Meteor Shower

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20071207/sc_space/bestmeteorshowerof2007peaksdec13

I really enjoy watching meteor showers and generally interesting astronomical phenomena. This one that comes up this Thursday is said to be one of the biggest and brightest, so I'd really like to try to watch some of it, even though it'll keep me up late on a night before I have to go to work. It's just really cool to watch meteor showers, and plus that's a bunch of wishes to make. Just thought I'd share.

Sounds LIke Fun

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071205/lf_nm/moonbeams_dc_2

This is a story about a giant moonlight collector someone built out in the desert in Arizona. It just sounds interesting. Apparently, they welcome people to come up and bathe in focused moonlight. It just sounds like something that would be really fun to do... and it's unusual enough that it seemed like something that would be good to share.

Order of the Stick

http://www.giantitp.com

This is an amusing D&D themed webcomic. It's all in stick figures made on a computer, but it's got good characterization and casts quite a few barbs at the 3rd edition (which is soon to be replaced, but the humor still holds up). It's apparently quite an old comic, which I've only just found, and am only about 200 strips into (it's running to about 500 or so at the moment). I just thought I'd share with the rest of the class....

A Combination of two things I like...

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

This is a little quiz site that tests you on vocabulary words, and for each one you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice to end world hunger. It combines vocabulary with rice. I just played for maybe a half an hour and donated 2000 grains of rice. 10 grains of rice doesn't sound like much, but they add up... particularly if you have a good vocabulary... and if you don't, it's a good way to improve it while helping out people in need at the same time. I got this one from a pagan group I belong to... it's worth checking out if you want to help people or just don't have anything else to do online.

Different...

http://www.pagannews.com/cgi-bin/articles1.pl?160

This is an odd article of which I'm not sure of my feelings. It does, however, raise some fairly interesting points, and is a good deal of food for thought. I had heard many similar things before, but this went into more depth than I'd seen before.

American Forests

http://www.americanforests.org/

This is a website I found through a newsletter I subscribe to. It's a site about the importance of forests. It's something I tend to agree with quite heartily, since even my name speaks of the importance of forests to me. Mostly, it's informational, but it does provide links to groups who use donations to plant trees. Some people use it to offset their carbon emissions. I'm not sure about my stance on that issue, but I do support the planting of new trees, regardless of whether or not offsetting carbon emissions is effective or not (I just haven't done much research, and have heard some speculation that it's not... though that could just be some anti-environmental nut ranting, too. I'll have to check into it). It's a good site, regardless.

Defenders of Wildlife

http://www.defenders.org/index.php

This is a worthy organization whose site I was connected to through care2. They're a long-established charity working to (get this) protect wildlife from extinction. Apart from donating and joining, the site is also useful for getting information on animals which are being protected. I took particular interest in the sections on wolves and manatees (which are some of my favorites), but there are many others being covered, including dolphins, buffalo, and mountain lions (among others). It's definitely a worthwhile cause, and one I might want to check back on.

Pagan Online Campus

http://www.thepagancampus.net/

I got this in a link from a message board I'm a part of. It looks like something I'd really like to get into. I've been itching to get back into some sort of learning environment, and leaning towards topics of a spiritual bent. Unfortunately, most of those degree programs are fairly useless, and rather expensive, so I haven't found them particularly practical. This, however, is free. It might not help with job credentials, but I think it would be fun and informative for how I'd like to use it. I'm definitely thinking of signing up for the next quarter of classes, which start next week.

History of the Guitar Face

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/Guitarface/

This is a funny article I found. It's not really that informative, but it's always amusing to see something about the face everyone makes while playing guitar. It's just one of those things. You can't not do it... I challenge you to do so. Anyhow, I just found this one amusing, so check it out.

Vitamin & Herb University

http://www.vitaminherbuniversity.com/

This is an interesting site that provides information on interactions between vitamin, mineral, and herb supplements and medications. It's something that could be of some use to an herbalist, or a conventional pharmeceutical technician. It's also quite deep. It's got lots of information in it, and will take some time for me to fully go through. It's definitely something I'll be checking out again.

Herbal Primer

http://www.naturemade.com/WellnessTopics/wt_articles.asp?articleid=292

This is a good starter reference for herbal supplements. It only has a couple of herbs listed, and it's pretty basic. It's also solely about supplements, not about fresh herbs, but that's somewhat of an advanced application in herbalism, anyhow. This is worth checking out if you're just getting started with herbs.

