services measure up. Very useful for their Tools, which include the ability to test your connection and see how it actually fares, objectively.
CSS Tutorial W3Schools' tutorial for CSS. Great for reference.
Dev Shed "The Open Source Web Development Site" Lots of useful articles and help for PHP, ASP, Apache, etc.
GIFWorks! Free Online GIF eTools Gifworks is a nifty site which will allow you to upload and edit any gif image, or create your own. Entirely free, no software necessary.
Hotscripts.com "HotScripts.com is an Internet directory that compiles and disseminates Web programming-related resources." Some of their stuff is free, some not, but this is generally a good place to start looking for code, in any case.
PHP Hypertext Preprocessor "PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML."
PJIRC - The best free IRC applet there is I'm running a copy of this on my site as well. It's awesome, almost like mirc, and handles very well. It's tiny and relatively quick-loading (for a java applet), and packed with features. Best of all, it's absolutely, entirely free, and open source.
Amorphium 3.0 "Whether you're creating from scratch or importing existing objects, Amorphium 3 has real-time modeling, detailing, morphing, and optimizing tools which can make your 3D models more realistic and save literally hours of valuable time." I haven't used this software personally, but it does seem promising.
Blender 3d "Blender is the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. Available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License."
KeyNote Keynote (Not to be confused with the apple program) is a piece of software that is mostly used by authors to organize novel ideas, keep trains of thought organized, etc. It basically works like any other word processor, except it allows for tree-like hierarchy using what it calls nodes.
MilkShape 3d Excellent, free, easy to use 3d modeller. Perfect if you want to model figures and don't want to spend the however many thousands of dollars that Discreet's charging for 3d Studio Max this week. Doesn't seem terribly apt for modeling entire scenes, however.
mIRC IRC chat client IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is my preferred mode of chat for anything other than Instant Messaging and the occasional email.
Morpheus Software Interesting software to morph two photos together by placing target points in both.
Games
Horizons: Empire of Istaria "Horizons boasts nine playable races and arguably the best crafting system in any massively multiplayer game. The ability to dynamically add content has allowed tens of thousands of current Horizons customers to experience episodic content and massive battles like never before." Looks interesting. One of the only MMO games I know of where you can play a dragon.
RunUO RunUO is unlike any alternative out there for a multitude of reasons. Most of the alternatives to RunUO refer to themselves as emulators but we consider RunUO to be a server software package. To us we do not emulate anything, we create a feature rich game server with an Ultima Online gaming layer applied to it.
Stratics - The Massively Multiplayer Network A comprehensive and vast guide to many popular MMOs. Want stats on monsters? How to raise your character to be the best glassblower in the land? Stratics has your answers.
Programming/Development
Gamasutra GREAT resource for game designers! Provides post mortems of games, articles on AI and just about every aspect of game creation. Interviews/articles by people actually in the industry and not just some dude living in his mom's basement. Well worth the free signup.
Allegro.CC "Allegro.cc is the most comprehensive website on the Internet pertaining to the Allegro Gaming Library. The Allegro library provides C/C++ programmers low level routines commonly needed in game programing, such as input, graphics, midi, sound effects, and timing."
CrystalSpace 3D CrystalSpace is an opensource project incorporating OpenGL. The engine looks fairly advanced, and the graphics are spectacular for a free engine. From what I've heard, however, using it can be rather curmudgeonly.
OpenAL "OpenAL is a cross-platform 3D audio API appropriate for use with gaming applications and many other types of audio applications." Mmm. 3d sound.
The Nebula Device "The leading Open Source 3D game and visualisation engine used in dozens of commercial games and professional visualisation applications released worldwide." Written in C++, multiplatform, DX9. Runs as an "operating system" for games.
VERGE Game Creation System "Verge3 is a game engine designed to help people make rpgs, but it can actually make most any game in a Genesis/ Super Nintendo style. It is Windows Native, written in C++, and allows for a huge amount of flexibility."
Milkshape Tutorial This tutorial guides the user into building a human model in MilkShape 3d. Complete with pictures, the tutorial is easy to follow for the most part.
Softsteel.co.uk - C# tutorial "This tutorial covers Microsoft's new programming language C#. It is aimed at people with some programming experience, although it tries not to assume too much knowledge."
Free Resources
3d Cafe Resource for free models and meshes, if you're just learning, or to build upon in your own projects.
