WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE, ANYWAY?

Some of my Faithful Readers may wonder about some of the links on my sidebar, specifically about the ones in the Miscellaneous Useless Crap section. So here’s the skinny.

When I was setting this blog up, I wanted to have a separate section for links to sites that weren’t blogs per se, but that might be of interest to a few readers. They’re certainly of interest to me, and I probably use a few of these links way more regularly than I do my browser’s ugly and unwieldy List o’ Bookmarks.

The first item on the list, Steve’s Monumental Exercise, is my old “traditional” website. I don’t monkey with it much these days (I really need to update the pictures!) but since it doesn’t have a whole lot of dynamic content, that doesn’t matter. Go there if you want to know way more about me than you really want to.

The second link takes you to the official website of Alamaailman Vasarat, a really strange (but excellent) Finnish band. Years ago, I somehow managed to stumble upon them in the course of a Google search - I forget what for - and once I heard their “Kosher-Kebab-Jazz” music (I’m not making this up), I was hooked. They have two albums out, and they’re both...different from pretty much anything you’ve ever listened to. The band’s name, incidentally, means something like “Hammers of the Underworld.”

Link Three is to the site of a random bunch of British golfers who (apparently) get together to play golf and drink. I liked their sense of humor.

Next up we have Chef Andy’s Jell-O Pages. Chef Andy seems to have an obsession with gelatinous desserts, and the ones he shows on this nutty little website range from the (sub) lime to the ridiculous. I recommend the Tang Pie - not a Jell-O recipe per se, but informed by the same twisted sensibility. It sounds horrendous, and it is, but at the same time it’s perversely tasty.

We’ll skip down a few lines to Hatrack River, the official website of Orson Scott Card, a SF author whose work I particularly enjoy. For the Web, Card writes some political material - typically farther right that I stand, but generally well thought out and always well-written - and random film, book, and restaurant critiques. Read his novels and short stories, though, if you want a taste of intelligent and thought-provoking science fiction.

Skip down a couple more lines to TexasArtChick, a truly demented painter whose artwork does not suggest “chick” in the least. (That’s called irony, folks.) I particularly love the one of the grinning clown slashing the teddy bear with a butcher knife. I actually have a tenuous six-degrees-of separation connection here by way of Sister-in-Law d’Elisson, at whose wedding the ArtChick was a guest.

McSweeney’s needs no introduction (I hope) - I am an occasional contributor.

The penultimate line is What’s Inside Jeremy’s Wallet a website of notable historical interest. It’s easily the oldest site on my List o’ Links, having been up since 1995 - ten years! It’s on the list not because it’s old, but because there’s something strange and compelling about a person who based an entire website around the contents of his wallet. Really. This goes back, I suspect, to a time when people were still trying to figure out what the Web was good for. Posting Random Stupid Shit™ was one early and all-too-obvious answer...and now, with blogging, we can all post our wallet contents...or whatever other Stupid Shit we care to lob out there.

Finishing off the list is Zippy the Pinhead. Ya gotta love a comic strip whose main character wears a polka-dotted shift, eats Ding-Dongs and taco sauce, and who speaks in elliptical (but strangely meaningful) epigrams. Are we having fun yet?

So that’s my Heap of Miscellaneous Useless Crap. Surf...and enjoy!