Kombucha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombucha

I tried a drink called Kombucha today. I had randomly gotten it from an organic grocery store around here, and mostly just thought it was tea. I drank it, and decided that this was definitely not just tea. I started tripping out a bit afterwards. It did have asian pear and ginger in it, and I thought the ginger explained the burn. I decided it was too weird to be just that, so I looked it up, and it was rather frightened. It's kind of scary at first, but I guess it's not really any scarier than yogurt (which I don't recommend looking up if you're squeamish). I'm still a little weirded out, but I guess it wasn't that odd. I might possibly be persuaded to have another one, but not at work the next time.

Like Something Out of a Movie

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070918/sc_afp/peruhealthoffbeat

I saw this story, and it was peculiar. A meteorite hit near a small village in Peru, and now everyone near it is getting sick. The article says that there is boiling water and rock particles near the crater (which is fairly sizeable). It makes one wonder if it might perhaps be radioactive or (if one were in a more science-fiction mood) if there might be some sort of organism there trying to take over hosts and take over the world. It's more likely the former, I think. In any case, it was an interesting story I saw.

Falun Gong

http://www.falundafa.org/eng/index.htm

I first heard about Falun Gong at the cherry blossom festival, when there were people protesting about it, and that Falun Gong practitioners were being suppressed and killed by the Chinese government. I hadn't heard of them before, and didn't know much about it, actually, but I remained curious about it. I still hadn't heard more about it, or about whether the supression was true (I have little evidence to believe either way at this point), but today, while surfing around beliefnet, I found a section on Falun Gong, so I decided to check it out. I found that there were extensive resources available, like the link at the beginning of this post. It's something I'd be interested to check out and see what there is to it.

Growing Ginseng

http://www.hardingsginsengfarm.com/cultivate.htm

I've been trying to grow ginseng, but it hasn't been very successful yet. This article details the wild growing process, though I'm trying to work with containers. It does give me hope since it's supposed to take a year for it to come up. Hopefully, I'll manage to get something going next year. I'd be pretty excited to grow it... not so much for any immediate benefit (it takes at least 6 years to really grow), but just because it would make me feel a lot better. That, and if I can get the plants to grow, I'll be able to get seeds each year, which I can use in the future to plant when I have available wild areas, or just to keep it from going extinct from over-harvesting. It's to some extent a selfish goal, but mostly it's a noble one. The tangible benefits I'll get are very small, but the effects I can create are larger. I think it's a worthwhile endeavor, anyhow.

Fire From Water

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070910/ap_on_sc/burning_seawater

This is a really interesting story about how salt water will burn if you apply the correct radio frequency to it. It has tremendous potential for use in technology. It remains to be seen how they will harness it, but it's really interesting that it's even possible. It's been suggested that it might work, but here it is. Just a random thing I happened to notice.

Freecycle

http://www.freecycle.org/

This is a cool site that I found through a Sierra Club email. It's a site where people list things they want to get rid of, and you can look for things you want or need on it and if someone in the area is getting rid of it, you can get it. It keeps things from ending up in landfills, and lets you either get rid of unwanted stuff or acquire new stuff. It seems like a cool idea, and best of all, it's free. I just joined the group near us. Hopefully, it'll be as cool as it seems.

I Was a Teenage Half-Orc

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmYzZDFmNWI5MTg1N2FmY2E4MTdlMWU5YzBjZjI1ODM=

This is a nice article about the benefits of playing D&D. I find it to rather accurately represent the way it feels to be someone who's played D&D growing up. It's just something I randomly found, but it felt like something to share.

D&D Character Generator

http://www.pathguy.com/cg35.htm

A guy I was going to play D&D with sent a link to this. It looks pretty cool. It's at least a fun way to make up a character without all the acoutrements. It's quite complete... perhaps even a bit too much so for how many supplements I own, but I'm sure it would still work for a regular game, even if you just have to skip over a lot of stuff. It looks pretty cool. Perhaps I'll make greater use of it in the future when making characters.

Chinese Discover America?