Play Money - Diary of a Dubious Proposition The Blog of a very interesting man named Julian Dibbell, whose goal it is: "On April 15, 2004, I will truthfully report to the IRS that my primary source of income is the sale of imaginary goods -- and that I earn more from it, on a monthly basis, than I have ever earned as a professional writer."
The Daedalus Project "MMORPG Research, Cyberculture, MMORPG Psychology" Interesting articles on how friendships are forged in MMORPGs, possible alternate applications, etc.
Costuming
Individual Costumes
Brokken's Den Brokken is a cool were/therian who makes and performs in some rather cute fursuits. Check out his fursuit construction pages, which contain one of the better tutorials for creating a muscle suit I've seen (with pictures!).
Mi-Go Interesting costume. I like the quadrupedalness. Some other neat suits on that site as well.
Striped Smiles Tashta's site. Includes pictures of her costumes as well as some tutorials, including this one on cold foam latex mask making. Step by step with pictures. Good stuff.
Wolf Tronix Interesting animatronics including a how-to on how to make an animatronic wolf tail. Could possibly be adapted to other species.
Weaponry
Buckshot's Camp Hunting, trapping and survival stuff resource. I've bought from them before, no complaints.
Fantasy Swords Very interesting stuff. Make sure you check out the Kit Rae Blades while you're there. Great designs.
Swords Online Swords, knives, collectables, etc. Unique designs. Very pretty.
Fun Stuff
Acronym Interaction, Expansion and Extrapolation Engine "Tired of practicing your blank stares for when someone says they need a TCP/IP-based LAN set up and a USB-to-SCSI adapter ASAP? Do you wish you could throw around acronyms with that same casual attitude that pisses you off so much? Here's your chance. With this tool, you can enter any combination of letters you like (from 2 to 6) and we'll expand them into a handy, technical-sounding, completely made-up phrase that borders on the plausible."
Performers.Net - Library "The library consists of articles, resources, festival reports, and general performing information submitted by performers, for performers." Tips and tricks on a variety of different kinds of street performing.
Strings - Street Performance for Pleasure and Profit "Looking to make a little money while traveling, or just play before a ready audience? Street performing could be your ticket." Provides tips on busking for beginners.
Dangerous Fun
Pyrophilia
Bearclaw Manufacturing "Our line of tools go beyond the basic fire poi and fire staves, we have fire swords, fire clubs/torches, countach poi, multiwick poi, modular designs, countach fans, custom fit fire fingers, fire whips, lions, tigers, and bears, oh my." Check out their wings. Awesome. Pricey, but these might give an ambitious person a few ideas of their own.
Luxotica - How to make Fire Toys Guides to make fire toys, including poi, fire staves, fire torches, finger wands, fire swords, etc. Awesome. Just don't set yourself on fire.
Mephisto the Master - Fire-eating VERY very cool (er.. hot) website, dealing with the art of fire-eating. Includes photos, faq, tips, and much much more. If you've ever wondered about fire-eating, this is the place to go.
Electricity
Mike's Electric Stuff Check out his high voltage stuff. It's really cool, and he shows you how to do it at home. (Not for children, the elderly, or the feeble-minded. I particularly like his Tesla coil corona motor.
Shinies
Heliodisplay "The Heliodisplay (TM) projects TV, streaming video and computer images into free space (i.e. mid-air). It is plug-and-play compatible with most video sources (TV, DVD, computer, videogame, etc.). The Heliodisplay is interactive -- a "floating touch screen" -- allowing a hand or finger to navigate and select."
Humor
2 The Ranting Gryphon Nothing is safe: 2 the gryphon rips on everything, providing much amusement. Many of his rants are very true, though they strike very close to home for some people.
Cement Cuddlers "An "Anti-shopping" Trip with the Los Angeles Cacophony Society" A tale of a bear, and a piece of cement, and just what happens when you make toys and place them on store shelves.
Furry Fans.com Shawn Keller's glaring satire of the furry community. It may not be pretty, but each and every one of the stereotypes portrayed actually exists, albeit in much less pervasive degree. Humorous, regardless of the inflammatory nature.
IRC Bible [Jehova] Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds:
cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds
[Jehova] yes, pretty little animals
[Jehova] Now, we only need a man
[Jehova] One man to rule them all
[Jehova] One man to find them
[Jehova] One man to bring them and in dar...
[Jehova] well, you catch my drift
[Jehova] Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; yada yada yada
[Jehova] ron
* Jehova has quit IRC (signed off)
Mmmm, blasphemy.
