Webapalooza II

In honor of the 29th of February, it's time for another Webapalooza, where I throw out links to some of the more interesting things worth checking out on the web.



MythBusters in Photos - CNET's News.com went on-location with at M5 to check out Adam and Jamie working on their episode for this year's Shark Week, which will air on the Discovery Channel the last week of July.

Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle - A new chapter in the internet campaigning revolution. Click or refresh the page to get a new feel-good Obama reference. Contrast with its sister site, Hillary Clinton Is Your New Bicycle.

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me - Those who know my fascination with game shows will not at all be surprised by this, but if you've never heard of NPR's long-running weekly radio quiz show I recommend hitting up the podcast. Always an entertaining spin on the current news of the week, it's one of my must-listen-to podcasts while sitting at work each week. As an aside, if anyone's a fan and wants to come check out a live taping this June when they'll be in Seattle, let me know.

The '80s TV Theme SuperSite - If you're as disappointed as I am that most TV shows these days have abandoned the opening theme song in favor of an extra 60 seconds of commercials, relive some classics from the "golden age of TV theme songs".

Elevator Rules - FINALLY someone has codified the rules that we all thought were common fact. A few selections:

"When talking on an elevator be considerate, talk softly and do not assume that everyone in the car cares about what you are saying."

"NEVER re-push the call button after someone has already pushed it. This indicates that you either do not understand how the button works, or you do not trust the person that has already pushed the button to do an adequate job of it."

Will It Blend?!

I was introduced to a most outstanding website today... www.willitblend.com.

All I can say is... GENIUS! The site is produced by this company called BlendTec, who coincidentally enough, makes high-quality blenders. It appears that their marketing department decided to backup their claims that their products can "blend anything" by doing just that, blending everything!

They have a series of nearly 60 short episodes of a show they call "Will It Blend?" The episodes fall into two categories "Try this @ Home" and the far more entertaining "Don't Try This @ Home." It is hosted by a man who is purported to work in their labs, and I wouldn't doubt this to be true. But he is the epitome of a cheesy mad scientist. What tops it off is that the episodes are professionally produced and edited, complete with ultra cheesy (and oddly catchy) theme music.

Must see blends:

iPhone
EZ Cheese
Glow Sticks
Magnets (not so much for the result, but for the comedy)
McDonalds Extra Value Meal (again, not for the result, but this time for the yuck)

Until next time folks, keep it smoothie!

Webapalooza I

Realizing there are some web sites I frequent but nobody else has ever heard of, I introduce Webapalooza, a brief introduction to sites I think are great and worth knowing about.

Travel-related web sites:

Kayak - www.kayak.com - One of the best airfare search engines out there, though also does hotels, cars and more. Unlike some other travel sites, Kayak does no booking, but rather helps you find the cheapest flights then takes you directly to the site to book it. Similar to some others out there, but I find Kayak far superior. Definitely worth checking out.

Travelocity - www.travelocity.com - I'm not a huge fan of these consolidated booking sites, but I do use Travelocity for one good feature they have. If you are simply looking to find what the cheapest airfare to a destination is, regardless of when you want to go. To find that, enter the origin and destination, but instead of entering dates click "Flexible Dates". You'll get a list of all airfares on all available airlines. If you're looking for the absolute cheapest fares, this is a good place to start. Never book it on Travelocity though, go directly to the airline's website.

FareCompare - www.farecompare.com - This is a relatively new site on the web travel landscape. It's unique in that it keeps a decent airfare history for every route, which helps you know how good a good deal really is. It seems to have much the same use as how I use Travelocity, and may be a bit better.

SeatCounter - www.seatcounter.com - SeatCounter is designed for one specific purpose, to see flight availability by fare bucket. This is useful mainly to figure out availability for frequent flyer award tickets and such, and really you have to deeply understand how airfares work to find this site useful. :) But I use it.

Site59 - www.site59.com - The place to look for last-minute airfares. If you're looking to book tickets for travel within the next 3 weeks, you can get some incredible deals here. One caveat is that you must either get Air+Hotel or Air+Car together, but even at that it's usually cheaper than buying the exact same airline ticket alone from another site.

Disney-related web sites:

MiceAge - www.miceage.com - THE definitive site for the latest news on Disney theme parks. A lot of underground Disney news breaks here before it even publically released by Disney. Other news and reviews from a great team of reviewers and reporters. I keep it on my daily web rundown.

MouseSavers - www.mousesavers.com - This site always has the latest Disney deals and discounts. I mainly use this to keep up on the latest deals for Disney parks, but it also has deals for other Disney-related merchandise, as well as the other theme parks around. Definitely a must-see next time you're trying to plan a Disney vacation.

AllEarsNet - www.allearsnet.com - A one-stop shop for all things Disney World. They have a bit of a section on Disneyland too, but are much more focused on Orlando. This is one of the oldest web sites dedicated to WDW, and as such has a HUGE amount of information, all consistently updated.