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/01/13/1421/index.html

This is another random work-related article from an off-hand comment from a co-worker when we were talking about Columbus Day as the next federal holiday after Labor Day. He said the Chinese discovered America, that he saw it on the discovery channel, and I just thought, "What the hell?" So I looked it up, and here it is. Apparently, there's some evidence that the Chinese discovered the Americas about 50 years before Columbus. That would still put them behind the Vikings, which is also well supported, and there are several other claims, but it's fairly interesting to consider that America might have been quite a bit more of a melting pot even before it was discovered by major western civilizations. It was totally a surprise to me, and really interesting.

Randomness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign

At work, I often find myself looking up random things on wikipedia that come up in conversation. Today, there was talk about the V sign, and I wasn't sure if one way was peace and the other victory, so I looked it up. As it turns out, it's both the same way, and the other way is insulting. I still found it interesting enough that I decided to put it up so other people could see it. Enjoy.

Acid Music Loops

http://www.acidmusicloops.com/

This is another site with ACID loops on it that I've found. Again, I haven't checked them out yet, but they look quite interesting, and I'm sure I'll be checking them out in the future....

For Once...

http://www.au.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr006=b4jmosjcv4.app5b&abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=9349&security=1002&news_iv_ctrl=1241

The president actually did the right thing. He called that woman from yesterday and apologized. The situation is still a bit dodgy, but at least some things have been put right.

Schizotypal

http://www.livescience.com/health/050907_schizotype_creative.html

I've often wondered why it is that I think differently from other people. When I used to take psychology classes, I often wondered if I had a disorder, and the descriptions of schizophrenia often seemed somewhat apt, but not quite on the mark. I had seen the term schizotypal before, but it wasn't well explained. This article explains some things about it, about how people tend to still be functional, just different, and now it seems even more apt. Even my wife was commenting on it earlier, about how I'm different. Maybe this really is it. Of course, there's no reason to get diagnosed about anything, or to really even worry about it. I'm just different is all. This might be it, or it might not. It just seems like a good fit to me.

Executive Exclusion

http://www.lvrj.com/news/9441071.html

http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=7000560

http://www.au.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr005=1z3ya5me02.app13a&abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=9345&security=1002&news_iv_ctrl=1241

Three articles this time. This story came to me through email on a list I'm on. It's about a widow of a veteran who was killed in Afghanistan. There was a meeting with the president of the relatives of killed veterans in the Reno, NV area. This woman was not invited, even though the soldier's parents and siblings were. The reason? The soldier, and the wife, are Wiccans. In fact, she was rather public about it, being one of those involved in getting the pentacle approved for VA headstones. Now, I don't have the greatest amount of respect for our current president, but this is exceptional. All it involved was a short meeting, and they couldn't even extend that. I just find it despicable.

Mind Reading

http://www.livescience.com/health/050427_mind_readers.html

I stumbled upon this article following some strings from other articles. It's actually fairly interesting. It's about a scientific theory on empathy, and postulates "mirror neurons." They suggest that everyone reads minds (actually, except autstic people, who they suspect might have a deficit of these neurons), and that's how people develop. I found it really interesting.

Inner Rhythm Studios

http://www.innerrhythmstudios.com/index.html

This is another collection of ACID loops I found. I haven't tried these ones, but they look to be fairly professionally made. I am basing this solely off of their website, but I'd take a chance on them. I'll update if I ever do.

Facial Proportions

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070823/sc_livescience/studychickmagnetstodaylooklikecavemen

This is the kind of thing I find interesting. I like the evolutionary approach to attractiveness. I tend to watch lots of weird scientific and anthropologic shows about sex and the nature of attraction. It's sort of hyothetical aesthetics. It's just interesting to me.

Out of Body Experience

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070823/ts_alt_afp/usscienceparanormal

This was an article that said that scientists had recreated an out of body experience without using drugs. They used virtual reality instead. Apparently, the people in the experiment identified with the projection, even feeling threatened by physical force (which to me, suggests something is wrong... if you don't have a body, you shouldn't feel threatened physically). They focused more on technological applications, such as remote surgery, or video games and such... not so much what I would have focused on, but interesting, nonetheless. It caught my eye, though I'm not sure I agree with the results... perhaps up until the last line of the article.