Some Icelandic (?) Thing This guy rocks. He's wearing an orange jumpsuit covered in horns (the squeaky kind) and he plays everything from classical music to "Popcorn" in front of a black tie audience.
Curious GWB Parody of Curious George.
"One day George W's father, the man with the big trust fund, sat him down to have a talk. 'George W.,' said the man, 'I am going to take you all the way to the White House. Now, run along and raise lots of funding, and remember to embrace the center without alienating the radical right.' He made George W. promise to behave. But curious little monkeys often get into big trouble."
George Bush or Chimpanzee? A site that provides pictures comparing our president and a chimp. The similarities are quite.... interesting.
This Modern World - A Fair and Balanced Look at the Bush Administration Amazingly humorous political satiric cartoonist. Great artwork, very humorous, and has a blog which actually provides substance. Tom Tomorrow's work has been featured in numerous newspapers but is provided free on his website.
Adventure Quest RPG Adventure Quest is a free, flash-based, hack'n'slash RPG. It gets repetitive after awhile, but it can be an addicting way to spend small bits of free time. You also can't reach the highest eschelons ability without paying them money, but oh well.
Eyemaze Pretty interesting flash games, such as the "Grow" series and pelpet. Be warned, very addictive.
Neoholic.com Another Neopets strategy guide, with useful articles and walkthroughs on some of the games, etc.
Neopets An interesting free site, where you create or adopt "neopets" in a variety of species and feed and take care of them. Also includes a myriad of games and shops where you can buy things for your pet with neopoints, etc. Worth some time. Mind the commercialism.
Pink Poogle Toy Neopets strategy guide, including links to all the good areas and helpful articles.
Shockwave.com With their free plugins, you can play the tons of free games they have on their site, or view short animated movies in flash. Great place if you're bored.
Archive of Poker Night Poker night is a very humerous flash toon about dogs playing poker. It's intended for adult audiences only, and contains adult situations and language. Originally aired at Mondo and Icebox, the former only has 3 episodes, and the latter wants you to buy their crap.
Big Bunny "Big Bunny is big, pink and a bunny." Entertaining flash series dealing with a rather large bunny. You look tasty enough to go see.
Camp Chaos Home of Napster BAD! As well as tons more.. Very humorous web-toons but not for everyone.
Making Fiends An entertaining flash series dealing with a little girl who tries to make friends with everyone, and another girl who creates "fiends".
Ninjas VS Pirates Hilarious series of short movies involving a grand ongoing battle between ninjas and pirates.
Webcomics
Flash
Broken Saints Very intriguing online experience. Flash-based.
Strongbad Email Amusing flash-based cartoons featuring Strongbad. My favorites are dragon and comic. And the dragon comes in the NIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!
Weebl and Bob Strange, pie-obsessed egg-shaped characters. And anarchist jam. Flash-based. Shiver me shurikens. 'Tis a lovely donkey to be sure.
Furry/Anthropomorphic
Belfry Comics Huge listing of comics, most of which have a furry tilt. Great if you're bored or looking for a new comic.
Jack Dramatic and often hitting close to home, Jack follows the story of the angel of death, and the lives, deaths, and afterlives of various types of people. It's often deep and touching. Unique for a furry comic.
Other
Clan of the Cats Chelsea is a witch who turns into a panther sometimes. Good art, good writing.
Ghastly's Ghastly Comic Tentacle monsters and the women who love them. Very funny. Also has some adult themes here and there. And by here and there I mean don't slip on the buck cake.
Mac Hall Great artwork, funny jokes. "This is the story of the residents of MacDonald Hall, an archtypical college dorm and the namesake of the comic. It's here that they work, sleep, and play, but mostly sleep and play."
Schoolbooks and Brimstone A very well done comic dealing with "heaven, hell, and high school". The art is quite good. It's a shame it hasn't been updated in a while.
Sexy Losers Adult comic, dealing with sexuality in a humorous way.
Sinfest Will probably offend some religeous types. Devil booth, god hand-puppets, and fun things like that are common. It's a good comic, with a taste of social commentary.
Tonja Steele Very funny comic strip following Tonja Steele, an interesting woman who isn't the best of mothers. Watch out for laundry day.
Linguistics
Altavista's Babelfish Translates words or phrases into different languages. Quite useful as a reference but don't rely upon it, sometimes it puts words together in a way that sounds wrong, or mistakes a word meaning one thing as something else, etc. Fun to play with though.
Bartleby.com "Bartleby.com combines the best of both contemporary and classic reference works into the most comprehensive public reference library ever published on the web."
Dictionary.com What does ______ mean? Wonder no more. Also provides links to dictionaries in other languages.
InterTran Translates into more languages than BabelFish does. Including Danish. Quite useful, really, because it provides alternate translations for words if you keep the word count low.
Free Stuff
BitTorrent BitTorrent is a distributed, peer-to-peer file sharing system. It rewards people who share generously with higher priority in downloading further parts of the file they are trying to recieve. It's the most popular program for sharing files around, although it unfortunately is only used largely for big files, or archives.
The Free Site Find all sorts of freebies here. Wide variety of different stuff, and I especially like the "Webmaster Freebies" section. Annotated links with reviews.
Furry, Otherkin, Therians etc.
Furry
Furry Generator Mark 1 An interesting concept - a random furry generator. Useful for people who can't be bothered to think up a persona for themselves, or for game designers who need quick furry npcs.
Furry Resource Page A page linking to furry owned, oriented, and run services, webpages, etc.
The Internet Furry Proximity Locator Allows members to put up a profile and be listed based on location. Mostly useful for finding furs in the US.
Otherkin, Therians, and Weres
Coyote's Den Interesting website by an interesting therian who goes by the name of Coyote.
Otherkin.net "Otherkin is a collective noun for an assortment of people who have come to the somewhat unorthodox, and possibly quite bizarre, conclusion that they identify themselves as being something other than human. It is also the label used by a number of communities both on and off line. (The distinction between the two is not always drawn and can lead to some confusion)." Interesting resource for articles, links, and other assorted otherkin-y goodness.
Interesting People's Pages
The Lizardman Featured on multiple shows including TLC's "Animal Imitators" and Ripley's, the Lizardman is an artist/entertainer who is transforming himself into a lizard not out of a spiritual connection to lizards but because it's something he wants to do.
Crafts
Candle Making Skills - The Business of Candle and Soap Making "Candle making is a highly versatile craft -- one that encompasses unlimited opportunities for creativity. Candles can be dipped, molded, rolled, fused, layered, sculptured or any combination of processes. They may be colored (dyed, painted or tinted) within and without; they can be scented or can have embedded materials such as beads or shells, coated or whipped (foamed)." Covers candles from a business perspective.
Melt and Pour "This site is specifically designed to give you instructions and recipes for making your own soaps and toiletries at home. Home made soaps, lotions, bath bombs, lip balms, massage oils and other products are fun to make and absolutely wonderful to use."
Soapcrafters Wholesale soap making supplies including molds, sea salts, kits, bases, scents, colorants, etc. Fairly wide selection.
Origami
Origami Crane Great tutorial on how to fold origami cranes.
Origami.com Great resource with TONS of origami diagrams in PDF format. I like the dragons. :D
Work
CoolWorks.com - Seasonal Jobs in Great Places "Cool Works is about you finding a seasonal job or career in some of the greatest places on Earth. Get a summer job in Yellowstone, Yosemite, or another national park. Find a summer job as a camp counselor. Ski resorts, ranches, theme parks, tour companies and more are waiting for you. Let Cool Works.com show you the way to live out your own amazing adventure!"
Rentacoder.com Need to get software coded? Coder looking for work? Here ya go.
Misc
Anagram Server If you're bored, anagrams are a fun way to pass the time. Just put in any word or name or whatever and it'll rearrange it for you.
Bash.Org Famous (infamous?) quote page. Submit your own, view random quotes, much hilarity to be found.
Chainmail & More "We are artists who have been handcrafting original chainmail wear since 1992. Our chain mail and jewelry creations are comfortable, durable, and there's no need to wait months for them." Very interesting and unique designs. I'm planning on purchasing one of these once I get my cartelige piercing done.
Disinformation Provides informative articles and links on everything from aliens to politics. Worth a look.
Googlism "Googlism.com will find out what Google.com thinks of you, your friends or anything"
"George Bush is pregnant erratic policy behavior result of massive hormone surge washington"
Indeed.
"Right now, alien invaders are plotting to have a leaky roadkill. My TIE Fighter is purple, and gibbons that I work with may be charred.
I'm Federal Agent Jack Bauer, and this is the most clueless pebble of my life."
Food & Drink
Drink Street "Browse over 1500 drink recipes. We've organized them by category so that you can learn how to make them quickly and see other drinks that you might be interested in." Also includes bartending 101 tutorials. Mmm, layer drinks.