More ACID loops

http://www.acidfanatic.com/

If you're into ACID, but, like me, mostly use it as a base for recording rather than for sequencing whole songs, or if you're just looking for new and different content, this site is worth checking out. I found it through ebay, when I was looking for content to download when I'd lost my old loop CDs. I got some weird trippy stuff, but after exploring the website, I found some more conventional stuff. They're pretty good loops, and definitely different (for the most part... they do have some more traditional stuff, too). If you're looking for new content that's affordable, and you have a broadband connection (they're download only), this is worth taking a look at.

Multivitamins

http://www.naturemade.com/WellnessTopics/wt_articles.asp?articleid=291

I take lots of vitamins. I mean, seriously. For a guy of my age, I take a lot of nutritional supplements. I'd like to stay healthy. I've always taken vitamins, because my diet isn't optimal most of the time, what with my detesting vegetables and all. My diet is improving, but I still take vitamins. This article is beneficial for me, because it actually tells you what to look for in a multivitamin, which I haven't really seen a lot elsewhere. Granted, it's from a nutritional supplement company, so they have a vested interest, but it at least tells you what to look for, even if it's not one of theirs. It doesn't give brand recommendations, just content recommendations. I found it useful, anyway.

Time Travel

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070820/sc_livescience/timetravelmachineoutlined

I found this interesting, because it's always fun when they have theories about things that have always been science fiction. It gives me hope for science. A lot of times, science seems to be about proving things wrong. It's good that there are still some scientists who are dreamers and looking for new possibilities. That's my area. I found it interesting to see a theoretical framework for time travel in this article, and it was fun to read.

Elder Scrolls

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls

I've taken to reading bits about the Elder Scrolls series of video games recently in my down time. I played through the main quest and a bunch of the side quests in Oblivion some time ago. I just this week found out that they've made Morrowind compatible with the XBox 360, so I bought it last night to try out soon. I've been waiting for it to become playable, and had just about gotten to where I was going to buy it on the PC, despite my dislike of PC gaming. I'm really psyched to get playing Morrowind, and even Oblivion again, since I've got some expansion packs now.

What's really interesting to me is all the history and politcs that are there in the games, both through dialogue and in-game books. It's really interesting how deeply they've designed it all. When I play through this time, I think I'm going to just stop and read all the books I pick up and really learn about the nuances in the game, and maybe I'll appreciate it more. For the moment, I'm going to do some reading when I have time here, and I'm already appreciating it more.

Abram's Creek

http://www.abramscreek.com/

My wife and I have wanted to go camping for some time, but it's been so hot lately, and we've been so busy, that it hasn't been happening. It's still a scorcher, but this New Age themed campground in West Virginia (yeah, I was surprised, too...) is in a forested river valley in the mountains, and is supposedly a good bit cooler than the surrounding area, so we're giving it a shot this weekend. It looks pretty cool, and it's a new campground, so it's still fairly rugged, which is nice for me. The pictures look good, and hopefully, it'll be a good time. I'll update after we've been there how it was.

Lughnassadh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lughnassadh

It's just about come that time of the year, and I know I could still use a refresher at times. I feel drawn to the system of belief and practice, but like everyone else, having a normal life, I sometimes lose touch with it. If nothing else, these times of year lead me to reaffirm those ties, and remember what it is I believe. For the moment, I'll observe the feast of Lugh.

Climb a Tree

http://www.treeclimbing.com/

I got it in my head just a bit ago that it would be cool to climb some trees sometime in the near future, so I searched for it (mostly out of boredom) and found that there's an international foundation for it. This is their website. It's a bit more high-tech than I was going for, but I thought it was interesting that there was a whole group devoted to climbing trees. I think I'll have to check it out some more.

ACID loops from off the beaten path

http://www.dragontechmusic.com/

I'm an ACID user. I mostly use it as a platform for home recording, but I do enjoy getting new loops and making the occasional loop-based composition. Even on songs written in a more conventional method, I like to add loops here and there, and a lot of my drums come from loops. I found this website while on an Ebay binge, and while I didn't end up buying these loops, they looked pretty interesting, and had free samples like the official loops, so I wanted to check them out later. If you dig ACID, you might want to, as well.

Kaboodle

http://www.kaboodle.com/

One last post. This is an interesting shopping site I've found. It lets you create wishlists from any site you can find on the internet. I've always had lots of wish lists that were rather separate and unreachable to most people who would consider buying me presents. Now, I can just drop this one address, and people can find the stuff I want from all over, in a short amount of time. Granted, I still have a lot of work to do repopulating my wish lists, and I probably won't bring over quite so much stuff as I have on some others, but it's a cool idea, and I think it'll make things easier for me.

E-Cauldron articles

http://www.ecauldron.com/articlelibrary.php

This is another website with an extensive listing of pagan articles that I've thoroughly picked through in the course of my downtime at work. I have a lot of entries lately because I've only recently been able to reclaim my blog after the google switch. A lot of things have built up. I'm a fast reader, but I've just posted three very text-heavy pagan sites with lots of interesting nooks and crannies. It's taken me months to get through them, but I want to share them, because they're full of interesting tidbits.

Four Quarters

http://www.4qf.org/

This is an earth-religion sanctuary in south-central Pennsylvania. Megan and I went there for Beltane weekend. It was fairly low-key, and we were newcomers, but they seemed to have a nice little community there. It wasn't quite the most fabulous experience I'd ever had, but since it was our first real experience with this community, I can hardly blame them. We did have a good time, and the atmosphere was really nice. I'd definitely consider going again. If you're looking for a pagan place to get away in Pennsylvania, this is a nice one.

Everything you always wanted to know about the beliefs of the Founding Fathers that your Congressman will never tell you!

http://www.realmagick.com/articles/17/17.html

This was a cool article. It was a response to ideas that the founding fathers wouldn't approve of pagan religions. It revealed a number of ideas the founding fathers DID hold, and how they have more in common with pagan religions than with the fundamentalist Christian beliefs that most of the critics in question hold. Definitely worth reading.

Reiki Secrets

http://www.reikisecrets.com/

This is a website from the UK with a reiki master who is willing to perform distance attunements (up to master level) for free. I received attunements to the master level from her. I've since received a few others, as well, but it was really cool to be able to find a resource willing to give attunements for free. Attunements are often quite expensive. I was really interested in reiki, but unable to find nearby people willing to do attunements inexpensively. I'm not exactly poor, but I don't have a lot of disposable income to spend on it. It's really nice to have received an attunement and be able to start using reiki to see if it really suits me. I'd recommend this one.

Open Hearth

http://openhearth.org/

This is a charity that is devoted to creating a pagan community center in DC. I happened upon it one day while searching for pagan outings. I believe it was on Beltane. I think it's a really worthwhile effort. There isn't a lot of conventional activity you can really participate in with other Pagans if you're new to the area, and teenagers and kids need somewhere safe to hang out, particularly in DC. It's something I personally support. Hopefully, they'll make it happen someday soon.

Real Magick

http://realmagick.com/main/home.html

This is another set of articles that I found while trying to find things to read while at work. There are quite a selection of things, and it took me a long time to read through them. There are a number of pagan articles, as well as more general, new age articles, and even a few on non-pagan religions. It was quite informative. I'd definitely recommend it to pagans who have some spare time on their hands and want to read and maybe learn some new little tidbits.

Goodsearch

http://www.goodsearch.com/

I really like this one. I actually found it through the Warped Tour newsletter, but it allows you to donate the proceeds from the incidental advertizing on the search engine to a charity of your choice. They have quite a selection of charities, too. You can even change your charity for every search if you want to. It's essentially a yahoo search, so I have no concerns about quality. I think it's pretty cool. I've got it set up for the Open Hearth Foundation right now. They even had charities that I felt good about signing up for, so I'd definitely like to recommend this one.

New Age/Conspiracy Articles

http://www.crystalinks.com/

This is a strange collection of articles I found while trying to find stuff to do during the slow times at work. It's got a bunch of related articles, usually of a New Age variety, with some historical, some conspiracy, and some just out there ones thrown in for good measure. I'm not sure I'd read it without a grain of salt, but there are some thought-provoking ideas there, along with some new information. Some things I've read aren't particularly correct, so this isn't good as a primary source, but it is a good source for new ideas to consider.

Something New

http://www.worldchanging.com/

I found this website because their book was recommended to me on Amazon.com. It's largely about going green, but also about a number of other positve social changes. It seems to have a worthwhile selection of articles. I've only just started checking it out, but wanted to let everyone in on it while it was still fresh in my mind.